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The camp systems in Auschwitz
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In 1943 or as you may know it as The Holocaust, there were many different ways they executed the people at the Auschwitz camp, including hanging, shooting their heads or even letting them starve to death. But I'm not going to talk about them. This may tickle your fancy or wreck with your emotions after seeing the movie. I'm going to be talking about the Gas Chamber. The Gas Chamber is probably the worst place to be EVER, because you're going to be standing in a grey metal room ,butt naked surrounded by hundreds, even thousands of other people. Everyone is crammed inside the room as Cyclone B (a highly used deadly mixture) was sprayed into the room, causing you to either burn to death, or have to sit around dying slowly over an amount of days
surrounded by dead and rotting bodies. As this substance was sprayed on the people, they would scream and cry trying to scratch their way out of the deadly room. Unfortunately over 1 million people died from Cyclone B, and most of the deaths were at Auschwitz. Scientists say that in the winter, it would have taken longer for the people to die because there was no way of heating up the Cyclone B pellets because they had to be heated up to 78.3 degrees in order to release the deadly gas fumes. Afterwards, the bodies of men and women(usually in separate groups) were taken out of the chamber by other prisoners and put into another room where they would get their hair, gold teeth and fillings taken out. They would then burry them in mass graves or put them in ovens to burn.
Soot and ashes soil the mud where the Jews are kneeling down to weep at their dead brethren. Still to this day the ash remains of the Jews burned at Auschwitz lays a few feet under the ground buried and when the ground ices over and thaws, it pushes the ashes to the surface as if it wants you to be a witness to uncover the horrors that happened there. The smell of them gassing the Jews had to be horrid, not just the soldiers had to deal with the smell, the Jews did as well, but the Jews had no idea what the smell was because they were unaware of what happened to the others that did not pass through the selection. The Jews were completely in the dark about what happened if you did not pass the
Nearly all of the deportees who were sent to the centers were instantaneously guided to the gas chambers to die, except for a select few who were chosen to be sonderkommandos. Over two million Jews were murdered inside killing centers either by smothering with poison gas or by shooting with guns (Killing Centers ). The gas-van was a product of the Third Reich; it consisted of a van with a gas-tight cabin attached on its understructure used to kill victims by the motor-exhausts led into that cabin (The Development of the Gas-Van in the Murdering of the Jews). The Germans executed over 150,000 people at Chelmno between December 1941 and March 1943 and then again in June and July 1944 by means of gassing vans (Killing Centers ). The Germans also found the use of gas chambers to be more effective and usually killed thousands of people daily. Within minutes of being inside a gas chamber, pris...
While being forced to live in Auschwitz they endured many cruel and harsh punishments. The main form of punishment was the gas chambers. These chambers were cells that were made underground and were able to be sealed. Zyklon-B was the poison used to gas and kill the Jewish people. “It takes about 10 minutes to kill 2,000 to 3,000 people in the gas chamber.” (Saldinger p.57) After gassing they would then be extracted from the chamber and taken to the crematorium where the bodies would be disposed of. Sometimes it wasn’t even the guards who would dispose of the bodies, most of the time it was the prisoners who were forced to extract their own people from the chambers. This was just one of the many forms of punishment; there were many more and some were just as bad.
Many extremely cruel and torturous things took place inside Auschwitz. Children, visibly pregnant women, and the elderly were often murdered upon arrival to Auschwitz. The Nazis did this because women and children were unable to endure the harsh labor that the Nazis wanted to put the Jews through, so they would inevitably be killed anyways. This is very cruel, not just because the women, children, and elderly were brutally murdered, but because this tore apart families within the camp; people had to live with the fact that their loved ones had been killed by Nazis. If children survived the initial separation, medical experiments were often performed on them by Dr. Josef Mengele, who was the main doctor in the camp, such as being put in pressure chambers, castrated or sterilized, and being frozen to death. This shows that the Nazis clearly didn’t care about how they treated their hostages. This proves one of the ways that the Nazi officers were inhumane and that the camp was a place filled with torture and death.
The Third Reich sought the removal of the Jews from Germany and eventually from the world. This removal came in two forms, first through emigration, then through extermination. In David Engel’s The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews, he rationalizes that the annihilation of the Jews by the Germans was a result of how Jews were viewed by the leaders of the Third Reich-- as pathogens that threatened to destroy all humanity. By eliminating the existence of the Jews, the Third Reich believed that it would save the entire world from mortal danger. Through documents such as Franzi Epsteins’s, “Inside Auschwitz-A Memoir,” in The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History by Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, one is able to see the struggle of the Jews from a first-hand account. Also, through Rudolf Hoess’s “Commandant of Auschwitz,” one is able to see the perspective of a commandant in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz: A History, Sybille Steinbacher effectively describes the concentration camp of Auschwitz, while Hermann Langbein’s People in Auschwitz reflects on Rudolf Hoess’s power and control in Auschwitz as commandant. Through these four texts, one is able to see the effects that the Third Reich’s Final Solution had on the Jews and the commandants.
