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. 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. Over one million people were massacred within Auschwitz over the years that it served its main purposes;... ... middle of paper ... ...mane scientific ways, over one million, sixty thousand people were killed by Nazi Officials in the most disturbing ways imaginable, and because Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp, covering fifteen square miles, it was able to harbor an immense group of Jews and other outcast members of European society, preparing them like pigs for slaughter. The Nazis brutally massacred and entire race of people for no reason except for the fact that the Nazis refused to tolerate or agree with the Jewish religion and the way they lived their life; Auschwitz existed because Nazis wanted to exterminate a vast group of people, all because of a difference in opinion. Works Cited “Auschwitz.” Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. 1990. Print. “Auschwitz.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.P.N.D. Web. 15 Jan. 2014. “Gate to Hell- Auschwitz.” Auschwitz. N.P.N.D. 16 Jan 2014.
In Primo Levi’s Survival In Auschwitz, an autobiographical account of the author’s holocaust experience, the concept of home takes on various forms and meanings. Levi writes about his experience as an Italian Jew in the holocaust. We learn about his journey to Auschwitz, his captivity and ultimate return home. This paper explores the idea of home throughout the work. As a concept, it symbolizes the past, future and a part of Levi’s identity. I also respond to the concept of home in Survival In Auschwitz by comparing it to my own idea and what home means to me – a place of stability and reflection that remains a constant in my changing life.
Imagine the worst torture possible. Now imagine the same thing only ten times worse; In Auschwitz that is exactly what it was like. During the time of the Holocaust thousands of Jewish people were sent to this very concentration camp which consisted of three camps put into one. Here they had one camp; Auschwitz I; the main camp, Auschwitz II; Birkenau, and last is Auschwitz III; Monowitz. Each camp was responsible for a different part but all were after the same thing; elimination of the Jewish race. In these camps they had cruel punishments, harsh housing, and they had Nazi guards watching them and killing them on a daily basis.
During World War 2, thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps. One of the most famous camps in Europe was Auschwitz concentration camp. From all of the people sent to this concentration camp only a small amount of people survived. These survivors all will be returning to Auschwitz to celebrate 70 years after liberation.
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.
Auschwitz was a very brutal camp as soon as someone stepped off the train. Most people would not last more than an hour at this horrific camp. The largest killing camp is also known for the largest number of deaths. People getting killed, left and right. The number of recorded deaths at Auschwitz was reported to be 1.1-1.3 million Jews (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
Primo Levi, in his novel Survival in Auschwitz (2008), illustrates the atrocities inflicted upon the prisoners of the concentration camp by the Schutzstaffel, through dehumanization. Levi describes “the denial of humanness” constantly forced upon the prisoners through similes, metaphors, and imagery of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (“Dehumanization”). He makes his readers aware of the cruel reality in the concentration camp in order to help them examine the psychological effects dehumanization has not only on those dehumanized, but also on those who dehumanize. He establishes an earnest and reflective tone with his audience yearning to grasp the reality of genocide.
In Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi describes his time in the concentration camp. The depiction of Auschwitz, is gruesome and vile in the Nazi’s treatment of the captives being held, but especially in the treatment of its Jewish prisoners. A key proponent to the text is Levi’s will to live which is shown in various places in the text, however a thematic element to the will to live is the reference to Inferno by Dante. In particular, the Inferno aids Survival in Auschwitz in by adding another layer of context to the prisoner’s condition, which resembles hell, and Levi’s will to live paralleling the character, Dante.
Only 7,000 emaciated survivors of a Nazi extermination process that killed an estimated six million Jews were found at Auschwitz” (Rice, Earle). Most of these deaths occurred towards the end of the war; however, there were still a lot of lives that had been miraculously spared. “According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners left in the camps in January 1945. It has been estimated that nearly half of the total number of concentration camp deaths between 1933 and 1945 occurred during the last year of the war” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in the world’s history.
Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz is a vivid and eloquent memoir of a Holocaust survivor from the largest concentration camp under German control in World War II. The original title in Italian is Se questo e un uomo, which translate to If This is A Man, alluding to the theme of humanity. The overall tone is calm and observational; rather than to pursue the reader, it is “to furnish documentation for a quiet study if certain aspects of the human mind” (Levi 10). The memoir is a testimony of Levi and the other prisoners’ survival at the Nazis’ systematic destruction attempts at the prisoners’ humanity. It was a personal struggle for prisoners, for individual survival, and struggle to maintain their humanity.
After World War II the world began to here accounts of the atrocities and crimes committed by the Nazi’s to the Jews and other enemies of the Nazis. The international community wanted answers and called for the persecution of the criminals that participated in the murder of millions throughout Europe. The SS was responsible for playing a leading role in the Holocaust for the involvement in the death of millions of innocent lives. Throughout, Europe concentration camps were established to detain Jews, political prisoners, POW’s and enemies of the Third Reich. The largest camp during World War II was Auschwitz under the command of SS Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Hoess; Auschwitz emerged as the site for the largest mass murder in the history of the world. (The, 2005)
A 40 acre piece of land is attributed for over 2 million deaths, this is more than the total number of British and American soldiers combined that died in World War II. This small acreage was called Auschwitz and to the prisoners who stayed and died there it caused both mental and physical inhumanity to them. Mental inhumanity is an act against someone or a group of people, which is considered immorally wrong, on which affects their thoughts or feelings. Physical inhumanity is an act against a person or people which is considered immorally wrong, on which affects their body and health. Both of these acts of inhumanity were committed not only at Auschwitz but at every death camp established during the Holocaust. Edward Bond a playwright that lived through WW2 says that, “Humanity's 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.
Other than prisoners being executed, what really happened in Auschwitz? Auschwitz was one of the most famous concentration camps in WWII. Upon arrival the Jews and many others were loaded on to “the ramp” and the selection process began. The ones who looked healthy enough were put in a line to the right. Those who appeared unworthy were put in a line to the left and marched to immediate death. Women and children were stripped of clothing, hair and tattooed. All Jews lost their names and were called by the serial number tattooed on them upon arrival. It is said that some women were put into prostitution. By the end of WWII, Auschwitz became known as the symbol of death, due to about 1.1 million people dying from hard labor, experimentation, starvation, diseases, and execution.
At the end of WW2, millions had died while in the concentration camps. For five years, Nazi SS Soldiers were allowed to terrorize and kill millions of people. Most of the killing was conducted at Auschwitz. There were three camps specifically designed for a huge purpose under Auschwitz. With the new finding of Zyklon B, the extermination rate skyrocketed. Auschwitz alone was responsible for 1.1 million deaths, 960,000 of the 1.1 million were Jews. The Nazis inflicted such incredible pain for these helpless victims, before being murdered, they were brutally tortured and degraded. On January 22, 1945, the Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz, was liberated by the Soviets.
(History.com Staff). Over two million people were killed at Auschwitz in a process resembling a
...throughout Europe as they did in Auschwitz and Majdanek. These horror stories are only a few out of the hundreds of camps that the Nazis built during World War Two. The Holocaust was a devastating event for the Jewish population as well as many other minorities in Europe. The Holocaust was the largest genocide that has ever occurred. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. This death toll is extremely high compared to smaller camps. These camps were some of the largest concentration/death camps that existed during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a tragic time where millions of people considered undesirable to the Nazis were detained, forced to work in the harshest of conditions, starved to death, or brutally murdered.“The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.” –Stephen Ambrose