The Holocaust
How did the troops and Hitler take control?
Hitler made the group of Nazi and got control of Germany. The total of death and kills were about 9,793,700 and the Jews were always afraid. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler was the driving force behind the obsessive and fanatical Nazi persecution and ultimately also the mass slaughter of the Jews and various other groups, though the details of implementation were left to the terror apparatus, headed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. Here are more opinions and input:
In 1936, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland , Violating the Treaty of Versailles for the second time. Hitler felt that France would not stop him, and he was right. This was the first of the Nazi dictator’s victories without war.
In March 1938, Hitler’s troops invaded Austria. Austria then became part of Germany. In 1938, Hitler began to take over Czechoslovakia. After each success that Hitler had, he planned a new take-over. He took control of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Next Hitler wanted to take over Poland, but Britain and France tried to stop Germany.
They would go against Germany if Hitler attacked Poland. Hitler didn’t think they would do that. In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed treaties of friendship, because the Soviet Union did not want Germany to defeat them.
The Germans had tried since 1938 to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazis, but they were unsuccessful. On July 20, 1944, Hitler just missed being killed when a German Army officer placed a bomb in Hitler’s briefing room. In 1941, Germany broke the friendship treaty and began to take over the Soviet Union. In 1942 and 1943, the Soviet Union began to wipe out all of Germany’s men.
By April 1945, Hilter had a lot of physical problems. During this time, Hitler was really weak. He could not do very many things in the war. He had head, hands, feet, and stomach problems. At this time Germany was losing. Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun, was with him at his headquarters in a bomb shelter under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler and Eva were married there on April 29, 1945. The next day they both took their lives because other Countries were closing in on him. The next day the aides burned their bodies. Seven days later, Germany surrendered.
- Nazi propaganda operated with conspiracy theories, especially the 'stab-in-the-back legend' and bizarre claims about an imaginary 'Jude-Bolshevist' conspiracy against Germany, Austria and ethnic Germans. These ideas became popular among hard line nationalists in Germany, Austria and in some other countries. These fanciful, but dangerous notions were also fueled by some refugees from the Russian Revolution and civil war of 1918-21. The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (first forged around 1900 by the Tsarist secret police and purporting to provide details of a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world) was particularly important in this respect.
- The Holocaust unfolded as Adolf Hitler's personal vision of the cleansing of his homeland of undesirables.
In 1936, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland , Violating the Treaty of Versailles for the second time. Hitler felt that France would not stop him, and he was right. This was the first of the Nazi dictator’s victories without war.
In March 1938, Hitler’s troops invaded Austria. Austria then became part of Germany. In 1938, Hitler began to take over Czechoslovakia. After each success that Hitler had, he planned a new take-over. He took control of the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Next Hitler wanted to take over Poland, but Britain and France tried to stop Germany.
They would go against Germany if Hitler attacked Poland. Hitler didn’t think they would do that. In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed treaties of friendship, because the Soviet Union did not want Germany to defeat them.
The Germans had tried since 1938 to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazis, but they were unsuccessful. On July 20, 1944, Hitler just missed being killed when a German Army officer placed a bomb in Hitler’s briefing room. In 1941, Germany broke the friendship treaty and began to take over the Soviet Union. In 1942 and 1943, the Soviet Union began to wipe out all of Germany’s men.
By April 1945, Hilter had a lot of physical problems. During this time, Hitler was really weak. He could not do very many things in the war. He had head, hands, feet, and stomach problems. At this time Germany was losing. Hitler’s mistress, Eva Braun, was with him at his headquarters in a bomb shelter under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler and Eva were married there on April 29, 1945. The next day they both took their lives because other Countries were closing in on him. The next day the aides burned their bodies. Seven days later, Germany surrendered.
How did the Nazi's treat the Jews?
Hitler and the Nazis started taking the people to death camps and started to put them in gas chambers or just let them die by themselves during starvation and sickness. he started to get big troops and lots of guns to kill the Jews. therefore, Hitler shaved their heads to make them look identical. however the people that were victims of the holocaust hid in haystacks and lived in them for a long time and yet one of them risked their life to look for food and bring for the others and sometimes they couldn't so they had to eat haystack. As a result the Nazis put the people numbers on their forearm to keep track of them and not good for names.
