History Of Nazi Concentration Camps example essay topic

In the Camps Hist 4957 Dr. Fritz MWF 10: 20-11: 1511/29/99 Concentration camp is a term that stirs up many emotions. How did they come about? What were they exactly? And just what went on inside those walls? Many have tried to give a full description of what life in the camps was like. With toady's fast moving and knowledgeable media the public has become very informed on the subject at hand.

The fact still remains that few were there, so few can know what really happened. These three poignant questions posed above could each take eternity to fully understand. This is a short explanation of the atrocities that the Nazi's handed out to the innocent victims of the Holocaust. How exactly did concentration and extermination camps come about, legally speaking? On first glance it seems that in toady's modern and civil world that nothing of this nature could ever happen. In fact it happened due to article 48, paragraph 2 in the German Constitution.

Here the president is given far reaching emergency powers. This article was used by Paul von Hindenburg in 1933 giving protective custody to protect the state's security. From there in momentum gained. On April 12, 1934 an edict from the Ministry of the Interior was introduced governing protective custody grounds for establishment of camps.

This edict also decreed that those sent to concentration camps were under the rule of the Gestapo and their release was indicative to the discretion of this secret service. Power is a strange phenomena. Once the Gestapo had legal rights to cruelty the act of playing God became easier to abuse. Terrence Des Pres explains this best by stating: "As power grows, it grows more and more hostile to everything outside itself. Its logic is inherently negative, which is why it ends by destroying itself... The exercise of totalitarian power, in any case, does not stop with the demand of outward compliance.

It seeks, further, to crush the spirit, to obliterate that active inward principle whose strength depends on its freedom from entire determination by external forces. And thus the compulsion, felt by men with great power, to seek out and destroy all resistance, all spiritual autonomy, all sign of dignity in those held captive... The death of the soul was aimed at". This verifies the purpose of these camps as given by Bruno Bettleheim. He states that the "purpose was to terrorize and through the anxiety this created, permit the state to control all that its subjects did and thought".

Given the above the next question must be addressed. What were concentration and extermination camps? At first concentration camps were internment centers for political and minority groups. They housed non-Aryans who had been caught having sex with "Germans", homosexuals, those deemed defected or disobedient, political opponents of the Nazi party, and Jehovah's Witnesses. There were also French and Russian POW's and Gypsies contained in Ravensbruk. Extermination camps were set up for one reason only, killing all Jews within reach in the most efficient way possible.

In 1937, at the beginning of the Holocaust, those killed were mostly Jews who had been with Gentile women outside of marriage. Even at this point they were not all extinguished, some were simply sterilized. By 1940 those deemed incurably sick or insane were exterminated along with those who were considered to carry undesirable genes. Obviously this soon changed. Descriptions of the camps do not necessarily give full understanding of what the prisoners actually went through. Henry Orenstein gives his account of first seeing the prisoners in Budzyn.

"I had never seen human beings look like that. Many of them were emaciated. They didn't walk: they shuffled. They had a look of degradation, stupor, and despair".

He goes on describing the prisoners as smelling of feces, sores, and sweat. He says that many had a "feverish look in their eyes" they seemed to see through you, without seeing you. Much of this "look" of an inmate was due to lack of food. Hunger was a major factor in all accounts given by survivors. Food was so scarce that to fight over a single potato peel was not uncommon. One account tells, "We were constantly 24 hours a day always hungry.

We would think about food and dream about it". Rations were very slim. On a good day in Auschwitz prisoners were given two slices of bread in the morning with a little pat of butter or marmalade along with coffee, (which was actually a horrible make of toasted and ground acorns). In the afternoon potato soup was handed out and if one was lucky it would contain a small bit of meat.

Dinner consisted of one slice of bread and coffee, no butter or anything else. In some accounts the bread was said to be mixed with sawdust. Four times a week the prisoners were to receive a soup ration of twenty grams of meat, but in practice the soup itself rarely reached the bowls from which it was to be eaten, The intake of calories was set by the Nazi's to be 1,700 per day for light workers and 2,150 for those enduring hard labor. In actuality all that was received was 1,300 for light laborers and 1,700 for hard. This was not the worst case scenario.

At Ravensbruk the nutritional value was somewhere around 500 calories per day. Due to this lack of nutrition disease was a constant threat. Night blindness struck many vitamin starved inmates in the Northern camps. In 1939 a typhus epidemic struck Sachsenhausen.

