Dachau10 Work, Life and Death Murder and terror in the Dachau concentration camp culminated in the year 1941/42. Starvation, disease, and in particular a typhus epidemic in the winter 1942/43, exacerbated the situation further. Measures ordered by the SS to reduce the mortality rate didn't take effect until 1943. Prisoners were then allowed to receive packages of food and clothing. Work incentives were also introduced. The chances of survival improved, however, only for those who were able to work. The SS let "invalids" die in the camp or had them deported to an extermination camp. The increased over-crowding of the camp throughout 1944 caused the living conditions to drastically deteriorate. The number of prisoners in the Dachau camp complex rose from approximately 10,000 at the end of 1942 to more than 63,000 by the end of 1944. Most of the prisoners worked in the sub-camps; the main camp increasingly evolved into a camp for the sick.