Auschwitz Cruelty

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Cruel. Hellish. Inhumane. These three words describe life in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler’s "Final Solution" was to exterminate the Jews; among other groups including the Gypsies, mentally ill or disabled, and homosexuals. This “solution” would take place in hundreds of secret concentration camps throughout all of Europe. Auschwitz is one example of Nazi cruelty forced on people they viewed as inferior. The Nazi regime rose to power on January 30, 1933, making Adolf Hitler chancellor. He quickly turned his presidential rule into a dictatorship. Then he set upon his goal of making the perfect race by using widespread propaganda to spread the regime's ideals and goals. They made fast work to get there plan under way and start, as they called it, “The Finial Solution.”
It is estimated that there was between 1.1 and 1.6 million deaths at camp Auschwitz. Most died about 24 hours upon arrival. There were no more than 20,000 slave laborers living there at one time. Through my research I have found much estimation on how many survived camp Auschwitz, but it is expected that a total of 65,000 survived the camp. But, no one can be sure about the exact number of deaths or number of people who were liberated. A lot of the people who did not die 24 hours upon their arrival soon died afterwards because of the living conditions of the camp. The administrative buildings and some of the barracks were brick and boxy. Everything was very organized and orderly for the officers, but living conditions were ghastly for the prisoners. The barracks for the Jews were tiny, smelly, stuffy, dark, and overcrowded huts. The dead and dying lay in bunks until someone took them away. Camp Auschwitz was opened on May 20, 1940 in Oswiecim, Poland ...

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... inferior. Auschwitz is the most notorious concentration camp there was. Two things this camp had that others didn’t was the Gas Chambers and Dr. Mengele. His experiments took on a whole new meaning of cruel and the gas chambers were just another way to kill people. This paper gives me a better understanding of Night because sometimes it’s easier to understand what someone has gone through if you know the extent of the situation. Through my research of Auschwitz I found the extent of cruelty surpassed even my imagination. One thing Elie Wiesel said has stuck with me throughout all of my research on Auschwitz “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” (book's introduction xv) It made me realize that we need to remember the Holocaust and the Genocide that took place during this time because letting it happen again is just as bad as forgetting.

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