The SS refused any medical care and since the people had no immunity left due to lack of nutrition hundreds died in the following weeks. Typhus was not the most immanent cause of death. Dysentery, caused by improper diet and poor sanitation, claimed the lives of thousands. The guards used this problem of diarrhea to further dehumanize prisoners.

Many were refused the right to the latrine and so during the night bowls used for eating were used for relief. One favorite pastime of a particular Kapo was to stop prisoners before they entered the latrine for questioning. He would then make them do deep knee bends until they could no longer control their bowels causing the prisoner to defile himself. The Kapo would then beat him and then let him go only after he was covered with his own excrement.

By not being able to use the facilities it is theorized that regression to infantile actions occurred. Bruno Bettleheim says that "in extreme situations men are reduced to children... camp regulations were designed to transform excretory functions into moments of crisis". Not being able to relieve oneself at will as fit to societal norms causes an enforced breakdown of social barriers. This was capable of bringing prisoners near to the point of mental disintegration. Cleaning up the mass refuse was a task given to the prisoners. Each was given a small pail and ordered to remove the excrement until the latrines were empty. .".. an average of ten fell into the pit [latrine] in the course of each nights work.

The others were not allowed to pull the victims out. When work was done only then could they remove the corpses". Death was a constant threat to all who entered a camp of any kind. To be surrounded by constant fear and dehumanization caused one survivor to say "It seems almost a Luxury to die, to go to sleep and never wake up again". There were many causes of death ranging from prolonged terror and shock to the simple lack of desire to live. However moral disgust was deemed to be the greatest cause of early death in the camps.

Other ways that prisoners were killed by Nazi power were executions and gassing. In Sachenhausen there was a hole behind the height gauge used to measure inmates. As loud music played to muffle the sound of the oncoming gunfire each prisoner was shot in the neck. SS men were actually trained of rifle ranges using inmates as targets. Another favored killing method by the SS during the winter months was to strip a group naked and then spray them with water and make them stand outside in -10 degree centigrade temperatures until they froze to death. Dogs were also used to tear humans alive at the order of Camp Commander Bach meyer in Mauthausen.

Mothers were especially at risk for early execution. Being a mother with a child, pregnant, or just by holding the hand of a child meant instant death. Many women who helped give birth in the barracks passed the infants off as stillborn to save the mothers life. One survivor remembers, "And so, the Germans succeeded in making murderers of even us.

To this day the picture of those murdered babies haunts me... The only meager consolation is that by these murders we saved the mothers... for they would have been thrown into the crematory ovens while still alive". This fact was certain at Auschwitz were the notorious Dr. Mengele set up practice. Apart from his experimentation's he also took care of the childbirth's he oversaw. He took all the necessary precautions and then thirty minutes later he sent both mother and child to the crematorium. Women so feared this end that all means were used to conceal pregnancy.

Perhaps the most gut-wrenching account found pertained to the witnessing of a premature birth at roll call. "As we were standing for role call, one of the women gave birth to a premature baby. None of us knew she was pregnant... Anyway, the tiny baby just slipped out as we were standing there and right then and there she made a hole with her feet in the sandy soil and buried that tiny infant". Murder was not the only atrocious act conducted by the Germans. In many instances experiments were done on prisoners.

One survivor recounts agreeing to be experimented on in turn for her life. She was a prisoner in Auschwitz and thus succumbed to the wiles of Dr. Mengele. She tells, "Later we looked in Block 10 and saw all these women with all sorts of burns, wounds, and holes on their bodies or limbs missing". After signing a waiver to agree on experimentation in turn for survival De Jong was given injections into her ovaries and womb. Later it was discovered that the injected substance was formaldehyde. Biopsies were also taken from her womb.

Another time the wrong blood type was ordered to be injected into her veins. It was only by the grace of a sympathetic nurse who let the needle "slip" that De Jong was saved. In Ravensbruk hundreds of little girls were sterilized by direct exposure of X-rays to the genitals. Another account in Mauthausen states that while operating on victims a Dr. Richter would extirpate a piece of the brain, thus causing death. It is estimated that this particular doctor performed this procedure on more than one thousands prisoners. What was the use of all these experiments?

