Nazi Concentration Camps Essay

During the holocaust prisoners of concentration camps were faced with evil, torture and death every day. Some of the prisoners in these camps were selected for Nazi medical experiments. Nazi doctors performed several different human experiments on prisoners throughout the Holocaust. A specifically horrific experiment was the twin experiments. This experiment was performed by Dr. Joseph Mengele and several of his assistants in Auschwitz. He is known for performing some of the most inhumane experiments during the holocaust.

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

The Holocaust was a terrible event that will never be forgotten. One of the worst events that happened was the experiments done on Jews. The experiments done on Jews during the Holocaust, such as freezing experiments, genetic experiments, and experiments on organs, were inhumane and unjustifiable.

During the Holocaust, the living conditions for the Jewish population were horrifying and unthought of. The lack of sanitary facilities meant they had to remove dirt and pests from clothing by waiting in a line that took up most of the day. The barracks that the prisoners slept in was in terrible conditions and the rooms were damp with leaky roofs (“Auschwitz…”). The health and how the jewish lived was no concern of the Nazi soldiers.

History is like a huge puzzle. People can keep find missing pieces to the story as they learn more about it. The Holocaust was one of those moments in history that has lead our minds to curiosity about why such a thing would occur at some point in time. For example, concentration camps. Concentration camps are one of those moments in history that make people’s jaws drop because of how flabbergasted they are to even hear of such a thing. Once you hear about one fact about the Holocaust and concentration camps you want to know every little detail about it to try and analyze what was happening and how it happened. Concentration camps in the Holocaust were a turning point in history because it lead to the deaths of millions of people.

One of the most famous concentration camps, Auschwitz, had some of the poorest living conditions. In Auschwitz, the prisoners lived crammed tightly in small, brick barracks. Since the prisoners simply couldn’t all fit inside these barracks, they were also forced into basements and lofts, along with hundreds of others. The tight living quarters were a main factor in the spreading of diseases and epidemics. In another concentration camp named “Birkenau”, the barracks had two styles which included both brick and wood. The brick barracks were hastily built, and were very dangerous and unsafe. Even though these brick barracks weren’t fit to hold people inside them, more than 700 prisoners were assigned to each barrack. The barracks did not have any way to heat or cool the rooms, and also lacked any sanitary facilities. The second style of barrack at the Birkenau concentration camp was another wooden barrack, except these were made to fit approximately fifty-two horses, not hundreds of prisoners. These barracks had many rodents and vermin, and had no way to prevent the damp roofs from leaking on the prisoners. Also, the foul smell and prisoner’s diarrhea made the already difficult living conditions much

They housed eight Gas Chambers and Forty-Six ovens that could dispose of some 4,400 corpses a day. Trains would arrive at the camp and those most fit- approximately ten to thirty percent of the arrivals- would be selected for a work detail. The remaining prisoners were sent to the gas chambers. Precise counts of how many people were actually murdered in death camps can never be made because those marched off directly from the trains usually were not registered. However, at least 1.1 million people were gassed to death at Auschwitz-ninety percent of them

The date was September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany had just invaded Poland, and World War II had officially begun. Now, most people know at least generally about the holocaust: a mass slaughter of other races, mainly Jewish people, by the Nazis during World War II. Most people have heard of concentration camps, and know that many Jews were killed in gas chambers, killed by forced labor, or starved to death. These are typical deaths that people hear about in concentration camps, however most people have no idea about the experiments that were conducted during the holocaust. These cruel experiments were performed on concentration camp prisoners during World War II, and have since been lost in history. Well it is time for these inhumane acts to be

“He cut into me, without anesthetic,...The pain was indescribable. I felt every slice of the knife. Then I saw my kidney pulsating in his hand. I cried like a madman, I cried out the prayer; “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one...And I prayed to die, that I might not suffer this agony any more.” (Hall). This was said by a ‘patient’ of Dr. Josef Mengele, Mr. Yitzhak Ganon. Mr. Ganon was of the survivors of the inhumane experiments that took place in Auschwitz by the hand of the abominable man that is Josef Mengele. Josef Mengele was one of the most infamous men associated with the Holocaust, his cruel experiments on twins, jews, gypsies, and the other being held at Auschwitz made him widely known for his cruelty, warranting him the title of “The Angel of Death".

