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Conditions of the concentration camps
Death camps in world war 2
The concentration camps
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WWll essay This is an essay about WW2 concentration and what they had to do when they were brought into them. Let’s start by talking about all of the labor that people had to do in the war. Millions of people were captured and were brought to concentration camps and they had to do large amounts of work. Millions of people have worked to the bone and a lot of them died during the war. If someone was slowing them down, the soldiers would shoot the person. They would also do things like hanging them, burning them and use them as target practice. People with a higher social ranking most the time got better jobs than the other prisoners like indoor jobs. While the other prisoners had jobs like carrying a lot of heavy things like wood. while it’s 20 below zero. …show more content…
If they were too weak, they told them to go to the shower and they went and they released a bunch of gas into the room and it kills the people. the gas that they used to kill them was Zyklon b. Zyklon b is a drug that when it gets into your system, it blocks the brain cells ability to absorb oxygen and it makes you unconscious. It will eventually kill you and they put you in an oven and they properly disposed of them. They released the canisters out of a bunch of little holes and the person releasing had to watch the people make sure that they die. After a While though, there were too many people for them to properly dispose of so they just put them in a pile and burned them. The gas chambers were one of the most horrific parts of the concentration
There are unexpected aspects of life in the camp depicted in “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlement” by Tadeusz Borowski. The prisoners were able to make very obvious improvements to their lived in the camp, without reaction by the SS officers; the market was even made with the support of the camp. The prisoners actually hoped for a transport of prisoners, so as to gain some supplies. The true nature of the camp is never forgotten, even in better moments at the camp.
The living conditions were appalling. The conditions were OK as a concentration camp, however as more prisoners came, it drastically worsened. There was “overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, the lack of adequate...
Then those who were too young or too old to work were sent to the showers. Once the showers were tightly packed, the Nazi’s would turn on the water and drop in canisters of chemicals that would react with the water and release a deadly gas. Within minutes, everyone in the shower would be dead. The bodies would be hauled out and burned. Those who were not selected to die didn’t fair much better.
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.
Individuals were instructed to complete a variety of tasks, from loading heavy packages to trucks to disposing the dead corpses from the killing centers. People worked from morning to night, with the mere hopes of staying alive. They were rarely provided with any food to fill their stomachs or water to quench their thirsts as the main character in This Way for Gas Ladies and Gentlemen says, “It is hot, terribly hot. Our throats are dry; each word hurts. Anything for a sip of water! Faster, faster, so that it is over, so that we may rest. When will this tragedy end?” (Tadeusz 10). The main character expresses his devastated state and tiredness in working endlessly in the concentration camp. He refers to his situation as a “tragedy” and already views humanity as a lost cause. Similarly in Night, Eliezer’s father is simply blessed by the consumption of water after a long day of labor, as Eliezer says, “I shall never forget the gratitude that shone in his eyes when he swallowed this beverage. The gratitude of a wounded animal” (Wiesel 106-107). Basic necessities such as water were considered as valuable resources to the individuals, as they could not easily acquire them at their own expense. Despite the arduous work, some were grateful for the mere existence to do labor, as one individual says, “Working like a neglected pig was better than inhaling those toxicated gas
“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
Edward Bond, a playwright who lived through WW2, says that, “Humanity has become a product and when humanity is a product, you get Auschwitz” (BrainyQuote 1). This means that when humanity becomes a privilege to some and not a natural right to all, then things like Auschwitz and in turn the Holocaust happen. The Holocaust death camps were considered both mentally and physically inhumane; the total effect of them shows the true level of inhumanity they installed. The death camps were mentally inhumane to the prisoners especially during the first few days because most inmates had some to all of their family taken away and killed. The camps tore families apart and people watched as their loved ones were left to be killed.
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...
It is estimated that Nazis established around fifteen thousand concentration camps throughout occupied countries. (Concentration Camp Listing, 2010) These camps, known as “DEATH CAMPS” spread throughout all of Europe under German ruling. It has been estimated to be around 15,000,000 concentration camps that were established from small to large ones. (Concentration Camp Listing, 2010) One of the most commonly known concentration camps was the one located in Auschwitz, this particular concentration camp was were diseases and epidemics prevailed due to poor living conditions. (living conditions, labor and executions) Examples of these living conditions are prisoners lived in several hundred three-tier wooden bunk beds in old barracks, due to overcrowding the basements and lofts were forced to be used, more than 700 people were set to each barrack, had no sanitary facilities. (living conditions, labor and executions) These poor living conditions were so disgusting and shocking, a bunk bed made for two holding around 5-8 Jewish men and women. (Holocaust, 2010) In some parts of the concentration camps jews had to sleep in barracks that were actually stables that were meant to hold 52 horses each. There were hundreds living in each of these barracks/stables. (living conditions, labor and executions) The mattresses that these jewish prisoners slept on varied from hard wood or straw on hard wood, things worsened once prisoners started to get diarrhea and the foulness of the smell from damp, and leaking roofs along with the diarrhea. Along with the foul smell came various vermin and rats that swarmed all the barrack spreading diseases. ...
They were kicked out of their homes, shoved into cattle cars, killed, and made to work in a concentration camps and many other terrible things. The worst of all, they were experimented on. The following pages are going to tell you how the concentration camps were built, who ran the experiment camps. Also about the experiments and what the effects were.
The Europeans had bad concentration camps. They would barely feed the prisoners, and would work them to the bone. “Before being sent to a camp, a captured prisoner of
Wars are good business. They create an immediate demand for a wide variety of materials needed by the government in order to fight the war. They create work opportunities for people that might not ordinarily be considered part of the normal work force. And, while not necessarily good for the soldiers engaged in the fighting, wars are always good for the businesses that provide the materials used in a war. The Second World War was very good for business.
The damp and moist bunkers coupled with vermin scurrying about led to all sorts of diseases running rampant., Some common diseases included Noma and Typhus (“Josef Mengele: The Cruelest Doctor in the Holocaust,” n.d.). The prisoners at Auschwitz worked for a total of 11-12 hours a day (“Auschwitz: The Camp of Death,” n.d.). Long, tedious role calls took up the rest of the time. The authorities fed the prisoners, 3 meals every day at camp. Prisoners with more demanding tasks received 1,700 calories while prisoners with less demanding work received. 1,300 calories (“Auschwitz Birkenau: Living Conditions, Labor, and Executions,” n.d.). This led to many people starving to death in addition to executions, a very common thing at Auschwitz. These would happen every day. Prisoners got executed by getting hung, shot, or gassed (“Auschwitz Birkenau: Living Conditions, Labor, and Executions,” n.d). For gassing the prisoners, Nazi enforcers would send Jews into large gas chambers. Then, from the outside, soldiers would throw Zyklon B into the chambers (Bohr, Meyer, and Wiegrefe, 2014). This would spread in the gas chamber suffocating the people to death. However, some people had to deal with even worse
(Jeromy) Auschwitz was one of the top camps out of forty-thousand existed camps. According to the article “The Ten Worst Nazi Camps,” by Shahan Russell, Auschwitz was opened in 1940 and is well known place for acrimony and mass number of casualties. Inside these camps was a great epitome of how many competed and fought for rations to survive. They were forced into labor for