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The prisoners were all forced to do menial work like manufacturing goods. They also had to fix things that were difficult to repair to weaken the Jews.

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The Nazis subjected millions of people (both Jews and other victim groups) to forced labor under brutal conditions. From the establishment of the first Nazi concentration camps and detention facilities in the winter of 1933, forced labor-often pointless and humiliating, and imposed without proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest-formed a core part of the concentration camp regimen.

Even before the war began, the Nazis imposed forced labor on Jewish civilians, both inside and outside concentration camps. As early as 1937, the Nazis increasingly exploited the forced labor of so-called "enemies of the state" for economic gain and to meet desperate labor shortages. By the end of that year, most Jewish males residing in Germany were required to perform forced labor for various government agencies.

When Germany conquered Poland in the autumn of 1939 and established the Generalgouvernement, the German occupation authorities required all Jewish and Polish males to perform unpaid forced labor. The German authorities required Polish Jews to live in ghettos and deployed them at forced labor, much of it manual. For example, in the Lodz ghetto, German state and private entrepreneurs established 96 plants and factories that produced goods for the German war effort. Forced-labor practices escalated in the spring of 1942, following changes in the administration of concentration camps.

For Jews, the ability to work often meant the potential to survive after the Nazis began to implement the "Final Solution," the plan to murder all of European Jewry. Jews deemed physically unable to work were often the first to be shot or deported.

The Nazis also pursued a conscious policy of "annihilation through work," under which certain categories of prisoners were literally worked to death; in this policy, camp prisoners were forced to work under conditions that would directly and deliberately lead to illness, injury, and death. For example, at the Mauthausen concentration camp, emaciated prisoners were forced to run up 186 steps out of a stone quarry while carrying heavy boulders.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Germans allowed millions of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) to die through a deliberate policy of neglect (insufficient food, clothing, shelter, or medical care). However, in the spring of 1942, the German authorities also began to deploy Soviet POWs at forced labor in various war-related industries. From 1942-1944, the Germans deported nearly three million Soviet citizens to Germany, Austria, and Bohemia-Moravia as forced laborers.

At the end of the war, millions of non-German displaced persons were left in Germany, including some tens of thousands of Jews who had survived the "Final Solution," victims of Nazi policies of deportation for forced labor.

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The Nazis subjected millions of people (both Jews and other victim groups) to forced labor under brutal conditions. From the establishment of the first Nazi concentration camps and detention facilities in the winter of 1933, forced labor-often pointless and humiliating, and imposed without proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest-formed a core part of the concentration camp regimen.

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One way that people died was from being worn out by a combination of poor diet and overwork. Diseases were also a huge contributing factor in the death of the Jews, as they flourished in the unsanitary conditions of the concentration camps. Prisoners could have also been chosen for the medical experiments carried out in Auschwitz and many other camps. In most cases, these were executions in all but the name. In some cases, the SS guards shot many of the prisoners.

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How Victims were Gathered- Maddie Follosco

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How Victims were Gathered- Maddie Follosco

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Nazi troops would gather up Jews by selecting a certain area and surrounding it. They would then go to every neighborhood were they would search houses looking for Jews to take to transit camps. From there they would be taken to death camps.

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Main Reason For Death Marches-Joseph Cha

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Main Reason For Death Marches-Joseph Cha

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1.To stop the Allied Forces from capturing their prisoners.
2.To make  the  Jews create  weapon parts for the German army.
3.They wanted to use the Jews as  hostages.
When the camps were finally destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people were saved.
Even though the Nazis didn't want to let the Allied Forces to get the Jews , the Jews were heavily mistreated. They were forced to walk long distances, were killed if they could not walk, and starved. The conditions were so brutal that even the  civilians tried to help. The most amount of people being evacuated during the Death Marches was also in the winter.

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How Concentration Camps Were Built - Aryaman Singh

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How Concentration Camps Were Built - Aryaman Singh

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Before concentration camps, many Jews were being randomly executed in their houses and neighborhoods. When the first concentration camp was built, it did not include all of the things that made the Jews fear these horrible camps. It did not include cremation ovens, gas chambers, or any other thing that inflicted any sort of pain or suffering. These things were later added after Hitler truly began to despise the Jews.

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Gas chamber, method of executing condemned prisoners by lethal gas.

