Important Notice:
This College art article below is created and published to help you prepare for your term paper. Please use this article as reference only. Do not copy this article, just use it as a reference. Below there are a list of other Art Articles that might interest you in your studies and paper preparation.
We hope our published papers would be beneficial for your studies.
SCROLL DOWN the page and you will find more articles on History.

Aushwitz

       : (1) INTRODUCTION The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan
       race, decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population. He proceeded
       to reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirable" was through the use of concentration
       camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials the 'final solution' was decided". Jews were to be eliminated from the population.
       Auschwitz was the concentration camp that carried out Hitler's "final solution" in greater numbers than any other. In this paper I will discuss
       concentration camps with a detailed description of the most well- known one, Auschwitz. (2) CONCENTRATION CAMPS The first
       concentration camps were set up in 1933. In the early days of Hitler, concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody.
       Victims for protective custody included those who were both physically and mentally ill, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and
       anyone against the Nazi regime. "Gypsies were classified as people with atleast two gypsy great grandparents." By the end of 1933 there were
       atleast fifty concentration camps throughout occupied Europe. "At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the S.S.
       (Hitler's personal security force) were ordered, by Hitler, to control the camps." Camps were set up for different purposes. Some for forced labor,
       others for medical experiments and, later on, for death/ extermination. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps. "Henrick
       Himmler, chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps would provide an economic base for the soldiers." This did not happen.
       The work force was poorly organized and working conditions were inhumane. Therefore, productivity was minimal. Camps were set up along
       railroad lines, so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers kept telling the
       Jews to have hope. (3) When the camps were finally opened, most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated.

       Often, the transports were a sampling of what went on in the camps, cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, fetid and
       unsanitary conditions on the trains. "On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water for days. Many people did not survive the ride to arrive at
       the camp." Jews were forced to obey the guard's orders from the moment they arrived at the camps. "If they didn't, they would be beaten, put into
       solitary confinement or shot." The prisoners usually had marks on their clothes or numbers on their arms to identify them. The sanitary conditions of
       the camps were horrible. "There was only one bathroom for four hundred people. They had to stand for hours in snow, rain, heat, or cold for
       role-call, which was twice a day." Within the first few days of being at the camps, thousands of people died of hunger, starvation and disease.
       Other people died from the cruel punishments of the guards; beatings and torture. "Typhus, a disease caused by germs carried by flies, was the
       main disease that spread throughout the camps. Even when people were sick, they still continued working because they did not see that sickness
       meant death." In 1937, 7,000 Jews were in camps. By 1938, 10,000 more Jews were sent to camps. "Jews were taken to camps if they
       expressed negative feelings about the government, if they married a non-Jew, if they were sick (mentally or physically), or if they had a police
       record." (4) When someone escaped from the camp, all the prisoners in that group were shot. Nazis, who claimed that they did not necessarily
       hate Jews, but wanted to preserve the Aryan race, seemed to enjoy making the Jews suffer. They also felt that slavery was better than killing their
       prisoners. "Gold fillings, wedding bands, jewelry, shoes and clothing were taken from the prisoners when they first entered the camps and were
       sold." Surrounding some of the camps in Poland was a forest, that the Jews who planned to escape would flee into. Before the escaped prisoners
       got very far, they were killed. "When the Germans caught a Jew planning a rebellion, and the Jew refused to name his/her associates, the Germans
       would bring everyone from his/her barracks out and force him/her to watch the Germans mutilate the others." The people who could not run away
       from the camps dreamt about revolt. Special areas of a camp were set aside for medical experiments. One doctor in a medical unit performed an
       experiment in sterilization.

