Aushwitz Holocaust Essay Research Paper 1 INTRODUCTION — страница 3

  • Просмотров 419
  • Скачиваний 9
  • Размер файла 19
    Кб

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