The train comes squealing to a stop at the station. Hundreds of Jews with all the belongings that they can fit into a suitcase with them exit a tightly packed train car. Immediately they are sorted into two groups. One heads into the heart of the camp to start a life of hard labor. The other goes to ‘disinfecting’. They are happy, cheerful, and suspect nothing as they approach the ‘showers’ for disinfecting. After they have rid themselves of their clothes, jewelry, and belongings, they enter the showers and are immediately locked in. They begin to feel suspicious and afraid, but by now, it is far too late for them to do anything. As the small pellets rain down from the roof, the terror builds to an unspeakable level. They try anything they can think of to get out. Screaming, clawing, praying, or pounding, anything goes. Slowly they begin to die. After about twenty minutes, it is all over. Sadly, this was a daily event at many concentration camps during the Holocaust. At Auschwitz, an occurrence such as this happened multiple times every day. Auschwitz was a designated death factory, killing thousands every day. Although there were many concentration camps during the Holocaust, the most notorious camp was Auschwitz.
Many people know a little about Auschwitz, but few know when Auschwitz was actually built or opened, or about it’s history before it became a death camp. Construction of Auschwitz I started in early 1940, and the camp itself was opened in the middle of 1940.(5) Sub camps Auschwitz II and Auschwitz III were opened in 1942. (4) The first prisoners in Auschwitz I were not Jews, but prisoners of war, such as Poles, and soviet Russians.(1,2) In September of 1941, the first prisoners were killed using a makeshift gas chambe...
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...Menszer. 2014. Web. 24 March 2014.
“Auschwitz.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 10 June 2013. Web. 24 March 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.
Over one million people were massacred within Auschwitz over the years that it served its main purposes;...
The Auschwitz camp was incredibly big and horrific that it was known as a “death factory.” The death rate of this camp ranged from three to four million people. Closely by ...
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.
Didi-Huberman, Georges. "Against All Unimaginable." Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008. 18-29. Scribd. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.
Being confined in a concentration camp was beyond unpleasant. Mortality encumbered the prisons effortlessly. Every day was a struggle for food, survival, and sanity. Fear of being led into the gas chambers or lined up for shooting was a constant. Hard labor and inadequate amounts of rest and nutrition took a toll on prisoners. They also endured beatings from members of the SS, or they were forced to watch the killings of others. “I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Night Quotes). Small, infrequent, rations of a broth like soup left bodies to perish which in return left no energy for labor. If one wasn’t killed by starvation or exhaustion they were murdered by fellow detainees. It was a survival of the fittest between the Jews. Death seemed to be inevitable, for there were emaciated corpses lying around and the smell...
The Holocaust is one of the most horrifying crimes against humanity. "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." (Bauer, 58) One of his main methods of exterminating these ‘undesirables' was through the use of concentration and death camps. In January of 1941, Adolf Hitler and his top officials decided to make their 'final solution' a reality. Their goal was to eliminate the Jews and the ‘unpure' from the entire population. Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp that carried out Hitler's ‘final solution' in greater numbers than any other.
Swieboka, Teresa. “Memorial and Museum: Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Online Posting. 21 Oct 1999. Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau. 19 April 2005. http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/html/eng/s_techniczna/indes.html>.
Uburuburu. “History Channel - Auschwitz (The Forgotten Evidence)”. youtube.com. Published 27 Apr 2013. Web. Accessed 18 Nov 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKkNwkVRcOU
South Florida, University of. “Holocaust Timeline: The Camps.” Holocaust Timeline: The Camps. Florida Center for Instructional Technology, 2005. Web. 17 May 2014
At the end of WW2, millions had died while in the concentration camps. For five years, Nazi SS Soldiers were allowed to terrorize and kill millions of people. Most of the killing was conducted at Auschwitz. There were three camps specifically designed for a huge purpose under Auschwitz. With the new finding of Zyklon B, the extermination rate skyrocketed. Auschwitz alone was responsible for 1.1 million deaths, 960,000 of the 1.1 million were Jews. The Nazis inflicted such incredible pain for these helpless victims, before being murdered, they were brutally tortured and degraded. On January 22, 1945, the Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz, was liberated by the Soviets.
Wilensky, Gabriel. “Why did the Holocaust Start?” Six million crucifixions. Six Million Crucifixions, 2009. Web. 1 Mar. 2014
Auschwitz I was built in 1940, as a site for Polish political prisoners. This was the original camp and administrative center. The prisoners’ living conditions were inhumane in every respect, and the death rate was quite high. Auschwitz I was not meant ...
Braham, Randolph L. "Hungarian Jews: Preparatory Work in Auschwitz." Gutman, Yisrael and Michael Berenbaum. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. n.d. 462-463.
Many people don’t have the capability to travel and explore the wonders of the world. I was fortunate enough receive the opportunity to visit a place that has marked history forever. On March 22nd 2016, I remember getting off the bus and heading toward the first and main camp, Auschwitz I. It was a bright and sunny day, which felt wrong. This place should not be radiating sunlight because it was