Ravens Refinery

In the movie, Schindler’s female Jews were accidentally sent to Auschwitz instead of to Schindler directly. In real life, Jewish “deportees were forced to stand in crowded cattle cars without toilet facilities and upon arrival, were sorted into those fit for work and those— like children, the elderly, and frail— destined for the gas chambers. Camouflaged as shower rooms, the gas chambers held about twenty people each. Instead of water, the spigots released deadly Zyklon-B gas” (Berger 2). The women in the movie had to go through this horrific transition into an excruciatingly laborious and deadly place. In both—real life and the movie— “those not immediately killed had their arms tattooed with blue identification numbers and sent to work… literally until they dropped. They were clothed in stripped uniforms, fed rations of bread and watery soup, and forced to sleep in bunks crammed with other inmates” (Berger 3). Once Schindler released his Jews from Auschwitz, the women were deprived, starved, changed inside and out, and unhuman looking. One “hesitates to call them living; one hesitates to call their death death, in the face of which they have no fear, as they are too tired to understand” (Berger 3). The concentration or death camps left the imprisoned and survivors forever scarred from the experience as a

The Buchenwald concentration camp opened on July 15, 1937. Women were not apart of the Buchenwald camp system until 1943 or early 1944. Most of early inmates at Buchenwald became political prisoners.Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps established within German borders. German SS officers and police sent almost

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.

When World War II ended, concentration camps that the Nazis had used for imprisonment of many victims of the war and the Nazi regime, which had supposedly been abolished, were now converted by the Soviet powers. They were used for active Nazis and those who opposed the communism regime

Ravensbruck was specifically made for women. Ravensbruck wasn't made as just another camp for the Jewish it was used for much more. Ravensbruck opened in 1939, and housed 90,000 women when the camp was liberated. Most of the women were Polish, German, and from the Soviet Union. Therefor, there were many different prisoners.

     Concentration Camps were a big part of the Holocaust. My first topic is the concentration camp Dachau. Then I will talk about another concentration camp called Bergen-Belsen. After that, I will tell you about the concentration camp Treblinka. Finally, the last concentration I will talk about is Auschwitz-Birkenau. Describing these camps will inform you that concentration camps were a huge part of the Holocaust.

In only six years, two-thirds of an entire race, plus millions more, were shot, gassed, or starved to death. Anyone who was deemed “racially inferior or politically dangerous” was sent to one of many in the camps system. Among these groups were the physically or mentally handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, and Communists (Berenbaum par. 1-2). Millions of innocent people were sent to camps where they were killed or forced to work for the German cause until they died.

The lives of prisoners in the Holocaust was horrific due to Hitler’s rule. Between 1933-1945, there were thousands of people killed each day because of their religion and ethnic group. By the end of the Holocaust, over 6 million people had been murdered thanks to the Nazi soldiers running the concentration camps. Over the course of months, things continued to worsen and the death count increased daily. The soldiers were trained and experienced at killing which heightened the situation, considering they could kill more people than ever before. Many young children lost their chance of life because the soldiers killed everyone, no matter what age. Anyone, brought to a camp was either killed on the spot, or was worked to death by the soldiers.

Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps were the worst of The Holocaust. What happened at the camps is unimaginable and responsible for a large percentage of deaths that took place during The Holocaust. What started out as a death camp to persecute Poles, grew into the largest camp persecuting Jews. The gas chambers are what brought the large population of Jews to the camps in the first place and were the main strategy of the ‘Final Solution.’ Overall, Auschwitz-Birkenau made a huge impact in the history of The Holocaust and if it was never constructed, who knows what the history of The Holocaust would

This camp was made in the end of 1938 but one year later at the end of 1939 there was approximately 2,290 people already there. In Ravensbruck there was several different cultures of women from other places than just Germany. Women from about 40 different nations stayed at Ravensbruck! It was a hard time for everyone to get along with others have differing opinions than you, and many others spoke different languages than you. Now since after this happened there is a memorial.

Most of the “camps and certain areas within concentration camps were designated specifically for female prisoners” (www.ushmm.org). Men during the holocausts who had businesses and rights were striped of all they had and were forced to hard labor. The men were forced to work until death, starvation was one leading cause of death in labor camps were men worked. Also diseases and disabilities also affected most men and how they live during the holocaust. Jewish men that were brought back form the infirmary were shown in pictures and a skeleton and looked as if the man had not eaten in a year and S.S soldiers considered them as fit to work. German citizens that helped Jews were also taken as prisoners and sent to camps until death. Anyone who survived through that living nightmare is a brave and strong person with having to see your family perish before your eyes and never seeing them again is a very tough thing to when you stay strong and never giving up until freedom. Most Jewish people that survived either had runaway and kept their identity secret for the German not to find out or survived by betraying their families to help the Germans. The Holocaust was a horrifying event that none would feel comfortable to talk about but by this topic we learn what happened to the life of Jewish men, women, and children and what their life was during the holocaust.

Auschwitz opened up in 1940, it was the largest of all the Nazi concentration camps. The prisoners that were placed in these death camps were “Anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and science department”. Auschwitz was located in a southern Poland town (Oå>wiäcim). Death camps existed for the “sole purpose of killing Jews and other “undesirables”. The prisoners from the camp would die from the gas chambers, overworking, disease, insufficient nutrition. They also experienced executions, painful torture and inhuman medical experiments.

“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

To illustrate this, “Menstruation ̶ which often ceased within months of admission to the camps, particularly if food and living conditions were especially impoverished” (Chalmers 190). In concentration camps, everyone was malnourished, but eventually came to the extent that women had completely lost their ability to menstruate after only a few months of being there. This extent of inhumane treatment to women is immoral. Women weren’t even provided with proper care and killed for menstruating. Furthermore, “Women were not provided with sanitary products. Elisabeth De Jung recalls the intense humiliation women felt in having the blood streak uncontrollably down their legs. Often the presence of bloodstains on the tunic had worse consequences. Stains were against the aesthetics of the camps and women who were found to have bloodstains on their tunics were gassed” (Gender Differences: The Holocaust). Women couldn’t help their menstruation cycles and they didn't have the proper care in order to control the bleeding. Women had to let the blood go down their legs and stain their clothing and end up being gassed if an SS officer saw the stains. Therefore, women tended to be treated more barbaric than the men were

Auschwitz, the Nazi german concentration and extermination camp, is the most recognizable symbol of the holocaust and place of genocide in the world.