West
Kaylee West
Mrs. Hunt
Honors English II
3 March, 2008
Nazi Concentration Camps
When Adolph Hitler was declared ruler of Germany approximately 64 years ago, it was at his request that Nazi soldiers marched hostages out of their homes. These hostages never dreamed that this could be the last few minutes of their lives (Walt). They were carried to concentration camps where some were shot and tortured along the way. A concentration camp is when political rivals are imprisoned without a trial. In 1945, when the allied forces reached these camps, they found an obscene amount of dead people that had not been buried and a number of survivors that were crippled, insane, or dying from a lack of nutrition or diseases (Windell). From the beginning of camp establishment to the conclusion of this horrific tragedy, both Jews and people of other ethnicities had to endure such horrible conditions in these concentration camps that the world may never forget their sufferings.
Soon after Hitler came to rule, some of Germany’s first concentration camps were established. Those who were against Hitler were “concentrated” in camps (van der Rol and Verhoeven 94). The enemies of the Nazi government were brought to the camps in hopes of tolerating the principles of Nazism and being devoted to their government. Often, the SS commanders would use the term “education camps” in letters they would send to one another. This term was used by the SS commanders because according to them these camps were used for educational purposes only. At the very start of these camps there were 20,000 prisoners and by the time they ended there were 975,000 prisoners. The first concentration camp was located in the gunpowder factories of World War I within the city of Dauhau. The conditions of the camp and the sufferings of its prisoners became progressively worse as time passed. Over 200,000 from more than 38 different countries had to come to this first camp each day. Approximately 30,000 prisoners died each day at the camp of Dauhau. In May 1940, the Germans built another one of their early camps on the border of Germany and Poland. This camp was located in Galacia, Germany which is 90 miles from Warsaw, Poland. In June 1940, the camps at Auschwitz and Neuengamme, which served as a branch of the Sachsenhausaen, opened. A few weeks later, Lublin was declared one of the major concentration camps (Seger 11-14, 16-17). Just before the war began the camps in Flossenburg, Mauthausen, and Ravensbruck were established. To determine which camp a person was sent, the men and women got off the cattle cars and went to Auschwitz where officials were waiting to sort them according to the SS commandments. The sorting was performed by the SS commanders either asking the men and women a question or by physically glancing at them. Death was the automatic sentence for individuals who were deformed, pregnant, over the age of 50, or mothers with children over the age of 14. A person who was tired, sick, did not speak German, or appeared older than he or she actually was would be sent to the gas chambers (Cohen 57).