Ever since Hitler came to power in 1933 the Jews in Germany were persecuted: they were subjected to restrictions, sometimes beaten up in the street and bullied into leaving Germany.
German expansion into Austria (1938) and what is now the Czech Republic (1938-39) increased the number of Jews under Nazi rule. The invasions of most neighboring countries (and some further afield) led to a huge increase in the number of Jews under Nazi control.
For about 2 years before the start of the holocaust, Jews in many places (for example, Berlin and Warsaw) were forced to live in the same area, sometimes in sealed off ghettos. There often weren't allowed to work and had to live on their savings, if they had any, on charity and/or had to starve. From 1941-42 onwards they were transported by rail, often in cattle trucks and the like, to the large death (extermination) camps that the Nazis established in Poland. The best known are Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec. On arrival, they were divided into the 'fit for work' and the 'unfit'. The latter, which included all the small children and the elderly were gassed shortly after arrival. Those considered fit for work were used as slave labor without sufficient food. On average, a slave laborer lived for 8 months before perishing.
In June 1941 the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Behind the main military came the SD death squads. These rounded up Jews, shot them and buried them in pits. Many regard this as the start of the actual holocaust.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_Germans_treat_the_Jews_during_the_Holocaust#ixzz1Ee6emH7l
Ever since Hitler came to power in 1933 the Jews in Germany were persecuted: they were subjected to restrictions, sometimes beaten up in the street and bullied into leaving Germany.
German expansion into Austria (1938) and what is now the Czech Republic (1938-39) increased the number of Jews under Nazi rule. The invasions of most neighboring countries (and some further afield) led to a huge increase in the number of Jews under Nazi control.
For about 2 years before the start of the holocaust, Jews in many places (for example, Berlin and Warsaw) were forced to live in the same area, sometimes in sealed off ghettos. There often weren't allowed to work and had to live on their savings, if they had any, on charity and/or had to starve. From 1941-42 onwards they were transported by rail, often in cattle trucks and the like, to the large death (extermination) camps that the Nazis established in Poland. The best known are Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec. On arrival, they were divided into the 'fit for work' and the 'unfit'. The latter, which included all the small children and the elderly were gassed shortly after arrival. Those considered fit for work were used as slave labor without sufficient food. On average, a slave laborer lived for 8 months before perishing.
In June 1941 the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Behind the main military came the SD death squads. These rounded up Jews, shot them and buried them in pits. Many regard this as the start of the actual holocaust.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_Germans_treat_the_Jews_during_the_Holocaust#ixzz1Ee6emH7l
Inside a Nazi Death Camps
Hitler established the first
concentration camp soon after he came to power in 1933. The system grew
to include about 100 camps divided into two types: concentration camps
for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the systematic
extermination of "undesirables" including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals,
the mentally retarded and others.
Slave laborers in the
Buchenwald concentration camp
after its liberation by US forces.
April 16, 1945
As the allied armies raced towards final victory, advancing troops liberated the camps one-by-one, revealing the horrors of the Nazi concept of establishing a "pure" society. The first liberation came in July 1944 when Soviet troops entered Maidanek, a death camp located in Poland two miles from the city of Lublin. Alexander Werth, a correspondent for the London Sunday Times and the BBC, accompanied the Soviet troops and described the camp shortly after its capture.
The BBC refused to air his report of the camp as his description was so unbelievable they considered it a Soviet propaganda ploy. It was not until the later capture of Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps on the western front that his description was accepted as true.
"It looked singularly harmless."
