Auschwitz

– Nazi Concentration Camp Essay, Research Paper

Located thirty-seven miles west of Krakow, Auschwitz was the

camp where Jewish people were killed and worked. This camp , out of

all the rest tortured the most people. At the camp there was a a place

caled the “Black Wall,” this was where the people were executed . In

March of of 1941, there was another camp that started to be built.

This second camp was called Auschwitz II, or Birkinau. It was located

1.9 miles away from Auschwitz I. Peple that were chosen to come to

these camps were expelled from their homes. Their houses were

destroyed for the pupose of buildinf Birkinau. Birkinau had nine

sub-units. They were separated from each other by electrically charged

fences that lines their borders. In August 1942, the womens section at

Auscwitz I was moved to Birkinau. Nine hundred and ninty-nine women

from Ravensbruck camp and other women from different camps joined them

also. Birkinau now had over 6,000 women prisoners being held. In the

town Monowitz, another camp was being built. This camp was called

auschwitz III, or Buna-Monowitz. Other camps that were located close

to Monowitz were moved to Buna-Monowitz. The population of Bikinau was

the most densly populated out of all the camps. It also had the most

cruel and and bad conditions of all the camps in the complex. The

prisoners at Birkinau mostly consisted of Jews, Poles, and Germans.

There were a number of Gypsy and Czech Jew family camps located at

Birkinau for a period of time also. In Birkinau, the gas chambers and

the creamatoria, where the bodies were burned operated at auschwitz I.

Birkinau and all the other sub-camps were mostly forced labor camps.

The most recognized of the labor camps are, Budy, Czechowitz,

Glenwitz, Rajsko, and Furstenarube. The prisoners here were worked to

the piont of death. Trains transported people to the camps, and

violently forced them off the train. All of the people’s property was

left on the train also. They prisoners were sent into two different

lines, one for women and the other for men. The lines moved into the

place were a procedure called Selektion took place. The ones who could

work were not killed ot this time, but the women, children, and others

that couldn’t work were gased. The prisoners that were to work, had

their clothes taken, heads shaved, got sterilized, and were given

black and white striped clothes to wear. In the forced labor camps,

the average life time was only a few months. Some of the prisoners

that couldn’t react or move became what was known as Muselmann. A

dreaded part of camps was the Appell, or roll call. In this, prisoners

were sent out into the cold night after a hard day of work, and lined

up. Anyone that fell to the ground was shot or gased. One more of all

the bad work chores was the Sonderkommando. Dong this meant that you

burned the bodies of the dead prisoners in the creamatoria. Tattoos

were given to the prisoners on their right arm as an easier way of

registration. Not all of the earlier prisoners had this tattoo, but

the regiterd number of prisoners was 405,000. The daily routine in the

complex differed in each camp, but the basic routine was the same.

They: woke at dawn, cleaned their areas, morning roll call was taken,

they walked to the work site, worked for long hours, had to wait in

lines for food, then walked bback to their bunks, block inspection was

done, and then evening roll call was taken. There were also people who

got picked for medical experiments. The best known docter at Auschwitz

was Josef Mengele. His experiments were mostly done on twins and

dwarfs. He did lots of things that had to do with seeing how ling it

would take a person to die if you do this or that. He also did

experiments that had to do with cutting off body parts, and

reattaaching them to different parts of the body. By January 20th,

1944, the population of the Aushwitz complex had reached 80,839. That

number rose up and up as the monthes past and more prisoners came. The

first gas chamber to be used was bult in Auschwitz I. The gas that was

used in the chambers was called Zyklon B. In Birkinau, the largest

number of people that could be killed in the gas chambers was 6,000

people daily. The gas chambers lookes just like shower rooms. The

prisoners were told they needed to be cleaned before work, and were

then killed in the stalls. On the borders of Auschwitz I and Birkinau,

electrical fences were put up. Watchtowers and S.S. men lined the

complex with automatic guns to be used in any escape situations.

Canals also lined the border of Birkinau. Starting in March of 1942,

trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkinau daily, carrying Jews from Europe.

The prisoners anger and rebelion to the Nazis was always there, but

only a few people decided to do anthing though. In the most difficult

times, 667 prisoners tried to escape. Only 270 of them made it, and

the ones who got caught were executed. Jewish leaders wanted to have

the Allied powers bomb Auschwitz at one time. This never did happen

though. A group of women at the camp destroyed one of the gas chambers

in an uprise. The leaders of the uproar were found and executed on

January 6th, 1945.