Close your eyes and imagine the worst place on the planet and you come close to Auschwitz. Open your eyes and read on to find out more about what a place of complete cruelty looks like.
!!!Jewish Targeting
The facts behind Auschwitz begin with prejudice and intolerance. The discrimination against Jewish people began with the Nazis coming into power in 1933. Specific laws were passed to politically, economically, and socially silence Jewish people. One of the most painful examples are the Nuremburg Laws passed in 1935. These laws deprived Jewish people of citizenship. The Nazis used this form of targeting in order to relocate, and eventually attempt to eliminate, Jewish people.
!!!Expansion of Germany
The need to establish more 'living
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Nazi officials stationed in Poland saw this and envisioned a prison. The town in which it was located was called Oswiecim, or Auschwitz. Jewish residents of Oswiecim were forced to restore and rebuild the abandoned barracks into a prison named Auschwitz I that would house prisoners of war, the first of which started arriving in May, 1940. The population of the camp grew as more enemies of the Nazis were deported. Auschwitz was envisioned as a concentration camp. Surrounded by barbed wire fences and watchtowers, the camp had written above its black gates, 'Albreit macht free' (~'Work makes you …show more content…
Between 1.2 and 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz, of whom close to one million were Jewish. Auschwitz was the largest death camp in terms of size and number killed. Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, and Anne Frank are three of the millions of people who crossed that gate which read ~'Work will make you free.~' Like the millions of others who walked with them, they saw dreams of freedom evaporate in the plumes of smoke billowing from Auschwitz's chimneys. In 1979, Auschwitz was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site as ~'a symbol of humanity's cruelty to its fellow human beings in the 20th Century.~'
!!!Lesson Summary
Auschwitz started out as a prison for those who were seen as ~'undesirable~' or as enemies. It then became the embodiment of Nazi cruelty and barbarism. Men, women, and children perished while others watched in delight, horror, or apathy. Auschwitz is a reminder of the destruction in prejudice and intolerance. Primo Levi best summarized the value of studying about such a horrible event in human history when he wrote, ~'Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake
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.
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
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.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration camp owned by the Nazi political party to imprison minorities. Built in 1940, the concentration camp held over a million prisoners the Nazis felt to be inferior to them.Controlled by the dictator, Adolf Hitler, most of the German people fully approved his ideas of anti-semitism even if they did support him from fear. The prisoners died from multiple factors which include the constant forced labor put upon them, malnutrition, preventable diseases, and the gas chambers.
Auschwitz was one of the most infamous and largest concentration camp known during World War II. It was located in the southwestern part of Poland commanded by Rudolf Höss. Auschwitz was first opened on June 14, 1940, much later than most of the other camps. It was in Auschwitz that the lives of so many were taken by methods of the gas chamber, crematoriums, and even from starvation and disease. These methods took "several hundreds and sometimes more than a thousand" lives a day. The majority of the lives killed were those of Jews although Gypsies, Yugoslavs, Poles, and many others of different ethnic backgrounds as well. The things most known about Auschwitz are the process people went through when entering the camp and
Auschwitz 1 was the smallest part and the main base of the camp. It held the headquarters, the “death block”, the first crematorium and gas chamber. It was surrounded by electric fences and doubled barbed wire with nine watchtowers. When you first enter the camp, there was a sign that stated “Arbeit Macht Frei” which means work will give you freedom. This gave the prisoners false hope that there would be a bright future to look forward to if they worked hard enough.
One of the many things that I thought was interesting was that during the camp's existence, more people died in Auschwitz than in the British and American losses of WW2. About one in every six jews killed during the holocaust happened in Auschwitz. That comes out to a total of about 11 million people that died during the camps four and a half years of existence. The
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.
Hatred, a destructive and malicious emotion, leads human to do unexpected and abhorrent things. This emotion was once displayed on helpless people in the most cruel and merciless way. Based on a hatred so thirsty for slaughter, Auschwitz was created and established to become the largest concentration camp consisting of several subcamps and three specific camps: a prison camp, a death camp, and a slave labor camp. Auschwitz, located in Southern Poland, operated from 1940 to 1945. An overwhelming amount of hatred severely impacted several people in this one location. Auschwitz acted as a perpetrator by running the largest German Nazi concentration and death camp, by capturing large quantities of Jewish communities from their homes, and by assigning
In 1940 near a town called Oswiecim in Poland a camp was under construction, this camp would eventually become three camps. The first on which was Auschwitz one, which
“Auschwitz was actually three camps in one: a prison camp, an extermination camp, and a slave-labor camp. It was the most lethal of the Nazi extermination camps and came to represent the “final solution,” or the extermination of the Jews.Between 1.1 and 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz”(Britannica School “Auschwitz”). Not only did Jews die from getting gassed or burned, they suffered from hunger and little to no shelter. This meant they were exposed to all the sickness and cold weather. “Those at the camps were subjected to harsh conditions. There was inadequate shelter and sanitation, and the prisoners were given little food and were overworked. Those who could no longer work faced transport back to Birkenau for gassing”(Britannica School
Initially, Auschwitz was a very concise and logical idea. The beginning is a very misunderstood one, as it was supposed to be a very simple and uncomplicated holding camp for Polish political prisoners of war. The location for Auschwitz was chosen because it was on the outskirts of Poland, out of view from civilians as shown here “Nazi officials thought that an old Polish military camp on the outskirts of the town would provide a good foundation…”(Deem 7) this quote clearly explains how the nazi’s thought that the
Auschwitz was the worst, and most well known concentration camp involved within WWII. This camp held about 25% of all prisoners in the camp “community”. Auschwitz was made up of many sub camps including its most well known one, Birkenau. The concentration camps were the pinnacle of terror for anyone to be captured. How they worked, why they were built, and the impact they had are all to come.
To begin, Auschwitz was one of the major concentration camps run by the Nazi’s the Holocaust. At Auschwitz, the Nazi’s were able to murder over a million Jews in gas chambers without detection for most of the Holocaust. Thus, I am going to tell the stories of those who survived Auschwitz in order to provide remembrance and to highlight what I am learning in class. This is due to the fact that many people do not realize that what happened at Auschwitz was horrific. For example, people saw their family die right in front of them, people were beaten for no apparent reason, and people were striped of their identity. Also, by telling the stories of the survivors I am allowing the reader to remember that the Holocaust affected so many people and
Opening in 1940, it was the largest and one of the best known concentration and death camps in the world. It was initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. Auschwitz was a place that no man or woman would ever want to get close to, let alone be put into because of a mistake. Auschwitz evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies