...“I died in Auschwitz, but no one knows it”. These are the words of Charlotte Delbo, a survivor of Auschwitz. For many men and women Auschwitz was a time of great fear, death and despair. The Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, and commanded by Rudolf Hoss (1900-1947). It included three main camps. All three camps used prisoners for forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. These concentration camps were made up of mainly Jewish people. An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, and at least 1.1 million died. Around 90 percent of those were Jews. As a matter of fact,...
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...Auschwitz concentration camp was the largest and most brutal camp of its kind. About two of every three jews were killed. Many people in concentration camps were there because political views. Auschwitz I the main camp was the first camp to be built near Oswiecim. In an abandon polish army barracks construction of the camp began in 1940. SS officers used forced prisoner labor to rapidly expand the camp in the first year alone prisoners cleared a area of about 40 square kilometers. The very first prisoners at Auschwitz I were prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen a concentration camp in germany where they were held for repeat criminal offences. One reason Auschwitz I was created was to kill small targeted groups of the population. Like...
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...During World War II, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party believed that Jewish people and anyone helping those Jewish people would be sent to concentration camps around Europe. At these concentration camps, Jewish people were forced to work, live in unhealthy conditions, and watch their families die. Jewish people weren’t the only ones who were sent to these camps. Anyone who Hitler deemed unfit for society were sent to the camps. This included gypsies, homosexuals, and many others. All of these people were horribly mistreated, and most of them were killed. Of the concentration camps, the most infamous was known to be Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the most well known because it was the “largest of its kind”. It was composed of three main camps. In these three camps, the prisoners were forced to do manual labor. All of the prisoners were forced to work until death. They worked in the rain, snow, sleet, and hot heat. They were only given one pair of clothes for the duration of a year, and many people had to go without clothes. Despite these extremely horrible conditions, the worst happened as soon as they arrived at the camp. Woman and children were separated from the men who could do labor, and they were sent to their death....
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...Rainer’s experience impacted me the most out of all the individuals who spoke simply because he made the effort to travel to Auschwitz specifically to visit the land where his father grew up. Not only did he despise his grandfather, Rudolf he also spoke out against his father and his father’s siblings for living directly on the site where millions were murdered, yet no one spoke out against the atrocities that took place there. As Rainer spoke in front of a large crowd of school kids at Auschwitz, I could not believe the level of remorse he felt for what his grandfather did. Furthermore, one of the students asked him, “Do you feel guilty for what your family did?” and he replied “Yes”. Soon thereafter, he was asked, “If you could meet your grandfather, what would you do now”? Rainer replied, “I would kill him”. This moment was incredibly difficult to watch, but simultaneously reassuring to know that the vast majority of our global society today is openly against the events that took place in the...
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...image shows 10 young people, who were kept in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. When going to the Concentration Camp, they were allowed to take one bag with them. They were forced to wear several layers when they went so they would have the clothing necessary to survive the harsh winter. This image shows the sadness, fear and starvation that they had to go through. This is shown through its use of color, or lack thereof, the people themselves, and the scenery of the Camp...
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...“Justice and Liberty”. They were sent to Auschwitz Buna, a factory that created synthetic rubber and latex. After eleven astonishing months surviving as a laborer and a chemist inside Auschwitz, Primo Levi and the whole camp was saved by the Russian Army. Once Levi entered the camp his personal background and physical capabilities influenced the nature of his life in Auschwitz, as it did too for many other prisoners. Before World War II began Levi had just gotten a degree in chemistry in the University of Turin. In Auschwitz the Nazis opened a chemistry unit and with his professional background as chemist, Levi was sent to work there. This meant superior living conditions thereby increasing his chances of survival especially during the harsh winter. It is clear from Levis account that a prisoner’s physical condition, mental capacities and skill set were determining factors in...
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...in Poland, there was a large work camp. A lot of people lost their lives because of a horrible event. Today this concentration camp is fading away, caused by the yearly visitors and its natural surroundings. This concentration camp is specifically called Auschwitz. Auschwitz should not be saved. The concentration camp could be preserved as an interesting piece of history. It could be kept open to represent all of the people who had suffered and died in Auschwitz. They could make it into a memorial so no one would ever forget what had happened in that exact place. Some people that survived the concentration camp might want it to be saved. Then they could share their journey with people who want to learn more about Auschwitz. A lot of people are very interested in learning about the concentration camp. According to the article “Can Auschwitz Be Saved?” by Andrew Curry, public interest in the camp has never been higher. Visits have doubled this decade, from 492,500 to more than $1 million in 2009. Some people say Auschwitz shouldn’t be saved. Well there are some valid reasons for that. They should tear down Auschwitz for people who do not want to remember all the horrible things that took place there, and also for people who get emotional when they see it. A lot of people might get scared when they see the concentration camp. They could have lost someone in the camp that meant a lot to them. If someone that survived the concentration camp would want it tore down, they would...