The Maidanek camp was established by the Nazis in 1941 soon after their conquest of the then Russian occupied region of Poland. The primary purpose of the facility was the speedy extermination of new arrivals (mostly Jews) transported in from various countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Holland. The majority of victims, however, came from the immediate area. It is estimated that 1.5 million died at the camp during its three years of operation. Soviet troops entered the camp in July 1944. A week later, Alexander Werth joined a group of fellow reporters in a guided tour of the facility:
"My first reaction to Maidanek was a feeling of surprise. I had imagined something horrible and sinister beyond words. It was nothing like that. It looked singularly harmless from outside. 'Is that it?' was my first reaction when we stopped at what looked like a large workers' settlement. Behind us was the many towered skyline of Lublin. There was much dust on the road, and the grass as dull, greenish-grey colour. The camp was separated from the road by a couple of barbed-wire fences, but these did not look particularly sinister, and might have been put up outside any military or semi-military establishment. The place was large; like a whole town of barracks painted a pleasant soft green. There were many people around - soldiers and civilians. A Polish sentry opened the barbed-wire gate to let cars enter the central avenue, with large green barracks on either side. And we stopped outside a large barrack marked Bad and Desinfektion II. 'This,' somebody said, 'is where large numbers of those arriving at the camp were brought in.' The inside of this barrack was made of concrete, and water taps came out of the wall, and around the room there were benches where the clothes were put down and after wards collected. So this was the place into which they were driven. Or perhaps they were politely invited to 'Step this way, please?' Did any of them suspect, while washing themselves after a long journey, what would happen a few minutes later? Anyway, after the washing was over, they were asked to go into the next room; at this point even the most unsuspecting must have begun to wonder. For the "next room" was a series of large square concrete structures, each about one-quarter of the size the bath-house, and, unlike it, had no windows. The naked people (men one time, women another time, children the next) were driven or forced from the bath-house into these dark concrete boxes - about five yards square - and then, with 200 or 250 people packed into each box - and it was completely dark there, except for a small light in the ceiling and the spyhole in the door - the process of gassing began. First some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling and then the pretty pale-blue crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes everybody was dead. . . German citizens of a near-by town are forced by American troops to view the horrors of a concentration camp.
May 5, 1945There were six concrete boxes - gas-chambers - side by side. 'Nearly two thousand people could be disposed of here simultaneously,' one of the guides said.
But what thoughts passed through these people's minds during those first few minutes while the crystals were falling; could anyone still believe that this humiliating process of being packed into a box and standing there naked, rubbing backs with other naked people, had anything to do with disinfection?
At first it was all very hard to take in, without an effort of the imagination. There were a number of very dull-looking concrete structures which, if their doors had been wider, might anywhere else have been mistaken for a row of nice little garages. But the doors - the doors! They were heavy steel doors, and each had a heavy steel bolt. And in the middle of the door was a spyhole, a circle, three inches in diameter composed of about a hundred small holes. Could the people in their death agony see the SS man's eye as he watched them? Anyway, the SS-man had nothing to fear: his eye was well protected by the steel netting over the spyhole...
...Then a touch of blue on the floor caught my eye. It was very faint, but still legible. In blue chalk someone had scribbled the word "vergast" and had drawn crudely above it a skull and crossbones. I had never seen this word before but it obviously meant" gassed" - and not merely "gassed" but: with, that eloquent little prefix ver, 'gassed out'. That's this job finished, and now for the next lot. The blue chalk came into motion when there was nothing but a heap of naked corpses inside. But what cries, what curses, what prayers perhaps, had been uttered inside that gas chamber only a few minutes before?..."
References:
Gutman, Israel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990); Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941-1945 (1964). Hitler established the first concentration camp soon after he came to power in 1933. The system grew to include about 100 camps divided into two types: concentration camps for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the systematic extermination of "undesirables" including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and others. Slave laborers in the
Buchenwald concentration camp
after its liberation by US forces.
April 16, 1945
As the allied armies raced towards final victory, advancing troops liberated the camps one-by-one, revealing the horrors of the Nazi concept of establishing a "pure" society. The first liberation came in July 1944 when Soviet troops entered Maidanek, a death camp located in Poland two miles from the city of Lublin. Alexander Werth, a correspondent for the London Sunday Times and the BBC, accompanied the Soviet troops and described the camp shortly after its capture.
The BBC refused to air his report of the camp as his description was so unbelievable they considered it a Soviet propaganda ploy. It was not until the later capture of Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps on the western front that his description was accepted as true.
"It looked singularly harmless."
