The Horrors of the Holocaust Eighteen million Europeans went through the Nazi concentration camps. Eleven million of them died, almost half of them at Auschwitz alone.1 Concentration camps are a revolting and embarrassing part of the world’s history. There is no doubt that concentration camps are a dark and depressing topic. Despite this, it is a subject that needs to be brought out into the open. The world needs to be educated on the tragedies of the concentration camps to prevent the reoccurrence of the Holocaust. Hitler’s camps imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of Jews for over five years. Life in the Nazi concentration camps was full of terror and death for its individual prisoners as well as the entire Jewish …show more content…
Even though these two camps had the facilities of the killing centers, execution was not their only purpose. These centers also used the Jews for labor exploitation.6 The eleven concentration camps were created "to house large numbers of people in a limited, structured, and defined area . . . until they died or were killed."7 Although thousands of camps existed, these were the Big Nineteen. The smaller camps "were attached to, allied with, or under the supervision of the Big Nineteen."8
The basic purpose of the camps was to use the Jews for labor and then kill them. There was more to it than that, however. Konnilyn G. Feig describes the purpose of the camps as follows:
The system strove to develop from a primitive incarceration project to a vast unprecedented network for the suppression, containment, exploitation, and extermination of millions of people of various nationalities who were designated as enemies of the state or as members of a nonhuman or inferior population.9
Hitler thought of the Jewish population as a worthless society and treated the individuals as worthless creatures. When Hitler came to power, he established the camps "for the purpose of isolation, punishing, torturing, and killing Germans suspected of opposition to his regime."10 The Germans wanted to guarantee the death of as many Jews as possible "while extracting some useful labor from the doomed."11 The camps were set up technically and psychologically to
85 years ago, over a 12 year period, nearly six million Jews were killed in a genocide called The Holocaust. The Holocaust was led by the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler was their leader. The mass murders took place at concentration camps throughout Europe. The majority of concentration camps resided in Poland and Germany. Many people believe there were only a few concentration camps. “However, researchers found that the Nazis had actually established 20,000 camps between 1933 and 1945” (“How Many Camps,” n.d.). In this paper I will be discussing the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The term concentration camp is a camp where people are detained or confined under harsh conditions. Many cultures were placed there for nothing more than being different. Adolf Hitler, leader and chancellor, built concentration camps for the “enemies of the state.” They simply did nothing wrong but since they were a different culture or religion than Hitler would’ve liked them to be, he arrested and placed them there for being “alleged subversives.” Hitler began hating the Jews after World War I, they believed the Jews were the cause of Germany’s loss during the war. Germany was sent into extreme debt and they only people who should be responsible for paying back the money were suppose to be the jewish because they were very frugal and had learned to save their money well. The Concentration camps began popping up all over Germany, the first camp being in Dachau. Hitler made Jews wear the
The Nazis' purpose in building these camps was to carry out the systematic murder of Jews as part of the Final Solution. Permanent gas chambers were made in these camps. No selections were performed in these camps. As the trains arrived men, women, and children were sent straight to the chambers. Approximately 1,700,000 Jews were murdered in these extermination camps.
In the beginning the concentration camps they were not even planned, to be mainly for Jews, in the beginning they had started with criminals and political prisoners. Later on Adolf Hitler wanted to have a “better” future, so who ever interfered in his plan was a threat so he had sent them to jail. People who
Why were people put in concentration camps? Well that's due to what they were guilty of like a crime sort of and what race/religion they were. However concentration camps were not just used for work some were for killing and some were used for torture. Some kids got thrown in the camps where they kill you only because they couldn't use you for work or anything because you were too young. When you got thrown into a centration camp it was usually for your race/religion. When people usually think of concentration camps they think of torture and work and things like that but that's not the only thing that they will throw you in there for they will also throw you in there to kill you.
