Why Is Auschwitz-Birkenau's Reaction To Its Liberation So Dismal

October of 1941 was when Auschwitz II was built, located just outside of Brzezinka, which later developed into a concentration and extermination camp. The camp included 300 prison barracks, 4 large “bathhouses” where prisons were gassed to death, corpse cellars where their bodies were held, and cremating ovens (Berenbaum, Auschwitz). Auschwitz III was created in May of 1942, near the village of Dwory, a slave-labor camp supplying workers for nearby factories (Berenbaum, Auschwitz). Those deemed fit to work were employed as slave labor in the production of munitions, synthetic rubber and other products considered essential to Germany’s efforts in World War II (Auschwitz, History.com). Auschwitz also became the nexus of 45 smaller slave labor sub-camps in the region (Berenbaum, Auschwitz). Rudolf Franz Höss was the commandant of the central Auschwitz camps (Berenbaum,

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.

In the article “Auschwitz-Birkenau” suffering was built into Auschwitz by overcrowding their prisoners, starving them, and using forced labor.  Firstly, the Nazis caused great suffering by overcrowding their prisoners in the barracks of Auschwitz Birkenau.  The Nazis squeezed from 7-9 prisoners on each plank (which is where they slept), and about 500 in each barrack. This caused the prisoners to feel uncomfortable, and lose hope in surviving, which is exactly what the Nazis wanted. In the article it states, “Each barrack held about thirty-six wooden bunk beds, and inmates were squeezed five or six across on the wooden plank. As many as 500 inmates lodged in a single barrack”(17). The Nazis built suffering into Auschwitz by cramming five hundred

Inmates resembled skeletons and were so weak they were unable to move. The smell of burning bodies was ever present and piles of corpses were scattered around the camp. However, you could be “saved” from the crematoria to be used as test subjects to cruel experimentation and used as lab rats for any experiment the scientists wanted to conduct. Later in the war, extermination camps were built. These were specialized for the mass murder of Jews using Zyklon B to ensure a painful, long, and torturous death. The bodies would then be thrown into the fire and all clothes, teeth, and shoes would be sent to pursue the German war front. At max efficiency, 20,000 people would be killed in the gas chambers a day. As the red Army approached near to liberate the Jews in concentration and extermination camps, SS officers sent prisoners on a death march across hundreds of miles, where they ran with no food or water, no matter the weather, until they reached the closest camp. SS officers proceeded to blow up the camps to hide the genocide from the

Have you ever wondered what it was like for the jews living in the camps? The daily life in the camps is a realistic clarification of how jews were treated and taken cared of in the concentration camps. People were taken out of their homes by the Nazis and were forced into concentration camps. The Nazis were a party of people that believed that their German race was better than any other race that is why jews and many others were forced out of their homes into the camps. The largest number of prisoners were jews but other individuals were arrested and locked up for many purposes such as, for nationality and for political joining. Prisoners were subjugated to unbelievable torture from the very moment they reported to the camps

Ultimately, Auschwitz was the most horrid of all the Nazi concentration camps used to imprison minorities during World War II. The conditions in which prisoners were kept in were inhumane and the majority of people were aware of this, but with the tyrannical rule the Nazi political party held, many people did not want to oppose otherwise. This is a subject matter that should not be forgotten and be used instead as a lesson for future

“The second type of accommodation for prisoners at Birkenau consisted of wooden stable-barracks. The interiors, designed to hold 52 horses, were partitioned into stalls. The stalls contained three-tier wooden bunks. Several hundred prisoners lived in each such barrack.”

Once they arrived in camp, they were immediately put in a huge empty room and put into the dehumanization process while they are hungry and desperate for anything to eat or drink. The SS watches as the Jews suffer in the cold--like animals who are lost and confused. Everything that they have from head to toes are taken away and even their hair are shaved off from their heads (25). The Jews were the victims but eventually they became part of the structure and becomes estranged from themselves. Levi states, “To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but [the] Germans have succeeded” (150).

