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Strafkompanie ("Punitive Unit") is the German word for thepenal labor division in theNazi concentration camps.
SK was the abbreviation used in the concentration camps for the notoriousStrafkompanies. These penal divisions were yet another hardship that could be forced on the already exhausted inmates of the camps. The prisoners of theStrafkompanie were given hard work, e.g., in the quarries, where most "workers" died. In the SK they worked longer hours than other inmates, had shorter breaks, less food, more brutal treatment, and they lived isolated in separate barracks.
TheStrafkompanie consisted of all kinds of prisoners: criminals,Jews,Soviet POWs,political prisoners,priests,Jehovah's Witnesses,homosexuals,Roma andSinti. The criteria for the selection to the penal division were arbitrary.