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Prejudiced attitudes towards the jews in the holocaust
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Imagine the worst torture possible. Now imagine the same thing only ten times worse; In Auschwitz that is exactly what it was like. During the time of the Holocaust thousands of Jewish people were sent to this very concentration camp which consisted of three camps put into one. Here they had one camp; Auschwitz I; the main camp, Auschwitz II; Birkenau, and last is Auschwitz III; Monowitz. Each camp was responsible for a different part but all were after the same thing; elimination of the Jewish race. In these camps they had cruel punishments, harsh housing, and they had Nazi guards watching them and killing them on a daily basis. While being forced to live in Auschwitz they endured many cruel and harsh punishments. The main form of punishment was the gas chambers. These chambers were cells that were made underground and were able to be sealed. Zyklon-B was the poison used to gas and kill the Jewish people. “It takes about 10 minutes to kill 2,000 to 3,000 people in the gas chamber.” (Saldinger p.57) After gassing they would then be extracted from the chamber and taken to the crematorium where the bodies would be disposed of. Sometimes it wasn’t even the guards who would dispose of the bodies, most of the time it was the prisoners who were forced to extract their own people from the chambers. This was just one of the many forms of punishment; there were many more and some were just as bad. The second form of punishment was forced labor. Forced labor was almost exactly like slavery; slavery of the Jewish race. There was a minimum working day of eleven hours in all of the concentration camps they were forced to work for free at many different companies that manufactured weapons and other things for the war against their own people... ... middle of paper ... ... at all; you were constantly looking over your back and worried about what would happen next. Life in Auschwitz was definitely not what many people think it was. Life was hard, housing was rough, the guards were mean and brutal and the different things that could happen to you were terrifying. One day in there would have killed most people and they lived like that for years. Every day was a constant battle for their lives and they never got a break. So many people died from getting sick or from the things the guards would do and no one could save them. The food was bad and they had to hurt each other to get more food so that they wouldn’t starve. They were forced to turn against each other to survive when they never should have had to. Life was never the same for those who went to Auschwitz and survived. As for those who didn’t survive; they never saw a better day.
Thousands upon thousands of innocent Jews, men, women, and children tortured; over one million people brutally murdered; families ripped apart from the seams, all within Auschwitz, a 40 square kilometer sized concentration camp run by Nazi Germany. Auschwitz is one of the most notorious concentration camps during WWII, where Jews were tortured and killed. Auschwitz was the most extreme concentration camp during World War Two because innumerable amounts of inhumane acts were performed there, over one million people were inexorably massacred, and it was the largest concentration camp of over two thousand across Europe.
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 living conditions in the camp were rough. The prisoners were living in an overcrowded pit where they were starved. Many people in the camp contracted diseases like typhus and scarlet fever. Commonly, the prisoners were beaten or mistreated by
(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p.165) “Special Camp housed Jews from Poland who held papers, passports, entrance visa, etc. issued by foreign countries” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p.165) The “Neutral Camp was reserved for several hundred Jews who were citizens of neutral countries.” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p.165) The "Star Camp was reserved for about 4,000 Jewish prisoners who were to be exchanged for German nationals interned by the Allies” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p.165) The living conditions were appalling.
Dehumanization was a big part of these camps. The Nazis would kick innocent Jewish families and send them to concentration or death camps. The main way they dehumanized these Jewish people is when they take all their possessions. In Night they go around taking all there gold and silver, make them leave their small bags of clothing on the train, and finally give them crappy clothing. All this reduces their emotions; they go from owing all these possessions to not having a cent to their name. If I was in that situation I would just be in shock with such a huge change in such a short amount of time. The next way they dehumanized the Jewish people were they stopped using names and gave them all numbers. For example in Night Eliezer’s number was A-7713. Not only were all their possessions taken, but also their names. Your name can be something that separates you from another person. Now they are being kept by their number, almost as if that’s all they are, a number. If I was in their place I would question my importance, why am I here, am I just a number waiting to be replaced? The third way they were dehumanized was that on their “death march” they were forced to run nonstop all day with no food or water. If you stopped or slowed down, you were killed with no regards for your life. The prisoners were treated like cattle. They were being yelled at to run, run faster and such. They were not treated as equal humans. If the officers were tired, they got replaced. Dehumanization affected all the victims of the Holocaust in some sort of way from them losing all their possessions, their name, or being treated unfairly/ like animals.
