Auschwitz-Birkenau: Living Conditions, Labor And Executions?

Many people may know the holocaust as one of the deadliest genocides in history. The killing of more than 10 million innocent people was led by fascist and leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler. The Auschwitz concentration camp was one of the central and most infamous camps of all. About 4.1 million people were executed at Auschwitz for their sexual orientation, religion or race. The Auschwitz concentration camp, a major extermination and labor camp during the holocaust, embodies the characteristic of deadliness through extensive labor and ruthless murdering of Jews and other “flawed” citizens.

The feeding of the prisoners was a major issue in the concentration camps during the holocaust. The jewish prisoners were fed three times a day in the concentration camps, those three times were morning, noon, and evening. (living conditions, labor and executions) It wasn’t the amount of food given a day that was an issue the nutritional value that the Nazis had for the concentration camps. (living conditions, labor and executions) When the Nazis would feed the prisoners they gave the less physically demanding workers one thousand three hundred calories per day and gave the ones who engaged in hard labor one thousand seven hundred calories per day. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was an issue because after several weeks on such starvation in the camps, most prisoners began to experience what is called organic deterioration that led to the well known “Muzulman” state. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was when the prisoners ended being so tiny, extreme physical exhaustion, and soon ended up in death. (living conditions, labor and executions) In march 31, 1942 the WVHA established a minimum working day of 11 hour in all concentration camps. Labor in some concentration camps was the way of destroying prisoners, they worked them until they died. (living conditions, labor and executions) The prisoners usually labored in various sectors of

Have you ever heard of the nasty, disgusting, and horrible conditions that jews had to suffer with in concentration camps during the Holocaust? Lice and fleas are a big part of conditions in concentration camps, another horrible condition in the camps are diseases and sanitation, lastly another awful condition in concentration camps is mass murder and starvation. Many people died in concentration camps during the Holocaust because of the environment the jews had to live in and deal with, and many families were split and torn apart because loved ones of theirs had died because of the horrible conditions in the camps.

A meal time was one of the most important times of the day, for a prisoner. In the morning, a prisoner would be fed coffee or herbal tea. The Holocaust Explained states “For lunch prisoners would be given a litre of watery soup. If they were lucky, they might find a piece of turnip or potato peel.” (The Holocaust Explained.org 2014). For dinner, black bread, a tiny piece of sausage, and cheese. The black bread was supposed to be able to last prisoners throughout the night, and into the morning. Because of the bread’s durability, many prisoners secretly hid and stashed amounts of black bread to eat. In camps like Belzec, food was placed on a high value within the life of the prisoners, making reason for them to smuggle and steal it. But because of the constant work, brutality, and small portions of food that were given to the prisoners, many died and suffered from sickness caused by hunger. Through this, weight and muscle tissue were barely left on the bodies of the prisoners, with the lack of food and

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

In the morning we got metal cups and spoons. We were each given two slices of bread and sometimes a pat of margarine or a little bit of marmalade. The coffee was toasted acorns ground up. It tasted terrible. The midday meal was potato soup with maybe a li ttle bit of meat. Potatoes were the main ingredient and the kind of beets you normally feed to cattle. We were already hungry in the Theresienstadt ghetto because we did not get enough to eat. In Auschwitz we were beginning to starve. In the evening we go t another slice of bread, some coffee, no marmalade, no butter, no nothing.

A day in a Nazi concentration camp according to jewishgen.org was; 4am – Wake-up, Roll-call, Breakfast (10oz. bread, watered down coffee), Work, Lunch (soup), Work,

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.

A little over 40 small facilities made up Auschwitz. However, they all had the same unbelievable conditions. Every sub camp passed their capacity limit, by thousands. They all had inadequate shelter and were all unsanitary. Minimal food is another hard factor the prisoners had to deal with. In fact, in Buna, one of the 40 facilities that made up Auschwitz, only gave their prisoners a bowl of watered down soup and a scrap of bread. This was not daily though, maybe once or twice a week. Lastly, they were all worked to exhaustion. If the prisoners were to

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

You would have to be checked by doctors to see if you were fit for work. Young Children, elderly, pregnant women, and those classified as unfit for work were sent to the showers. The showers were really gas chambers, this is the reason for many people dying. Doctors would also do experiments on the prisoners many would die from this. They would test twins to see if everything about them were actually the same. One of the experiment was to see if the twins could switch eyes and still be able to see. Another way people would die was from being burned in ovens. There was no “going easy” in Auschwitz.

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.

Auschwitz is well known to all of us. This camp had been owned by Hitler and many other commanders. The Nazi’s treated the Jews like animals. They would beat them and the Jews were scared to stand up to them. Many Jews lost their loved ones, family members, children, parents and even grandparents. However, Auschwitz will always be known as a horrible place, like as the “Death Camp”, what they would do to the Jews if they were unfit for work, how was it for a typical prisoner, the purpose for the selection, and what happened when the Soviet Army came.

In this written assignment I would like to write about discrimination against Jewish and the living conditions inside of the Auschwitz concentration camp from the perspective of an infiltrated journalist. This topic is strongly related to the Boy in the Straight Pyjamas book. The main plot of this story is about how two boys develop a friendship, in spite of the fact that one of them is a Jewish interned in the camp and the other one is the son of the Nazi commandant who manages the camp.