Necrocommunitas. Badanie obozów koncentracyjnych w fazie przejściowej
Necrocommunitas: A Study of Concentration Camps in the Transition Phase

Summary/Abstract: This text considers the question of how concentration camps in the transition phase can be studied. A transition phase appeared in certain camps a few months, weeks, or even days before the camp was liberated, and ended a few weeks later. As a result of the prisoners’ worsening living conditions, their high rate of mortality, and the weakening control of the camp staff , the social system that had been created in the camps fell apart and the new structures that would be established after liberation had not yet appeared. The author describes how certain concentration camps found themselves in a transition phase in the years 1944–1945, and then she provides two contrary ontological concepts (the theory of anomie and the theory of communitas) on which future research could be based. She pays particular attention to the meaning of dead bodies and the living’s relations with the dead. Consequently, she introduces the idea of necrocommunitas.

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