The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 in an effort to provide a more humane form of capital punishment. On February 8, 1924, Gee Jon became the first person to be executed by lethal gas. By 1955, 11 U.S. states had adopted the gas chamber as their method of execution, but by the early 21st century it was available in only two states (California and Missouri), where condemned prisoners were allowed to choose between lethal injection and lethal gas. In Arizona, inmates sentenced to death before November 1992 were allowed to choose between lethal injection and lethal gas; in Wyoming, lethal gas was designated to replace lethal injection if the latter method was ruled unconstitutional. From 1921 to 1972 (when the U.S. Supreme Court commenced its moratorium on the death penalty), lethal gas was applied in some 600 executions; from 1976 (when the moratorium ended) to 1999 it was used in only 11 executions. The high cost of renovating disused gas chambers, as well as a growing perception of the method as unconstitutionally cruel, contributed to this trend, leading some scholars to predict in the early 21st century that the method would not be used again.

California's lethal gas procedure (the most thoroughly documented) was carried out in a sealed, modified octagonal chamber. The inmate was strapped to a chair with holes in the seat, below which was placed a container of sulfuric acid, distilled water, and sodium cyanide crystals. The executioner pulled a lever that mixed the cyanide crystals into the sulfuric acid-water container to create the hydrocyanic gas that the inmate inhaled. Although there is a consensus that cyanide affects many parts of the body, it is unclear at which point an individual becomes unconscious or dies, because pain and consciousness are difficult to measure. In 1996 a federal appeals court unanimously held that California's statute authorizing lethal gas violated the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, based on a lower court's conclusion that gassed inmates can suffer an extreme amount of pain and that there is a substantial likelihood that such pain would last for several minutes. (Over time, eyewitnesses had also reported a number of long and gruesome lethal gas executions in California and other states.)

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of lethal gas. It did, however, vacate the federal appeals court ruling that lethal gas was unconstitutional because the California legislature called for lethal injection unless a prisoner specifically requested lethal gas. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has considered California's gas chamber torturous and inhumane.

Outside the United States no other country has adopted lethal gas as a constitutional method of carrying out capital punishment. During the Holocaust, however, Nazi Germany employed gas chambers for the purpose of killing Jews and other targeted groups. The chambers were established at concentration camps and usually disguised as bathhouses. Men, women, and children were herded naked into the chambers after being told that they were going to take showers. The doors were closed, and poison gas was injected. See also extermination camp.

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Gas chamber, method of executing condemned prisoners by lethal gas. The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 in an effort to provide a more humane form of capital punishment. On February 8, 1924, Gee Jon became the first person to be executed by lethal gas.

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The Nazi Concentration Camp in Plaszow near Krakow.

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The Nazi Concentration Camp in Plaszow near Krakow.

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#4 What was the Holocaust of the Gypsies? - Aryaman Singh

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#4 What was the Holocaust of the Gypsies? - Aryaman Singh

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The Gypsies, who include the Roma and Sinti peoples, were the other major ethnic group that the Nazi regime sought to exterminate completely. While six million Jews were murdered, almost a half of Europe's one million Gypsies were also tortured then killed. In 1938 - 1939, most German Gypsies were sent to the Buchenwald or Dachau concentration camps in Germany. Those Gypsies who survived the concentration camps would then be moved to Poland, where they would be housed in special ghettos that stood alongside the common Jewish ghettos. In late 1941, transportation to Chelmno was highly dangerous and gambled many of the Gypsies' lives. Within a few months, as many as 4,300 Gypsies had been murdered.  Fortunately, the Nazis did not seem to have as much of a hatred toward the Gypsies as they did toward the Jewish. Many settled communities of Gypsies were spared from being evacuated to the ghettos, while  nomadic ones were killed. Luckily, "The  German government and German companies who employed slave or forced labor recently set up a $5 billion fund for these workers and other victims. Gypsies are eligible, and the fund provides $12 million for social programs to benefit them", according to New York Times.

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Gypsies and Jews were the only two groups that the Nazi regime sought to exterminate completely. Six million Jews were murdered, and perhaps half of Europe's one million Gypsies. Yet of the $60 billion the German government has paid in reparations since World War II to Holocaust victims, only a tiny percentage has gone to Gypsies. The German government and German companies who employed slave or forced labor recently set up a $5 billion fund for these workers and other victims. Gypsies are eligible, and the fund also provides $12 million for social programs to benefit them. But the fund administrators must take special care to see that the money reaches Gypsies, lest this group be slighted again.