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...Auschwitz was built by Oswiecim, Poland (The Auschwitz Album: The Story of a Death Factory). It was 37 miles west of Krakow and one of 4 concentration camps in Poland (Auschwitz: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Many Jews were transported to Auschwitz by trains (Auschwitz: Gale Student Resources in Context). Auschwitz would become a death machine killing more than 1 million people. Auschwitz was a concentration camp, built by the Nazis in April of 1940 (Wigoder, Abwehr to Extermination Camps). Most prisoners did not survive Auschwitz. It was liberated on January 27, 1945 (Wigoder, Abwehr to Extermination Camps). The fact that most prisoners did not survive Auschwitz means that Auschwitz was a key component of the Holocuast. Auschwitz was founded to be the answer to the Jewish question (Wigoder, Abwehr to Extermination Camps). It was the largest concentration camp (Wigoder, Abwehr to Extermination Camps), being 15.44 square miles (Auschwitz: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Auschwitz also had 3 main camps and over 40 sub camps (The Auschwitz Album: The Story of a Death Factory). Auschwitz was the worst concentration camp of all. The Nazis killed 1.1 to 1.5 million people at Auschwitz (The Auschwitz Album: The Story of a Death Factory). Only 20% were selected to work (The Auschwitz Album:...
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...during the World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Jews were targeted and precisely murdered in the largest genocide of the 20th century. What started this horrific massacre was the notorious Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany. After the start of World War II, Hitler the chancellor of Germany created a policy known as the “Final Solution.” From the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 to Kristallnacht in 1938, Hitler slowly removed Jews from German society. However, the Nazis created an elaborate and intensive system to work Jews to forced labor under brutal conditions. From the concentration camps created by the Nazi, forced labor was futile and destructive. The concentration camp forced the Jews to perish without proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest. Because Adolf Hitler devised the Final Solution to eradicate Europeans Jews, more than one million Jews, labored and perish in Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. Like what Fidel Castro said “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” After the start of World War II, the anti-Jewish law enforcers came up with a plan to dispose of European Jewry. To mask the true meaning behind their destruction, the Nazi Germany used certain language to disguise it. The meaning of the “Final Solution” means to annihilate the Jewish people. After Hitler’s rule of eradicating and segregation of Jews was applied, the “Final Solution” was set in stages. In 1933, when the Nazi Germany party finally achieved its power...
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...make Germany larger and fill it with what he considered a “perfect people”. These perfect people were those of blonde hair and blue eyes, which ironically enough, Hitler lacked. This course of action is now commonly known as The Holocaust. These perfect people also had to be pure, that means that no homosexuals, gypsies, nor Jews would be living in the land controlled by Germany. To achieve this goal, Hitler and the rest of Nazi Germany, created concentration and extermination camps to put the people that did not meet the requirement of being a perfect people. Two of these camps were named Auschwitz, which is in present day Poland, and Dachau, near Munich. The Holocaust 3 As referred to earlier, there were two different types of camps created by the Nazis. The first one is a concentration or work camp. The first camp, Dachau, was created on March of 1933 and is classified as a Class I camp. Many famous, high-level political opponents of the Nazi government were held here until the end of the war. These camps were primarily to incarcerate communists, social Democrats, trade union leaders, spies, resistance fighters, religious dissidents, common criminals, Gypsy men, homosexuals, asocials, and anyone else who...
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... for millions of their victims. In Auschwitz, as with all concentration camps, justice was non-existent. There are very important things missing from Auschwitz that Socrates would have considered essential for justice to exist. Let us start by confirming above all things that the main point of punishment is a consequence of wrong doing: the degree of punishment agreeing with the degree of crime (hopefully but not always the case). That is the basic idea of justice in my mind. For Primo Levi and twelve million others of the Nazi’s victims in the concentration camps, this was most certainly not the case. Yes the Nazi’s did have political and criminal prisoners that somewhat earned their spot there but the large majority of the prisoners never did anything wrong whatsoever. This is the first and most clear way in which justice was destroyed. Their crime was existing, whether they Jewish, gypsy, handicap, or what have you. On top of that, the crimes against humanity that the Nazis committed were so horrible, so grotesque and unspeakable, that the only deserving victims of such treatment were the ones responsible for it. Socrates stated "Happiness surely does not consist in being delivered from evils, but in never having them." (Gorgias) The second method in which justice was destroyed in Auschwitz was the deprivation of humanly necessities. This is unjust because they are reducing and devolving the just mind of the prisoners. Within the camps, prisoners were not treated like humans...
