Abstract

The Camps of Terror. Wolfgang Sofsky: Ustrój terroru: obóz koncentracyjny. Przeł. Małgorzata Łukasiewicz. Warszawa, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2016, ss. 383.

The review discusses the historically and sociologically significant work of a German scholar Wolfgang Sofsky. This is the first Polish translation of the book, which had a great influence on other thinkers tackling the questions of totalitarianisms, concentration camps, and Nazi genocide. While discussing the scope of issues undertaken by Sofsky, the author of the review focuses on the threads most often emphasised by the German scholar, such as: the organisation of the social structure within the concentration camp, the relations between the authorities and the prisoners, or the functioning of the individual within the system Sofsky describes as absolute. The sociologist turns to the social structure of the camp, that is, the prison hierarchy constructed in such a way that reverses any social order. Sofsky sees in the camp a sui generis experiment conducted by the Nazis on the human and social tissues, as a result of which a deep change within the human and his/her condition occurred. The author pays attention to the organisation of time and space of the camp, which is discussed in detail by the German sociologist. What happened in the camp – according to Sofsky – was the characteristic reversal of social roles and interpersonal relations. The examples of the new order are, among others, the power granted to prisoner functionaries by the Nazis or work that was not a manufacturing process but only one of the tools of terror and physical destruction.