The barracks are a single-story building, generally for military purposes.
The term barracón is the augmentative of barraca . A barrack , meanwhile, is a construction developed with light materials and in a rough manner.
A single story building
A barracks, in this way, is a large building erected with the characteristics of a barracks. It generally has a rectangular plan and is intended to house a large number of individuals (who may be prisoners, soldiers or day laborers, for example).
The barracks lack partitions and are on a single floor. Many times planks are used to raise its structure .
Take the case of the barracks from Roman times . These barracks were intended for troops and were the most common type of building in military -type enclosures.
With a rectangular plan that was compartmentalized, they had spaces reserved for the shelter of groups of eight soldiers (known as contubernium). They also had divisions that functioned as warehouses and as housing for non-commissioned officers, among others.
During Nazism, barracks were used in concentration camps . These barracks were used above all to overcrowd prisoners , receiving a large number of people in an area that was insufficient to provide the most basic comforts.
Sachsenhausen Barracks
In 1936, a group of prisoners belonging to some concentration camps in Nazi Germany were forced to build Sachsenhausen , which according to the SS ( Schutzstaffel Protection Squads) would be ideal and would capture the National Socialist image of that time, at the same time that it would serve as a site of submission. Until 1945, the number of people who went through this torture center exceeded two hundred thousand, and only around three thousand were released on April 22 and 23.
As if the conditions of the barracks had not in themselves been insufficient to lead a healthy and comfortable life, we must mention that its windows were completely sealed , so that it was very difficult to breathe when its doors were closed. In fact, on some occasions the soldiers took advantage of this feature to suffocate various prisoners who were no longer useful to them. To this nightmare we must add hunger, abusive jobs and inevitable diseases.
Today it is possible to visit this concentration camp , something that many people decide to do to try to understand a little more what so many innocent people suffered decades ago. One of the highlights is barracks 38 , which is located in the so-called Small Field , the site in which Jewish prisoners were crowded between 1938 and 1942. Five decades later, a group of anti-Semites burned the place down, and the smell of burning can still be perceived today.
In concentration camps, barracks were used to overcrowd prisoners.
Other barracks that can be toured as part of the guided tours are those that were used as infirmaries. We should not confuse them with medical centers dedicated to the treatment of the sick, since in this horrific page of our history the meaning they received was completely twisted : they were used to sterilize prisoners against their will, to carry out experiments with their organisms and even to take their lives in different ways. Needless to say, passing through this place leaves people shocked like few other experiences.
As a proper name
Barracón , on the other hand, is a word that appears in multiple commercial names and in the names of associations and entities. It is possible to name the Argentine company Barracón SRL (dedicated to the sale of inputs for the agricultural industry), the restaurant El Barracón (located in Madrid ) and the Spanish theater company El Barracón (founded in 2005 ), to mention some possibilities.