Auschwitz: Overview of the Concentration Camp Essay -- Germany Hitler

Auschwitz Overview of the Concentration CampThe final solution was one of the most horrifying crimes against mankindity. Hitler, in an attempt to establish the comminuted Aryan race, decided that Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma (Gypsies), and homosexuals amongst others were to be pass alongd from the German population. integrity of his main methods of exterminating these undesirables was through the use of concentration and death face packs. In January of 1941, Adolf Hitler and his tip officials decided to make their final solution a reality. Their goal was to eliminate the Jews and the impure from the entire German population. Auschwitz was not only the largest concentration tenting that carried out Hitlers final solution, but it was also the most extensive. It was comprised of three state camps that encompassed approximately 25 square miles. Although millions of people came to Auschwitz, it is doubted that more than 120,000-150,000 ever lived in that respect at any one time. (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust) On April 27, 1940, the head of the SS and German police, Heinrich Himmler, arranged that a new concentration camp be established progress the town of Oswiecim. A short while later the building of the camp in Zasole, the suburb of Oswiecim, was started. The camp was to be called Auschwitz. The first laborers forced to function on the construction of the camp were three hundred Jews from Oswiecim and its vicinity. (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust) After the utmost it covered two square kilometers and took approximately one and a half(prenominal) hours to walk around its perimeter. (Feig, 340) On the gate of Auschwitz was a sign in German that read, Arbeit macht frei, which translates into English as turn over makes one free. (Feig, 334) This was one of the umpteen lies which the Nazis told their prisoners. The first Jews in Auschwitz believed that they were just being taken there to work for the Nazis. As more and more people died wor d leaked to the outside instauration about what was really happening at Auschwitz. The Jews and other undesirables were forced by S.S. soldiers to leave their homes and nearly all of their possessions behind to board crowded heads to Auschwitz. ironically most of the time they had to pay for the train rides that eventually led to their death. The train rides to Auschwitz were an introduction to the treatment that the deportees were to receive at the ca... ...ewly constructed factories such as the German Armaments Works and the German Earth and Stone Works. (Encyclopedia of the Holocaust)Auschwitz was the largest graveyard in human history. The number of Jews murdered in the gas chambers of Birkenau is estimated at up to one and a half million people men, women, and children. Almost one-quarter of the Jews killed during gentleman War II were murdered in Auschwitz. Of the 405,000 registered prisoners who received Auschwitz numbers, only a part survived and of the 16,000 Soviet pri soners of war who were brought there, only 96 survived.Works CitedBauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. rising York Franklin Watts, 1982.Feig, Konnilyn G. Hitlers last Camps. New York Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1979.Guttman, Isreal, Ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. New York Macmallin, 1990.Hellman, Petrt. The Auschwitz Album. New York Random House, 1981. Lynott, Douglas Josef Mengele The Angel of DeathMller, Filip. Auschwitz Three Years in the Gas Chambers. New York Stein and Day, 1979.Nyiszli, Dr. Miklos Auschwitz An Eyewitness Account of Mengles Infamous Death Camp. New York Seaver Books, 1960.