Holocaust Essay, Research Paper

Quincy Nnanna

Period 3

Holocaust Killings

Picture yourself and millions of others. Freezing in the cold with only a pair of pants and a shirt on, without any shoes. Mud is up to your knees with bugs crawling through it. Scary SS guards put you and your family in different sections. You do not know that is the last time you will be seeing your family, alive that is. While they are sent to so call ?showers? you are relieved. You later find out that those so called ?showers? are really gas chambers and your family was killed and you will never see them again. This was the harsh reality for many Jewish, homosexual, gypsy and numerous other nationalities. The people were killed in a very inhumane way by gas chambers to hanging, which no innocent person should go through.

There numerous ways of the Nazis thought of to exterminate the people. The Nazis went in stages to find out what was most efficient in kill people in mass numbers. First they used shooting. People had to strip naked and line up to be shot. The Nazis took their belongings to sell. Nazis didn?t like this method they felt not enough people were being killed. The cost was very high so that was also a turnoff. After the first phase of shooting they used gas chambers. This method killed people in mass numbers, which of course the Nazis loved it. This also was very cost effective. While gas chamber use was in effect the Nazis also used hangings as a way to kill the victims. This cost nearly no money, but did not kill as many people and not favored because of this. There were other numerous others ways the people were killed. Those were the main three.

Two important substances were used in the gas chambers, as before these were used in stages. The first stage was the use of carbon monoxide. It was used during testing stages. The people in charge recorded time to see how it would take to kill a room full of people. They thought the time it took to kill the people was too long so they later discarded this method. The cost was also too high to keep going on killing for a period of time. Zyklon B was used in the later stages as brought to attention by chemists. The chemical was low in cost and was used to the end. The chemical was a rat poison and when used in mass numbers can kill human beings. It was poured in a chute of the ceilings where used and evaporated in contact with oxygen and spread throughout wherever it was contained. It was a faster killer than carbon monoxide.

The choosing of who dies were sorted into groups. Some of the groups were the young, middle-aged, old and sick. The young were sent to labor. When the guards thought they might be not strong enough they were they were killed. The middle-aged were usually used for their special skills in whatever previous job or background they had. Some were even used as kapos to keep track of fellow people. There were not as many jobs for the old. They sometimes if they were lucky kept up with the cleaning. Others worked in the crematoriums, but most were killed. The was most of the time killed unless they were used for testing.

Due to the up bringing of this anti-Semitic and racial views millions of people had to suffer. Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill, Germans who protected Jews and the most in number Jews were all persecuted and killed just because of their beliefs and who they were. What happened to all these innocent people was cruel, brutal and inhumane. I hope the human race never repeats itself in this fashion.