Gypsies, who call themselves Roma, were left uncompensated after World War II largely because of their low social status. After the war, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany invited the government of the new nation of Israel and leaders of Jewish organizations worldwide to negotiate for restitution. The organization they established, the Claims Conference, had political clout and could find victims and administer payments. The Gypsies, long the objects of scorn in Europe, had no organization and no political champions. West German laws discriminated against them. The German Supreme Court in 1956 even ruled that Gypsies deported before 1943 were taken because they were antisocial and so were not entitled to compensation.

The new fund is mainly for those pressed into labor, principally non-Jews from Eastern and Central Europe. The negotiators are conscious of the need to reach Gypsies. But the deal contains problems that may leave many deserving Gypsies out.

One obstacle is infighting in the Gypsy community about who should represent them. But in addition, no one was present at some crucial meetings to speak for Gypsy interests. Negotiators decided to speed the payment process by working through groups that had already been administering Holocaust claims, which meant the Claims Conference, and for non-Jews, special partner organizations in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic. These groups will have the job of advertising the new fund, finding victims and setting up the social programs for Gypsies.

Some of these partner organizations have been tainted by corruption in the past. Moreover, there will be but one Gypsy leader on the board of directors of the fund, and there may be none on the staffs of the five partner organizations, which may be tempted to concentrate on majority ethnic groups. The German finance ministry, which ultimately will oversee payments, must ensure that the organizations in the five countries take seriously the expensive and difficult task of reaching an unpopular minority.

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nazi policies toward jews and minorities

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Editorial says proceeds established by German government and German companies as restitution for victims of Holocaust should also go to Gypsies, who were also exterminated along with Jews during Holocaust; says fund administrators should take special care to see that group is not slighted again (S)

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#5 Describe the Processing at these Camps. - Geo Kim

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#5 Describe the Processing at these Camps. - Geo Kim

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In the concentration/death camps, it has different routines to dehumanize the Jews, feed them small amount of food, and to force them to work. First arriving at the camps, men were separated from their wife and children then they were stripped off their normal clothes and had to shave their head before showering. Their clothes were also replaced by black and white striped uniforms. By cutting the hair, it showed that everyone was the same and letting others not even recognize each other. They also had no privacy sharing the restrooms using no sanitation and dirty water. The meals in the morning were imitation coffee or herbal tea. During lunch they were served watery soup and if they were lucky they might have a piece of turnip or a peel of potato skin. During the evening, they were than given a small piece of black bread and maybe a small piece of sausage, margarine, marmalade, or cheese. Every bit counted to them and hunger was the biggest problem to them. Many died from a lack of nutrients and others who became weak were than murdered in gas chambers. Finally depending on the camp, they were all forced to work different types of assignments. Most prisoners worked outside in one of the many factories, construction projects, farms, coal mines, and much more.

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For those who survived selection, life in the camps was a daily struggle for survival.

For those who survived selection, life in the camps was a daily struggle for survival.

Deportation and transportation to camps often took days. Individuals, families and whole communities together with their personal belongings were packed into cattle trucks. They were locked in and transported for days. They had no information. They did not know where they were going, the length of the journey or what would happen to them when they eventually arrived at their destination.
The conditions on the journey were appalling.

We can learn about these journeys from the many child survivors who wrote of their experiences:

Agnes, an 11 year-old girl from Czechoslovakia, wrote: "Later we were moved and driven into railway wagons - the sort that transport animals - which were part of a long train. Some of the wagons were open-topped, some closed."

Jack, 15 years old, from Greece, talks of his experience at the start of what must have been a very long journey: "Some 20 railway cars were waiting for us... There were 70 to 80 people in a car... After a while, there was a muffled sound of closing latches... the whistle blew and the train started moving slowly. It was April 7, 1943. Penned in and cramped, we departed from our homeland, without being able to see it."

Moshe, aged 17, from Hungary, then explains that: "the doors were shut, leaving us almost in darkness. The grills, too, were closed to prevent escape. Air entered only through the cracks. So we travelled for 24 hours, without food or water. We were hungry and thirsty. But the desire and hope to see our families made us forget everything else."