The Maidanek camp was established by the Nazis in 1941 soon after their conquest of the then Russian occupied region of Poland. The primary purpose of the facility was the speedy extermination of new arrivals (mostly Jews) transported in from various countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Holland. The majority of victims, however, came from the immediate area. It is estimated that 1.5 million died at the camp during its three years of operation. Soviet troops entered the camp in July 1944. A week later, Alexander Werth joined a group of fellow reporters in a guided tour of the facility:
ADVERTISMENT "My first reaction to Maidanek was a feeling of surprise. I had imagined something horrible and sinister beyond words. It was nothing like that. It looked singularly harmless from outside. 'Is that it?' was my first reaction when we stopped at what looked like a large workers' settlement. Behind us was the many towered skyline of Lublin. There was much dust on the road, and the grass as dull, greenish-grey colour. The camp was separated from the road by a couple of barbed-wire fences, but these did not look particularly sinister, and might have been put up outside any military or semi-military establishment. The place was large; like a whole town of barracks painted a pleasant soft green. There were many people around - soldiers and civilians. A Polish sentry opened the barbed-wire gate to let cars enter the central avenue, with large green barracks on either side. And we stopped outside a large barrack marked Bad und Desinfektion II. 'This,' somebody said, 'is where large numbers of those arriving at the camp were brought in.' The inside of this barrack was made of concrete, and water taps came out of the wall, and around the room there were benches where the clothes were put down and afterwards collected. So this was the place into which they were driven. Or perhaps they were politely invited to 'Step this way, please?' Did any of them suspect, while washing themselves after a long journey, what would happen a few minutes later? Anyway, after the washing was over, they were asked to go into the next room; at this point even the most unsuspecting must have begun to wonder. For the "next room" was a series of large square concrete structures, each about one-quarter of the size the bath-house, and, unlike it, had no windows. The naked people (men one time, women another time, children the next) were driven or forced from the bath-house into these dark concrete boxes - about five yards square - and then, with 200 or 250 people packed into each box - and it was completely dark there, except for a small light in the ceiling and the spyhole in the door - the process of gassing began. First some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling and then the pretty pale-blue crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes everybody was dead. . .
German citizens of a near-by town
are forced by American troops to view
the horrors of a concentration camp.
May 5, 1945
There were six concrete boxes - gas-chambers - side by side. 'Nearly two thousand people could be disposed of here simultaneously,' one of the guides said.
But what thoughts passed through these people's minds during those first few minutes while the crystals were falling; could anyone still believe that this humiliating process of being packed into a box and standing there naked, rubbing backs with other naked people, had anything to do with disinfection?
At first it was all very hard to take in, without an effort of the imagination. There were a number of very dull-looking concrete structures which, if their doors had been wider, might anywhere else have been mistaken for a row of nice little garages. But the doors - the doors! They were heavy steel doors, and each had a heavy steel bolt. And in the middle of the door was a spyhole, a circle, three inches in diameter composed of about a hundred small holes. Could the people in their death agony see the SS man's eye as he watched them? Anyway, the SS-man had nothing to fear: his eye was well protected by the steel netting over the spyhole...
...Then a touch of blue on the floor caught my eye. It was very faint, but still legible. In blue chalk someone had scribbled the word "vergast" and had drawn crudely above it a skull and crossbones. I had never seen this word before but it obviously meant" gassed" - and not merely "gassed" but: with, that eloquent little prefix ver, 'gassed out'. That's this job finished, and now for the next lot. The blue chalk came into motion when there was nothing but a heap of naked corpses inside. But what cries, what curses, what prayers perhaps, had been uttered inside that gas chamber only a few minutes before?..."
Buchenwald concentration camp
after its liberation by US forces.
April 16, 1945
As the allied armies raced towards final victory, advancing troops liberated the camps one-by-one, revealing the horrors of the Nazi concept of establishing a "pure" society. The first liberation came in July 1944 when Soviet troops entered Maidanek, a death camp located in Poland two miles from the city of Lublin. Alexander Werth, a correspondent for the London Sunday Times and the BBC, accompanied the Soviet troops and described the camp shortly after its capture.
The BBC refused to air his report of the camp as his description was so unbelievable they considered it a Soviet propaganda ploy. It was not until the later capture of Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps on the western front that his description was accepted as true.
"It looked singularly harmless."