"He injected a substance into women's ovaries to sterilize them. The injection resulted in temperature and inflammation
       of the ovaries." Joseph Mengels, one of the most notorious Nazi doctors, hummed opera tunes when selecting among the new arrivals the victims
       for the gas chambers or medical experiments. His women victims for sterilization were usually 20-30 years of age. "Other experiments included
       putting inmates into high pressure chambers to test the effects of altitude on pilots. Some inmates were frozen to (5) determine the best way to
       revive frozen German soldiers." (6) DEATH CAMPS "The first death camp, Chelmno, was set up in Poland on December 8, 1941. This was five
       weeks before the Wannsee Conference at which time the 'final solution' was planned out." Usually, the death camps were part of existing camps,
       but some new ones were just set up for this purpose. When the prisoners first arrived at the camps, those sent to the left were transferred to death
       camps. When Jews entered the death camps, their suitcases, baby bottles, shawls, and eyeglasses were taken and were sold. Once in the death
       camps the prisoners were again divided. Women were sent to one side to have their hair shaven and the men to the other. "They were all sent to
       the showers, naked with a bar of soap, so as to deceive them into believing that they were truly going into a shower. Most people smelled the
       burning bodies and knew the truth. " There were six death camps; Chelmno, Treblinka, Auschwitz (Birkenau), Sobibor, Maidanek, and Belzec.
       These camps used gas from the shower heads to murder their victims. A seventh death camp, Mauthausen, used a method called "extermination
       through labor". (7) AUSCHWITZ Auschwitz, located in Poland, was Nazi Germany's largest concentration camp. It was established by order of
       Himmler on April 27, 1940. At first, it was small because it was a work camp for Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. It became a death camp in
       1941. "Auschwitz was divided into three areas: Auschwitz 1 was the camp commander's headquarters and administrative offices. Auschwitz 2 was
       called Birkenau and it was the death camp with forty gas chambers. Auschwitz 3 was a slave labor camp." "On the gate of Auschwitz was a sign in
       German which read, 'Arbeit macht frei', which means work makes you free." Auschwitz included camp sites a few miles away from the main
       complex. At these sites, slave labor was used to kill the people. The working conditions were so poor that death was a sure result. " In March 26,
       1942, Auschwitz took women prisoners, but after August 16, 1942 the women were housed in Birkenau." When the Jews arrived at Auschwitz,
       they were met with threats and promises. "If they didn't do exactly as they were told, they would be beaten, deprived of food, or shot. From time
       to time, they would be assured that things would get better." The daily meals in Auschwitz consisted of watery soup, distributed once a day, with a
       small piece of bread. In addition, they got extra allowance consisting of 3/4 ounce of margarine, a little piece of cheese or a spoonful of watered
       jam. Everyone in the camp was so malnourished that if a drop of soup spilled (8) prisoners would rush from all sides to see if they could get some
       of the soup. "Because of the bad sanitary conditions, the inadequate diet, the hard labor and other torturous conditions in Auschwitz, most people
       died after a few months of their arrival." The few people who managed to stay alive for longer were the ones who were assigned better jobs. "The
       prisoners slept on three shelves of wooden slabs with six of these units to each tier. They had to stand for hours in the wet and mud during role
       call, which was twice a day. Some people thought the reason hundreds of people died, daily, was because when it rained they lay with wet clothes
       in their bunks." In place of toilets, there were wooden boards with round holes and underneath them concretes troughs. Two or three hundred
       people could sit on them at once. While they were on these troughs they were watched in order to assure that they did not stay too long. "There
       was no toilet paper, so the prisoners used linings of jackets. If they didn't have they might steal from someone else." The smells were horrible
       because there wasn't enough water to clean the Latrine, the so called bathrooms. When people were loaded onto trains to be taken to the gas
       chambers, they were told that they were being "resettled" in labor camps. This was one of the many lies told. It was impossible for the Jews to
       make out which building was the gas chambers because they looked presentable from the outside, just like any other building. Over the gas
       chambers were well kept lawns with flowers bordering them. When the Jews were being taken to the gas chambers, (9) they thought they were
       being taken to the baths. "While people were waiting for them 'baths', a group of women prisoners, dressed in navy skirts and white shirts, played
       very delightful music." "In Auschwitz, Jews were killed by something called Lykon B. It was hydrogen cyanide which was poured through the
       ceiling of the gas chambers and turned into gas. The S.S. commanders of Auschwitz preferred Lykon B. because it worked fast." At first, there
       were five gas chambers in Auschwitz, the procedure for gassing was as follows : "About 900 people were gassed at a time. First they undressed in
       a nearby room. Then, they were told to go into another room to be deloused, They filled the gas chambers like packed like sardines. After a few
       minutes of horrible suffering, the victims died. The bodies were then transported to ovens where they were burned." The gas chambers were not
       large enough to execute great numbers at a time, so crematoria were built. The crematoria would burn 2,000 bodies in less than 24 hours. An
       elevator would take them from the dressing room to the crematoria.

"It took 30 minutes to kill 2,500 victims, but close to 24 hours to burn the
       bodies." Many Jews and non - Jews tried to escape from Auschwitz. Some succeeded. Of course they wanted to inform the world of what was
       going on. Those who escaped wrote descriptions of the horrors they suffered. Information spread to many countries, yet no countries seemed to
       do anything to help the situation. In fact, as the war progressed, the number of prisoners increased. "In total, between 1.5 and 3.5 million Jews
       were murdered at Auschwitz between the (10) years 1940 and 1945." Where were our brothers in America when millions of Jews died? (11)
       CONCLUSION The Nazis, under Hitler, organized the destruction of the Jews. Why they did it is unknown. Perhaps it was because of a history
       of tension between the Christians and Jews, or perhaps, because Hitler needed a scapegoat for Germany's problems. People throughout history
       have been murdered; but never as many people as during the Holocaust in such a short period of time. 1/3 of all the Jews in the world were
       eliminated. "The estimated total is somewhere around six million. This number included Jews from all over Europe. There were also 500,000 non-
       Jews murdered." Hitler's method of killing the jews and other undesirable people was first by torture and then by plain murder. In the early days of
       his leadership, he took away their rights as citizens and then as people. They were treated like slaves and lived like animals. After 1942, his goal
       was to exterminate all Jewish and "unpure" people. Many Jews were killed before that date, but they were a small number compared to the mass
       murdering of the Holocaust. " We Must Never Forget " are the words that every Jew must remember. By not forgetting, we are preventing another
       holocaust from occurring. We are also letting the entire world know and remember the millions of loved ones lost in the horrible killing that we call
       the holocaust. (12) BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. New York: Franklin Watts, 1982. Chartock, Roselle. The
       Holocaust Years: Society on Trial. New York: Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith, 1978. Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust - A History of the
       Jews of Europe During the Second World War. New York: Holt, Reinhardt & Winston, 1985. Meltzer, Milton. Never to Forget the Jews of the
       Holocaust. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. New York: Franklin Watts, 1981. "Concentration Camps",
       Encyclopedia Judaica. 1972 ed., Keter Publishers. "Concentration Camp Conditions Reported Worse", New York Times, (March 7, 1940),
       page 8. "It Happened to Me", Sassy, (May 1991), page 24. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction page 1 Concentration Camps pages 2-5
       Death Camps page 6 Auschwitz pages 7-10 Conclusion page 11 Bibliography page 12 Endnotes pages 13-14 AUSCHWITZ
       CONCENTRATION CAMP / DEATH CAMP CLASS 8-J . Milton Meltzer. Never to Forget the Jew of the Holocaust. (New York; Harper &
       Row, 1976) page 3 . Meltzer, page 5 . Yehuda Bauer. A History of the Holocaust. (New York; Franklin Watts, 1982) page 205 . Meltzer, page
       28 . Bauer, page 208 . Seymour Rossel. The Holocaust. (New York; Franklin Watts, 1981) page 76 . Rossel, page 77 . Rossel, page 77 .
       Rossel, page 78 . Martin Gilbert. The Holocaust - A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. (New York; Holt, Rinehart &
       Winston, 1985) page 127 . Rossel, page 86 . Rossel, page 101 . Bauer, page 219 . Bauer, page 219 . Bauer, page 208 . Rossel, page 79 .
       Gilbert, page 210 . Bauer, page 214 . " It Happened to Me ". Sassy, New York. May, 1991, page 24 . "Auschwitz". Encyclopedia Judaica,
       Volume 1, page 854 . Gilbert, page 376 . Roselle Chartock, The Holocaust Year; Society on Trial. (New York; Anti-Defamation League of Bnai
       Brith, 1978) page 5 . Chartock, page 4 . Chartock, page 7 . Chartock, page 3 . Meltzer, page 130 . "Concentration Camp Conditions Reported
       Worse".The New York Times, New York, March 7, 1940, page 8 . Baker, page 215 . Baker , page 215 . Rossel, page 1 (1)
       INTRODUCTION The Holocaust is the most horrifying crime against humanity of all times. "Hitler, in an attempt to establish the pure Aryan race,
       decided that all mentally ill, gypsies, non supporters of Nazism, and Jews were to be eliminated from the German population. He proceeded to
       reach his goal in a systematic scheme." One of his main methods of "doing away" with these "undesirable" was through the use of concentration
       camps. "In January 1941, in a meeting with his top officials the 'final solution' was decided". Jews were to be eliminated from the population.
       Auschwitz was the concentration camp that carried out Hitler's "final solution" in greater numbers than any other. In this paper I will discuss
       concentration camps with a detailed description of the most well- known one, Auschwitz. (2) CONCENTRATION CAMPS The first
       concentration camps were set up in 1933. In the early days of Hitler, concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody.
       Victims for protective custody included those who were both physically and mentally ill, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and
       anyone against the Nazi regime. "Gypsies were classified as people with atleast two gypsy great grandparents." By the end of 1933 there were
       atleast fifty concentration camps throughout occupied Europe. "At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the S.S.
       (Hitler's personal security force) were ordered, by Hitler, to control the camps." Camps were set up for different purposes. Some for forced labor,
       others for medical experiments and, later on, for death/ extermination. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps. "Henrick
       Himmler, chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps would provide an economic base for the soldiers." This did not happen.
       The work force was poorly organized and working conditions were inhumane. Therefore, productivity was minimal. Camps were set up along
       railroad lines, so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. As they were being transported, the soldiers kept telling the
       Jews to have hope. (3) When the camps were finally opened, most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated.
       Often, the transports were a sampling of what went on in the camps, cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, fetid and
       unsanitary conditions on the trains. "On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water for days. Many people did not survive the ride to arrive at
       the camp." Jews were forced to obey the guard's orders from the moment they arrived at the camps. "If they didn't, they would be beaten, put into
       solitary confinement or shot." The prisoners usually had marks on their clothes or numbers on their arms to identify them. The sanitary conditions of
       the camps were horrible. "There was only one bathroom for four hundred people. They had to stand for hours in snow, rain, heat, or cold for
       role-call, which was twice a day." Within the first few days of being at the camps, thousands of people died of hunger, starvation and disease.
