Plaszow Concentration Camp
It is well known that the Holocaust concentration camps were a gruesome place to be. People are aware of the millions of deaths that have occurred in these concentration camps. The Plaszow concentration camp was a dreadful place for Jews everywhere in Europe at the time. Beginning with the history of Plaszow, to the man who enjoyed torturing Jews and then the man who salvaged thousands of lives, Plaszow concentration is remembered vividly in many Jewish people’s minds.
The Plaszow concentration camp had many distinct physical features. Before Plaszow was a concentration camp it was two Jewish cemeteries (Plaszow-Krakow Forced Labour Camp). The camp was twenty-five acres large and was originally meant to hold 2,000 to 4,000 prisoners (Plaszow-Krakow Forced Labour Camp). Plaszow was surrounded by barbed wire and the camp was broken up into many different sections (Plaszow). The camp had barracks designated for the Germans, factories, warehouses, a woman’s and men’s camp, and an educational labor camp for prisoners that broke the rules (Plaszow).
The prisoners were ordered to do many horrific things in this camp. Plaszow was the most common forced labor camp for Jews located in Krakow
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and later on Jews originating from Hungary (Plaszow Concentration Camp, Poland). The prisoners had to work in harsh conditions in factories, warehouses and stone quarries (Plaszow Concentration Camp, Poland). One form of labor the prisoners would have to accomplish was to destroy all evidence of earlier mass murders (Plaszow (Poland) ). Some prisoners would even have to dig up corpses of dead bodies and then they had to burn them and scatter their ashes (Plaszow (Poland) ). Prisoners were provided with low supplies of food and very poor sanitation (Plaszow Concentration Camp, Poland). Amon Goeth completed many things before he was a leader at Plaszow. Amon started out by studying agriculture until 1928 in Vienna (Amon Goeth). He joined a Nazi youth group when he was seventeen years old (Amon Goeth SS Commandant at Plaszow). In 1932 Amon joined the National Socialist German Worker’s party and in 1940 he joined the S.S (Amon Goeth). Goeth took off to Germany when he was accused by an Austrian Authority for crimes involving explosions (Amon Goeth, SS Commandant at Plaszow). His superiors admired his loyalty from the explosions and transferred him to the S.S (Amon Goeth, SS Commandant at Plaszow). Amon Goeth was known for his brutal punishments towards the prisoners at Plaszow. One form of punishment Amon would pursue was that he would have his dogs eat people alive (The Nazi Butcher). In 1943 on Yom Kippur, which is an important Jewish holiday Amon took 50 Jews from their barracks and shot them (The Nazi Butcher). Another punishment Goeth would execute was making people count each time they received a whip and if they messed up their counting he would make them restart (Amon Goeth). One time Amon Goeth shot a man only because he was too tall (Amon Goeth). Oskar Schindler had accomplished many things before he was a key factor in the Holocaust.
Oskar Schindler was a German Industrialist and a previous member of the Nazi Party (Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) ). Schindler had many jobs, including working in his father’s machinery business, opening a driving school, selling government property, and serving in the Czechoslovak army (Oskar Schindler). At first, Oskar was motivated by money and he did not care if the way he got that money was unfair or illegal, but then his mindset changed when he noticed all of the victims from the Holocaust (Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) ). He then changed his goal from making as much money as possible to saving as many Jews as he could from Plaszow and Auschwitz (Oskar
Schindler). Oskar Schindler was a very important person in the Holocaust for many reasons. He had a factory called German Enamelware Factory that started off only with 45 employees (Oskar Schindler-Entrepreneur). He initially hired Jews to work at his factory because they were cheaper than Polish workers, but then he started to discover more reasons why he should hire Jews (Oskar Schindler-Entrepreneur). He would convince the German soldiers to give him Jews for his factory by telling them that their skills were very essential at his factory (Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) ). Once the Jews arrived at German Enamelware Factory they received food and were not beaten or killed like they would have been at Plaszow (Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) ). One of Oskar’s many talents was persuasion, Oskar developed a strong relationship with Amon Goeth, and whenever Goeth would threated deportation or execution Schindler would bribe him with money or gifts to salvage the Jew’s lives (Oskar Schindler-Entrepreneur). Plaszow concentration camp was an appalling camp for Jews everywhere. Jews were pushed to their limit working in this camp. Amon Goeth was a brutal leader at Plaszow that tormented Jews daily, but Oskar Schindler saved thousands of Jews from this torture. The Holocaust is still a fragile subject for people around the world, and it will continue to hold a special place in our hearts.