Dr. Mengele, head physician at Auschwitz, adhered to the fact that his "research was to support the Nazi thesis that the Nordic Race was innately superior". The most notorious means of murder by the Nazi's is gassing. At first trucks were rigged so that the exhaust was pumped back into the rear compartment. This method had its flaws. Trucks were overcrowded and many survived the van ride. To remedy this the use of Zyklon-B was installed.

Zyklon-B is a poisonous gas made from hydrogen cyanide crystals and was originally manufactured as a strong disinfectant and for pest control. Its uses in the gas "showers" was extremely successful. Observations could be made through peepholes in the door during a gassing session. Disposal of the bodies caused another huge problem. After a gassing session it took about four hours to empty the chamber. Bodies were checked thoroughly.

The anus of each prisoner and their genitals were checked for money, jewels, etc. Dentists knocked out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns with hammers. After the bodies were searched they were stacked like cordwood, naked and without dignity. Their eyes remained opened. Piles rose four feet high.

Every twenty-four hours a cart came to remove the bodies. They were simply grabbed by the hand and foot and tossed in. After removal came the process of final disposal. In some camps the bodies were tossed into mass graves measuring one hundred meters by twenty by twelve. In some instances the bodies swelled and the whole grave would rise up because of the gas in the bodies. Sometimes the bodies were skinned and their flesh tattooed and tanned kept as souvenirs.

The more common disposal system, especially near the final two years of the war, was cremation. In Auschwitz alone there was capacity to incinerate up to 4,765 bodies per day. Ashes were then either poured into neighboring rivers or ponds, used to prepare compost, or used to fertilize the fields on camp farms. Survival depended on an 'underworld' of activity. One of the most persistent forms of this was smuggling. Many prisoners hid valuables in body cavities.

When visiting the latrine they had to be careful that they did not lose the tubes in which these valuables were stored. They had to literally feel their way through their own excrement until the treasure was found. Searches were often conducted on the prisoners at unexpected times. Punishment for possession of smuggled materials could often mean death. Organization was also a key to survival.

Since one could not exist on camp rations food, clothing, blankets, and eating utensils were kept in the most orderly fashion as possible to be redistributed as needed. Food was also attainable by having these goods on hand for trade. After all "surviving is a form of resistance". It is amazing that given all this there are still so many that survived to tell their story. If it had not been for these brave souls that did have the will to make it through we would never know the horror that Nazi Germany produced. Estimations of the number murdered vary.

East German documents record eleven million, but more reliable sources claim around eighteen million dead, and of those five to six million were Jewish. Hopefully by seeing how this came about and knowing what went on a second Holocaust can be prevented. Notes While the preceding paper was longer than assigned I do realize that in no way can any human begin to explain what it was like in the camps. I have tried through thorough research to bring to light some of the more highlighted topics found in my research. There are literally hundreds of links and sources that would have given me such a large scope of camp activity and life that just weren't feasible to access due to time constraints. I also find it extremely important to mention the site where I was able to find most all links used to write this paper.

It is named Meyer's Holocaust link and can be accessed from web There are literally hundreds of links all neatly categorized and very accessible. Works CitedBettleheim, Bruno. "German Concentration Camps" in Surviving and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. Chapel, Vincent and Gord McFee. Dr Guido Schmidt, excerpt from Austrian court files on his trial.

"History of Nazi concentration Camps, Work Camps, Police Camps, Transit Camps... ". on-line. available from web Vincent and Gord McFee. "History of Nazi concentration Camps, Work Camps, Police Camps, Transit Camps... ". on-line. available from web Judy. "Personal Reflections". on-line. available from web Irene. "Personal Reflections". on-line. available from web Jong, Elisabeth. "Personal Reflections". on-line. available from web Pres, Terrence. The Survivor.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. G ersten, Kurt. "testimony from Nuremburg Tribunal PS 1553". Holocaust Understanding and Prevention. on-line. available from web Ingrid A., "L'Chaim: A Holocaust Project". on-line. available from web Yisrael and Michael Beren baum eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. Levi, Primo. The Drowned and the Saved. excerpt on-line. available from web Henry.

I Shall Live: Surviving Against all Odds. New York: Beaufort Books, 1987". Auschwitz and Birkenau". on-line. available from web "Pincus at Auschwitz". Accounts obtained through: South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust. on-line. available from web "Rudy at Auschwitz". Accounts obtained through: South Carolina Voices: Lessons from the Holocaust. on-line. available from web "Zyklon-B". on-line. available from web available from web on-line. available from web.