Other than prisoners being executed, what really happened in Auschwitz? Auschwitz was one of the most famous concentration camps in WWII. Upon arrival the Jews and many others were loaded on to “the ramp” and the selection process began. The ones who looked healthy enough were put in a line to the right. Those who appeared unworthy were put in a line to the left and marched to immediate death. Women and children were stripped of clothing, hair and tattooed. All Jews lost their names and were called by the serial number tattooed on them upon arrival. It is said that some women were put into prostitution. By the end of WWII, Auschwitz became known as the symbol of death, due to about 1.1 million people dying from hard labor, experimentation,

Life at Auschwitz squeezed every drop of life a human could tolerate, and then ten times more than that. The Auschwitz concentration camp yielded intolerable living conditions that had disease and infection plastered through it. Every day was a fight to survive. All desire for hope was lost and all yearned for food and water. Many concentration camps deprived and devitalized the lives of millions. Auschwitz, being one of the most formidable concentration camps, had the utmost insufferable living conditions and treatment.

get water they got poison gas. Everyone in the chamber died, the Nazi’s then cleared the chamber and either threw the bodies into a pit that the people who died dug or the burned them. Sometimes the Nazi’s wouldn’t even take the people to camps they would have mass executions with machine guns where the people being shot would go out and the Nazis would make them dig a pit, then take all their clothes off and line up in groups of 50 or 100 on the edge of the pit. The Nazi’s would load their guns and open fire, all would fall into the pit whether they were dead or not, then the next group would line up and the process was repeated until the pit was full. There was a concentration camp, the Buchenwald concentration camp. At this camp, there was some really horrible things that happened. This camp was opened in July of 1937 to male prisoners only. In late 1943 women became a part of this camp. The prisoners were kept in the northern part of the camp while the barracks and administrative complex was in the southern part of the camp. It was heavily guarded by a string of centuries and watch towers, as well as electrified barbed wire. The SS oversaw this camp. Often, they shot prisoners in the stables or hanged them in the crematorium areas. A lot of the early prisoners were political prisoners, however, in 1938 the

Auschwitz was no doubt one of the deadliest killing camps ever founded. There were three bases in Auschwitz, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II, and Auschwitz III. Auschwitz I was where frightening medical experiments took place.Auschwitz II had the largest prisoner population out of the three camps. Auschwitz III was where labourers were kept that were forced to work for the German chemical company. About 10,000 labourers were killed here and those who were thought to be not good at their work, were killed with an injection to the heart. At least 960,000 of the 1.1-1.3 million Jews deported to the camp were killed at Auschwitz. We are all glad that this tragic event that has caused millions pain, is now over.

However, they were not prepared to fight back and eventually surrendered. Those who surrendered were sent to concentration camps. Around a third of the prisoners did not even survive the transport to the camps. Diseases ran rampant through the camps, and many people died from typhus and smallpox. These camps had similar conditions to what would later be known as Nazi concentration camps. An eyewitness described the people in the camps, “They were in an enclosure on the beach, fenced in with barbed wire, women were made to do hard labor, just like the men, the sand was thick and deep and they were expected to load carts and trolleys” (Fraser). Many men were killed, and women were often raped, or forced into being

As Pavel, a Jewish prisoner who is now working in the commandants house explained me, the barracks have as many as a thousand prisoners inside, which is insane given the limited capacity. This issue along with starvation, because of the need of food and the development of contagious diseases, due to the absence of cleanliness are the main causes of death among prisoners. In the same way, violence and brutality from the Nazis towards the prisoners are also involved in this matter. In particular daily murders, deadly experiments with prisoners and also gas chambers where massive killings are being held.

The prisoners were taken to selection where the SS (Schutzstaffel) officers and physicians would separate the families into two lines; the left was for those that were unable to do hard labor, as well as young children, many women, and men that were older. They were the group that was immediately sent to the gas chambers, or the “showers”, which is what the officers guilefully told the prisoners so they would not rebel. The guards had the Jews take off the clothes that were worn to the camp and pile into a room with each other, telling the group that the clothes and any jewelry would be given back after showering. The SS officers would shut the gas chamber door and release the Zyklon-B pellets from the ceiling, which would become poisonous as soon as they touched the air. Within 20