Jews way of living while in a concentration camp was a harsh time. They died of many different causes. For example: Starvation, Diseases, gas chamber, shot, burned to death, beat to death, or put to working hard labor. Some lived without the knowing of what was happening to their family members because they were at a different camp. For a fact, every jew lived in fear while they were locked up at a camp. They never knew when there time was to come. The more they showed fear the more harsh the Nazis
The camp what actually used as like a prison before the 40’s (Carter, Joe). Because of its large size, it looked to be the perfect place to transform into a concentration camp. If the Nazis had not been able to make the area into what they wanted to, thousands upon thousands of lives would be saved. Taking that step off of the train had to be the hardest thing someone could do but there would be worst. People would be starving to death, or maybe they would catch a disease, or die like some who would just get shot by an SS officer just because they thought they should kill them or they just wanted to. Doctors could do what they wanted with anybody they wanted. Dr. Mengele was one of the most famous doctors that was at Auschwitz and during the Holocaust itself. He was able to pick the people he wanted when he wanted them. He did experiments on diseases and other tests (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). He liked to do experiments on twins because he could easily see what changes it does to the one that he would test it compares to the healthy one. Such things like this add up into making Auschwitz how bad it
“Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The living conditions in these camps were absolutely horrible. The amount of people being kept in one space, amongst being unsanitary, was harsh on the body. “A typical concentration camp consisted of barracks that were secured from escape by barbed wire, watchtowers and guards.
After being extracted from society, these people were placed in work or concentration camps. The work camps were built to be death camps in which people were forced into extreme work environments and long hours that would result in death. People who were sent to concentration camps were also placed into environments with harsh setting and would be eventually sent to mass shootings or gas chambers.
The Nazi soldiers arrested masses of male adult Jews and held them captive in camps for short periods of time. A death camp is a concentration camp designed with the intention of mass murder, using strategies such as gas chambers. Six death concentration camps existed: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.... ... middle of paper ...
At the camp, the Jews were not treated like human. They were force to do thing that was unhuman and that dehumanized
During the holocaust there were over six million jews killed. They were gassed, beaten, and tormented. The inhumanity if these camps were unbelievable. And hearing the stories from the book “ Night” and seeing the pain in the movie “ The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is bad enough let alone going through it. Everything that happened to people during the holocaust can be engraved into the prisoners head.
These camps were more than relocation camps. People died at these camps under extreme work conditions and being gassed. Survivors are proof that Jews were gassed and worked to death. Jews kept diaries and letters explaining the harsh conditions they were put under by the Nazis. Some survivors had family members or close friends that were gassed in the chambers. Deniers say that they died of natural causes or due to illnesses caused by being moved from their homeland. These illnesses were not just caused by being moved, but were also caused by poor living conditions they were kept in. Auschwitz was capable of holding 150,000 prisoners at a time, but was severely overpopulated with about 230,000 prisoners at once. People slept in feces and even sometimes dead bodies (Holocaust
During the Holocaust the Jewish people and other prisoners in the camps had to face many issues. The Holocaust started in 1933 and finally ended in 1945. During these 12 years all kinds of people in Europe and many other places had so many different problems to suffer through. These people were starved, attacked, and transported like they were animals.
...throughout Europe as they did in Auschwitz and Majdanek. These horror stories are only a few out of the hundreds of camps that the Nazis built during World War Two. The Holocaust was a devastating event for the Jewish population as well as many other minorities in Europe. The Holocaust was the largest genocide that has ever occurred. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. This death toll is extremely high compared to smaller camps. These camps were some of the largest concentration/death camps that existed during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a tragic time where millions of people considered undesirable to the Nazis were detained, forced to work in the harshest of conditions, starved to death, or brutally murdered.“The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.” –Stephen Ambrose