Countless Jews died as a result of the Einsatzgruppen, in 1941 the German army invaded the USSR and with them they brought the Einsatzgruppen, the einsatzgruppens task was to annihilate all Jews, gypsies, communists, political leaders and intelligentsia. To start off with the Jews would be shot until dead, but this was said to have a psychological impact on the executioners so they changed their methods of killing from mass shootings to CO vans, the mobile gas chambers helped to form the idea of gas chambers in death camps.
Transportation from the ghettos and occupied Europe was arranged to bring the Jews to concentration or deaths camps.
As shown above the carriage trains that brought the Jews from the ghettos where very compact and where in fact built for cattle, hundreds of people would be crammed into a tiny space for hours on end with no food or water, forced to stand amongst their own faeces. Some Greek Jews actually paid to travel on the cattle trains, this is proof that they truly believed that they where being resettled. When they finally arrived at their concentration or death camp they where immediately selected as those fit to work and those who should die, firstly the women and children on one side then the men on the other, then they would be split up into those who will live and those who will die.
Those chosen to die patiently waited and waited to have a shower and to be reunited with their families, of course they where never seen again. Those who where chosen to live had to work and soon found out that they would be working continually for years of their lives.
Death camps where like a living hell for anyone the Nazis disliked, their daily routine included role call for everyone in the camp dead or alive, at five o’clock possibly until ten/eleven o’clock, then work until it was time to sleep. Some jobs where considered more desirable then others, cleaning the toilets for example was one of the better jobs because it meant that you where inside in the warm and away from a group of authority, some Jews where the authority, Kapo’s where prisoners with power, they organised their barracks this was one of the best jobs as you where less likely to be killed if you where a Kapo, but Kapo’s where mainly criminals and not Jews. The worst job was that of the Sonderkommando – the crematorium workers, it was their unfortunate duty to pick up the bodies from the crematorium and dispose of them but not without taking all their belongings and such things as gold teeth first; shortly after they themselves would be shot.
Concentration camps would revolve around work, the Jews would work all day and have similar jobs as those who survived the selection at death camps, every last detail had been planned and organised for the Jews, what time they woke up, where they went, what they did, when they ate, what they ate, whether they lived or died. That’s how the camps worked it was all perfectly planned out. The living conditions where appalling too, sometimes as many as three to a bed, a bed that was made out of stone, disease would have been widespread if it wasn’t for the hospitals that where on site. The living conditions where so bad that as the Jews slept lice would fall on them from the people sleeping above them, many had no control of their bladder and where only allowed to go to the toilet once a day for about five minutes and where considered extremely lucky to actually use the toilets provided, at any one time there were as many as three Jews to a toilet. They were so dirty that urinating on themselves was considered washing.
After all the hardships they had been put through the Jews where finally able to walk out of the camps… only to be sent on a death march, where they would literally walk to their deaths.
Elimination of the Jews almost worked for the Nazis, they had almost destroyed a whole race, through ghettos, concentration camps, death camps general labour, starvation and death marches. Six million Jews died, because of the Nazis discrmination.
