Aushwitz Essay, Research Paper

AUSCHWITZ

BY

CHRISTOPHER JAMES

The Nazis establishes Auschwitz in April 1940, under the orders of Heinrich Himmler. Heinrich Himmler was in charge of two Nazi organizations. The camp at Auschwitz originally housed political prisoners from occupied Poland and various concentration camps from within Germany.

Prisoners were transported from all over Nazi-occupied Europe. When the prisoners arrived at the complex they were separated into three groups. One group was sent directly to the gas chamber at Birkenau within a few hours, usually seven. The second group of prisoners was used as slaves to work for industrial factories and companies. At the Auschwitz complex 405,00 prisoners were recorded as laborers between 1940 and 1945. The third group, comprised of mostly twins and dwarfs, under went medical experiments at the hands of doctors, such as Josef Mengeles. Josef Mengels was also known as the ?Angel of Death?.

Auschwitz was partly staffed by prisoners, some who were selected as ?kapos? (orderlies). The rest of the staff was Nazi soldiers.

In 1943 resistance organizations had developed at Auschwitz. These organizations helped a few prisoners escape. The escaped prisoners took with the news of exterminations, such as the killings of thousands of Jews that were transported from Hungary between May 1944 and July 1944.

On January 27 1945 the soviet army marched into Auschwitz to liberate the camp. The soviet army found about 7,600 survivors that were abandoned at the camp. More than 58,000 prisoners were evacuated by the Nazis and sent on a final death march to Germany.

The Auschwitz concentration camps were inhumane, treating their prisoners as no such man could imagine. The concentration camps were designed to bring pain and suffering to all prisoners that were forced to stay there, with the final destination of death.

Auschwitz is a town in southern Poland, about 32 miles west of Krakow. Auschwitz was the largest concentration site and death camp that was run by the Nazi Germany during World War II.

WORLD WAR II ENCYCLOPEDIA