The Jews in Auschwitz

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.
Epstein shows the process that the majority of Jews were being put through, such as the medical examinations, medical experimentations, gas chambers and crematoriums. Medical examinations were used to determine if the Jews were healthy enough to work. Dr. Mengele used the Jews as “lab rats” and performed many experiments such as a myriad of drug testing and different surgeries. The gas chamber was a room where Jews were poisoned to death with a preparation of prussic acid, called Cyclo...

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... those procedures give him pause” (Langbein 304).
The Third Reich sought to eliminate the Jews because the Germans viewed the Jews as parasites that were infecting their country and the world. With economic and physical pressure, Germany was able to encourage the Jews to flee Germany, however, not many left because of restrictions. The Nazis created the final solution in order to quickly eliminate all of the Jews that existed primarily in Germany. Through the use of medical experimentation, gas chambers, and the crematorium, around 6 million Jews were killed.

Works Cited

Langbein, Hermann. People in Auschwitz. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 2004. Print.

Mendes-Flohr, Paul R., and Jehuda Reinharz. The Jew in the Modern World: A

Documentary History. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. Print.

Steinbacher, Sybille. Auschwitz: A History. New York: ECCO, 2005. Print.