In this paper, we will explore the camp that is Bergen-Belsen and its workers, the camp 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).
In the height of the war, Oskar Schindler recognized that he could use his power and prestige to do more good by saving people’s lives rather than just by making money. As the persecution of the Jews increased, Schindler felt compelled to save lives by hiring the Jewish people to work for him in his factory. If a Jewish person was not considered skilled or useful, they were in danger of being sent off to death camps. Oskar Schindler would hire many Jews (skilled or unskilled) to prevent them from being sent to their death. Not only did he employ them, he also housed...
" The businessman, Oskar Schindler, demonstrated a powerful example of a man who was moved emotionally to step in and take action to save the lives of the Jewish people. His bravery still commands great respect today. His role shows the great significance of speaking up against injustice and choosing not to be silent.
"Treblinka Death Camp Revolt". Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. Niau S. Archer H.E.A.R.T., n.d. Web. 19 May 2014.
Oskar Schindler accomplished many things within his life, such as saving the Jews, being a German spy, and helping the economy. His accomplishments have benefited those throughout his life. Although his kindness for his fellow man ran deep, so did his greed for boosting his own personal status within the community. There are still those today that believe that Oskar Schindler only saved the Jews for his own personal gain, but there are also those that believe that he did it out of kindness. Whether he did it out of good morale or simply for his own greed, Oskar Schindler 's many accomplishments have impacted plenty of lives.
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.
Oskar Schindler was a very complex and dynamic man. When the Nazi party rose to power and began to dominate and discriminate against people of Jewish decent, he took advantage of the situation and joined the Nazi party and moved to Poland to start a new business using the cheapest labor available—Jews. Schindler became congenial with the Nazis in authority there, partying, schmoozing, and sharing his wealth with them. From this he gained influence and contracts to produce goods.
"Gestapo Torture of Jews in Warsaw Prisons Reported, List of Guilty Nazis Published." . The Global Jewish News Source , 19 October 1942. Web. 10 Dec 2013. .
Auschwitz Concentration Camp “Get off the train!”. Hounds barking loud and the sound of scared people, thousands of people. The “Now!”. I am a shaman. All sorts of officers yelling from every angle.
“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
Primo Levi tells the readers the explicit details of the concentration camp Auschwitz, in his memoir, “Survival in Auschwitz.” The way in which the author talks about the camp is as if it is its own society. There is a very different and very specific way of life at the camp; their basic needs are provided for them, but only in the simplest form in order to have a small chance of survival. There is no clean, drinkable water, so instead they drink coffee, they eat soup twice a day, and a small amount of bread (26). There are thousands of diverse people living in the camp, who are forced to live with each other and work in a factory, reducing their self-worth to merely factors of production. The author illustrates the only purpose for the Jews is work; “This camp is a work-camp, in German one says Arbeitslager; all the prisoners, there are about ten thousand, work in a factory which produces a type of rubber called Buna, so th...
Questioning the holocaust ever happening can be disputable, yet evidence of gas chambers inside surviving Nazi camps proves murders were in fact committed inside the camps. Concentration camps were estimated to have killed 6 million Jews, yet the total number of deaths committed in such a structure has people doubting whether these camps were capable of such slaughter. However, evidence found in the surviving structures reveal that camps like Auschwitz had the capability to exterminate thousands. A supporter of this theory is Filip Muller, a surviving Jew forced to dispose of dead bodies into gas chambers, better known as a Sonderkommano. In his book Eyewitness Auschwitz, Muller reveals blueprints found in Auschwitz labeled “Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp,” discovered in the Nazi archives (174). These blueprints are similar to the surviving concentration camps such as Treblinka, Warsaw, and Belzec. Each exter...
Swieboka, Teresa. “Memorial and Museum: Auschwitz-Birkenau.” Online Posting. 21 Oct 1999. Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau. 19 April 2005. http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/html/eng/s_techniczna/indes.html>.
The Auschwitz camp was incredibly big and horrific that it was known as a “death factory.” The death rate of this camp ranged from three to four million people. Closely by the camps, one witnessed the horrors, the guard towers, the barracks, the barbwire fences, gas chambers, furnaces, and even...
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 ...