Jews
Jews and other prisoners suffered untold suffering in the Auschwitz concentration camps. They were forcible deported into the camps in crammed freight cars where they were not given water or food for many days on the journey. Often these would be people that had earlier experienced inhumane imprisonment in ghettos. They also suffered from humiliation and degradation, legal and social marginalization, and many years of internment in other forced and concentration camps (Webb, 46). The Camp system varied from labor camps, concentration camps, transit camps, prison-of-war camps, and sometimes became the killing centers for the prisoners.
At the foot of the concentration camps, the lives of these captives depended on the SS doctors. Depending on the SS doctor, one could be handed a life or death verdict. Most of these deaths were reported as “suicides,” “accidental,” “justified killings” of prisoners who were “trying to escape,” “assaulting a guard” or “sabotage in production.” Incarceration was rarely based on a specific crime; instead, the SS police would order such a killing on the bases of suspicion that a prisoner committed a crime or was likely to commit a crime. This, therefore, means people falling under different categories would be killed including those that were never charged for a specific act, those already acquitted on charges relating to a crime, those that have just been released from prison upon completion of their sentence and even those individuals who the SS police deemed that was a danger to the german society (was often based on racial discrimination)
Nazi Germany established over 44,000 camps and incarceration sites with the aim of using them for the detention of people who were thought to be enemies of the state (politically, ideologically, or racial opponents), forced labor, and even as mass murder centers (Milač, 34). The Auschwitz camp was one of the deadliest because it was located at a railway junction that had 44 parallel tracks that would transport Jews from throughout Europe to their death. The camp was established in1940 by Heinrich Himmler, the SS police chief.
The camps mainly housed German communists, Socialist, trade unionist and other from liberal political circles. Some of these groups included the Soviet prisoners’ war, members of the national resistance groups, groups of partisans, the Soviet prisoners’ war, members of the civic resistance groups, groups of partisans, Polish or soviet civilian forced laborers, recaptured US and British military officers, and prisoners from western Europe. The concentration camps were out of the reach of the German justice authorities, and this created an opportunity for the SS police to kill the prisoners at will. In the early days, the prisoners were mainly the perceived political opponents of the regime, but as time went by, more prisoners from ideological and religious dissent, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and dissent clergy members were also arrested. Other groups included members of the society who were not seen to comply with existing social norms such as homosexuals, “asocial,” Roma, and habitual criminals (Giaccaria, 6).
The camps were guarded by the German Security Police, whose sole responsibility was to arrest, incarcerate, execute, release, and other disciplinary punishment deemed fit for the prisoners.
In November 1938, SS police conducted a mass arrest of adult male Jews and imprisoned them. With time the prison population was made up of foreign political opponents, foreign forced laborers, resistance fighters, and prisoners of war. The SS police and the staff used carbon monoxide gas to murder Jews in their masses; one of the chambers could kill as many as 6,000 jews per day. There was also the use of pesticide Zyklon B (prussic acid) to kill prisoners; this was considered more efficient (Czech,54).
Nazi doctors also performed medical experiments on the prisoners in the camps. Some of these experiments included a test for pharmaceuticals and medical treatments, devise mass sterilization methods, and survival strategies.
There were also death marches that were established to prevent the mass capture of prisoners by Allied forces. During the said marches, the SS police shot at anyone who was unable to keep up. Many more prisoners died of starvation, disease, and exposure as a result of the winter season. It is estimated that over 700,000 prisoners died between January-May of 1945.
The camped also served as a source of cheap forced labor for SS-owned or operated businesses, construction projects, including the expansion of the existing camps and construction of new ones. A sign over the entrance to the camp read arbeit macht frei meaning that “work makes one free,” but this was the opposite of what was happening. Jews and other prisoners experienced extermination through work.
Those prisoners who were spared from immediate killing were selected for labor. They were systematically stripped of their individual identity by having their hair shaven and were tattooed a registration number on their arms. Men were forced to put on ragged pants while the women wore work dresses. There was no luxury for change of clothes, and they often wore ill-fitting work shoes. The prisoners were also deployed in coal mines, rock quarries, tunnels, and canals. Others worked in factories that produced weapons and other goods that were used by Germany in the war (Zimmerman,72). On some occasions, the prisoners were deployed in German state-owned firms and private firms. The prisoners who became too weak to work were often killed with gas chambers at the concentration camps. Some prisoners were so frustrated, and they committed suicide by throwing themselves against electric wires.
Prisoners were often housed in barracks that had no windows and were not insulated from cold or heat. They had no bathrooms and were issued with buckets instead. The prisoners were squeezed in small rooms, and they were served very poor meals. Due to this, many suffered from hygiene-related diseases and were nutrient deficient. Many suffered and died fro diarrhea, dehydration, starvation, and contagious diseases (Kwiatkowski,86).
Works Cited
Czech, Danuta. Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp. 1996.
Giaccaria, Paolo, and Claudio Minca. “Topographies/topologies of the camp: Auschwitz as a spatial threshold.” Political Geography, vol. 30, no. 1, 2011, pp. 3-12.
Kwiatkowski, Bruce. Bread of Adversity: Food and Diet at Auschwitz Concentration Camp 1941-1945. 1998.
Milač, Metod M. Resistance, Imprisonment, and Forced Labor. Peter Lang Pub, 2002.
Webb, Chris. The Auschwitz Concentration Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance. Ibidem P, 2018.
Zimmerman, John C. Holocaust denial: demographics, testimonies, and ideologies. U Pr of Amer, 2000.