"When I came to power, I did not want the concentration camps to become old age prisoners' homes, but instruments of terror"- Adolf Hitler. From getting to the concentration camps, life in the camp, and to the death process the prisoners of the concentration camps suffered not only physical excruciating pain and horror, but also mental traumatic experiences. The pain and horror of the concentration camps would never go away from the prisoner's mind; it was always there as a haunting memory of evil cruelty. Concentration camps displayed horrifying views of traumatic events that caused an examination of humans about how barbarous humans can be.
"The concentration camps were built all across Europe. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler started appointing people to build and design the evil camps. Over the next twelve years there was over ten thousand concentration camps built. They named them concentration camps because the prisoners were physically concentrated" (Nazi concentration camps). To get them to the brutal camps they were taken by the Ghettos where they lived temporarily, yet they didn't know they were going to such a tormenting place. They thought the Ghettos had very bad living conditions but what they were about to experience was the worst of all. "For the Nazi's to deport the prisoners out of communities of the Ghettos they made them believe they were going to a better place to live. They did this in order for them to not put up a fight. But really they were being deported either to a concentration camp or death camp depending on their strength and condition" (Jewish life during the Holocaust). The trains that they loaded up to get to the camps were cattle wagons and they only had one bucket of water and one bucket ...
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Doran, Meta. "Holocaust Survivor Describes Life in Nazi Concentration Camps." Interview by Jason Bean. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Las Vegas Review Journal, 25 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. .
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As common knowledge, people normally recognize the term “concentration camp” and immediately refer to the prison camps the Jews were sent to during the Holocaust. In Corrie Tenboom’s famous collective story of her imprisonment, The Hiding Place, she writes in visual description of exactly how the Jews were treated in these camps. Women were forced to stand naked in front of Nazi guards for not much reason at all and made them feel less than human and animalistic. The people were beaten and killed on a regular day basis. One of the worst parts of these camps were the barbaric gas chambers. Men, women, and children would be fooled and dragged into chambers in groups to stand and be slaughtered by the dozen. Concentration camps are what can be known as the cruelest and most barbaric part of World War II history.
Imagine having to live behind the close fences of a concentration camp and endeavor for survival. From January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945, the Holocaust was the methodical, bureaucratic, state-supported mistreatment and homicide by the Nazi administration and its colleagues. Specified by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, approximately six million Jews were butchered due to the Nazis blaming them for Germany’s failures. The Jew’s experiences range from the release of extreme propaganda, opening of concentration camps, Kristallnacht, their civil liberties dwindling away, and what the remaining prisoners had suffered through to survive the end of the war.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
Soumerai, Eve N., and Carol D. Schulz. "The Changing Lives of Jews." Daily Life During the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998. 57+. Print.
“Introduction to the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Museum. United States Holocaust Museum, 10 June 2013. Web. 15 April 2014. .
It is no mystery that the lives of the prisoners of Nazi concentration camps were an ultimate struggle. Hitler’s main goal was to create a racial state, one consisting purely of the ‘superior’ Aryan race. The Germans under Hitler’s control successfully eradicated a vast number of the Jewish population, by outright killing them, and by dehumanizing them. Auschwitz is the home of death of the mind, body, and soul, and the epitome of struggle, where only the strong survive.
Martin; Hilberg, Raul; and Yahil Leni. "Introduction to the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 10 June 2010. Web. 14 Nov 2013http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143
"History of the Holocaust - An Introduction." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 8 July 2010. .
“The agony of the Jews under Hitler is too important and too outrageous to be forgotten; yet it can be remembered it seems, only in ways that distort its meaning and deny its importance… When Auschwitz became a social myth, a metaphor for modern life, people lost sight of the only lesson it could possibly offer: that it offers, in itself, no lessons (Rosenfled).
"Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. University of South Florida, 1 Jan. 1997. Web. 19 May 2014. .
The death camps were mentally inhumane on the prisoners; especially during the first few days because most inmates had some to all of their family taken away and killed. The camps tore families apart and people watched as their loved ones left to be killed. Elie Wiesel talks about the last time he saw his mother and sister and how when he left the train he and the others were forced into groups with, “‘Men to the left! Women to the right’ Eight words spoken quietly in differently, without emotion. Eight simple short words, yet that was the moment when I left my ...
The holocaust was a horrific period of time where unbelievable criminal acts were carried out against the Jews, Gypsies, and other racial gatherings. These defenseless individuals were sent from unsanitary ghettos to death camps, one being Auschwitz. The Auschwitz death camp comprised of three camps, all in which are placed in Poland. Numerous forms of extermination came about overtime to speed up the killing process. Life at the death camps was cut short for those who weren’t fit to work; such as the elderly, women, the mentally disabled, and young children. The others were put work while being starved to death. Experiments were held on dwarfs, twins, and other misfits were carried out by Josef Mengele. These inhuman acts against the Jews were all held in secret from society by the Nazis until liberation day.
Levi, Neil, and Michael Rothberg. The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Print.