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The horrific events of the Holocaust
The Holocaust and its affect on the world
The horrific events of the Holocaust
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Auschwitz Concentration Camp The Auschwitz Concentration Camp was a camp used to hold Jews during the Holocaust; the Auschwitz Camp was the largest camp of its time. Auschwitz had three main complexes and 36 sub-camps. The three main camps were Auschwitz 1-Stamlagger, created in 1940, built for Polish Political Prisoners, the second camp was named Auschwitz 2-Birkenau, created in 1941, there was more than a hundred thousand prisoners and the building was used for Mass Killing center, it had Crematoria and Gas Chambers. They killed over 2,000 Jews a day in Auschwitz. The third camp was called Auschwitz III-Monowitz, created in 1944, used for supplied forced labor. The average age range for people deported to Auschwitz was 7-36. Prisoners of Auschwitz included; Habitual Criminals of Germany, Polish Elites, Political Prisoners, Soviet prisoners of War, Jews, Gypsies, Jehova’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. Both men and women were who fell under one of those categories were taken to concentration camps. At least 1,300,000 people were taken to Auschwitz, of the 1,300,000 taken there about 1...
Over one million people were massacred within Auschwitz over the years that it served its main purposes;...
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.
The Third Reich sought the removal of the Jews from Germany and eventually from the world. This removal came in two forms, first through emigration, then through extermination. In David Engel’s The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews, he rationalizes that the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was a result of how Jews were viewed by the leaders of the Third Reich-- as pathogens that threatened to destroy all humanity. By eliminating the existence of the Jews, the Third Reich believed that it would save the entire world from mortal danger. Through documents such as Franzi Epsteins’s, “Inside Auschwitz-A Memoir,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, one is able to see the struggle of the Jews from a first-hand account. Also, through Rudolf Hoess’s “Commandant of Auschwitz,” one is able to see the perspective of a commandant in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz: A History, Sybille Steinbacher effectively describes the concentration camp of Auschwitz, while Hermann Langbein’s People in Auschwitz reflects on Rudolf Hoess’s power and control in Auschwitz as commandant. Through these four texts, one is able to see the effects that the Third Reich’s Final Solution had on the Jews and the commandants.
Auschwitz was a very brutal camp as soon as someone stepped off the train. Most people would not last more than an hour at this horrific camp. The largest killing camp is also known for the largest number of deaths. People getting killed, left and right. The number of recorded deaths at Auschwitz was reported to be 1.1-1.3 million Jews (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
In the film “A Day in Auschwitz” we learn about a woman named Kitty Hart, a holocaust survivor that was forced into Auschwitz only at the age of sixteen. In present day; we observe Kitty and two other young girls (Lydia and Natalia) walk around the camp while also being educated on the horrors that took place in auschwitz, and Kitty’s struggle for survival. The documentary also mentions Kitty’s mother, a smart, skilled, and talented woman that helped both her and her daughter escape Auschwitz.
The Auschwitz complex was located in Poland and was composed of three main camps (Auschwitz). Auschwitz I, the central camp, was constructed in 1940 and covered approximately 15 square miles (Auschwitz). Auschwitz II, Auschwitz- Birkenau, was constructed in 1941 and became the extermination camp of the Auschwitz complex. In 1943, four large crematorium buildings were constructed (Auschwitz). The Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoriums were the targets of the proposed bombings during WWII. . Auschwitz III was constructed in 1943 and was primarily a labor camp (Auschwitz). These camps composed the largest and most infamous Nazi death camp.
Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz is a vivid and eloquent memoir of a Holocaust survivor from the largest concentration camp under German control in World War II. The original title in Italian is Se questo e un uomo, which translate to If This is A Man, alluding to the theme of humanity. The overall tone is calm and observational; rather than to pursue the reader, it is “to furnish documentation for a quiet study if certain aspects of the human mind” (Levi 10). The memoir is a testimony of Levi and the other prisoners’ survival at the Nazis’ systematic destruction attempts at the prisoners’ humanity. It was a personal struggle for prisoners, for individual survival, and struggle to maintain their humanity.
The inmates usually lived in overcrowded barracks and slept in bunk “beds”. In the forced labour camps, for instance, the inmates usually worked 12 hours a day with hard physical work, clothed in rags, eating too little and always living under the risk of corporal punishment” (Holocaust | Concentration Camps). Only 7,000 emaciated survivors of a Nazi extermination process that killed an estimated six million Jews were found at Auschwitz” (Rice, Earle). Most of these deaths occurred towards the end of the war; however, there were still a lot of lives that had been miraculously spared. “According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January 1945.
The train rides to Auschwitz were an introduction to the treatment that the deportees were to receive at the ca...
“Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself.” This short quote is taken from Primo Levi’s “Survival in Auschwitz”. It depicts a true story of Primo Levi during the Holocaust, who was relocated to an extermination camp after beginning a great life after college. Primo was captured with a resistant group from Italy. He used his college education and degree in chemistry to stay alive.
I. Survival in Auschwitz is the unique autobiographical account of how a young man endured the atrocities of a Nazi death camp and lived to tell the tale.
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 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.
The first concentration camp that comes to one’s mind when thinking about the Holocaust is Auschwitz. This can probably be contributed to the fact that it was the largest of the camps with the greatest potential for murder and labor. Auschwitz was used as a 3 part concentration, death, and slave-labor camp from 1941 until 1945. On the other hand, Treblinka was only around for 14 months. It was a death camp that contained specially designed gas chambers with the capability to kill thousands. (Berenbaum, 120) However, in the short time it was operated, it was responsible for the deaths of around 870,000 to 925,000 Jewish prisoners. There were numerous other concentration and death camps that need to be accounted for that were just as cruel to prisoners as Auschwitz; Treblinka is just one. By comparing Auschwitz and Treblinka, one can realize just how horrific it was to be a prisoner in any concentration camp throughout the 1940’s. Treblinka is the second most important German wartime extermination camp in all of history and it can take credit for the greatest amount of killings in the shortest amount of time. It is known as the “forgotten camp” because shortly after the war, Nazis tried to cover their tracks in hopes that nobody would find the destroyed evidence located there. Treblinka should be remembered along with Auschwitz or else the countless lives lost there will be forgotten as well.
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 ...