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Camps people from the Secret Annex were taken toThe first concentration camps were built in Germany soon after Hitler came to power in 1933. Here all those opposed to Hitler - political adversaries, members of the Resistance, people considered inferior by the Nazis - were "concentrated" in highly fortified camps. Many prisoners were shot, or died of hunger, disease or exhaustion. After the invasion of Poland in the fall of 1939 and of the Soviet Union in June 1941, hundreds of thousands of captured Jews were shot on the spot. Then in the beginning of 1942, the Nazis decided to launch a campaign of systematic murder against the Jews of Europe. Concentration camps designed for killing on a mass scale were built in Poland. The Nazis called these "extermination camps". By the end of the Second World War the Nazis succeeded in murdering about 6 million Jews.
Mauthausen: Peter van Pels was transferred here from Auschwitz-Birkenau. He died on May 5, 1945, three days before the camp was liberated. [ID] Bergen-Belsen: Anne and Margot Frank and Mrs. Van Pels were moved to this camp in October 1944. Anne and Margot died here in March 1945. The camp was liberated the following month. [ID] Buchenwald: After a short time in Bergen-Belsen, Mrs. Van Pels was transferred here briefly before being moved again. [ID] Theresienstadt: This is the last camp where Mrs. Van Pels was imprisoned. She probably died here in the spring of 1945. [ID] Neuengamme: Fritz Pfeffer was transferred to this camp from Auschwitz-Birkenau. He died here on December 20, 1944. [ID]
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