David, a Polish Jew aged 13, graphically describes how cramped it was on the train: "There is no room to sit. In order to make room we are forced to stand with our hands above our heads.... Suddenly, the door is slammed shut and sealed. A water bucket is tossed into the car for use as a disposal container for human waste."

The packed railway wagons would often be shunted around from one railway siding to another for days on end, and for what must have seemed like an eternity. Many of the very young, the old and the sick would die because of the inhumane conditions during the journey. Those who did survive were severely traumatised by the experience.

Arrival at the camp

Eventually, after days of travelling in the most cramped conditions, the railway carriages arrived at a camp. The doors of the carriages would be pulled open to give the prisoners their first glimpse of daylight, at a place they had never seen before.

In this video Freddie talks about his journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau during October 1943. Freddie talks about how people were squeezed into cattle wagons for a journey of three days and three nights with no food, water or sanitation.

Listen to Freddie's testimony, and then read the rest of this section. Reflect on how the Nazis treated other human beings during the period we now call the Holocaust.
Please note that the lead in may take a few moments to allow the video to begin.

Dehumanisation

Having arrived at a concentration camp and been unloaded from the cattle trucks, men and women were separated, children staying with their mothers. After registration, prisoners had to undress and have their hair shaved before showering. They usually had their own clothing taken away, which would be replaced by a striped uniform.

This process was designed to remove any remnants of human dignity or personal identity.

Anna, aged 11, from Poland, describes the effect of having her hair cut: "I look around and I see young girls with scissors and clippers cutting hair off clean to the scalp... when the cold scissors touch my scalp and my hair slowly falls down, I can't help it, my tears fall down, mixed with my black curls." Mel, aged 15, from Czechoslovakia, goes on: "We all looked alike... Rich, poor, young, old. We shared the same fate as in no way before. I hardly recognised my father. Friends would pass you by. It was a nightmare."

Jacob, aged 17, describes the clothing he was given: "From there we went to the next room. We were handed a striped jacket, striped pants, wooden shoes and a striped cap."

Jack, aged 17, who had travelled from Greece to Auschwitz in Poland, says "They gave us striped pyjamas. Some of us got sizes too big or too small, but we changed among ourselves."

Daily routines

Daily routines were also designed to reduce prisoners to mere numbers.

After an early wake-up, daily concentration camp routines would begin with the Appell, the daily roll call. During the Appell prisoners had to stand in rows, completely still, for hours at a time, and in all weathers. Long lists of orders and instructions would be read out. The number of prisoners would be counted. Often, the kapos would announce that the total number of prisoners in a block was inaccurate, leading to a recount at the whim of the SS. After waking and before roll call, up to 2,000 prisoners at a time would have to share toilet facilities. The toilet would be a concrete or wooden board with often 100 holes for seats. No privacy and no real sanitation was provided. Prisoners would have to wash in dirty water, without soap and with no change of clothes for weeks or months on end.

After eating a meagre ration of watery soup, a piece of bread and some imitation coffee, a prisoner's day would follow with work details.

For prisoners, meal times were the most important event of each day. After morning roll call the prisoners would be given their morning 'meal' - imitation coffee or herbal 'tea'. For lunch prisoners may have been given watery soup. If they were lucky, they might find a piece of turnip or potato peel.

In the evening prisoners may have been given a small piece of black bread; they may also have received a tiny piece of sausage, or some margarine, marmalade or cheese. The bread was supposed to last the prisoners for the morning also, so prisoners would try to hide it on their person whilst they slept.

Kity Hart-Moxon, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, remembers the high value placed on food, and so much wanting to survive the camp. She would sometimes take the piece of bread from the body of someone who had died during the night:

"The dead body had a piece of bread..." "... I'm taking this piece of bread from this dead body... ... and I'm taking this one pair of boots and I can sell it. With this I can buy myself a place to live. I can buy myself a place to sleep. With this bread I bought myself a bit of access [to wash]. Your bowl was your life, without your bowl you didn't eat." (Kitty - Return to Auschwitz, YTV 1979)

Hunger was one of the greatest problems. The meagre rations were merely intended to keep the prisoners alive. The Nazis did not provide prisoners with sufficient nutrition to carry out heavy manual work. Many thousands died from starvation or illnesses brought on by lack of nutrition. Others became too weak to work and were then murdered in the gas chambers.

