Download The Atrocities and Horrors of Auschwitz

The Atrocities and Horrors of
Auschwitz
By Sarah Weisgal
The Beginning of Auschwitz
Auschwitz Concentration Camp was built
and approved in April of 1940, after
German dictator Adolf Hitler demanded
that “Jews should be rounded up and
concentrated into cities with good rail
links.” Before the order, anti-Semitism was
already occurring, stripping Jewish people
of their citizenship and human rights.
Population
The barracks of the extermination camps
were so over-congested that areas meant to
hold 5,000 prisoners would hold as many as
8,000 to 9,000 at a time.
An Early Start
A prisoner’s day in Auschwitz would start
around 3:30am (4:30am in the winter) with a
four hour long roll call. The prisoners would
line up in rows of five and wait for the SS
guards to arrive.
An Early Start (cont.)
During the long hours, guards would
beat the prisoners for infractions such
as a missing button on their coat, or
their food bowl not being clean. Even
the dead had to be present, being held
up by fellow bunk mates until
attendance had been taken.
Work Details
A working day lasted around 12 hours during the
summer and a little less in the winter, and no
rest periods were allowed. The uniforms were
striped camp clothing, no underwear, and
wooden shoes with no socks.
Block 11
Block 11 of Auschwitz was punishment within
the camp. Some prisoners were punished with
standing cells, which held four men where they
could do nothing but stand, and were forced the
work the next morning. Prisoners sentenced to
death for escape attempts were locked in a dark
cell and deprived of food and water until they
were dead.
Block 11 (cont.)
In the basement “dark cells” were located. They
had a very tiny window and a metal door. People
placed in these cells would gradually suffocate
as they used up all of the breathing air in the
cell.
Extermination
In December of 1941, Hitler decided to kill
all Jews immediately. Plans for complete
extermination of the Jewish population of
Europe were decided at the Wannsee
Conference on January 20th, 1942. Some
would be labored to death and the rest
would be killed.
Extermination (cont.)
The first mass killing at Auschwitz happened in
September of 1941 – 900 inmates were killed by
the poisonous gas Zyklon B in the basement of
Block 11.
Aftermath
Over two and a half million people were killed in
the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of
the war in 1945.