The camp what actually used as like a prison before the 40’s (Carter, Joe). Because of its large size, it looked to be the perfect place to transform into a concentration camp. If the Nazis had not been able to make the area into what they wanted to, thousands upon thousands of lives would be saved. Taking that step off of the train had to be the hardest thing someone could do but there would be worst. People would be starving to death, or maybe they would catch a disease, or die like some who would just get shot by an SS officer just because they thought they should kill them or they just wanted to. Doctors could do what they wanted with anybody they wanted. Dr. Mengele was one of the most famous doctors that was at Auschwitz and during the Holocaust itself. He was able to pick the people he wanted when he wanted them. He did experiments on diseases and other tests (Medical Experiments of the Holocaust and Nazi Medicine). He liked to do experiments on twins because he could easily see what changes it does to the one that he would test it compares to the healthy one. Such things like this add up into making Auschwitz how bad it
For some, it seems that the Holocaust in another lifetime, but for others it will be something they will never forget. Holocaust was a time for fighting. The Jewish would fight for the right to live as they were killed solely for being Jewish. The Holocaust began in 1939 and would continue through 1945. It was introduced by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, although he did not act alone. His mission would be to “exterminate” all minorities, but most abundantly, the Jews. Based on information given by About.com, it is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million of these were Jews.
“Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The living conditions in these camps were absolutely horrible. The amount of people being kept in one space, amongst being unsanitary, was harsh on the body. “A typical concentration camp consisted of barracks that were secured from escape by barbed wire, watchtowers and guards.
Holocaust Facts The Holocaust has many reasons for it. Some peoples’ questions are never answered about the Holocaust, and some answers are. The Holocaust killed over 6 million Jews (Byers.p.10.) Over 1.5 million children (Byers, p. 10). They were all sent to concentration camps to do hard labor work.
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...
The main focus of the post war testimony of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, Commandant at Auschwitz from May 1940 until December, 1943, is the mass extermination of Jews during World War II. His signed affidavit had a profound impact at the Post-War trials of Major War Criminals held at Nuremburg from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946. His testimony is a primary source that details and describes his personal account of the timeline, who ordered Auschwitz to become a death camp, and the means used to execute and exterminate millions of Jews. Obtained while tortured nearly to death under British custody, the authenticity and reliability of this document is questioned due to arguable inconsistencies that exist. However, the events sworn to in his testimony have been recounted and corroborated by witnesses and thousands of survivors.
The Holocaust was a time period in history that is very important to learn about. We learn about it for many reasons, but I think the most important reason is to learn not to discriminate against other people. Not only is it very important to learn about the Holocaust, but it's also important to learn about Hitler's rise to power and how he came to make his decision of the discrimination affiliated with the Holocaust. The events and outcome of World War II and Anne Frank are very important topics, too. These topics are all factors that are associated with the overall events of the Holocaust and all back up the reason as to why we study the Holocaust.
In the late thirties and fourties, the Holocaust occured. The Holocaust was the mass genocide of eleven million Jews and other undesireables. We learn about this event to remember all who lost their lives, and make sure something this awful never happens again.
Holocaust I've thought, and thought about resistance in the Holocaust and I've come to this comprehension: No phrase or verse or detailed explanation can illustrate the level of terror and oppression that took place. The Holocaust was probably the most arguably infamous series of despiteful human rights and cold blooded murder in modern history. The rise of the powerful Adolf Hitler has set his war against Jewish people, Jewish culture and Jewish memory. If the twisted philosophy of the Nazi regime was to eradicate Jewish memory, then it is our duty to remember the Jewish lives that perished and to keep Jewish memory alive. There was approximately six million Jews were sent to death camps and killed during World War II (1939-1945). So what do you think that led up to this? Why Adolf Hitler hatred towards Jews is so strong that made him did the inhuman cruel murder? Well the resolution lies in the ethnic undercurrents that ran beneath the peripheral of Germany and the world.
You think you are just going to go take a shower before you go to the special camp for all the Jews. You take your clothes and shoes off in this sort of locker room and then go to this really big shower room with a door. You think, “Why is there a door and why are people starting to freak out about something called a gas chamber? Why are there so many people in this room? Do they think we can really all take a shower like this?” Then you hear the door close and hear a lock latch. That is when you start getting scared and before you know it you can barely breath. You are going to die in a Nazi gas chamber. During the Holocaust the Nazis created gas chambers to kill Jews and other people groups more effectively. Gas chambers were