7 Object Stories by Cameron Desjarlais

Arbiet Mach Frei

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:30:42 UTC

This was the deceitful message every prisoner was greeted with upon their entrance to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. In English this means "Work will set you Free." This is symbolic as well as ironic because hard work would not set you free, and would not prevent your eventual death,.

A Shovel

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:31:17 UTC

This common work tool is a symbol of the back-breaking labor the captives in Auschwitz were forced in to. The shovel shows how they are really digging their own grave as well as the grave of his/her comrades.

Zyklon B Gas

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:32:23 UTC

This is the most common tool used by the Nazis to exterminate mass numbers of prisoners and achieve their Final Solution to the "Jewish Problem" and other perceived impurities.

Bunk Beds

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:38:39 UTC

Another symbol of the experience of the victims in Auschwitz. Large numbers of people were given cramped and filthy barracks to sleep in between strenuous days of labor. This hindered the spread of disease throughout the camp because of the thousands of people living in one room with no space to even breathe.

Children

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:41:54 UTC

One of the Nazi's most cruel and foul doings, children of their targeted groups were not exempt from the Nazi's treatment and exterminations. Lives of innocent people were stolen and destroyed before they had hardly begun.

Diary

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:46:10 UTC

Although rare, diaries of the victims that experienced the concentration camps are invaluable because they give an accurate, uncensored, and first-hand account of the atrocities committed.

The Tattoo

cdesjarlais — 2015-03-26 14:50:00 UTC

Tattoos given to the prisoners of the camps are a great representation of the captive experience because it shows how genuinely the Nazis believed that their prisoners were inferior to them in every way. They branded them like animals for the purpose of their systematic death machine.