'Kapo': Nazi Camp Prisoner- Supervisor/Admin.; Carmen Mory, Swiss Nazi SS Spy - Kapo [View all]

Last edited Mon Mar 28, 2022, 04:29 PM - Edit history (3)

- Carmen Mory SS Nazi Spy and Kapo committed suicide before Execution Mory was a Swiss-Nazi German spy and kapo in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was sentenced to death in the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials in 1947.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_Mory
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- A kapo or prisoner functionary was a prisoner in a Nazi camp who was assigned by the Schutzstaffel (SS) guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks. Also called "prisoner self-administration", the prisoner functionary system minimized costs by allowing camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The system was designed to turn victim against victim, as the prisoner functionaries were pitted against their fellow prisoners in order to maintain the favor of their SS overseers. If they neglected their duties, they would be demoted to ordinary prisoners and be subject to other kapos.

Many prisoner functionaries were recruited from the ranks of violent criminal gangs rather than from the more numerous political, religious, and racial prisoners; such criminal convicts were known for their brutality toward other prisoners. This brutality was tolerated by the SS and was an integral part of the camp system. Prisoner functionaries were spared physical abuse and hard labor, provided they performed their duties to the satisfaction of the SS functionaries. They also had access to certain privileges, such as civilian clothes and a private room. While the Germans commonly called them kapos, the official government term for prisoner functionaries was Funktionshäftling.



- A kapo leader at Salaspils concentration camp, Latvia, wearing a yellow badge & a Lagerpolizist (camp police officer) armband.
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After WW2 the term was reused as an insult; according to The Jewish Chronicle, it is "the worst insult a Jew can give another Jew".

- Etymology: The word "kapo" could have come from the Italian word for "head" & "boss", capo. According to the Duden, it is derived from the French word for "Corporal" (caporal). Journalist Robt. D. McFadden believes that the word "kapo" is derived from the German word Lagercapo, meaning camp captain. - System of thrift & manipulation: Camps were controlled by the SS, but day-to-day organization was supplemented by the system of functionary prisoners, a 2nd hierarchy that made it easier for the Nazis to control the camps. These prisoners made it possible for the camps to function with fewer SS personnel. The prisoner functionaries sometimes numbered as high as 10% of the inmates. The Nazis were able to keep the number of paid staff who had direct contact with the prisoners very low in comparison to normal prisons today.

Without the functionary prisoners, the SS camp administrations would not have been able to keep the day-to-day operations of the camps running smoothly.

The kapos often did this work for extra food, cigarettes, alcohol or other privileges. At Buchenwald, these tasks were originally assigned to criminal prisoners, but after 1939, political prisoners began to displace the criminal prisoners, though criminals were preferred by the SS. At Mauthausen, on the other hand, functionary positions remained dominated by criminal prisoners until just before liberation. - The system & hierarchy also inhibited solidarity among the prisoners. There were tensions between the various nationalities & prisoner groups, who were distinguished by different Nazi concentration camp badges. Jews wore yellow stars; other prisoners wore colored triangles pointed downward. - Prisoner functionaries were often hated by other prisoners & spat upon as Nazi henchmen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapo
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- THE SS: The SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads) was originally established as Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit. It would later become both the elite guard of the Nazi Reich and Hitler’s executive force prepared to carry out all security-related duties, without regard for legal restraint.

KEY FACTS: 1 From the beginning of the Nazi regime, Hitler entrusted the SS first and foremost with the removal and eventual murder of political and so-called racial enemies of the regime. 2 The SS became a virtual state within a state in Nazi Germany, staffed by men who perceived themselves as the “racial elite” of the Nazi future. 3 The SS was specifically charged with the leadership of the “Final Solution,” the murder of European Jews... https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ss