Depending on the type of camp, prisoners were assigned to a whole range of different duties. Some remained inside were the camp, working on a variety of jobs, from administration tasks to heavy manual labour. Most prisoners worked outside in one of the many factories, construction projects, farms or coal mines, owned by German companies and for whom they now provided free slave labour.

Most prisoners worked outside the camps in one the many factories, construction projects, farms or coal mines. They would quite often have to walk several kilometres to their place of work.

Sonderkommando

The Sonderkommando (Special Work Unit) consisted of Jewish prisoners who were selected to work in the crematoriums in camps. They were selected due to their strength and fitness. The life-expectancy of a Sonderkommando was about four months in the camp.

Processing belongings

While the prisoners were being processed after their arrival, their belongings were taken away. A group of prisoners was assigned to collecting the valuables, while others sifted through the possessions. These were then transported back to Germany. The prisoners working on this task were in a privileged position. They were able to 'organise' (steal) extra food on which to survive, a pair of shoes or extra clothing to protect themselves from the severe winter weather.

There were examples of prisoners smuggling valuables which could be used to bribe guards. However, if caught, they risked death.

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For those who survived selection, life in the camps was a daily struggle for survival. For those who survived selection, life in the camps was a daily struggle for survival. Deportation and transportation to camps often took days. Individuals, families and whole communities together with their personal belongings were packed into cattle trucks.

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#3 What was the killing process?-Maddie Follosco

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#3 What was the killing process?-Maddie Follosco

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Once trains arrived at killing centers, Jews were sorted in to groups. Women, children, the elderly, and the weak were often selected to be put to death first, and those who were able bodied were put through intense labor.  They put those chosen to die, into gas chambers where they would inhale poisonous substances, such as carbon monoxide and Zyklon B, and die within minutes. To keep the Jews calm and under control they told them they were going to take showers. Once they were dead, the Nazis then rid them of their valuables and either cremated or buried the bodies. The Nazis benefited from the collection of items that were left behind by the Jews which included their gold teeth and their hair which was used to make many products.

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After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers, guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line. The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor. This SS officer then pointed to the left or the right; victims did not know that individuals were being selected to live or die. Babies and young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped, and the sick had little chance of surviving this first selection.
At the Killing Centers
Those who had been selected to die were led to gas chambers. In order to prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take showers to rid themselves of lice. The guards instructed them to turn over all their valuables and to undress. Then they were driven naked into the "showers." A guard closed and locked the steel door. In some killing centers, carbon monoxide was piped into the chamber. In others, camp guards threw "Zyklon B" pellets down an air shaft. Zyklon B was a highly poisonous insecticide also used to kill rats and insects.

Usually within minutes after entering the gas chambers, everyone inside was dead from lack of oxygen. Under guard, prisoners were forced to haul the corpses to a nearby room, where they removed hair, gold teeth, and fillings. The bodies were burned in ovens in the crematoria or buried in mass graves.

Many people profited from the pillage of corpses. Camp guards stole some of the gold. The rest was melted down and deposited in an SS bank account. Private business firms bought and used the hair to make many products, including ship rope and mattresses.

Key Dates

October 1939
Germans begin killing of the impaired
The systematic killing begins of those Germans whom the Nazis deem "unworthy of life." Groups of "consultants" visit hospitals and nursing homes and decide who is to die. Selected patients are sent to one of six gassing installations established as part of the "Euthanasia" Program: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein. These patients are killed in gas chambers using carbon monoxide gas. The experts who participated in the "Euthanasia" Program are later instrumental in establishing and operating the extermination camps.

December 8, 1941
First killing center begins operation
The Chelmno killing center begins operation. The Nazis later establish five other such camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau (part of the Auschwitz complex), and Majdanek. Victims at Chelmno are killed in gas vans (hermetically sealed trucks with engine exhaust diverted to the interior compartment). The Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka camps use carbon monoxide gas generated by stationary engines attached to gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the killing centers, has four large gas chambers using Zyklon B (crystalline hydrogen cyanide) as the killing agent. The gas chambers at Majdanek use both carbon monoxide and Zyklon B. Millions of Jews are killed in the gas chambers in the killing centers as part of the "Final Solution."

JUNE 22, 1944
First gassing at Ravensbrück concentration camp
The first documented gassing at the women's camp at Ravensbrück occurs. The gas chambers at Ravensbrück and at other camps that were not designed specifically as killing centers-including Stutthof, Mauthausen, and Sachsenhausen-are relatively small. These gas chambers were constructed to kill those prisoners the Nazis deemed "unfit" for work. Most of these camps used Zyklon B in their gas chambers.

