Essay on Theresienstadt: A Model Jewish Ghetto

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.

It is estimated that Nazis established around fifteen thousand concentration camps throughout occupied countries. (Concentration Camp Listing, 2010) These camps, known as “DEATH CAMPS” spread throughout all of Europe under German ruling. It has been estimated to be around 15,000,000 concentration camps that were established from small to large ones. (Concentration Camp Listing, 2010) One of the most commonly known concentration camps was the one located in Auschwitz, this particular concentration camp was were diseases and epidemics prevailed due to poor living conditions. (living conditions, labor and executions) Examples of these

Around this time the Nazis came up with the term “The Final Solution” This meant to have all Jewish people segregated and put into ghettos, limiting their freedom and lives. People were evicted from their properties and also from their business just because they were Jews, and they were put in the “ghettos”. Life in the ghettos was unbearable and overcrowding. Specially when they have ten families living in one small apartment. They were also limited on the food that they could buy, since Nazis did not let them buy enough food for them and their family they were only aloud to buy small amounts, they were trying to make the Jewish starve. Jewish kids also sneak out through small openings in the ghetto walls to smuggle food, but if they got caught they were going to be severely punished. The housing inside ghettos were unsanitary specially when plumping broke down, and human waste was thrown in the streets along with garbage and caused contagious diseases that spread rapidly in the ghettos. Many people died every day in the ghettos because of the terrible conditions they lived and some

More than 30,000 Jews were arrested to go to these ghettos. Once they had everything ready for all of the undesirables. SS guards were hired to do the dirty work of putting all of the prisoners to do forced labor until they died. No one cared how all of the undesirables were treated. It became an amusement to watch one die or get killed. Considering that's all they wanted was for all the innocent people to die. Every Day would be the same watching friends and families die, working for the Nazi getting nothing in return, digging their own graves, and only getting one cup of black coffee with soup that was just broth a day. Women even got raped by SS guards during this time considering the women were separated from the men to different camps. No one did anything to stop it because of the fear of death. In 1939 the Nazi had figured out a way to make sure there will never be a Jew again they called it the final

Have you ever been in a room so crowded you thought you might implode? Or been so sick you questioned if you were still alive? How about so hungry you felt as though you would shrivel up and simply cease to exist? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you may almost be able to imagine what life was like in the Jewish ghettos. There were ghettos before the Holocaust, the first being in Venice in the 16th century, there are ghettos today, and there will be ghettos in the future, but the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust are by far the most prominent.

In Night, Elie Wiesel descriptively shares his Holocaust experience in each part of his survival. From the ghettos to the Death March and liberation, Elie Wiesel imparts his story of sadness, suffering and struggle. Specifically Wiesel speaks about his short experience in the Sighet ghettos. Ghettos were implemented early on in the Holocaust for the purpose of segregating and concentrating the Jews before deportation to concentration camps and death camps. Depending on the region, ghettoization ranged from several days to multiple years before deportation. All Jews in ghettos across Europe would eventually face the same fate: annihilation (“Ghettos”). Wiesel’s accurate account of the Sighet ghettos illustrates the poor living conditions, the Judenrat and Jewish life in the ghetto as well as the design and purpose of the two Sighet ghettos. Wiesel’s description of the Sighet ghettos demonstrates the similar characteristics between the Sighet ghettos and other ghettos in Germany and in German-occupied territories in addition to the differences between the various ghettos.

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.

So what? It’s not lethal” (11). Despite having faced such a sudden change in the behavior of the Nazis in the area, and despite the rumors that had been heard about the violence of the Nazis in Budapest, Shlomo was already trying to regain his hope that life could be normal, even while even more Jewish rights were being taken away. Soon, two Jewish ghettos were formed. Rather than alarm the Jewish community these ghettos were received positively, the walls and barbed wire separating Jews from those among the non-Jewish civilians that hated them.

Hitler took this hatred he possessed for the Jews and his pursues of Aryan supremacy to an extensive degree. Between 1939-1945 Hitler took action, extermination, or death camps were established for the sole purpose of killing men, women, and children. Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis during World War II, The Nazis also imprisoned and killed people who opposed their regime on grounds of their ideology; Roma (Gypsies); Germans who were mentally impaired or physically disabled; homosexuals; and captured Soviet soldiers. Heinous crimes inflicted upon the prisoners within the concentration camps and during Hitler’s reign were intense beyond belief. So called camp doctors would torture and inflict incredible suffering on Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. Patients were put

The Jews transferred here were of the elderly, and some of Europe’s most prominent scholars, artists, and composers. This was to maintain the façade of being a model camp of music and art. They were also some of the German Army’s decorated veterans of World War One. From 1941 to 1944, there would be approximately 140,000 Jews transferred to Theresienstadt; none were to be protected from the Nazis’

85 years ago, over a 12 year period, nearly six million Jews were killed in a genocide called The Holocaust. The Holocaust was led by the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler was their leader. The mass murders took place at concentration camps throughout Europe. The majority of concentration camps resided in Poland and Germany. Many people believe there were only a few concentration camps. “However, researchers found that the Nazis had actually established 20,000 camps between 1933 and 1945” (“How Many Camps,” n.d.). In this paper I will be discussing the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Warsaw Ghettos was an exceptionally horrible time in the Jewish History, aside from the concentration camps. This all happened when Hitler came into power, he was furious about the Jews and hated them, to this date he has killed over 6 million Jews and countless other races. Many of the other Jews were stuffed into railroad carts and shipped to the Treblinka death camp or the Ghettos. The Warsaw Ghettos shows how they created a defence unit, an offensive unit, and how it all went down.

There used to be places that were known for torture, forced labor, and murder. People were dragged out of their own homes to be brought there. These places were called concentration camps. They were the largest Nazi killing centers and they took the lives of over a million Jews. The camps are an important part of history that we will never forget.

Hitler thought of the Jewish population as a worthless society and treated the individuals as worthless creatures. When Hitler came to power, he established the camps "for the purpose of isolation, punishing, torturing, and killing Germans suspected of opposition to his regime."10 The Germans wanted to guarantee the death of as many Jews as possible "while extracting some useful labor from the doomed."11 The camps were set up technically and psychologically to

2). Even though this was not a violent treatment of the Jews, it was an attempt to bankrupt and dehumanize them of everything they had worked for their whole lives (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). As a result, Jews became a segregated people. They had to ride on buses and trains only in the seat that were clearly marked for them (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Jewish children were allowed to be bullied at school in an attempt to keep them from coming to school. Hitler used this to brand the Jews as a lazy people (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). The Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935 gave even more power to the Nazis and took away more dignity of the Jews. The Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and marriages between Jews and non-Jews were not allowed (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). At this point, the Jews who could afford to pay a fine to leave the country were allowed to do so, but the ones who could not afford it had to stay behind and were not allowed to get food or medicine (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Hitler’s campaign against the Jews escalated in 1938 with “Krystalnacht” – The Night of the Broken Glass (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). After a Nazi diplomat was found shot to death, Hitler began a seven day war of terror against the Jews (Jews in Nazi Germany pg. 2). Shops that were owned by Jews were destroyed and robbed, homes and synagogues burned