The Auschwitz Complex Essay, Research Paper

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.