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After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers, guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line. The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor.

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#1 What are gas chambers, how do they work, and how were they started? -Avery Iles

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#1 What are gas chambers, how do they work, and how were they started? -Avery Iles

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Gas chambers were enclosed rooms that contained a poisonous gas called Zyklon B. They were invented with the intentions of killing people very fast by gas.  The chambers were designed in 1921 as a more humane way of punishments. Jewish people in the Holocaust were told they were being taken into "showers" and were unaware that they would soon die of gas poisoning. Gas chambers worked by having people sprinkle the crystallized version of Zyklon B through a small opening in the chambers. People cried for help and continuously tried to escape but the door was locked. The people who worked for Hitler knew once the group of people in the chamber had died because the cries for help had stopped. In Hitlers past, he had an experience with gas chambers which caused him to become partially blind.

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The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org

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The Gas Chambers

At the fulcrum of the extermination system in Poland were the camps at Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec, and Sobibor.... Auschwitz was the most notorious of the extermination centers. At the height of its activity Auschwitz could house more the 100,000 men and women and could provide for the gassing and incineration of 12,000 prisoners a day.... The ... gas chambers could accommodate 2,000 prisoners at one time. Rudolf Hoess testified at Nuremberg: "When I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Zyklon B which was crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death-chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death-chamber, depending on climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited for half-an-hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special commandos ['Sonderkommandos' made up of prisoners who were partially trusted] took off the rings and extracted the gold teeth of the corpses."

"We tried to fool the victims into believing that they were going through a delousing process. Of course, at times they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties. Frequently women would hide their children under their clothes, but we found them and we sent the children to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but the foul and nauseating stench from the continued burning of bodies permeated the whole area and all the people living around Auschwitz knew what was going on."

Taken from the Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, by Dr. Louis L. Snyder, Professor of History, The City College and The City University of New York. Paragon House, New York, 1989. ISBN 1-55778-144-3

___________________

"The gassing was carried out in the detention cells of Block 11. Protected by a gas mask, I watched the killing myself. In the crowded cells, death came instantaneously the moment the Zyklon B was thrown in. A short, almost smothered cry, and it was all over.... I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest, for the mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon, and at that time neither Eichmann nor I was certain as to how these mass killings were to be carried out. It would be by gas, but we did not know which gas and how it was to be used. Now we had the gas, and we had established a procedure."

"KL Auschwitz seen by the SS Hoess, Broad, Kremer", second edition, Museum w Oswiecimu, 1978, pp. 92-95.

Return to The Aftermath | Facts

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The Gas Chambers | The Holocaust History - A People's and Survivor History - Remember.org

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Return to The Aftermath | Facts The Gas Chambers At the fulcrum of the extermination system in Poland were the camps at Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec, and Sobibor.... Auschwitz was the most notorious of the extermination centers. At the height of its activity Auschwitz could house more the 100,000 men and women and could ...

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#2- How Jews were Transported to Death Camps - Nathan Woodmansee

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#2- How Jews were Transported to Death Camps - Nathan Woodmansee

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Nazi officials transported Jews from ghettos to major concentration camps such as Auschwitz along rail lines for "the final solution". Jews were treated worse than cattle on the Nazi trains. They were forced to travel in cramped cattle cars across Europe. Jews were not even given enough room to sleep or sit down.The doors were bolted down by the Nazis so that nobody could escape the train. Nazi guards were told to shoot anyone who tried to escape. The Jews were not given any food or water on the journey. Even when death trains had to stop for days at a time to let other trains pass, Jews were still not given any food or water. Sometimes, Jews were even forced to walk to concentration camps when trains weren't available. Lacking food, water, sanitary treatment, and suffering from extreme temperatures meant that many Jews died before they even arrived at the death camps.

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In 1941, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the " Final Solution," the systematic mass murder of European Jewry. The Nazi regime used rail transport as one method to forcibly rearrange the ethnic composition of eastern Europe within the framework of World War II. The German authorities used rail systems across the continent to transport, or deport, Jews from their homes, primarily to eastern Europe. Once they had begun to methodically kill Jews in specially constructed killing centers, German officials deported Jews to these facilities by train or, when trains were not available or the distances were short, by truck or on foot.