Years after the liberation of the German Concentration Camps, one can still be overwhelmed with so many questions - mostly “Why?”. Why would a nation of people feel the need to cause incomprehensible pain to an entire culture of people? Why would a nation support the need to conduct the most horrendous medical experiments on a group of their own citizens? Why would so many blindly follow and adhere to orders to inflict suffering on men, women, and children whose only fault was being born Jewish, disabled, or otherwise deemed expendable? These questions cause newer generations to examine the “whys” so that, as a global community, we never repeat such atrocities again.

According to thegaurdian, “Over one million Jews were deported to the camp, of this at least 960,000 were killed. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and at least 10,000 from other nationalities. More people died at Auschwitz than any other death camp in history. The Soviet troops who discovered Auschwitz came across grisly evidence of the horror. They discovered about 7.000 starving prisoners, millions of items of clothing that once belonged to men, women and children, along with 6,350 kg (13999.35 lbs) of human hair. Also discovered were one hundred thousand pairs of shoes, twelve thousand kitchen utensils, three thousand eight hundred suitcases and three hundred fifty striped camp garments. Also discovered were one hundred thousand pairs of shoes, twelve thousand kitchen utensils, three thousand eight hundred suitcases and three hundred fifty striped camp garments. Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) had the largest prisoner population and had the first chamber using lethal Zyklon B gas. In the Auschwitz camps more than Jews died, other nationalities fell victim as well.They performed medical experimentation on Jewish and Roma prisoners, including castration, sterilization and testing how they were affected by contagious diseases,” (“Auschwitz: a short history of the largest mass murder site in human history”). In most concentration camps,

In modern human society, it is difficult to distinguish between winners and losers. As opposed to the animal kingdom where there is a clear line between the strong who survive and the weak who die, for humans, there is no need for such a bestial and primal social order. In modern times, humanity has simply become advanced to the point where all is afforded the luxury of living. However, in conditions of extreme oppression and inhumanity, our human nature will be stripped of civility and civilization, producing in it’s place a primal Darwinian community where the majority die and a select few survive by changing their circumstances with luck, skill or coercion, essentially out competing their peers.

The camps were put everywhere to make sure that Jews all over Germany were working. Hitler then authorized Schutzstaffel a chief leader to unify the administration of the concentration camps and reinforce them into a system. This made is hard for any Jew to escape or hide. After December 1934, the Schutzstaffel became the only agency official to establish in office and manage facilities that were officially called concentration camps. Special Death's-Head Units” in April 1936. Hitler formed a special unit from the SS called Totenkopfverbande which was the Death's Head Units. One SS Death's-Head Unit was assigned to each concentration camp. In 1936, the camp administration, including the commandant, was also a part of the SS Death's-Head Unit.

The most infamous experiments at Auschwitz were conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele who wanted to prove the superiority of the Aryan race. Jews were deported and placed into concentration camps where families were torn apart and were placed through medical screenings before entering. Accepted prisoners became workers and “lab rats” to the German doctors at the concentration camps meanwhile defective prisoners were sent to the gas chambers or shooting squad. Without consent, these prisoners underwent the medical experiments that would scar the history of the world. The Germans rationalized their actions by stating that they were to create and preserve the pure Aryan race. This began the idea of mass sterilization of Germans and Jews. It was proposed

Anti-Semitism reached to extreme levels beginning in 1939, when Polish Jews were regularly rounded up and shot by members of the SS. Though some of these SS men saw the arbitrary killing of Jews as a sport, many had to be lubricated with large quantities of alcohol before committing these atrocious acts. Mental trauma was not uncommon amongst those men who were ordered to murder Jews. The establishment of extermination camps therefore became the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”, as well as a way to alleviate the mental trauma that grappled the minds of Nazi soldiers. The following essay will examine various primary and secondary sources to better illuminate the creation, evolution, practices and