Conditions of the Concentration Camps During the Holocaust

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Recommended: Hitler's rise to power

Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and his sudden control over Germany sparked a new age of reform within the new “Nazi-state” (Hunt 848). As Nazism became a major aspect of everyday life in Germany, Hitler plotted against his enemies and those he blamed for Germany’s defeat in World War I: the Jewish race. In his biography, Mein Kampf, Hitler discusses the artistic, social, and technological superiority of Germany (“Aryans”), why he believes the Aryans are the ultimate dominant human race, and he makes many anti-Semitic remarks against the Jews. (Lualdi 224). In 1935, the “Nuremberg Laws” were enacted to deny Jewish Germans of their citizenship; this ultimately led Hitler to carry out his “Final Solution,” in which he hoped to fully exterminate the Jewish race from all of Europe (Hunt 864). After gathering the Jews from their “ghettos” and forcing them into concentration camps all across Europe, Hitler and his Nazi advocates began one of the most destructive and horrifying genocides in history, known today as the Holocaust. Only after being introduced to the conditions of these concentration camps, the hatred and abuse put towards the Jewish, and the gruesome lifestyle they were trapped into living can one understand why the Holocaust affected so many as it did. What exactly were the conditions of these camps, and how did a few lucky survivors prevail while their friends and families perished?

The concentration camps and labor camps, also referred to as “extermination sites,” were scattered all across Europe (Hunt 865). While a few in Poland were designed strictly for the immediate genocide of certain groups of Jews, such as Auschwitz, other camps were designated for labor from the captured Jews, until their services were no ...

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...he survivors of the Holocaust prevailed after their liberation. After their introduction to the hate that individuals can possess, and in losing many of their loved ones and friends, the survivors felt it necessary to share their legacies with the world, for this occurrence reveals their truth strength and determination.

Works Cited

Dülffer, Jost. "The Victims: Jews, Communists, and Social Democrats." Nazi Germany

1933-1945: Faith and Annihilation. Comp. Dean Scott McMurry. London: Arnold, 1996.

141-143. Print.

Hunt, Lynn, et al. The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's,

2009. Print

Lualdi, Katharine J. Sources of Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.

Phillips, Peter. "Absolute Corruption." The Tragedy of Nazi Germany. New York: Frederick A.

Praeger, 1969. 161-205. Print.

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