Frazo Nathan Frazo Mr. Neuburger Eng.

Comp 101-103 27 June 2011 The Death Camps

Imagine being a young, Jewish child growing up in the shadow of the rising Nazi Empire. Stories have come to your ears of people, families being carried away never to be seen again. This is a scary thought to the youngest 10 siblings, how could whole families just disappear? Such was the story of the Nazi death camps of the 1900s. According to Louis Bulow, thousands upon thousands of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals were rounded up and taken to these camps most to meet a certain death. Families were torn apart, men and women
A German Jewish family before the war Source: http://bit.ly/otDIuS

used for slave labor, twin siblings used as human lab rats,

and others murdered for one reason, being born. (Bulow) According to the article The Camps, Hitler began building concentration camps soon after coming to power in Germany. These camps were meant to house prisoners who were enemies of his empire, criminals, and security risks such as spies. However, these camps would soon grow into something more corrupt and more horrible than anyone could ever imagine. In addition the article also concludes that the organization T-4 contributed to the beginning of the Holocaust both in the rationalization of euthanasia, and the spread of the belief that those who posed a threat to the pure Aryan stock must be eliminated. This program was stated as the elimination of life unworthy of life.

Frazo The article states the first of the death camps began to appear after the enacting of the Protective Custody law in February of 1933. This allowed law officials to arrest and

incarcerated anyone suspected of illegal activity without the benefit of any kind of legal counsel. The first of these camps was at Dachau in 1933 along with the camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. As it became prevalent that more camps were needed, more and more began springing up in the years between 1934 and 1941. According to The Camps the first inmates of these camps were Jews, Communists, democrats, socialists, political criminals, and homosexuals. The article goes on to state that Auschwitz-Birkenau was probably the most notorious and most efficient of all the death camps. It was designed to exterminate humans on an industrial scale while using many others as forced
The gate to Auschwitz 1 Source: http://bit.ly/ofmqQs

labor. As prisoners entered the gates to Auschwitz 1they

were greeted by a sign reading Arbeit Macht Frei work will make you free. This was designed to make prisoners believe that the harder they worked the closer they would be to gaining freedom once again, but what these unsuspecting souls never knew was that death was the only true way to freedom from the Auschwitz camps. (The Camps) According to Dino Brugioni in his article The Holocaust Revisited, Auschwitz had its origins as a former military camp located in the suburbs of Auschwitz, Poland, and in the fall of 1941 the camp entered what is said to be its most sinister phase. As the camp expanded into the moors of Birkenau the center began being labeled as a center for special treatment. This was the Nazi code word for one thing, extermination. (Brugioni)

Frazo According to The Camps construction on the complex began in October of 1941 and was

finished sometime in March of 1942. A small gas chamber was constructed in an old farmhouse, but this small facility soon proved to be insufficient, thus four larger facilities were constructed consisting of a disrobing area, large gas chambers, and a crematorium. These were constructed around March and June of 1943, and at its peak more than 20,000 people could be killed and disposed of in one day. The highest ever recorded output was 24,000. In addition trains loaded with Jewish prisoners arrived almost on a daily basis from all over Europe. When prisoners stepped off the train they would go through what was termed the selection process. A process by which individuals were selected for forced labor, or death. Those that looked unfit for work were grouped together on one side, and those for slave labor,
Trains full of Jews arriving at Auschwitz Source: http://bit.ly/mVorU5

such as young men and those physically fit, were sent to another group. The fate of those deemed unfit was

certain immediate death at the gas chambers, while those forced to work only faced probable death. (The Camps) The Auschwitz article adds that others were unfortunate enough to face the experiments conducted by Josef Mengele a geneticist who prided himself on inflicting pain and suffering for the sake of science. His favorite study was that of twins, he would draw blood, sew their bodies together in an attempt to create Siamese twins, perform surgeries without anesthesia, and inject chemicals into their eyes to try to change their eye color. Few survived these horrific experiments, and Josef Mengele became known as the Angel of Death. (Auschwitz)

