The Holocaust And Aushwitz Essay Research Paper

The Holocaust And Aushwitz Essay, Research Paper

The Holocaust and Aushwitz

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INTRODUCTION

The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. “Hitler, in an

attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non

supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He

proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme.” One of his main methods of

“doing away” with these “undesirable” was through the use of concentration camps. “In

January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials the ‘final solution’ was decided”. Jews

were to be eliminated from the population. Auschwitz was the concentration camp that

carried out Hitler’s “final solution” in greater numbers than any other. In this paper I will

discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the most well-known one,

Auschwitz.

CONCENTRATION CAMPS

The first concentration camps were set up in 1933. In the early days of Hitler,

concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody. Victims for

protective custody included those who were both physically and mentally ill, gypsies,

homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and anyone against the Nazi regime. “Gypsies

were classified as people with atleast two gypsy great grandparents.”

By the end of 1933 there were atleast fifty concentration camps throughout occupied

Europe. “At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the

S.S. (Hitler’s personal security force) were ordered, by Hitler, to control the camps.”

Camps were set up for different purposes. Some for forced labor, others for medical

experiments and, later on, for death/ extermination. Transition camps were set up as

holding places for death camps.

“Henrick Himmler, chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps

would provide an economic base for the soldiers.” This did not happen. The work force

was poorly organized and working conditions were inhumane. Therefore, productivity

was minimal.

Camps were set up along railroad lines, so that the prisoners would be conveniently

close to their destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers kept telling the

Jews to have hope.

When the camps were finally opened, most of the families who were shipped out

together ended up being separated. Often, the transports were a sampling of what

went on in the camps, cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being

transported, fetid and unsanitary conditions on the trains. “On the trains, Jews were

starved of food and water for days. Many people did not survive the ride to arrive at

the camp.”

Jews were forced to obey the guard’s orders from the moment they arrived at the

camps. “If they didn’t, they would be beaten, put into solitary confinement or shot.”

The prisoners usually had marks on their clothes or numbers on their arms to identify

them.

The sanitary conditions of the camps were horrible. “There was only one bathroom for

four hundred people. They had to stand for hours in snow, rain, heat, or cold for

role-call, which was twice a day.” Within the first few days of being at the camps,

thousands of people died of hunger, starvation and disease. Other people died from the

cruel punishments of the guards; beatings and torture. “Typhus, a disease caused by

germs carried by flies, was the main disease that spread throughout the camps. Even

when people were sick, they still continued working because they did not see that

sickness meant death.”

In 1937, 7,000 Jews were in camps. By 1938, 10,000 more Jews were sent to camps.

“Jews were taken to camps if they expressed negative feelings about the government,

if they married a non-Jew, if they were sick (mentally or physically), or if they had a

police record.”

When someone escaped from the camp, all the prisoners in that group were shot.

Nazis, who claimed that they did not necessarily hate Jews, but wanted to preserve

the Aryan race, seemed to enjoy making the Jews suffer. They also felt that slavery

was better than killing their prisoners. “Gold fillings, wedding bands, jewelry, shoes and

clothing were taken from the prisoners when they first entered the camps and were

sold.”

Surrounding some of the camps in Poland was a forest, that the Jews who planned to

escape would flee into. Before the escaped prisoners got very far, they were killed.

“When the Germans caught a Jew planning a rebellion, and the Jew refused to name

his/her associates, the Germans would bring everyone from his/her barracks out and

force him/her to watch the Germans mutilate the others.” The people who could not run

away from the camps dreamt about revolt.

Special areas of a camp were set aside for medical experiments. One doctor in a

medical unit performed an experiment in sterilizat

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