" The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it"

        The Making of Auschwitz-Birkenau   
                      Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Jews called it the "place of death", others called it the "Gate to Hell." On the day of the 27th of April,1940, a man by the name of Heinrich Himmler ordered for a concentration camp to be built. They chose the name..... Auschwitz.  A month later on May 26th,1940, it was established near the village of Chelmno.  At first it wasn't a very bad place, but as a couple of years past it became the center of where the largest amount of Jews and Russians were killed.  Auschwitz was divided into three major camps: Auschwitz I, the main camp, Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, which was established on October 8th, 1941, and Auschwitz III, which was established on May 31st,1942, as a work camp.               

                  
          The Camp          
               Even though Auschwitz, with its extermination center, and Birkenau the largest and most infamous of death camps, functionally wasn't unique.  The first extermination facility began operation in December 1941 near the village of Chelmno. Many people died from brutal treatment, overwork, or disease. The camps were considered prisons.  Auschwitz and Majdanek, another death camp, not only doubled as labor camps there main purpose was mass murder.  On December 8th, 1941, began with the first gassings which occurred at Chelmno, which ended January 6th ,1945, with the final executions at Auschwitz. Its unknown, but estimated that 155,000 people died from being gassed, shot, beaten, or starved in the three camps over that three year period.

         The Function of the Camp   

      Auschwitz became a slave labor source that basically separated the Jews from the poles.  Of the 2.5 million people sent to Auschwitz, 405,000 where made prisoners. 50 percent were Jews and Poles and other nationalities made up the rest.  Prisoners deported to Auschwitz were marched or trucked to the main camp.  They were registered, tattooed, undressed, deloused, and had their body hair shaven off.  And their clothes where disinfected.  After all of that they entered the camps under the infamous gateway inscribed ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ or “ Labor make you free.”  The number of people passing through the Auschwitz camps and survived was estimated at 200,000 people.

 

        Slaughtering of the Jews    

 

           The Germans had decided that the best way to slaughter the Jews was poison gas, but shooting still took place.  The gas that was used called Zyklon- B, which was already to be found at Auschwitz.  But, before they didn’t use gas, and ammunition was low they would drive needles into victims skulls and kill them.  The gas Zyklon-B was usually used at Auschwitz as a pesticide to fumigate the buildings.  When they used it they would shove Jews and Russian prisoners into the cell of Block 11, a so called shower room, and would throw the gas pellets inside and slam the doors shut.  For Jews the gases the Germans used, Zyklon-B and carbon monoxide only meant one thing...... an agonizing death. Not only their bodies were violated in search for every possible economic contribution whether it be cutting off the women's hair to be made into industrial thread or melting down gold teeth.  Their final resting place was a giant whole in the ground where they were just thrown on top of each other and then burnt in a big fire and then covered up.  Other horrors of the death camp was medical experiments. Many Jews suffered intensely from these experiments.  A few of the experiments were to support Nazi theories of racial superiority. First they found a suitable subject that looked like a German and take skull measurements. They would have them shot and their heads were cut off. After that they would try to find ways to turn brown eyes to blue by injecting them with various pigments. Another experiment was to se how long someone could live without food and water. The Nazi’s wouldn’t let them have any food or water. They could only have salt water and would see what effects it would have on them. Although some Nazi’s treated the Jews very badly some were very kind to them. One man who later died said “one of them had treated them very well”. “. Frequently he would bring us food on the side from the German kitchen”. But others said that most of them treated them as cruel as cruel can get.

 

                                                                                            

The End is Near      

 

   Around the year 1943 the concentration camps slowly started to close down. By this time most of the Jews of Poland had been exterminated. Throughout the last of the year 1944 Germans furiously worked to complete their deadly work before Auschwitz would be excavated. In December of 1949 the last victims were gassed in the chambers at Birkenau.

 

Many people were killed at Auschwitz.  At the end when the camps were destroyed the estimated total of people that were sent to Auschwitz was 851,200 out of the four million of the whole Holocaust, and over 155,000 people where estimated died at Auschwitz.

“They expect the worst they don’t expect the unthinkable.”   

 
Kelby Brown
7th Rossville Jr. High
Spring 2001

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