       Other people died from the cruel punishments of the guards; beatings and torture. "Typhus, a disease caused by germs carried by flies, was the
       main disease that spread throughout the camps. Even when people were sick, they still continued working because they did not see that sickness
       meant death." In 1937, 7,000 Jews were in camps. By 1938, 10,000 more Jews were sent to camps. "Jews were taken to camps if they
       expressed negative feelings about the government, if they married a non-Jew, if they were sick (mentally or physically), or if they had a police
       record." (4) When someone escaped from the camp, all the prisoners in that group were shot. Nazis, who claimed that they did not necessarily
       hate Jews, but wanted to preserve the Aryan race, seemed to enjoy making the Jews suffer. They also felt that slavery was better than killing their
       prisoners. "Gold fillings, wedding bands, jewelry, shoes and clothing were taken from the prisoners when they first entered the camps and were
       sold." Surrounding some of the camps in Poland was a forest, that the Jews who planned to escape would flee into. Before the escaped prisoners
       got very far, they were killed. "When the Germans caught a Jew planning a rebellion, and the Jew refused to name his/her associates, the Germans
       would bring everyone from his/her barracks out and force him/her to watch the Germans mutilate the others." The people who could not run away
       from the camps dreamt about revolt. Special areas of a camp were set aside for medical experiments. One doctor in a medical unit performed an
       experiment in sterilization. "He injected a substance into women's ovaries to sterilize them. The injection resulted in temperature and inflammation
       of the ovaries." Joseph Mengels, one of the most notorious Nazi doctors, hummed opera tunes when selecting among the new arrivals the victims
       for the gas chambers or medical experiments. His women victims for sterilization were usually 20-30 years of age. "Other experiments included
       putting inmates into high pressure chambers to test the effects of altitude on pilots. Some inmates were frozen to (5) determine the best way to
       revive frozen German soldiers." (6) DEATH CAMPS "The first death camp, Chelmno, was set up in Poland on December 8, 1941. This was five
       weeks before the Wannsee Conference at which time the 'final solution' was planned out." Usually, the death camps were part of existing camps,
       but some new ones were just set up for this purpose. When the prisoners first arrived at the camps, those sent to the left were transferred to death
       camps. When Jews entered the death camps, their suitcases, baby bottles, shawls, and eyeglasses were taken and were sold. Once in the death
       camps the prisoners were again divided. Women were sent to one side to have their hair shaven and the men to the other. "They were all sent to
       the showers, naked with a bar of soap, so as to deceive them into believing that they were truly going into a shower. Most people smelled the
       burning bodies and knew the truth. " There were six death camps; Chelmno, Treblinka, Auschwitz (Birkenau), Sobibor, Maidanek, and Belzec.
       These camps used gas from the shower heads to murder their victims. A seventh death camp, Mauthausen, used a method called "extermination
       through labor". (7) AUSCHWITZ Auschwitz, located in Poland, was Nazi Germany's largest concentration camp. It was established by order of
       Himmler on April 27, 1940. At first, it was small because it was a work camp for Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. It became a death camp in
       1941. "Auschwitz was divided into three areas: Auschwitz 1 was the camp commander's headquarters and administrative offices. Auschwitz 2 was
       called Birkenau and it was the death camp with forty gas chambers. Auschwitz 3 was a slave labor camp." "On the gate of Auschwitz was a sign in
       German which read, 'Arbeit macht frei', which means work makes you free." Auschwitz included camp sites a few miles away from the main
       complex. At these sites, slave labor was used to kill the people. The working conditions were so poor that death was a sure result. " In March 26,
       1942, Auschwitz took women prisoners, but after August 16, 1942 the women were housed in Birkenau." When the Jews arrived at Auschwitz,
       they were met with threats and promises. "If they didn't do exactly as they were told, they would be beaten, deprived of food, or shot. From time
       to time, they would be assured that things would get better." The daily meals in Auschwitz consisted of watery soup, distributed once a day, with a
       small piece of bread. In addition, they got extra allowance consisting of 3/4 ounce of margarine, a little piece of cheese or a spoonful of watered
       jam. Everyone in the camp was so malnourished that if a drop of soup spilled (8) prisoners would rush from all sides to see if they could get some
       of the soup. "Because of the bad sanitary conditions, the inadequate diet, the hard labor and other torturous conditions in Auschwitz, most people
