Essay, Research Paper: The Auschwitz Complex

Auschwitz was and still is one of the most highly known concentration camps of the
holocaust. The Auschwitz complex was the site of scientifically and efficiently executed
genocide during W.W.II. The camp is commonly applied to the complex of death and
concentration near town. The prisoners went through a lot of hard times. They were
separated from their families. Had very poor sleeping and living conditions. The
nourishment wasn’t good enough. Everyday in the camp the prisoners feared for their
lives. Every prisoner also had a daily routine they had to follow.
The Auschwtiz complex was established in April 1940. It was established under
the authority of Heinrich Himmler. The camp originally housed political prisoners from
occupied Poland and concentration camps within Germany. Large numbers of Poles,
Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies, and homosexuals died at Auschwitz. Jews
compromised the largest amount of prisoners. The estimated deaths of the camp range
from 1.5 million to 4 million. At Auschwitz 405,000 prisoners were recorded as laborers
(Introduction 1).
The departure of the families was one of the hardest things for the families it
deal with. The women and children usually went to the gas chambers and then to the
crematories. The weak and old men went with the women ad children. The strong men
and older boys were used as laborers. They were housed in bunk-like dormitories.
The twins and dwarfs were used for medical experiments. The twins as dwarfs
underwent medical experiments at the hands of the doctors (Introduction 2). The
dormitories that the men were put in were made of brick and looked like barns. The
bunks were stacked three high and about three feet wide and three feet long. They laid
on straw. The dormitories had no heat, no air conditioning, no baths, no sinks, and no
restores. There were showers for bathing outside, sometimes they had to shower in
the cold. There were also places to go to the bathroom outside.
The nourishment that the prisoners received was very poor. They received very
little food, not even enough for a little kid to survive off of. In the mornings the
prisoners got a slice of bread about a quarter of an inch thick. Around12:00 or 1:00
they received lunch, a little soup. They were always fishing around in the soup for
anything that was in it. The soup was usually just cold water. Every Sunday they got
something like a piece of margin or salami to go with their bread. The prisoners never
got very good treatment. If they did something wrong or disobeyed an officer, they got
beat or killed (Auschwitz 4).
The chastisement for things they did were always very gruesome. The camps
had crematories for burning people, gas chambers for gassing people, they also shot
and hung people, and they beat people. The crematories were used when someone
did something wrong and was killed, the bodies were put into the crematoria and
burned. They used Zyklon-B to kill the people, it was put into the gas chambers
through shower head like fixtures. After the people were gassed they were taken to the
crematoria or one of the pits to burn the bodies. A lot of the time if someone tried to
escape they were hung and shot. Everyone was lined up outside of the barracks and
watch the person they did wrong be hung and shot. More often the prisoners were
beat. Any little thing they did wrong they were beat(Introduction 1).
The prisoners daily routine was very strict. They were woken up at 5:00 in the
morning. They were woken up every day by a German prisoner that served as the
block or barrack captain. They had to get out as soon and as fast as they could, then
they were lined up and counted. Sometimes the guards during the day would ride
through the camp in trucks telling people to get on. Then they went to other camps to
do work. Sometimes in the other camps they would have to do something. After they
were done the guards would make them go back and undo it. If they moved a beam ten
feet the guards would make them move it back ten feet. They did all this just to be
cruel, and to watch the prisoners suffer. When ever they returned to Auschwitz they
were fed. When the prisoners were done eating what little they had they would be sent
to bed. They would usually then read from a bible if they were lucky enough to have
one. Then they would go to sleep for the remainder of the time they had until morning
(Auschwitz 4).
The main point is that the Holocaust and all the concentration camps never be
forgotten. It is very important to remember all the pain and suffering ,so that history
never repeats itself. The camp Auschwitz was one of the worst. The separation of the
families, the torture acts, the punishment, and the hard times were all part of Auschwitz.
So to some it all up the Holocaust is one of the worst tragedies in the history of the
world. Hitler was very wrong to mistreat and kill all the Jews in the Holocaust. If
another tragedy like that ever occurs in my life time everybody would be lost. Nobody
would know what to do.


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