Download 1 HISTORICAL INQUIRY PROJECT Joe Kolousek ECI 435 October

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HISTORICAL INQUIRY PROJECT
Joe Kolousek
ECI 435
October 7, 2013
In 1933, when the Nazi party rose to power in Germany, there were over 9 million Jews
living throughout Europe, most in countries that Nazi Germany would end up occupying during
World War II. The Nazis believed that they were the superior race and that the Jews were
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inferior and must be cleansed from the earth, and therefore “by 1945, the Germans and their
collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the ‘Final Solution,’
the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe”.1 These deaths happened in a myriad of ways and
at locations all over Europe. At the height of Nazi Germany, there were around 20,000 camps
that were utilized for a “range of purposes including forced-labor camps, transit camps which
served as temporary way stations, and extermination camps built primarily or exclusively for
mass murder”. 2
Even though around six million Jews were killed during this time, there were survivors
and many of those documented their experiences to share with the world. They didn’t want this
terrible time in history to pass away and be forgotten. By looking at journals and other primary
sources from survivors in different concentration camps, one can begin to answer the following
question: How did the treatment of the Jews compare from one concentration camp to the next?
Historical Context:
In January 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as the chancellor of Germany and shortly
thereafter created a dictatorship. He created a regime in which if an individual or organization
was not in agreement with the goals and ideals of the Nazi party then they were eliminated. One
of Hitler’s main ideals was that the German, or “Aryan” race was the only one that was pure and
good and all other races were inferior. Jews were Hitler’s primary targets however he also aimed
his focus at gypsies, homosexuals, and others who he considered to not be of the “pure” race.
When Hitler took control, he seized all forms of media communication and used them to
spread his messages of hate. “His aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully
“Introduction to the Holocaust,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143.
2 “Nazi Camps,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144.
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communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the
press.”3 Part of his propaganda was to “[portray] the Jews as evil and and cowardly, and
Germans as hardworking, courageous, and honest.” 4By indoctrinating young children with his
messages of racism and antisemitism, Hitler could ensure that people would grow up supporting
him and his ideals and not see the err in his ways. Women also played a vital role in his plan. He
wanted them to have as many Aryan babies as possible to build up his armies. He believed that
“Germany was biologically destined to expand eastward by military force and that an enlarged,
racially superior German population should establish permanent rule in easter Europe and the
Soviet Union.”5
Because of this belief, Hitler began implementing the Holocaust, a cleansing of the
Jewish race from the earth. Initially, Jews were restricted from attending public events and
Jewish businesses were closed down and Jewish books were burned. Next, the Jews were forced
out of their homes and made to live together in ghettos. Finally, camps were set up in which Jews
were sent to. Some camps were death camps, in which mass amounts of people were senselessly
murdered every day. Others were work camps, in which the prisoners were forced to do manual
labor, often until they literally could do no more and died from physical exhaustion. Thankfully,
not everyone died in those camps and they survived to share their experiences.
Analysis:
Max Garcia was 19 years old when he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1943. He
describes the scene upon arrival at the camp as “total confusion. There’s screaming, there’re
“Nazi Propaganda,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202
4 “The Holocaust: An Introductory History,” Jewish Virtual Library, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html
5 “Third Reich: An Overview,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005141
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dogs barking. There are men running around in striped uniforms, blue and white striped uniforms
with a blue and white hat.”6 He said that everyone was separated by gender and age. His group
was taken away by truck but the other group (he didn’t specify age or gender) was marched
straight into the gas chamber and gassed until they were dead and then cremated. Max’s group
was taken to the “delousing barracks. You go under a shower and they cut all your hair,
wherever you have hair on your body, it's removed. Men and women - same thing, doesn't
matter. Pubic hair, high on the armpits - all of it gets removed. And then you get brushed down
with Lysol, over your head and on the arms and your crotch…That was my welcome to
Auschwitz.”7
Gloria Hollander Lyon was 14 years old when she and her mother and younger sister
were taken to Auschwitz, and she had a similar experience to Max’s...the chaos, the separation
by age and gender, the shaving of hair. She describes the anger at the injustice of it all and not
being able to speak out: “We had to hold our tongues in the camps or we would feel the crack of
the whip. If we wanted to live that’s what we had to do. I’m sure I must have, I don’t remember,
but I must have many many times. I also knew that you don’t talk back and you just do as you’re
told if you can and maybe, maybe you will survive this.”8
William Lowenburg was the only surviving member of his family from the concentration
camps. His father, mother, and sister all died in Auschwitz. Williams spent time in Auschwitz
but was ultimately sent to Kaufering, which was a work camp. There, “inmates were compelled
to hollow out the sides of mountains or caves for immense systems of tunnels and factories that
Max Garcia, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling Stories, May
9, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/mgarcia/index.html
7 Max Garcia, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling Stories, May
9, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/mgarcia/index.html
8 Gloria Hollander Lyon, interview by Katie Rose B, Whitney L, Jonny M, with Howard Levin, Telling Stories, May
16 & 31, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/glyon/index.html
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would be secure from Allied bombs.”9 He compares his experiences: “Well, one thing we didn’t
have in Kaufering, there were no gas chambers. You died of starvation, or beatings. Then, of
course, the camp had wire around it which was under high voltage all the time and a lot of people
went in the wires. In the morning, they had a whole team of lorries they called them, carts, where
they picked the bodies and they were burned. The beatings weren’t as bad as Auschwitz. They
weren’t good, the German guards, but we had to work more. There was a purpose of why we
worked there, for their war industry. But yes, there were beatings.”10
Lucille Eichengreen was 16 years old when she was first deported to the Lódz ghetto in
Poland. From there, she was transferred to Auschwitz, then the work camp Dessauerufer, then
the slave labor camp in Neungamme, and finally to Bergen-Belsen, where she was ultimately
liberated in April 1945. Of all the camps she was sent to, Bergen-Belsen was the worst for her.