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...Movie Report: “Auschwitz, Death Camp” In the movie “Auschwitz, death camp”, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel when they visited the Auschwitz Museum which used to be the biggest Nazi concentration and death camp. Elie talked about his personal experience at Auschwitz. He also explained more about the meaning of the Holocaust which he wrote in his book, Night. The movie started at the entrance of Auschwitz where a young Elie arrived in a cattle car with his family, friends and neighbor. He smelled the stench of burning human flesh and saw the crematorium throwing its flames into the sky and he thought “This is the end of the history, the end of Jews”. During the time at the camp, his body and his soul suffered by SS soldiers. He saw people (up to 1.5 million) including men, women and even babies were killed. Women and children including his mother and young sister were sent immediately to a gas chamber which killed them in fifteen minutes. While men starved and worked to dead. Their bodies were burn in crematorium. All memories of Auschwitz haunted him day by day. He was confused that why the Nazi did everything like that. He didn’t understand why it happened. Were they human being? And then he decided to write and to teach so that the man kind will remember and everything in Auschwitz never happened again. Throughout the movie, I felt the pains of the Jews and Elie in the death camp. The pictures of people starved to dead, the burn bodies and the...
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...The novel Night presents how Elie Wiesel changes in response to his concentration camp experiences. The separation from his loved ones and the horrible conditions of these camps affects Elie immensely, altering his perception on faith and transforming his physical appearance throughout the experience. The overall ordeal Elie experienced desensitised him to violence and death, affecting his emotions. Elie was transformed by his loss of faith in god and humanity. His loss of faith in humanity and god can first be identified when he arrives at Auschwitz and isolates the ‘smell of burning flesh’ and watches as they throw a load of ‘little children’ into the flames and begins to understand that ‘the world is not interested’ in those of Jewish faith. Elie begins to reject his faith and blame god for what was occurring. ‘Why should I bless his name…What had I to thank Him for?. The hanging of the ‘pipel’ boy was possibly the most critical moment where Elie lost his faith in humanity and belief in God altogether. As the boy ‘struggled between life and death’, Elie realized his God was ‘hanging here on the gallows.’ Elie’s loss of faith was complete. The suffering Elie underwent ‘consumed’ his ideals and beliefs, therefore altering his emotions. Elie’s had to ‘become a different person’ to survive the ordeals of Auschwitz leaving only ‘a shape that resembled [him]’, his emotions ‘devoured by a black flame’. Once being a ‘spoiled child’ Elie was forced to adapt to the situation...
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...Elie Wiesel struggles with his faith in God throughout his experiences in the concentration camp. Before all of his experiences with the concentration Elie had complete belief in god, he studied Kabballah and had a teacher. Although, when he arrives at the concentration camps and sees people get beat, put in the crematorium, separated from their families, and plentiful other he begins to question Gods purposes. He comes back to partaking belief in God after the concentration camps had ended and he could take a reflection of all of the atrocious events that he went through. Elies Wiesel’s faith in God fluctuates in the memoir Night. Initially, he has complete faith while studying Kabbalah, but as he sees horrendous events taking place Auschwitz he struggles to maintain belief in God and finally regains faith after a time of reflection. Previous to the concentration camps, when Jews belonged in their own community, Elie enjoyed to study Kabbalah. Elie had no doubts in God, studying the Jewish texts of Kabbalah interested him. “He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain, I succeeded on...
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...In the memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, dehumanization is a common theme that is demonstrated through the treatment of the prisoners in Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel is a fifteen year old, Jewish boy who is forced into Auschwitz, a concentration camp, with his family during the second World War. Elie and his father are separated from the rest of their family upon their arrival at the camp, but they remain together and face the horrors of Auschwitz together. When they arrive at the camp they are mandated to remove their clothes and give up their belongings. As a replacement for their clothes, they are given uniforms to wear that are not the correct sizes. Elie looks at all the men in their uniforms and expresses, “In a few seconds, we had ceased to be...
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