Adolf Hitler's The Auschwitz: The Final Solution

The conditions of the camp were unbearable. The prisoners were barely fed, mainly bread and water, and were cramped in small sleeping arrangements. "Hundreds slept in triple-tiered rows of bunks (Adler 51)." In the quarters that they stayed, there were no adequate cleaning facilities or restrooms for the prisoners. They rarely were able to change clothes which meant the "clothes were always infested with lice (Swiebocka 18)." Those were sick went to the infirmary where also there were eventually killed in the gas chambers or a lethal injection. The Germans did not want to have anyone not capable of hard work to live. Prisoners were also harshly punished for small things such as taking food or "relieving themselves during work hours (Swiebocka 19)." The biggest punishment was execution. The most common punishment was to receive lashings with a whip.

Auschwitz was one of the most well-known concentration camps, a camp which held many prisoners who were often judged by their looks, race, and religion and not by their actions. In concentration camps people were forced to work and not given basic human rights. Auschwitz was by far the largest concentration camp during World War Two. It quickly gained a reputation for torture and harsh treatment of the prisoners. Auschwitz has a history that can give a person the chills from the horror of the mistreatment of prisoners.

“…Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same

The conditions of the camps varied from one to another, but from Stalags and Concentration camps, they were close to the same. A large portion of deaths in POW camps were from “lack of food” (Uhl 1). The recommended daily minimum was a 2,000 calorie diet (Rees 5).However this was impossible to do with the shortage of food. (Rees 5). Some of the food was “potatoes and moldy bread” (Uhl 1) which was part sawdust (Uhl 1). Many only got “5 grams” of bread (Solzhenitsyn 25). Millions of people were surely to die (Jones 11). Although the camps were harsh, the prisoners were allowed to do many activities such as sports, newspaper, musicals, and more (Uhl 2). Many camps featured musical and plays to entertain others and to be used as propaganda (Uhl 2). Even though the POW’s had better choices, they were still beaten and murdered like the others captured. (Uhl 2). In eight months, Nazis murdered 2.8 Russian Pow’s, exceeding the amount of mass murder during the holocaust. (Uhl 2). While in the camps, many died from the Baatan Death March that killed off all remaining prisoners of the Japanese (“Prisoners of War” 4). The weather was also a large aspect to the deaths. The prisoner’s “fingers were

Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, had ambitions to create a perfect race. This meant eliminating the Jewish race along with other undesirable races and disabled humans.

In the article, it states, “Inmates were always hungry.  Food consisted of watery soup made with rotten vegetables and meat, a few ounces of bread, a bit of margarine, tea, or a bitter drink resembling coffee.  Diarrhea was common.  People weakened by dehydration and hunger fell easy victim to the contagious diseases that spread throughout the camp”(17-18).  The Nazis built suffering into Auschwitz by giving their prisoners very little food, and starving them.  By starving, they purposely tortured the prisoners by making them starve and turn on each other, taking away their trust, and making them become very sick, and wish to be dead.  Lastly, the work given to the prisoners in Auschwitz Birkenau caused them to die from exhaustion and they would be worked until they died.  Many prisoners were worked to death and died of natural causes.  If any of them were too weak or ill to be working, then they would be murdered in the gas chambers.  In the article, it states, “Some inmates worked as forced laborers inside the camp, in the kitchen, or as barbers, for example.  Women often sorted the piles of shoes, clothes, and other prisoner belongings…  Those who were too ill or too weak to work were condemned to death in the gas

During World War II, there were many horrific reports of cruelty and torture towards people of Jewish descent in a camp known as Auschwitz. In the article “Auschwitz: The Camp of Death”, the main topic that is addressed in the article is the basic layout and cruelty that took place in this camp of cruelty. In the article, the author mentions that the camp in Auschwitz was “[d]ivided into three sections, Auschwitz I . . . Auschwitz II . . . and Auschwitz III” (“ Auschwitz: The Camp of Death”). What this helps the reader understand about Auschwitz is that it was separated into three sections, one of which being Auschwitz I, which was the base camp and the central office. The second section was known as Auschwitz II, which is also known as Birkenau. The third section, known as Auschwitz III, was known as Monoscwitz with the sub-camp and buna. These three sections were all part of the cruelty that took place in Auschwitz. Another piece of information mentioned in the article is that when the prisoners entered Auschwitz I, they saw the words “ [A]rbeit Macht Frei” (“Auschwitz: The Camp of Death”). What is so important as well as interesting about this phrase is that it translates to “ work will set you free” in English. This gave the prisoners of Auschwitz the false hope that if they worked hard enough, they would earn their freedom, which was not true. In the article, the author also states that Auschwitz II contained the gas chambers and crematoriums, which was a constant reminder that at any given moment they could be “[s]ent to the showers to be gassed and cremated” (“Auschwitz: The Camp of Death”). The importance behind this statement is that this idea of having the gas chamber and crematorium in that camp was to ignite fear into the prisoners to work their hardest to avoid that punishment, which was another sign of false hope. This fits into the larger idea that Auschwitz a very horrific example of human indecency. This idea is not only in the article “Auschwitz: The Camp of Death,” but in Elie Wiesel’s nonfiction book, Night, that shares his experience in Auschwitz.

