Auschwitz And Other Concentration Camps example essay topic

Imagine leaving your family, your house, your possessions, and your life behind. You do not know where you " re going, or how long it will take to get there. You are cramped into a small space with around a hundred other people; some dead, some dying, some hoping for death to come. It's hard to stay positive in a situation like this. You are on your way to the most famous - and most deadly - Nazi concentration camp. Its name is Auschwitz, and you are a Jew in Nazi Germany during World War II.

Your future is beginning to look bleak. The thought of ever leaving this place is the only hope that you and those around you really have, and the chance of that is slim. As you finally arrive at your destination after two full days of travelling without food or water, you and the other people in the car are herded into two lines. One line consists of women and children, while the other is for the men. Women and men cry and take their last embraces, never knowing when they will see one another again. Mothers clutch their children close to them, whispering to them to behave, and trying to no avail to shield them from this place.

Everyone is thirsty, hungry and tired, but most of all, afraid. A deep seeded fear begins to plant itself inside of everyone present at the sight of tall smokestacks billowing a putrid, indescribable smoke that seems to hang over everything around you. Upon walking a short distance, you are confronted by a large iron gate, with the words "Arbeit mach t frei" or "Work makes you free" on it. Little does anyone know, what awaits them here will do anything but that.

Auschwitz, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, is the best known of all Nazi death camps, though Auschwitz was just one of six extermination camps. It was also a labor camp, extracting prisoners' value from them in the form of hard labor. This camp was the end of the line for millions of Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's witnesses, homosexuals, and other innocents. Since I was young, World War II, and the stories surrounding it have fascinated me.

I have read innumerable books on the subject, including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Although, throughout all my research and broad understanding I have gained from this reading, I am still interested to know more about Auschwitz and the people that were imprisoned there. For example, what was daily life like for the prisoners? How did people feel inside the camp, and how did they cope with the stress of imprisonment?

What is the history of Auschwitz itself? What was life like for those who survived? What kinds of people were inside the camp? and, What exactly is "Zyklon B" and why was it used? What was daily life like for the prisoners?

Each morning, before dawn, prisoners were rounded into what was called "roll call". Forming into groups and ordered by the SS guard, the prisoners were accounted for and checked off an attendance list. This procedure often took several hours in which the prisoners were forced to stand in the freezing cold, and the sweltering heat. After roll call was finally over, most prisoners were sent to work, an excursion that often took miles of marching to reach. For the rest of the day, until dusk, they were forced to labor on such projects as hole digging, rock breaking, and garden tending. Guards often took the opportunity during the workday to pick on the weaker workers, often using their guard dogs as a weapon (Delbo, 51).

When the workday was finally over, another roll call was made and then began the march back to the barracks of the camp. Dinner, which usually consisted of mealy bread and watery soup followed. After dinner, the prisoners were forced to endure yet another roll call, and then sent to the barracks for the night. The barracks consisted of bunk-like wooden shelves, and usually had a "k apo" or a prisoner in charge of one group of barracks. They were held responsible to account for the prisoners in their group during the roll calls. People inside Auschwitz went through any emotion possible.

Fear, anger, hopelessness, pain, frustration, yearning, and mourning were just a few of the things that plagued prisoners on a daily basis. Hope was what helped them cope. By sticking together and forming tight bonds with those around them, the prisoners of Auschwitz managed to keep hope alive among themselves and keep the thought of one day returning to their old lives in their minds. Left alone at the bottom of the ditch, I am filled with despair. The others' presence, the things they said, made it possible to believe we might return. Now that they have left I am desperate.

I cannot believe I will ever return when I am alone. With them near me, since they seem so certain of it, I believe it could happen. No sooner do they leave me than I am frightened. No one believes she will return when she is alone (Delbo, 103). Coping with the stress of the conditions inside the camp was not the only worry of the prisoners, as I quickly learned. The camp doctor, who judged who was "fit" and who was ready to be exterminated performed weekly checks.

Hitting, clubbing, dog attacks, and kicking were all part of daily life for prisoners as well, which added to their stresses increasingly. By 1943, resistance organizations had formed within the camp. These organizations helped a few prisoners escape. In October 1944, these resistance organizations culminated what was later called the "Birkenau Sonderkommando Uprising". This event greatly helped moral amongst the prisoners, who were liberated just weeks later. The history of the camp began on April 27, 1940 when Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and Gestapo, ordered the construction of a camp in northeast Silesia, a region captured by the Nazis in 1939.

