In this paper, we will explore the camp that is Bergen-Belsen and its workers, campy system, liberation and trial. The notorious detention camp, Bergen-Belsen, was constructed in 1940 and “was near Hanover in northwest Germany, located between the villages Bergen and Belsen” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org), hence the name. Originally, the “camp was designed to hold 10,000 prisoners” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org) but, Bergen-Belsen rapidly grew. “In the first eighteen months of existence, there were already five satellite camps.” (holocaustresearchproject.org). Eventually, the “camp had eight sections: detention camp, two camps for women, a special camp, neutrals camp, ‘star camp’, Hungarian Camp, and a tent camp.” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, p.165) It also held prisoners who were too ill/weak to work at the “convalescent camp” (Bauer, Yehuda, p.359) Each section had its own function and its type of prisoners. The “Detention camp housed Jewish prisoners brought in to construct the camp.” (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 Jew 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. The conditions were OK as a concentration camp, however as more prisoners came, it drastically worsened. There was “overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, the lack of adequate... ... middle of paper ... ... major camp to be liberated by the Allies,” (jewishvirtuallibrary.org) there was a lot of press coverage. With all of the pictures that went in the media, it “sent a wave of horror across Britain” (Wigoder, Geoffrey, and Danbury, Conn) and the world. In November of 1945, forty-eight staff members were tried. Including Josef Kramer, eleven members were sentenced to death, nineteen members were imprisoned, which included Herta Bothe, fourteen were set free, and the remaining four were too ill to stand trial. “On December 12, 1945, British military authorities executed Kramer and his codefendants.” (ushmm.org) Works Cited http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bergen_belsen.htm http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Belsen.html http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005224 http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/bbelsen.html
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
At the camp, the Jews were not treated like human. They were force to do thing that was unhuman and that dehumanized
Kaiserwald was built in March of 1943, it was a concentration camp ran by the Nazis, outside Riga in Latvia. Kaiserwald started out as a camp for German criminals. Eventually, any Jews found on Latvian soil were put into Kaiserwald. (Kaiserwald Concentration camp Jewish virtual library)
"Medical Experiments ." 10 June 2013. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . 18 March 2014 .
middle of paper ... ... Life in Auschwitz was definitely not what many people thought 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.
The camp was divided into two sections — the camp area and the crematoria area. The camp area consisted of 32 barracks, including one for clergy imprisoned for opposing the Nazi regime and one reserved for medical experiments. The camp administration was located in the gatehouse at the main entrance. The camp area had a group of support buildings, containing the kitchen, laundry,
"Treblinka Death Camp Revolt". Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. Niau S. Archer H.E.A.R.T., n.d. Web. 19 May 2014.
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.
“A typical concentration camp consisted of barracks that were secured from escape by barbed wire, watchtowers and guards. The inmates usually lived in overcrowded barracks and slept in bunk “beds”. In the forced labour camps, for
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...
In the end, over several hundred thousand died in these concentration camps and more than three million Jews were murdered in extermination camps. These camps were divided into different categories according to their purpose. In alphabetical order the 22 concentration camp sites are: Arbeitsdorf, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen, Herzogenbosch, Kaunas, Krakow-Plaszow, Majdanek, Mauthausen, Mittelbau-Dora, Natzweiler-Struthof, Neuengamme, Ravensbrück, Riga-Kaiserwald, Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, Vaivara, Warsaw, We The six extermination camps in alphabetical order are: Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Auschwitz and Majdanek are two hybrid camps, meaning that the are a combination of extermination camps and labour camps.
These camps were located all throughout Germany and Poland. The Nazi Army created these camps to disintegrate the idea of Jews, German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people accused of “asocial” or socially deviant behavior basically living their lives peacefully. Although some of these people were lucky the majority had the face the towering gates of over 100 concentration camps with a somewhat brave look on their face though they knew they were going to die a cruel life. Concentration Camps not only were designed to use these innocent human beings for slave work, but it was to make sure they didn’t live another day of happiness once they were stripped of their clothing and renamed with a number that meant nothing, and eventually died of starvation, intense gas chambers, overworked, or killed by the SS or Nazi Soldiers. The three main Concentration Camps were Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Krakow-Plaszow. The Auschwitz Camp was located in Oswigaim, Poland and was the largest death camp built. This major death had four gas chambers and around 6,000 Jews died each day from being gassed. What made Auschwitz different from any other concentration camp is that not only was this camp designed
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 ...
The Germany’s first concentration camp was built soon after Hitler became chancellor of Germany. German authorities started making concentration camps all over Germany so that there would be enough to hold the people being arrested. After the violent Night of Broken Glass in November 1938, the Nazis arrested a mass amount of male Jews and had them imprisoned for brief periods. The Nazis opened a forced labor camps where thousands of Jews died because of exhaustion, starvation, or exposure. During WWII the number of camps increased very fast. In some camps the Nazi doctors would perform experiments on the prisoners. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union the Nazis increased the number of prisoner-of-war camps. The camp at Lublin
What is a concentration camp? If you look it up on google, this is what it will tell you: “A place where large numbers of people, especially political or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazies in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933-1945, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.” There were many other different camps as well, some of the well known were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Sobibor, Treblinka, Theresienstadt, and Buchenwald.