The hospitals in Auschwitz were very inferior, and they were never clean. The people that were ahead of the hospitals and infirmaries oversaw the executions of Jews. Prisoners would say that they sat in overcrowded rooms in shirts darkened with filth. Most often they sat naked and lay on pads full of excrement, urine, and puss. Fleas and lice filled the hospital premises. In addition rats would gnaw on the limbs of the dead, and they attacked the weak or the ones that were unconscious. Patients received smaller rations than the ones working. The ones with fever would suffer torments of thirst. The prisoners that were likely to continue to work after a short time were treated better in hospitals. But the ones that were terminally ill to them they would act like they weren’t there. In 1943-44 the prisoners started to take care of the sick but their efforts quickly shot down, because the ones very sick they would be sent to die in the chambers. On July 28, 1941 a special commission sent 575 chronically ill, disabled, and elderly were sent to a mental institution to do a test with

Megan Jehlicka November 12th, 2015 6th hour A Day In The Life At Auschwitz Introduction – First Paragraph Sentence 1: Concentration camps are places where prisoners are forced to do labor or wait for their death, and Auschwitz was one of them during the Holocaust. Sentence 2: Hitler came to power and Jews were forced out of their homes by Nazis and taken to concentration camps, with many people being sent to Auschwitz. Sentence 3: At the camp, people were treated against their human rights and forced to live in unpleasant and unsanitary conditions.

First and foremost, the living conditions of Auschwitz-Birkenau was extremely notorious. 200 Jewish inmates were deported from Hungary (“The Holocaust Chronicle” 505). Before being deported, more than 60,000 Jews living in Hungary at the time had been killed before German occupation. Once deported, each person received numbers A-5729 through A-7728. In Auschwitz 1, the primary types of housing were barracks. The barracks were made of bricks and wood. These weren’t the only housing options. There were also overcrowded basements and lofts that were occupied as living quarters (“Living Conditions, Labor & Executions” 1). The second type of accommodation was horse stables. Stables built to hold 52 horses were partitioned into makeshift stables and housed hundreds of inmates, where only a few could fit in. There were multiple accounts of victims describing the scenario of the stables and housing in general, “Dampness, leaky roofs, and the fouling of straw and straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from diarrhea

The prisoners had horrible living conditions at Auschwitz that can show how horrible the camp really was. In the concentration camp the prisoners were living in places that didn’t even appear to be for people. The prisoners lived in places that were made to house 52 horses, yet the people were forced to live there (Auschwitz: The Camp of Death). The people either lived in wooden or brick houses, that were referred to as huts or barracks, which lacked many necessities (Auschwitz: The Camp of Death). A single barrack was to have 800 to 1000 people living in them, and the huts had to have around 400

Prisoners were given very little food. The food that they were given was inadequate for the amount of work that they had to do. The average workday was about eleven to twelve hours, and there were a minimum amount of breaks during the day. Some prisoners were worked to death, and others were close to it. The ones who were overworked and couldn’t work any longer were taken to be gassed. The Nazi guards had very strict guidelines and quotas for the prisoners to meet during the day (Encyclopedia Britannica,

In Auschwitz the workday began at about 4 or 5 depending on the season(“Auschwitz-Birkenau). If it was during the summer they would begin at 4 o’clock in the morning , but if it was winter they wouldn’t begin their day until 5 o’clock in the morning due to harsh conditions due to weather(“Auschwitz-Birkenau”). Once everyone was up they would call roll, but if anyone was not present, they would recommend the entire process(“Auschwitz-Birkenau”). Then prisoners would begin to work, and they would work a minimum of 11 hours daily. In the summer they would make their prisoners work for an additional amount of time, but in the winter they would shorten up the amount of time they had to work. At noon they would have their meal break, which could vary anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours (“Auschwitz-Birkenau”). Once they finished working SS would take the prisoner’s back to their camps and they would be given their evening meal. Once they were done, they would be given free time until they rang the gong and had to go to

Auschwitz was a camp that people most likely did not want to be sent to. They would get beat, tortured and murdered daily.

In June, 1940, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp opened; this camp would later be the home and death place of hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Jews, Poles, and Gypsies made up the large majority of prisoners in the camp. Life in Auschwitz included living in undesirable conditions, and being kept on a very strict schedule day in, day out.