Concentration Camps Essay Research Paper Concentration camps

Concentration Camps Essay, Research Paper

Concentration camps are prison camps in which members

of minority groups, political enemies or people of physical

irregularity are kept. In most cases it is a permanent

imprisonment. The concentration camps of Hitler.s era and of

the Nazi regime are normally associated with mass death,

torture and gruesome scientific experimentation. In

reference to the Holocaust, about three fourths of the

prisoners were killed never seeing freedom again.

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 at least two gypsy great

grandparents.

By the end of 1933, there were at least fifty

concentration camps through out occupied Europe(Israel 152).

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(Prince 518). Camps

were set up for different purposes. Some for forced labor,

others for medical experimentation. Later on, some became

death/ extermination facilities. Transition camps were set

up as holding places for death camps.

Henrick Himmler, chief of the German police, 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(Williams-Internet). Therefore, productivity was

minimal.

Camps were set up along railroad lines so that the

prisoners would be conveniently close to their deportation

destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers

kept telling the Jews to have hope. On the trains, Jews were

starved for days. Many people did not survive the ride to

the camp.

When the camps were finally opened, most of the

families who were shipped out together ended up being

separated; males in one camp and females in another. 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. Gold fillings, wedding bands, jewelry, shoes

and clothing were taken from the prisoners when they first

entered the camps and were sold.

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. 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(Alder 43). 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 knew that sickness meant death. When

someone escaped from the camp, all the prisoners in that

group were shot.

Joseph Mengele, one of the most notorious of the Nazi

doctors. Hummed when selecting among the new arrivals for

the gas chamber or for medical experiments(Wiesenthal 182).

Some inmates were frozen to determine the best way to revive

frozen German soldiers. He also I well know for his work on

twins, using them to test different chemicals.

Once the camps became too full, they would invent new

ways to dispose of the prisoners. Women were sent to one

side to have their hair shaven and the men to the other.

They were all sent to the .showers., naked with a bar of

soap, so as to confuse them into believing that they were

truly going into a shower. Most people smelled the burning

bodies and knew the truth.

There were several death camps; Chelmno, Treblinka,

Aischwitz, Birkenau, Sobibor, Maidanek, and Belzec are some.

These camps used gas from the shower heads to murdertheir

victims.

Auschwitz, located in Poland, was ultimately Nazi

Germany’s largest concentration camp. It was established by

order of Himmler on April 27, 1940. At first, it was a

small work camp for Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. It

became a death camp in 1941. Auschwitz was divided into

three areas: Auschwitz 1 was the camp commander’s

headquarters and administrative offices. Auschwitz 2 was

called Birkenau and it was the death camp with forty gas

chambers. Auschwitz 3 was a slave labor camp(Gilbert 15). On

the gate of Auschwitz was a sign in German which read,

‘Arbeit macht frei’, whic

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