Officials Coordinate Mass Transport by Train

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, held near Berlin, SS, Nazi Party, and German state officials met to coordinate the deportation of European Jews to killing centers (also known as "extermination camps") already in operation or under construction in German-occupied Poland. The participants of the conference estimated that the "Final Solution" would involve the deportation and murder of 11 million Jews, including Jewish residents of nations outside German control, such as Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, and Great Britain.

Deportations on this scale required the coordination of numerous German government agencies including the Reich Security Main Office ( Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA), the Main Office of the Order Police, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Foreign Office. The RSHA or regional SS and police leaders coordinated and often directed the deportations. The Order Police, often reinforced by local auxiliaries or collaborators in occupied territories, rounded up and transported the Jews to the killing centers. Working with department IV B 4 of the RSHA commanded by SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, the Ministry of Transportation coordinated train schedules. The Foreign Office negotiated with Germany's Axis partners over the transfer of their Jewish citizens to German custody.

The Germans attempted to disguise their intentions. They sought to portray the deportations as a "resettlement" of the Jewish population in labor camps in the "East." In reality, the "resettlement" in the "East" became a euphemism for transport to the killing centers and mass murder.

Inside the Railcars

German railroad officials used both freight and passenger cars for the deportations. German authorities generally did not give the deportees food or water for the journey, even when they had to wait for days on railroad spurs for other trains to pass. Packed in sealed freight cars and suffering from overcrowding, they endured intense heat during the summer and freezing temperatures during the winter. Aside from a bucket, there was no sanitary facility. The stench of urine and excrement added to the humiliation and suffering of the deportees. Lacking food and water, many of the deportees died before the trains reached their destinations. Armed police guards accompanied the transports; they had orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Between December 1941 and July 1942, the SS and police officials established five killing centers in German-occupied Poland: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka 2 (Treblinka 1 was a forced-labor camp for Jews), and Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. SS and police authorities in the Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement (that part of German-occupied Poland not directly annexed to Germany, attached to German East Prussia, or incorporated into the German-occupied Soviet Union) managed and coordinated the deportations to Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka within the framework of " Operation Reinhard."

The Victims

The principal victims at Belzec were Jews from southern and southeastern Poland, but also Jews deported from the so-called Greater German Reich (Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) to District Lublin between October 1941 and the end of summer 1942. Most Jews deported to Sobibor came from the Lublin District; but German authorities also transported French and Dutch Jews to Sobibor in spring and summer 1943 and small groups of Soviet Jews from Belorussian and Lithuanian ghettos in late summer 1943. German officials transported the Jews from the Warsaw and Radom districts of the Generalgouvernement and from the Bialystok administrative district to Treblinka 2, where SS and police officials murdered them. German authorities deported most of the Jewish residents of the Lodz ghetto as well as the ghetto's surviving Roma and Sinti (Gypsy) residents to Chelmno between January 1942 and spring 1943, and then in early summer 1944.

In 1943 and 1944, the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center played a significant role in the German plan to kill the European Jews. Beginning in late winter 1943, trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on a regular basis carrying Jews from virtually every German-occupied country of Europe-from as far north as Norway to the Greek island of Rhodes off the coast of Turkey in the south, from the French slopes of the Pyrenees in the west to the easternmost reaches of German-occupied Poland and the Baltic states. Another concentration camp, located near Lublin and known as Majdanek, served as a site for murdering targeted groups of Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners by gas and other means.

The Germans killed nearly three million Jews in the five killing centers.

Western and Northern Europe

German officials and local collaborators deported Jews from western Europe via transit camps, such as Drancy in France, Westerbork in the Netherlands, and Mechelen (Malines) in Belgium. Of the approximately 75,000 Jews deported from France, more than 65,000 were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and approximately 2,000 to Sobibor. The Germans deported over 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands, almost all from Westerbork: about 60,000 to Auschwitz and over 34,000 to Sobibor. Between August 1942 and July 1944, 28 trains transported more than 25,000 Jews from Belgium to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Mechelen.

In the autumn of 1942, the Germans seized approximately 770 Norwegian Jews and deported them by boat and train to Auschwitz. An effort to deport the Danish Jews in September 1943 failed when the resistance in Denmark, alerted to the impending roundup, assisted the mass escape of Danish Jews to neutral Sweden.

