Final answer:
Jews and other 'undesirables' were imprisoned in concentration camps early on to suppress opposition and consolidate Nazi power, not for crimes. These camps later became part of the Holocaust, where forced labor and mass extermination occurred.
Step-by-step explanation:
Jews and other groups deemed 'undesirables' by the Nazis were first imprisoned in concentration camps in the early 1930s not as punishment for serious crimes, but as part of the systematic persecution that characterized the rise of Nazi Germany. Initially, these camps were created for political prisoners and were part of a larger strategy to eliminate all opposition and consolidate power.
This strategy eventually evolved into the Holocaust, which saw the incarceration and extermination of millions of Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, political dissidents, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others across Europe.
The camps served multiple functions, including forced labor to support the war effort and the establishment of ghettos where Jewish and Polish inhabitants lived in insufferable conditions facing starvation, disease, and isolation. Over time, as the Nazis sought a 'hands-off' method for mass murder due to the psychological toll on soldiers, extermination camps were established.
The evolution of these camps from places of detention and forced labor to centers of mass murder was a central element of the Nazi regime's genocidal campaign against Jews and others.