Holocaust And Concentration Camps
...der awful and inhumane conditions for extremely long hours. These camps had horrible sanitation” (Feldman 23). Disease and sickness were widely spread in the camps and killed many. However, disease was not the only way that prisoners died. They were also hung, shot, beaten, and had surgeries performed on them while being conscious. The death camps in Poland had harsher and filthier conditions than the concentration camps. There were six major death camps in Poland set aside for the extermination of Jews. These camps were known as Majdanek, Auschwitz, Cheimno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. These six death camps became the Germans’ industrialized killing centers, where they murdered millions of innocent people. “In Majdanek and Auschwitz alone 1.5 million people perished” (Resnick 84). The prisoners were beaten, starved, and died by the thousands. They were killed as soon as they became too weak to work. “They were told to undress completely to be disinfected in the shower houses. All of their hair was shaved off to prevent disease” (Feldman 24). For the inmates of death camps however, the future German defeat meant even greater hardship and in 1945, Auschwitz ceased operation. The biggest death camp was Auschwitz. In had many advantages for the Nazis. For example it was very desolate, had excellent railroad connections, and already had abandoned barracks. Auschwitz consisted of three parts, Auschwitz I, Birkenau, and Auschwitz III. It operated four gas chambers that killed over 6,000 people daily. Some of the prisoners were set aside for experiments that were very painful and did not involve anesthesia. These experiments were attempts to prove Nazi ideas about the Jewish race...