Auschwitz Death Camp

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Auschwitz Death Camp

Auschwitz became one of the biggest symbols of Nazi cruelty because of the gruesome events that took place there daily. It was where the largest numbers of European Jews were killed during the holocaust (Holocaust Encyclopedia). The Nazi’s first began using the infamous Zyklon-B gas to “experiment” on Jews in Auschwitz. There are also many more reasons why people consider Auschwitz death camp, the “Gate to Hell“.

Josef Mengele, one of the worst parts of Auschwitz alone, did many different studies on twins, and the twins he experimented on were usually murdered after the experiment was over. He would then take their bodies and dissect them. In the case of the twins, he drew sketches of each twin, for comparison. Mengele was pretty much fanatical about drawing blood from twins, mostly identical twins, in which case only a few survived. Mengele was so heartless, that once he had his an assistant get together 14 pairs of Gypsy twins. After that he put them to sleep on dissection tables, and injected chloroform into their hearts, witch instantly killed them. He then dissected and noted every different body part of each twin. He even sew parts of two twins together in attempt to create Siamese twins (Holocaust Crimes, Heroes And Villains). Mengele was obviously one of the worst parts of Auschwitz.

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Everyone that went to Auschwitz knew that they had little to no hope of surviving. To most Jews, it was practically a death sentence. The only person that managed to save Jews from Auschwitz was Oscar Schindler. And although he managed to save over 1,200 Jews, he was the only one who did it, and 1,200 is a small number compared to the millions that suffered in Auschwitz. Also, all most all of the people who survived had relatives that didn’t.

The way of life on Auschwitz was barley living at all. At 4:30 a.m. all of the prisoners woke for roll call. They would then proceed to work 12 hours a day with no socks, and wooden shoes that didn’t fit, which caused great pain. They had no rest periods and were aloud only daily bread rations, and water. Jews that collapsed during the work period, were beaten even more, and sometimes given to doctors for experiments. When they slept, they laid down on top of their clothes and shoes to avoid them being stolen.

The Nazi’s would decide who can work and who would be immediately killed through a process called “selection” (Wiesel 1). This dreaded process was when they rounded the Jews up and put the ones that were considered “fit” into one group to the right, and everyone else, who couldn’t work, to the left to be gassed. The group selected to die consisted of children, women with children, and men that weren’t considered fit.

Auschwitz was the biggest symbol of Hitler’s genocide because of the terrifying and heartless things that Nazi’s did there. From gassing, to horrifying experiments, Nazi’s in Auschwitz had  many methods to torture and kill Jews. Auschwitz claimed more victims than any other death camp, even though it came into use after all the others.