The Atrocities and Liberation of Concentration Camps
The Atrocities and Liberation of Concentration Camps
If you combine sadistic Nazi soldiers, a "license to kill," and twenty-six million people
whom they took their aggression out on, you have the Holocaust. From torture to murder, the
concentration camp prisoners experienced almost every despicably, inhumane act one can
imagine. Hitler 's Nazis will never be able to justify this ultimate example of cruelty and
unfairness. Although the Holocaust occurred nearly seventy years ago, the world will never fail
to remember the horrible acts that were committed against millions of innocent people in
concentration camps.
Whether the camps ' establishments were for labor purposes, or simply because Hitler
despised the Jews, the prisoners could expect nothing less than being treated like pathetic
animals who were guilty of the "crime" of being born. According to Raul Hilberg, two principles
were used for deportation purposes: "One was the security arrest ' of persons suspected of
tendencies ' against the state. The other was the preventive ' arrest of [potential] and habitual '
criminals '" ( "Concentration Camp" 498). Among those deported were Jews, Poles, Gypsies,
Soviet POWs, socialists, Communists, homosexuals, priests, ministers, and many more. They
were deported to Vernichtungslager, or death camps, such as Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek,
Sobidor, Treblinka, and the most infamous, Auschwitz (Kornblum).
Suffering didn 't start for the prisoners with their arrival at the camps. Deportees endured
many hardships on the trips to the camps, and some weren 't strong enough to survive. Many
deportees had to walk up to eighty kilometers in the snow while the Nazi guards beat them.
Because they were given no foods for periods up to a week, many deportees had resorted to
eating snow. However, perhaps the most gruesome tragedies happened on the boxcars. Up to 140
deportees were
If you combine sadistic Nazi soldiers, a "license to kill," and twenty-six million people
whom they took their aggression out on, you have the Holocaust. From torture to murder, the
concentration camp prisoners experienced almost every despicably, inhumane act one can
imagine. Hitler 's Nazis will never be able to justify this ultimate example of cruelty and
unfairness. Although the Holocaust occurred nearly seventy years ago, the world will never fail
to remember the horrible acts that were committed against millions of innocent people in
concentration camps.
Whether the camps ' establishments were for labor purposes, or simply because Hitler
despised the Jews, the prisoners could expect nothing less than being treated like pathetic
animals who were guilty of the "crime" of being born. According to Raul Hilberg, two principles
were used for deportation purposes: "One was the security arrest ' of persons suspected of
tendencies ' against the state. The other was the preventive ' arrest of [potential] and habitual '
criminals '" ( "Concentration Camp" 498). Among those deported were Jews, Poles, Gypsies,
Soviet POWs, socialists, Communists, homosexuals, priests, ministers, and many more. They
were deported to Vernichtungslager, or death camps, such as Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek,
Sobidor, Treblinka, and the most infamous, Auschwitz (Kornblum).
Suffering didn 't start for the prisoners with their arrival at the camps. Deportees endured
many hardships on the trips to the camps, and some weren 't strong enough to survive. Many
deportees had to walk up to eighty kilometers in the snow while the Nazi guards beat them.
Because they were given no foods for periods up to a week, many deportees had resorted to
eating snow. However, perhaps the most gruesome tragedies happened on the boxcars. Up to 140
deportees were
Cited: Bülow, Louis. "Adolf Hitler." 2006. 23 paragraphs. 15 November 2002. . Fensch, Thomas. "Two on Schindler 's List Recall Horror." Oskar Schindler and His List. Forest Dale: Paul S. Erickson/1995. Pages 241-242. Hilberg, Raul. "Concentration Camp." Encyclopedia Americana. 1998 edition. Kornblum, Aaron T. "Concentration Camp." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2002 edition. Whissen, Thomas. Inside the Concentration Camps. Eugène Aroneanu. Westport: Praeger Publishers/1996. Pages 3-144.