Dehumanization of the Holocaust

Bradis McGriff

War and Violence

December 5, 2005

Mitra Rokni

What Kind of People Are We?

The Holocaust is one of the most horrendous crimes against civilization. In January of 1941, Adolf Hitler and his top officials decided to make their final solution a reality. Their goal was to eliminate the Jews and the impure from the entire population. The impure included gypsies, homosexuals, lesbians, and the mentally ill. Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp that carried out Hitler's 'final solution' in greater numbers than any other. In the following essay I am going to inform you of the Auschwitz death camp, which was the most terrifying of all the camps as well as the dehumanization and the erosion of moral identity and humanity during the holocaust.

The first concentration camps were set up in 1933. Hitler established the camps when he came into power for the purpose of isolating and killing anyone suspected of disagreeing against his government. In the early years of Hitler's supremacy, concentration camps were places that held people in protective custody. These people in protective custody included those who were both physically and mentally ill, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, Jews and anyone against the Nazi regime. By the end of 1933 there were at least fifty concentration camps throughout occupied Europe.

At first, the camps were controlled by the Gestapo (police), but by 1934 the S.S. was ordered by Hitler to manage the camps. These camps were set up for many different purposes. Some of the camps were for forced labor, others for medical experiments and, later on, for the mass destruction of the Jews. Yet, there was never a clear idea from camp to camp as to what was the true purpose for the camps. Was it for labor or simply to kill? We do know that Auschwitz was designed for those three reasons stated. The world would finally find out that the true purpose of the camps was to kill and the proper name given to the camps should have been death camps.

The first death camp, Chelmno, was set up in Poland on December 8, 1941. This was five weeks before the Wannsee Conference at which time the 'final solution' was planned out. (Feig, 23) Usually, the death camps were part of existing concentration camps, but some new ones were just set up for the sole purpose of mass extermination. In total there were close to 46 concentration camps and six death camps, but don't get it twisted killings went on at the concentration camps by the minute.

These camps were set up along railroad lines so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. Unfortunately, many prisoners didn't even survive the train ride to the camps. Herded like cattle, exhaustion, disease, and starvation ended the long treacherous journey for many of the prisoners. On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water for days. Nearly 8% of the people did not even survive the ride to the camps. (Nyiszli, 37)

When they arrived at the camps, most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated. Often, the transports were a sampling of what went on in the camps: cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, as well as fetid and unsanitary conditions. For the people who survived the trip, it was just the beginning of the living nightmare that they would face inside the walls of Auschwitz.

Jews were forced to obey the guards' orders from the moment they arrived at the camps. A prisoner said, "I can remember when I first arrived. The S.S. would take babies right out of their mother's arms, throw them in the air and then shoot them. This is when I realized that I had just entered hell." (Nyiszli, 102) The prisoners had marks on their clothes and numbers on their arms to identify them. Once they entered the camp, they were no longer known by their names, but rather the serial number tattooed on their arms.

The sanitary conditions of the camps were horrible. "There was only one bathroom for four hundred people. They had to stand for hours in snow, rain, heat, or cold for role-call, which was twice a day." (Feig, 346) Within the first few days of being at the camps, thousands of people died of hunger, starvation, and disease. Other people died of the harsh punishments of the guards, which included beatings and torture.

In 1937, only 7,000 Jews were in camps. By 1938, this number increased as 10,000 more Jews were sent to camps. "Jews were taken to camps if they expressed negative feelings about the government, if they married a non-Jew, if they were sick (mentally or physically), or if they had a police record." (Bauer, 42) The end of the war killed more than 1,000,000 prisoners killed each year in the camps. This mass destruction is incomparable to any other event in world history.

The chief of the German police, the Gestapo, thought that the camps would provide an economic base for the soldiers. This did not happen. The work force was poorly organized and working conditions were so inhumane that even the smallest tasks could take hours to complete. Since the prisoners were so weak and emaciated, productivity was extremely low. The fact of the matter was that the prisoners were worked until death. When one prisoner died working, the others would carry him away and then quickly take his place. In the camps there were two choices - you could work or you could die.

Although it rarely worked, escaping was one option. There were several reasons why this was virtually impossible. First, the prisoners were so weak from being malnourished that, physically they were not strong enough to escape. Second, if someone did manage to escape, they had no place to go. The Nazis strategically built their concentration camps in isolation from other cities. This limited escaping and also hid the camps from the general public. Many gentiles didn't even realize that these horrific crimes were occurring in their country. Lastly, the camps were so well guarded that escaping was almost impossible. When someone did escape from a concentration camp, all the prisoners in their group were shot. Prisoners knew that if they tried to escape, their family members would be tortured and killed. The prisoners had no choice but to work and pray for help. For six million Jews however, these prayers were never answered.

When the prisoners first arrived at the camps, the men and women were separated. Those sent to the left were transferred to death camps. Usually these were the elderly, weak, or sick people. All the other men were sent