Each part had a specific task for its prisoners. Buna, the main work camp supplied hundreds of workers for construction jobs as well as factory labor. Buna was the third and final camp that was built. The prisoners worked in the Petro-Chemical Corporation I.G. Farben factory. There they made synthetic rubber and fuel. Before the factory was built, the Nazis had the prisoners clear the land and make it suitable for the factory’s construction. The land prior to the clearing was an open marsh which later lead to many diseases being spread by the prisoners throughout the camp. This lead to very high casualties, especially the cold winter months. The second part of the concentration camp that was built was Birkenau. The intention of the Birkenau concentration camp was to be a prison. In Birkenau, the Nazis held prisoners of war from when they invaded the Soviet Union. Within the prison, the people staying there as prisoners were punished in numerous ways. They were tortured for data on the war, they were selected, if fit, to take part in painful medical experiments by Doctor Josef Mengele. The most infamous part of the Auschwitz compound was the kill camp, Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a repurposed Austro-Hungarian artillery barrack. All the camps had casualties, but Auschwitz main goal was to exterminate its population. Anyone unfit to work was sent to Auschwitz to be killed. These were usually the elderly, young children, and women not fit for working. They were killed in gas chambers designed and built by the Nazis. The chambers would kill by releasing Zyklon B into the air, which then suffocated and killed people in an average time of fifteen minutes. Zyklon B is an insecticide which means it is used to kill insects, but it is so potent that when oxidized it can even kill humans. Then to dispose of the
<br>The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population.He proceeded to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirables" was through the use of concentration camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials, the 'final solution' was decided". The Jewish population was to be eliminated. In this paper I will discuss concentration camps with a detailed description of the worst one prior to World War II, Buchenwald.
In the early 1930s, the residents of the picturesque city of Dachau, Germany, were completely unaware of the horrific events about to unfold that would overshadow their city still today. The citizens of Dachau were oblivious that their city was going to become the origin of concentration camps and of the Holocaust, the mass murder committed by the Nazi s in World War II. Dachau Concentration Camp, which would soon be placed on the edge of their community, would serve as a model for all Nazi extermination camps. This perfect prototype of a Nazi killing machine has come to represent the start of the horror-filled Holocaust and the Nazi's determination to achieve a perfect society during World War II.
The Holocaust concentration camps were one of the things that has happened in world history. The Nazi, Germany and its allies established concentration camps all throughout Germany. The concentration camps were there for a range of reasons. These camps were used to jail those who opposed Hitler’s government or were thought to threaten it. The living in the camps was a brutal time. When you were in the camp you would work from sunup to sundown and get just little piece of bread to eat in the evenings.
A Concentration Camp was a place where they held Jews and other prisoners which they treated very harshly. There were twenty three major concentration camps all over the world. Such as Poland, Germany, Netherlands, and France. Also there were Extermination Camps which is where mass murders occurred during this time. Some of these camps were called Belzec, Chelmno, and Majdanek. Even though they were treated poorly, some of the prisoners survived.
This tells readers how concentration camps were used, who they were used on, and why they were used. Concentration camps were used to kill Jews, either they worked or starved to death. Some even got killed on the spot. It explains how not all people who were killed were Jews some were gypsies. Anybody they thought was a Jew was killed. Men and teenage boys were sent to work, women, children and older people were killed using gas chambers. Because they were titled unfit for work. This page can help a reader if they want to know more about concentration camps. They have a picture of people on the “Beds” at the concentration camps.
The people, who were sent to Auschwitz before the war, were mainly political prisoners. Hitler wanted to start the camps as a way to get rid of his “Jewish Problem.” Jewish and other people who were considered enemies of the state were sent to Auschwitz and many other camps to work in slave labor. This soon evolved into a death camp with gas chambers, ovens, and laboratories for human experiments. “In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place.
Over three million jews were killed by the hands of these Germans. And many more than these Jews like the gypsies,Romans and many from Europe. Nearly 3,00 romans were murdered and about 20,00 Gypsies were murdered and many from Europe were murdered in these camps. All these camps were very made because of Hitler. All this that happened in these camps were because of now Hitler felt.
World War ll was a very devastating time for the world. Over 60 million people died in this war, and about 6 million of them were jews killed in concentration camps. This war that lasted 6 years, is still remembered today as one of the worst in history. Concentration camps where places where people were kept, killed, and tortured. Throughout this essay I will explain how the jews, gypsies, homosexuals, political people, criminals, and innocent people were labeled, enslaved, and how they were treated in concentration camps.
The purpose of these camps are for death, or total complete annihilation of the Jews. Everyone in the camps were going to die there. And the Jews had no faith in surviving. In the camps Wiesel knew “we were all going to die here”. And that “all limits have been passed”. (Wiesel 98) nothing more could shock