       died after a few months of their arrival." The few people who managed to stay alive for longer were the ones who were assigned better jobs. "The
       prisoners slept on three shelves of wooden slabs with six of these units to each tier. They had to stand for hours in the wet and mud during role
       call, which was twice a day. Some people thought the reason hundreds of people died, daily, was because when it rained they lay with wet clothes
       in their bunks." In place of toilets, there were wooden boards with round holes and underneath them concretes troughs. Two or three hundred
       people could sit on them at once. While they were on these troughs they were watched in order to assure that they did not stay too long. "There
       was no toilet paper, so the prisoners used linings of jackets. If they didn't have they might steal from someone else." The smells were horrible
       because there wasn't enough water to clean the Latrine, the so called bathrooms. When people were loaded onto trains to be taken to the gas
       chambers, they were told that they were being "resettled" in labor camps. This was one of the many lies told. It was impossible for the Jews to
       make out which building was the gas chambers because they looked presentable from the outside, just like any other building. Over the gas
       chambers were well kept lawns with flowers bordering them. When the Jews were being taken to the gas chambers, (9) they thought they were
       being taken to the baths. "While people were waiting for them 'baths', a group of women prisoners, dressed in navy skirts and white shirts, played
       very delightful music." "In Auschwitz, Jews were killed by something called Lykon B. It was hydrogen cyanide which was poured through the
       ceiling of the gas chambers and turned into gas. The S.S. commanders of Auschwitz preferred Lykon B. because it worked fast." At first, there
       were five gas chambers in Auschwitz, the procedure for gassing was as follows : "About 900 people were gassed at a time. First they undressed in
       a nearby room. Then, they were told to go into another room to be deloused, They filled the gas chambers like packed like sardines. After a few
       minutes of horrible suffering, the victims died. The bodies were then transported to ovens where they were burned." The gas chambers were not
       large enough to execute great numbers at a time, so crematoria were built. The crematoria would burn 2,000 bodies in less than 24 hours. An
       elevator would take them from the dressing room to the crematoria. "It took 30 minutes to kill 2,500 victims, but close to 24 hours to burn the
       bodies." Many Jews and non - Jews tried to escape from Auschwitz. Some succeeded. Of course they wanted to inform the world of what was
       going on. Those who escaped wrote descriptions of the horrors they suffered. Information spread to many countries, yet no countries seemed to
       do anything to help the situation. In fact, as the war progressed, the number of prisoners increased. "In total, between 1.5 and 3.5 million Jews
       were murdered at Auschwitz between the (10) years 1940 and 1945." Where were our brothers in America when millions of Jews died? (11)
       CONCLUSION The Nazis, under Hitler, organized the destruction of the Jews. Why they did it is unknown. Perhaps it was because of a history
       of tension between the Christians and Jews, or perhaps, because Hitler needed a scapegoat for Germany's problems. People throughout history
       have been murdered; but never as many people as during the Holocaust in such a short period of time. 1/3 of all the Jews in the world were
       eliminated. "The estimated total is somewhere around six million. This number included Jews from all over Europe. There were also 500,000 non-
       Jews murdered." Hitler's method of killing the jews and other undesirable people was first by torture and then by plain murder. In the early days of
       his leadership, he took away their rights as citizens and then as people. They were treated like slaves and lived like animals. After 1942, his goal
       was to exterminate all Jewish and "unpure" people. Many Jews were killed before that date, but they were a small number compared to the mass
       murdering of the Holocaust. " We Must Never Forget " are the words that every Jew must remember. By not forgetting, we are preventing another
       holocaust from occurring. We are also letting the entire world know and remember the millions of loved ones lost in the horrible killing that we call
       the holocaust. (12) BIBLIOGRAPHY Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. New York: Franklin Watts, 1982. Chartock, Roselle. The
       Holocaust Years: Society on Trial. New York: Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith, 1978. Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust - A History of the
       Jews of Europe During the Second World War. New York: Holt, Reinhardt & Winston, 1985. Meltzer, Milton. Never to Forget the Jews of the
       Holocaust. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust. New York