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PagingDoctorLove@lemmy.world 1 year agoForgive me if this is a stupid question, but why would they even need a machine to count the prisoners? If they didn’t feed their victims and were planning to murder them anyways I’m having trouble understanding why they wouldn’t be okay with just a loose head count. Was it really just for counting?
I hope I’m not coming across as insensitive, I’ve just never heard about this and it sounds so ominous.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Black reports that every Nazi concentration camp maintained its own Hollerith-Abteilung (Hollerith Department), assigned with keeping tabs on inmates through use of IBM’s punchcard technology.[2]: 351 In his book, Black charges that “without IBM’s machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler’s camps could have never managed the numbers they did.”[2]: 352
Dear God, they used a punch card like it was just another day on the job? I hope they didn’t make the “prisoners” do it. I don’t know why this is so chilling but something about having to count yourself like an object makes me feel sick.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
What makes you think they didn’t feed them?
PagingDoctorLove@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I know I’m way over simplifying but starvation was one of many cruelties inflicted on victims during the holocaust. I don’t understand why Nazis would want to count people they intended to murder, but I think it’s important to try to understand as much as we can so we don’t let it happen again. Which is why I asked.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Well, if you’re that curious, there is a book about it. The Wikipedia article goes into some detail about what the systems were used for.
They didn’t just truck people into the camps and immediately kill them, so they had to at least track capacity.