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Nurmengard - a concentration camp?, And what about Azkaban?
innkeeper_tom
post Sep 11 2008, 05:39 AM
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Nurmengard - a concentration camp?
And what about Azkaban?

Nurmengard - the "other" prison for wizards, was installed by Grindelwald, as we have learned from DD. In the name of the "Greater Good", of course. Taking a closer look Nurmengard closely resembles the institution of the Nazi concentration camps, and served more or less the same purpose, that is to lock behind bars those who were not wanted by the regime for whatever reason.
In Nazi concentration these were members of so-called "inferior races" (Jews, Sinti, Roma, etc.), political adversaries (social-democrats, communists, liberals), and those having a different belief (notably including a number of christian commitments).
For Nurmengard we may safely assume a pretty similar combination of the aforementioned larger groups, yet the definitions would be different. "Inferior" would be all those descending from at least one Muggle parent (as well as squibs), the political adversaries would here be all who actively oppose the regime, of different belief those do not care for the blood status.
The alledged purpose in both cases would be to re-educate the "disbelivers", and to eliminate all "inferiors" by whatever means.
Do you see the parallels? Are the Nazi concentration camps the "model" for Nurmengard? Does the name "Nurmengard" hold any clue as to what we have to imagine?

Now what distinguishes Nurmengard from Azkaban?
We don't know much about how Nurmengard was protected. A safe assumption would be that all means of magical transport like the Floo network, (side-along) apparition, use of brooms, etc. would be made impossible by counter-jinxes. But what else? Can you imagine?
In contrast, we know rather precisely what other measures to preclude escape have been taken at Azkaban. Of course, I'm talking about Dementors being in charge as guards. Their deleterious influence on almost all prisoners (with the notable exception of Sirius) made it impossible for said prisoners to come up with coherent thoughts about fleeing. My question is, if this is not again reminding of a concentration camp, where the personality of the imprisoned was likely to be broken?

What are your thoughts?


This post has been edited by innkeeper_tom: Sep 12 2008, 12:34 AM


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Speedy03
post Jun 15 2009, 03:33 PM
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Was Nurmengard a concentration camp? I really don't think so. To me it always came across as a stereotypical prison. Obviously high security, but i don't think it was anything like the Nazi style. More of a conventional prison, although, if as Hermione says, it was where Grindlewald sent his political prisoners, then i guess that it was a concentration camp of sorts.

Also, someone mentioned, the 1945 thing. I reckon that's a complete Red Herring. As, i don't think there was a WW2 in JKR's world. I definitely don't think there was ever an evacuation in the Potterverse. (At around 1943/1944, Tom Riddle was worried about going back to his central London orphanage, no mention of evacuation there...

Thoughts?
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emmalinnankivi
post Jun 23 2009, 02:26 PM
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That's a very good point! I never thought about Tom Riddle being in London in the 1940's when I assumed that WW2 did take place parallel to Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald. Is it possible that Riddle simply didn't expect to be subject to an evacuation, but that WW2 was occurring?
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lupinwandcaster
post Jun 27 2009, 09:08 PM
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This is just another example of Jo drawing parallels between the wizarding world and real world. I made a thread about how Voldemort had seemed Hitlaristic to me.


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post Jul 2 2009, 09:21 AM
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One has to remember, Tom Riddle was returning to a MUGGLE orphanage, so even if there wasn't an evacuation in the wizarding world, there should have been one in the muggle world.

On a second note, GG gained power for quite a while before he was confronted and defeated by DD. GG left Godric's Hollow in 1899, 46 years before he was confronted by DD. I believe that the whole two wars thing wasn't a complete red herring. Personally, I think that in the final years of GG race for power, the unrest began to spill over into the Muggle world. Also, I believe that it is mention somewhere that the war against GG wasn't nearly as bad in Britain as it was elsewhere, so this might affect theories about parallel wars.


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riczhang
post Jul 13 2009, 08:27 PM
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The concentration camp thing makes sense to me.
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dpt24
post Jul 16 2009, 01:59 PM
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I do think Grindewald is likely involved in World War Two, because I think Rowling mentioned that before, and it would make sense. Besides, Hilter started building up many years before the acual war started in 1939. Nurmengard is not probably a concentration camp, only because it wouldn't probably be quite that horrible of place, I don't think Grindewald was considered as evil as Voldemort, and likely wasn't creating a death camp.
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McTernell
post Jul 31 2009, 09:04 AM
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Hitler began to build concentration camps as soon as he arrived to power in 1933, and the first to be emprisonned there were the communists, but they were not killed, it was more like work camps at the time. The extermination camps came later.
To me Nurmengard is a prison only for political prisonners, opposants, resistants, I don't think GG was doing in the muggle-born extermination business, he wanted to make a revolution and become the new leader of the wizarding world, so that he could reveal its existence to the Muggles. Killing Muggle-borns was beside the point, and what's more, with the war going on, muggle-borns were probably too busy trying to protect their muggle families from the Nazis to fight GG.


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benditty
post Aug 18 2009, 11:32 PM
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Was there any indication that Nurmengard was ever a work camp? Do you think there's a chance it could've been in addition to a prison?

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biggestharrypott...
post Aug 18 2009, 11:40 PM
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i think it gives a concentration camp-ish vibe, what with the whole "For the Greater Good" thing being over the entrance to Nurmengard. however, i'm not sure Grindelwald would sentence his prisoners to work, i think he'd just keep them there under inhumane conditions. so more of a death camp than anything.


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