Southern Europe

The Germans deported Jews from Greece, from Italy, and from Croatia. Between March and August 1943, SS and police officials deported more than 40,000 Jews from Salonika, in northern Greece, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the camp staff killed most of them in the gas chambers upon arrival. After the Germans occupied northern Italy in September 1943, they deported about 8,000 Jews, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Based on an agreement with their Croatian Axis partner, German officials took custody of around 7,000 Croat Jews and deported them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Bulgarian gendarmes and military units rounded up and deported around 7,000 Jewish residents of Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia, formerly a part of Yugoslavia, via a transit camp at Skopje. Bulgarian authorities concentrated approximately 4,000 Jews residing in Bulgarian-occupied Thrace at two assembly points in Bulgaria and transferred them to German custody. In all, Bulgaria deported more than 11,000 Jews to German-controlled territory. The German authorities deported these Jews to Treblinka 2 and killed them in the gas chambers.

Central Europe

German authorities began to deport Jews from the Greater German Reich in October 1941, while the construction of the killing centers was still in the planning stage. Between October 15, 1941, and November 4, 1941, German authorities deported 20,000 Jews to the Lodz ghetto. Between November 8, 1941, and October 1942, German authorities deported approximately 49,000 Jews from the Greater German Reich to Riga, Minsk, Kovno, and Raasiku, all in the Reich Commissariat Ostland (German-occupied Belorussia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia). SS and police officials shot the overwhelming majority of the deportees upon arrival in the Reich Commissariat Ostland. German authorities deported another approximately 63,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews to the Warsaw ghetto and to various locations in District Lublin, including the transit camp-ghettos at Krasnystaw and Izbica and the killing center in Sobibor, between March and October 1942. German Jewish residents of the Lodz and Warsaw ghettos were later deported with Polish Jews to Chelmno, Treblinka 2, and, in 1944, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The first transport of Jews from the Greater German Reich directly to Auschwitz arrived on July 18, 1942, from Vienna. From late October 1942 until January 1945, German authorities deported more than 71,000 Jews remaining in the Greater German Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Germans deported elderly or prominent Jews from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and western Europe to the Theresienstadt ghetto, which also served as a transit camp for deportations further east, most often to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Between May and July 1944, Hungarian gendarmes, in cooperation with German security police officials, deported nearly 440,000 Jews from Hungary. Most of them were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. With the cooperation of Slovak authorities, the Germans deported more than 50,000 Slovak Jews to the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. The Slovak Jews were the first to be selected for the gas chambers at Birkenau. In the autumn of 1944, German SS and police officials deported 10,000 Slovak Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Slovak uprising. This deportation was the last major one to a killing center.

Between March 1942 and November 1943, the SS and police deported approximately 1,526,000 Jews, most of them by train, to the killing centers of Operation Reinhard: Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Between December 8, 1941, and March 1943 and again in June-July 1944, SS and police officials deported approximately 156,000 Jews and a few thousand Roma and Sinti to the killing center at Chelmno by train, by truck, and on foot. Between March 1942 and December 1944, the German authorities deported approximately 1.1 million Jews and 23,000 Roma and Sinti to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the overwhelming majority by rail. Fewer than 500 survived the Operation Reinhard killing centers. Only a handful of Jews survived the transports to Chelmno. Perhaps as many as 100,000 Jews survived deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau by virtue of having been selected for forced labor upon arrival.

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In 1941, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the " Final Solution," the systematic mass murder of European Jewry. The Nazi regime used rail transport as one method to forcibly rearrange the ethnic composition of eastern Europe within the framework of World War II.

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#6 What were death marches? - Joseph Cha

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#6 What were death marches? - Joseph Cha

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Death marches were long, forced marches. These marches were conducted by the Nazis to try and move the Jews away from the Allied forces. Another use of the marches was to try to kill as many Jews as possible at the same time. The Jews were moved because the Allied forces, America, Britain, Soviet, and French forces were  trying to stop the Nazis cruel concentration camps. However, after the walks were finished in the cold harsh conditions, the Jews were usually killed in a mass right after. Although the actual number is unknown, at least 15,000 people were killed during death marches.

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Prisoners were forced to march long distances in bitter cold, with little or no food, water, or rest. Those who could not keep up were shot. The largest death marches took place in the winter of 1944-1945, when the Soviet army began its liberation of Poland.

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Aryaman Singh
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