Three hundred Jewish prisoners from the local town of Oswiecim and its surrounding area built the camp. Auschwitz became the largest concentration and extermination camp of the Third Reich, and was located 37 miles west of Krakow, Poland. In June of 1940 the camp opened for Polish political prisoners. By 1941, there were about 11,000 prisoners, most of whom were Polish. From May 1940 to the end of 1943, Rudolf H"oss was head commander of Auschwitz.

Under his leadership, Auschwitz quickly became known as the harshest prison camp in the Nazi regime. Following its first year of existence, Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz and told H"oss that its labor resource was to be expanded to 100,000 prisoners, making it one of the largest of the concentration camps. In order to accommodate this many people, a second, much larger section of Auschwitz (Auschwitz II) would have to be constructed. Auschwitz II was built two miles west of Auschwitz I and would later be called Birkenau (Horowitz, 76).

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army marched into Auschwitz to find about 7600 survivors there. More than 58,000 prisoners had already been evacuated by the Nazis and sent on a final death march into Germany (Sanford, 3). After liberation, prisoners usually attempted to find any surviving family members, which often proved difficult and disappointing. Having left everything behind, many prisoners had lost their homes in bombings, and had no place to live.

In addition to their homelessness, prisoners were so malnourished inside the camp that once they got the opportunity to eat again, often their stomachs were not able to digest the food, causing severe gastrointestinal problems with ex-prisoners. Many people who survived the camp itself died in the aftermath of the shock of returning to the normal world, unable to cope with the disease and malnourishment they had survived in the camp. Most ex-prisoners are bitter about their experiences (with good reason), and want to tell as many people as possible about that period of their life in an attempt to educate those who are too young to have seen Auschwitz. Other survivors refuse to speak of their experiences, for fear of the pain they endured resurfacing in their new lives.

You who have wept two thousand years for one who agonized for three days and three nights what tears will you have left for those who agonized far more than three hundred night and far more than three hundred days how hard shall you weep for those who agonized through so many agonies and they were countless They did not believe in resurrection to eternal life and knew you would not weep (Delbo, 10). What kinds of people were inside the camp? Between 1933 and 1936 thousands of people, mostly political prisoners, German Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps. But it was not until after "Kristallnacht" on late November 1938, that 30,000 Jewish men were deported to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. As the War began in 1939, thousands of Poles including Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps. Hitler also ordered the killing of institutionalized, handicapped patients deemed 'incurable'.

After public protest the Nazis continued the 'euthanasia' program in secret. The euthanasia program contained all the elements later required for mass murder of Jews and Gypsies in Nazi death camps. In the months following the invasion of the Soviet Union, Jews, political leaders, Communists, and Gypsies were killed in mass executions. What exactly is "Zyklon B" and why was it used?

Zyklon B was the preferred method of mass murder used by the Nazis in Auschwitz. It was a hydrogen cyanide mixture that turned into a gaseous form that was originally used for crop extermination purposes. Zyklon B was poured through the ceilings of the gas chambers to kill about 900 people inside. First, people were undressed in a nearby room, and then escorted into the gas chambers, which were often disguised as showers. After the people inside were gassed, the bodies were taken by elevator into the crematoria to be burned. Most people were killed instantly by the poisonous gas, but others were not so lucky".

The remainder staggered about and began to scream and struggle for air. The screaming, however, soon changed to the death rattle and in a few minutes all lay still... The door was opened half an hour after the induction of the gas, and the ventilation switched on... The special detachment now set about removing the gold teeth and cutting the hair from the women. After this, the bodies were taken up by elevator and laid in front of the ovens, which had meanwhile been stoked up. Depending on the size of the bodies, up to three corpses could be put into one oven at the same time.

The time required for cremation... took twenty minutes' (Freedman, 32). Zyklon B became a favorite of the Nazis because of its potential to kill so many in so little time. It was an efficient mechanism for murder, and thus became the most famous method of concentration camp extermination. Writing this paper has really taught me a lot about Auschwitz (and World War II in general) that I did not already know.

I got some valuable information that I had never even thought of beforehand. Although this is a very sobering and even depressing subject, I have always found it very interesting. A few questions that I have though, will never be answered. Like, How? and Why? The entire Holocaust is often something that people don't want to think about, because of its depressing nature, but I believe that it is important to be educated on this subject to avoid something like this ever happening again. As Yoda says in Episode One of "Star Wars", "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to death".

I hope that the fear that the Nazis felt never returns.