The Maidanek camp was established by the Nazis in 1941 soon after their conquest of the then Russian occupied region of Poland. The primary purpose of the facility was the speedy extermination of new arrivals (mostly Jews) transported in from various countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Holland. The majority of victims, however, came from the immediate area. It is estimated that 1.5 million died at the camp during its three years of operation. Soviet troops entered the camp in July 1944. A week later, Alexander Werth joined a group of fellow reporters in a guided tour of the facility:
"My first reaction to Maidanek was a feeling of surprise. I had imagined something horrible and sinister beyond words. It was nothing like that. It looked singularly harmless from outside. 'Is that it?' was my first reaction when we stopped at what looked like a large workers' settlement. Behind us was the many towered skyline of Lublin. There was much dust on the road, and the grass as dull, greenish-grey colour. The camp was separated from the road by a couple of barbed-wire fences, but these did not look particularly sinister, and might have been put up outside any military or semi-military establishment. The place was large; like a whole town of barracks painted a pleasant soft green. There were many people around - soldiers and civilians. A Polish sentry opened the barbed-wire gate to let cars enter the central avenue, with large green barracks on either side. And we stopped outside a large barrack marked Bad and Desinfektion II. 'This,' somebody said, 'is where large numbers of those arriving at the camp were brought in.' The inside of this barrack was made of concrete, and water taps came out of the wall, and around the room there were benches where the clothes were put down and after wards collected. So this was the place into which they were driven. Or perhaps they were politely invited to 'Step this way, please?' Did any of them suspect, while washing themselves after a long journey, what would happen a few minutes later? Anyway, after the washing was over, they were asked to go into the next room; at this point even the most unsuspecting must have begun to wonder. For the "next room" was a series of large square concrete structures, each about one-quarter of the size the bath-house, and, unlike it, had no windows. The naked people (men one time, women another time, children the next) were driven or forced from the bath-house into these dark concrete boxes - about five yards square - and then, with 200 or 250 people packed into each box - and it was completely dark there, except for a small light in the ceiling and the spyhole in the door - the process of gassing began. First some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling and then the pretty pale-blue crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes everybody was dead. . . German citizens of a near-by town are forced by American troops to view the horrors of a concentration camp.
May 5, 1945There were six concrete boxes - gas-chambers - side by side. 'Nearly two thousand people could be disposed of here simultaneously,' one of the guides said.
But what thoughts passed through these people's minds during those first few minutes while the crystals were falling; could anyone still believe that this humiliating process of being packed into a box and standing there naked, rubbing backs with other naked people, had anything to do with disinfection?
At first it was all very hard to take in, without an effort of the imagination. There were a number of very dull-looking concrete structures which, if their doors had been wider, might anywhere else have been mistaken for a row of nice little garages. But the doors - the doors! They were heavy steel doors, and each had a heavy steel bolt. And in the middle of the door was a spyhole, a circle, three inches in diameter composed of about a hundred small holes. Could the people in their death agony see the SS man's eye as he watched them? Anyway, the SS-man had nothing to fear: his eye was well protected by the steel netting over the spyhole...
...Then a touch of blue on the floor caught my eye. It was very faint, but still legible. In blue chalk someone had scribbled the word "vergast" and had drawn crudely above it a skull and crossbones. I had never seen this word before but it obviously meant" gassed" - and not merely "gassed" but: with, that eloquent little prefix ver, 'gassed out'. That's this job finished, and now for the next lot. The blue chalk came into motion when there was nothing but a heap of naked corpses inside. But what cries, what curses, what prayers perhaps, had been uttered inside that gas chamber only a few minutes before?..."
References:
Gutman, Israel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990); Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941-1945 (1964). Hitler established the first concentration camp soon after he came to power in 1933. The system grew to include about 100 camps divided into two types: concentration camps for slave labor in nearby factories and death camps for the systematic extermination of "undesirables" including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and others. Slave laborers in the
Buchenwald concentration camp
after its liberation by US forces.
April 16, 1945
As the allied armies raced towards final victory, advancing troops liberated the camps one-by-one, revealing the horrors of the Nazi concept of establishing a "pure" society. The first liberation came in July 1944 when Soviet troops entered Maidanek, a death camp located in Poland two miles from the city of Lublin. Alexander Werth, a correspondent for the London Sunday Times and the BBC, accompanied the Soviet troops and described the camp shortly after its capture.
The BBC refused to air his report of the camp as his description was so unbelievable they considered it a Soviet propaganda ploy. It was not until the later capture of Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps on the western front that his description was accepted as true.
