Concentration Camps

Concentration Camps were a big part of the Holocaust. My first topic is the concentration camp Dachau. Then I will talk about another concentration camp called Bergen-Belsen. After that, I will tell you about the concentration camp Treblinka. Finally, the last concentration I will talk about is Auschwitz-Birkenau. Describing these camps will inform you that concentration camps were a huge part of the Holocaust.

Dachau was a devastating concentration camp of the Holocaust. Dachau was built in 1933. At first, it was a extermination camp for Jewish people and political prisoners. Then it became a full-time concentration camp for prisoners. In 1943, the Nazis decided to force the occupants into back-breaking labor. The Nazis made the prisoners make arms and supplies for the war. At this camp, they performed brutal medical experiments on the prisoners. Over 3,500 people had experiments performed on them and most all died. When the war was coming to an end, the United States liberated over 32,000 prisoners on April 29, 1945. This was one of the most devastating concentration camps of the Holocaust.

Bergen-Belsen was another horrifying concentration camp. This camp was a holding center camp. This means that the people that were sent there were going to be kept there until they died, or until the war was over. The people at this camp were usually killed by diseases like tuberculosis and typhus. The bodies were thrown all over and just disregarded like they were nothing at all. They had some mass graves to put the bodies in, but most were just lying around. The most famous person from this camp was Anne Frank. Her diary lead today s generation to fully understand this period of time. When the camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, the British found 10,000 unburied bodies, and 40,000 sick, starving, or wounded. Thus proves this camp was one of the most horrifying camps of the Holocaust.

Another camp called Treblinka was a pure killing center. This death camp opened in 1942, making it one of the last death camps to open. The whole purpose of this place was to kill Jews. They did this with 13 carbon-monoxide chambers. The people were sent to the camp by trains, unloaded, and sent into changing rooms. They were forced to give up their clothes and put new ones on. They were sent to either so called "showers", or a mass grave where they were shot. The carbon-monoxide chambers were disguised as the "showers." As soon as the Jews were in, they locked the doors and started pouring gas into them. This was the way they killed the prisoners. The Nazis killed about 50,000 people per month, making it the most efficient concentration camps ever made. This made Treblinka a pure killing center.

The most notorious concentration camp ever was Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz was opened in April of 1940. It became the first Annihilation death camp. It was also the largest death camp. It was so big, it was split into three parts. This place was called "hell on earth", because the prisoners were forced in, and killed almost immediately. Trains transported prisoners there every half hour. Almost all of the people killed there were from Poland. Over all, about 1.25 million people were killed at Auschwitz. All of this makes Auschwitz-Birkenau the most notorious death camp.

In conclusion, concentration camps were a big part of the Holocaust. The camps I talked about were Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. I chose them because they were bigger and more notorious than the other concentration camps. These concentration camps will be remembered forever for the numbers of people that the Nazis killed during the Holocaust.