Extermination Camps

Nazi Extermination Camps

Anti-Semitism reached to extreme levels beginning in 1939, when Polish Jews were regularly rounded up and shot by members of the SS. Though some of these SS men saw the arbitrary killing of Jews as a sport, many had to be lubricated with large quantities of alcohol before committing these atrocious acts. Mental trauma was not uncommon amongst those men who were ordered to murder Jews. The establishment of extermination camps therefore became the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”, as well as a way to alleviate the mental trauma that grappled the minds of Nazi soldiers. The following essay will examine various primary and secondary sources to better illuminate the creation, evolution, practices and perpetrators of the extermination camps wherein the horrors of the Holocaust were conducted.

Pridham Noakes maintains that the creation of extermination camps began for two important reasons, the first already being mentioned as a way of soothing the psychological stress imposed upon Nazi soldiers of the Einsatzgruppen ordered to kill Jews with firearms. Fischer discusses the mental consequences which overcame soldiers of the Einsatzgruppen as a result of these brutal murders: “The men…were physically and psychologically drained. Some sought refuge in alcohol, some became physically ill, a few committed suicide.” The second reason for the creation of the extermination camps was to better conceal “subhuman” extermination from public (and foreign) view while accelerating the process of mass genocide.

The first extermination camp was located in Chelmno, Poland, where gas vans were used to kill the camps’ victims. Gas vans had been introduced in Poland in 1939, Noakes maintains, and had initially been used to murder Russian POWs. The gassing of Polish Jews began in 1941 after the Nazis had forcefully gathered the majority of them into ghettoes around Lodz and Warthegau. The process was of crude design: Jews (and other ‘subhuman’ subjects) were rounded up and told they were to be sent to a labor camp. Before this, however, they were to strip naked and bathe. After stripping, the victims were herded and locked into a gas van. The ‘driver’ started the engine, and the exhaust from the vehicle flooded into the van, killing the victims inside. According to Noakes, “a recent estima...

... middle of paper ...

... personality structure. Eichmann, Himmler, Hess and Mengele were true believers with all the strength and intensity that accompanies the will to believe.

A strong will to believe combined with a stubborn, inflexible personality type is then, according to Fischer what drove these men to commit the atrocities of the Holocaust. All these men needed was to be given something to believe strongly about, and Hitler gave it to them. I find this argument plausible, yet leaning toward generalization. Were the mentalities of Himmler and Eichmann that comparable? I think a far more detailed look at their personalities might prove otherwise. Nevertheless, both indeed carried out the orders of one of the most tyrannical governments to come to power during the 20th Century. An exact estimate of how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust has never been calculated, and figures range anywhere from four to seven million. Noakes asserts that the most reliable source comes from Eichmann himself, whose estimate was voiced through one of his subordinates (Wilhelm Hoettl of the RSHA) and calculated at roughly 6 million. Out of these 6 million, four million were killed in the extermination camps.