"It looked singularly harmless."
The Maidanek camp was established by the Nazis in 1941 soon after their conquest of the then Russian occupied region of Poland. The primary purpose of the facility was the speedy extermination of new arrivals (mostly Jews) transported in from various countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Holland. The majority of victims, however, came from the immediate area. It is estimated that 1.5 million died at the camp during its three years of operation. Soviet troops entered the camp in July 1944. A week later, Alexander Werth joined a group of fellow reporters in a guided tour of the facility:
ADVERTISMENT "My first reaction to Maidanek was a feeling of surprise. I had imagined something horrible and sinister beyond words. It was nothing like that. It looked singularly harmless from outside. 'Is that it?' was my first reaction when we stopped at what looked like a large workers' settlement. Behind us was the many towered skyline of Lublin. There was much dust on the road, and the grass as dull, greenish-grey colour. The camp was separated from the road by a couple of barbed-wire fences, but these did not look particularly sinister, and might have been put up outside any military or semi-military establishment. The place was large; like a whole town of barracks painted a pleasant soft green. There were many people around - soldiers and civilians. A Polish sentry opened the barbed-wire gate to let cars enter the central avenue, with large green barracks on either side. And we stopped outside a large barrack marked Bad und Desinfektion II. 'This,' somebody said, 'is where large numbers of those arriving at the camp were brought in.' The inside of this barrack was made of concrete, and water taps came out of the wall, and around the room there were benches where the clothes were put down and afterwards collected. So this was the place into which they were driven. Or perhaps they were politely invited to 'Step this way, please?' Did any of them suspect, while washing themselves after a long journey, what would happen a few minutes later? Anyway, after the washing was over, they were asked to go into the next room; at this point even the most unsuspecting must have begun to wonder. For the "next room" was a series of large square concrete structures, each about one-quarter of the size the bath-house, and, unlike it, had no windows. The naked people (men one time, women another time, children the next) were driven or forced from the bath-house into these dark concrete boxes - about five yards square - and then, with 200 or 250 people packed into each box - and it was completely dark there, except for a small light in the ceiling and the spyhole in the door - the process of gassing began. First some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling and then the pretty pale-blue crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes everybody was dead. . .
German citizens of a near-by town
are forced by American troops to view
the horrors of a concentration camp.
May 5, 1945
There were six concrete boxes - gas-chambers - side by side. 'Nearly two thousand people could be disposed of here simultaneously,' one of the guides said.
But what thoughts passed through these people's minds during those first few minutes while the crystals were falling; could anyone still believe that this humiliating process of being packed into a box and standing there naked, rubbing backs with other naked people, had anything to do with disinfection?
At first it was all very hard to take in, without an effort of the imagination. There were a number of very dull-looking concrete structures which, if their doors had been wider, might anywhere else have been mistaken for a row of nice little garages. But the doors - the doors! They were heavy steel doors, and each had a heavy steel bolt. And in the middle of the door was a spyhole, a circle, three inches in diameter composed of about a hundred small holes. Could the people in their death agony see the SS man's eye as he watched them? Anyway, the SS-man had nothing to fear: his eye was well protected by the steel netting over the spyhole...
...Then a touch of blue on the floor caught my eye. It was very faint, but still legible. In blue chalk someone had scribbled the word "vergast" and had drawn crudely above it a skull and crossbones. I had never seen this word before but it obviously meant" gassed" - and not merely "gassed" but: with, that eloquent little prefix ver, 'gassed out'. That's this job finished, and now for the next lot. The blue chalk came into motion when there was nothing but a heap of naked corpses inside. But what cries, what curses, what prayers perhaps, had been uttered inside that gas chamber only a few minutes before?..."
Concentration camps are places where most of the victims of the Nazis were killed. The concentration camps were not a place where you could live and die peacefully. At these camps, the treatment was extremely harsh and cruel. Every person there was either sick, starving, dying, or a slave laborer. They would die in many types of ways, like starvation, sickness, a machine gun, or overworking your body. Some people were even told that they were going to take a shower, but they were killed. They were tricked, and they actually went into a gas chamber. They died at all different ages, but the Nazis didn’t care
