No one could believe what was coming. Death camps were something new in Europe (the first experiences of such camps was in Oceania and South Africa). Because of that, many prisoners thought that they were going to a city, or seek a job. They knew that they would still be prisoners, but death (or extermination) was not a thing that they considered to be possible.
The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states.
