Jewish Concentration Camp Essay

The relentless verbal abuse aimed at the Jews served to dehumanize and degrade them, reinforcing their sense of worthlessness and despair. The Jews were subjected to abysmal living conditions within the concentration camps, deepening their suffering. Despite receiving meager rations, such as a single bowl of soup, hunger remained a constant companion. Elie reflects, “At about noon, we were brought some soup, one bowl of thick soup for each of us. I was still terribly hungry”

The book, Survival in Auschwitz, depicts the story of an Italian Jew in a a concentration camp with unfathomable conditions. The prisoners here are treated as animals and pieces, their primary task to serve the German officers. The SS officers, and all the other men in a position of authority at this camp, try their very hardest to break the souls of the captives and reduce them the number tattooed on their arm. While the Nazis try to destroy the men in many ways throughout the course of this novel, the two things that demonstrate their dehumanization most strongly, are? the process the prisoners undergo upon arrival at the camp, and the way the selections of who will live or die are carried out.

This passage analyzes just how shameful it was for the jews to enter the camp, they were immediately exposed in front of everybody they knew and strangers far and wide. They had been stripped of their dignity and dehumanized in the process of their long journey. Wiesel recalls in his book Night, “The three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name” (Wiesel, 42). The text aboves emphasizes how the jews at the camp had been seen as prisoners and nothing more, and in most instances they were treated like animals. Given a branded number, herded hundreds of miles across Europe, and fed very little. The people of jewish culture had been stripped of their remaining recognition, their names. As the book continues on, treatment of the prisoners gets worse and worse, to the point where they are barely fed and given water. Wiesel continues on in his book Night, “Hunger was tormenting us; we had not eaten for nearly six days except for a few stalks of grass and some potato peels found on the grounds of the kitchen” (Wiesel, 115). By taking away food and water from the prisoners of the camp, the jews became skinnier and skinnier, everyday they became more unhealthy as they

To achieve his goal of stripping the Jews of their humanity, Hitler indirectly abuses them by allowing soldiers and other Jews to beat them. One situation, in particular, involves the Jews constantly getting beaten because they are not moving fast enough. Wiesel writes, "The Kapos beat us once more, but I had ceased to feel any pains from their blows" (27). Since they no longer feel pain, they are portrayed as foreign. This allows Hitler to alienate them and shove them aside. As time passes, the Jews in the concentration camps are deprived of food, and they become desperate for anything to eat. During a bombing, one man risks his life by crawling to a pot of soup left out even though the man knows he will die. "Poor hero, committing suicide for a

Of all of the death camps built by the Nazis during World War II, none was larger or more destructive than the terrifying Auschwitz camp. Auschwitz was built by the Nazis in 1940, in Oswiecim, Poland, and was composed of three main parts. Auschwitz I was built in June 1940 and was intended to hold and kill Polish political prisoners. Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which opened October 1941, was larger and could contain over 100,000 inmates. Auschwitz III-Monowitz provided slave labor for a plant close by. In addition, there were many sub-camps. The most important camp at Auschwitz designed for the extermination of many people was Birkenau; numerous gas chambers and crematoria were established there, mainly to murder and incinerate Jews as

The concentration camp, Gross-Rosen had been finished in summer 1940. In May 1, 1941, the camp, Gross-Rosen was assigned as an independent concentration camp. It worked until February, the evacuation. The camp name Gross-Rosen was named by a village close to it, It is 40 miles southwest from Wroclaw Poland. Gross-Rosen was directed by Arthur Roedl, Wilhelm Gideon, and Johannes Hassebroek.

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.

In 1940 Auschwitz was established in the suburbs of Oswiecim. Oswiecim is a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Auschwitz was established because there were too many Polish people in the local prisons. In 1942 Auschwitz became a death camp and it was the largest known. (http://auschwitz.org/, n.d.) The camp was expanded throughout its existence, this resulted in Auschwitz consisting of three camps. The three camps were Main Camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Main Camp was known as Auschwitz I, Birkenau was known as Auschwitz II, and Monowitz was known as Auschwitz III. (Preisler, n.d.) Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. “Historians and analysts estimate the number of people murdered at Auschwitz somewhere between 2.1 million

It’s WWII, and you’re confined in a tiny room; with your family and possibly another family of complete strangers. This is torture, and it is the opposite of the life and home you had to leave behind. You aren’t in a German concentration camp; you are a Japanese-American citizen living in one of many Internment Camps across the states. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the West Coast (which was very populated with Japanese-Americans) became worried about Japanese spies. Similar to concentration camps, relocation camps included anyone of a certain ancestry. The conditions were dreadful, and luckily it ended in 1946. Japanese-American citizens were being punished for their race; by being sent to relocation camps.

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.

One of the many important and most memorable incidents of World War Two would be the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, the Germans who were known as the Nazis, considered the Jews to be “enemy aliens”. As part of this, the Nazis thought that “Aryans” were a master race. Therefore, they decided to destroy the Jewish race, and created genocide. The Jews were put into unbearable torture at many concentration and death camps. In fact, 6 million Jews were killed in this incident; however, there were many victims who survived this anguish. One of the many survivors was Simon Wiesenthal, who survived the Nazi death camps and began his career as a Nazi hunter.

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.

(109) The Jews by lose their faith in their god when the Germans hung a little boy, and he was dangling there struggling to die, and a Jew next to Elie said “where is god when this boy is suffering?” Elie said back to the man “God is here, he is hanging from the ropes” ( 90) As a result Elie loses faith in hs god. Inhumanity and cruelty were shown when the Jews were stripped of their identity, hair, jewelry, and shoes. The Germans stripped the Jews of everything because they did not want to have individuality among the Jews in the camps. The Germans gave the Jews numbers that were tattooed on the arms so they could be kept up with. It is almost like in prison how they have numbers so they do not get mixed up or lost track of. Once they had numbers the Jews were told to go to the barracks and they were given striped blue and white uniforms. This was also savage because it was the middle of winter. The Jews wore very little clothing causing some Jews to die from the cold and

There are many times one can see the Nazi’s brutalizing the Jews throughout the novel. From the moment the Nazi’s took the Jews as prisoners they were being mistreated. They were loaded into cattle cars, a vehicle made to transport animals, to the point where they were so full people could hardly breathe. They were sent to concentration camps where they were tortured and treated as slaves. As they entered the camps they were humiliated, SS officers yelled at them to “‘Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on only to your belt and your shoes”(Wiesel 35). They were sent to cold showers and bathed in a sulfur-scented soap to be identifiable by their scent. They received only one small ration of food a day, these people were starved. Not only were they cared for like a group of worthless animals but some were never even given a chance.

Who survived the holocaust? What are their lives like today? What has been the government's response towards those who survived after World War II? Have the survivors kept their faith? How has the survivors next generation been affected? The survivors of the holocaust were deeply effected by the trauma they encountered. This unforgettable experience influenced their lives, those around them, and even their descendants.