Upon here arrival at that camp, “when we came near the camp we saw a big metal gate--similar
to Auschwitz--and two huge mountains of shoes--one on the right, one on the left. But they were
only shoes--no legs, no feet, nothing. As we were walked to the barracks we saw the barbed
wire. We saw the guards. And we saw hundreds of bodies lying in the pathways, lying in a big
open pit. And somebody explained to us that they had all died from hunger and from typhus.
And after a couple of days in Bergen-Belsen we knew that you could not live longer than three or
four weeks in this place. You would either catch typhus or die of starvation because the Germans
had stopped to bring in any kind of food.”11
“Kaufering,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 6, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006171
10 William Lowenburg, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling
Stories, April 3, 2003, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/wlowenberg/index.html
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Lucille Eichengreen, interview by Julianne, Leah, Matthew, with Howard Levin, Telling Stories, May 30, 2002,
http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/leichengreen/index.html
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All of these individuals are were religious and had a strong faith in God that helped them
survive the day-to-day brutalities they experienced. However, they also found individual ways to
stay strong. Gloria would compose songs and sing them in her mind and out loud to others.12
William fought hard against depression. He knew that depression led to suicide, and he’d seen
many people at the camp go down that path. He wanted to live.13 Max also wanted to live. When
asked about if he ever considered suicide, he stated, “I have asked that question of myself a
number of times and I can’t for the life of me remember that I wanted to do away with myself.
It’s weird. But then there were other people whom I knew - who later on I got to know at
Auschwitz - who just fffp! - ran into the wires and electrocuted themselves.”14
In addition to the emotional scars that these individuals will carry with them the rest of
their lives, they also all have a number tattooed on the inside of their wrist. Lucille stated that
over time while in the camps she began to feel as just a number and not a person with a name
and feelings and emotions.15 Asked why he chose to keep his tattoo instead of having it removed,
as many others have done, he stated, “It’s my medal of honor. It’s important to me. I know what
happened to me, but this is a badge of honor to me that I survived it.”16
All of these survivors endured similar experiences, regardless of which camp they were
sent to: their rights and privileges were taken away, they were stripped, shaved, tattooed, and
forced to live under someone else’s schedule and timetable. They had no access to hygiene or
clean water, and in most cases food was scarce. They were constantly surrounded by death and
Gloria Hollander Lyon, interview by Katie Rose B, Whitney L, Jonny M, with Howard Levin, Telling Stories,
May 16 & 31, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/glyon/index.html
13 William Lowenburg, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling
Stories, April 3, 2003, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/wlowenberg/index.html
14 Max Garcia, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling Stories,
May 9, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/mgarcia/index.html
15 Lucille Eichengreen, interview by Julianne, Leah, Matthew, with Howard Levin, Telling Stories, May 30, 2002,
http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/leichengreen/index.html
16 Max Garcia, interview by Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah Dent-Samake, Telling Stories,
May 9, 2002, http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/mgarcia/index.html
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dying, and the thought was far from any of their minds when in might be their turn. Despite all of
that, they somehow found a way and a will to survive. Regardless of what they wanted to do,
they did what they had to do.
Works Cited
Eichengreen, Lucille. Telling Stories. By Julianne, Leah, Matthew, with Howard Levin. http://
tellingstories.org/holocaust/leichengreen/index.html. May 30, 2002.
Garcia, Max. Telling Stories. By Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah
Dent-
Samake. http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/mgarcia/index.html. May 9, 2002.
“The Holocaust: An Introductory History,” Jewish Virtual Library, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html
“Introduction to the Holocaust,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on
October 4, 2013, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143.
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“Kaufering,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 6, 2013, http://
www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006171
Lowenburg, William. Telling Stories. By Oral History Class, with Howard Levin and Deborah
Dent-Samake. http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/wlowenberg/index.html. April 3, 2003.
Lyon, Gloria Hollander. Telling Stories. By Katie Rose B, Whitney L, Jonny M, with Howard
Levin. http://tellingstories.org/holocaust/glyon/index.html. May 16 & 31, 2002.
“Nazi Camps,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http:// www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144.
“Nazi Propaganda,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October 4, 2013,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202
“Third Reich: An Overview,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed on October
4, 2013, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005141