Frazo The Camps states that 405,000 people were recorded as laborers at Auschwitz, of this number more than 340,000 died either through executions, beatings, starvation, or disease. (The Camps) According to the article Auschwitz, Nazi Death Camp over one million innocent men, women, and children were killed at the Auschwitz complex where mass murder was a daily routine. Estimates believe that over three million people were killed through gassing, starvation, disease, burning, and shooting. Nine out of ten of these were Jews in addition to Gypsies, and Soviet POWs. (Auschwitz) Another one of the of Nazi death camps listed by The Camps was at Chelmno. The Chelmno death camp was located in Poland on the banks of the Ner River and became operational in December of 1941. The camp was located only a few miles from the infamous

Lodz Ghetto and was used for mass extermination of Jewish prisoners from all over the Western Polish provinces. (The Camps) The article The Chelmno Death Camp gives more information on just what happened at Chelmno. The location of the camp was chosen for its proximity to the road connecting it to the town of Kolo as well as a small railway, this was the main line between Lodz. Thus prisoners could be transported both by road and by train. Prisoners were transported here in enclosed trucks for a short distance then herded to the camp much like cattle. The article also mentions the presence of a palace and several buildings surrounding it that were transformed during the war to house inmates, and the camp itself was located far off the road, thus providing privacy from unwanted outsiders. As the article continues it states that in the winter of 1941 the Jews of the Kolo ghetto were called to assemble in front of the council building. They were informed that they would be

Frazo transported to a different location in order to build a railroad. 800 Jews were transported to Chelmno that day, and none of those 800 survived. When arriving at the Chelmno palace,

inmates were ordered off the trucks with any baggage that they had brought, but instead of being met with brutality as some of them had been met by at other camps they were met by polite, comforting guards. After being informed that they would be working at a location in Austria, they were told to leave their baggage and that they would need to shower and have their clothes disinfected. They would undress and be led through a series of halls with signs stating to the bath house, but as they would continue down the corridors the once polite guards now started rushing them brutally towards the back entrance of the palace. Here they were forced down a ramp and into an enclosed room, the door would be shut behind the 40 or so people crammed into the area and a motor started. The prisoners were locked inside the most notorious killing machines of the Chelmno death camps, the gas van. The gas van was utilized as a cheaper, more economical way to kill, and dispose of Jews. The gasses from the exhaust
Inside a gas van Source: http://bit.ly/eGxXUb

would suffocate anyone locked in the back of the van and their

bodies driven to a remote location and buried in pre-dug mass graves. (The Chelmno Death Camp) The Camps gives the number of deaths at the Chelmno camp to be somewhere around 360,000 men women and children. The camp was planned to be shut down but was liberated by Soviet troops before this could be done, however, all of the remaining prisoners at the camp were liquidated before the Soviets got to the camp.

Frazo The article notes that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and more than half of them were exterminated by means employed in the death camps between 1942 and 1945. The names of these camps are
The Legion of Honor Holocaust Memorial Source: http://bit.ly/p6UjVX

forever branded on the pages of history as a reminder of human cruelty and maliciousness. (The Camps)

William N. McKinney was an American Soldier that saw the effects of the Nazi death camps first hand. This is what he has to say to the world in his testimony, Its time to lend every effort of ones being in trying to establish peace and harmony throughout our communities, throughout the world without bloodshed, its time to eliminate bloodshed because war is hell, and war is horrible. (YouTube)

Works Cited
"Auschwitz, Nazi Death Camp." The Holocaust, Crimes, Heroes and Villains. Web. 27 June 2011. Brugioni, Dino. "The Holocaust Revisited." GlobalSecurity.org - Reliable Security Information 26 Apr. 2005.Web. 27 June 2011. Blow, Louis. "Gates to Hell" Gates To Hell - The Nazi Death Camps. Louis Bulow, 2008. Web. 27 June 2011 "The Camps" Middle Tennessee State University MTSU Web. 27 June 2011. "The Chelmno Death Camp." Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. 2007. Web. 13 July 2011.

"YouTube - American Liberator William McKinney Testimony" YouTube - Broadcast yourself 30 Jan. 2009. Web. 27 June 2011.