The Final Solution - Death Camps

The article “Nazi Camps” by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, illustrates the inhumanity and cruelty of concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

At the height of their power between 1933 and 1945, Nazis of Germany had constructed more than 20 000 camps designed to imprison, to torture and to kill enemies of the Nazis like Jewish people, homosexual people and anyone with different political views than the Nazi party.  These people were brought to camps like Dachau or Auschwitz where they were forced into hard labor, temporarily kept, or exterminated efficiently in cruel gas chambers. The forced labour camps in Nazi Germany demonstrate the inhumanity and cruelty directed at the Jewish race. One way this is shown is by the way in which thousands of Jewish prisoners died as a result of exhaustion, starvation and exposure. As well, Nazi doctors used these individuals as medical experiments before releasing drugs to the public. Lastly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazi’s established more prisoners of war camp, such as Auschwitz in Poland and Majdanek in Lublin. To efficiently exterminate the Jews, the Nazis created death camps in Poland, where there is a large Jewish population.  These camps were designed for efficient mass murder and soon, the Nazis used gas chambers as it “increased killing efficiency” and made the process “less harming for executers.”  Only a small amount of Nazi prisoners survived the Holocaust.

 Read More Here

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144

To get a better understanding of the conditions that the jewish people faced watch this video series:

Interesting Facts

The Nazis killed over 6 million Jews during the holocaust and that accounts for more then two thirds of the total European Jewish population. 

Eleven million people were killed in total by the Nazis during the holocaust.

The word holocaust comes from the Greek word holokausten which means sacrifice by fire, referring to the way the Nazis cruelly exterminated the “non-german” population.

Quotes

"When the soldiers pulled over to share some food and cigarettes and to poke at the package of Jews, one of the prisoners collapsed from starvation and sickness." - Narration by Death, p.389

"Stars of David were plastered to their shirts, and misery was attached to them as if assigned. 'Dont forget your misery...' In some cases, it grew on them like a vine." - Narration by Death, p.392

"Their gaunt faces were stretched with torture. Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone to step forward and catch them in their arms." - Narration by Death, p.392

Reference

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (6, January, 2011). Nazi Camps. Retrieved on May 2, 2012 from  <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144>

Markus, Zusak. The Book Thief. New York: Random House Children's Books , 2005. Print.

Ben , A.. "The Camps." The holocaust ring. mtsu, 1996. Web. 8 May 2012. <http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html.>