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Children of the Camps Essay

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Children of the Camps

During the Holocaust, millions of Jews, gypsies, and members of other groups were persecuted and murdered by Nazi occupied Europe. However, many forget to acknowledge that among these were children. It may never be known exactly how many children were murdered but it is said that as many as some 1.5 million children may have fell victim to the Nazi party.

Although children were not a main target of the Nazi’s violence, they did fall subject to persecution along with their parents. Jewish children were first exposed to persecution in school. Many of their friends who were not Jewish began not socializing with them and even began to treat them in prejudice ways. This was soon followed with the announcement …show more content…

If they were able to do work, they were sent into the camp and if they were unable to work they were sent in line for the gas chamber. Those children who fell in the third age group were often kept alive to do work in the camps. Those who refused or were unable to work were also sent to the gas chambers or just shot in the head right on the spot.

Life for children in the camps was extremely difficult. Often children were separated from their families and were forced to live in cells, tents, and fenced in cages with 50 other Jews witch they may not know. Once again, living conditions in the camps were those of the ghettos with an added stench of dead bodies and the disease that came from them. Children were usually sent to get the daily food for their cell. They had to walk down the narrow dirt paths and look at the ground. If they looked at a guard, they could be beaten or denied of their food.

Perhaps one of the greatest hardships children had to pay was the emotional and physiological toll it took on them. Even before their arrival at the camps, they were forced to witness their parents being arrested beaten and taken from their homes. Many of the children did not understand what was happening or why it was happening. Then once they did arrive at the camps, they were separated and place with people they did not know. Many of them became orphans within hours of their arrival. There were also those who knew their parents

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