Research Paper On Auschwitz

The History of Auschwitz “No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz” (Speigelman). Auschwitz was where the largest mass murder at a single site occurred. More people died at Auschwitz than any other Nazi concentration camp and probably more than at any other death camp in history. In April 1940, Rudolph Hoss came up with the idea of building Auschwitz in Poland. On April 27th, 1940, Heinrich Himmler ordered construction of the camp (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org). Auschwitz was originally formed to hold Polish citizens who were arrested when Germany took over Poland. Later on, the camp evolved into a place for the Jewish people that were now considered enemies of the Nazis. At least 1.6 million people were killed during this time. Approximately 90% of these people were Jewish.
In this camp, Nazis usually exterminated the Jews by gas chambers and they used them as slaves. Kids were sometimes used for various experiments that were basically torturing them. The
person’s consent wasn’t needed for them to start experimenting on them. The compression chamber was one of the experiments they performed. This determined altitudes at which aircraft members could survive without oxygen. Nazis also injected children with tuberculosis germs and surgically removed their lymph nodes. The experiments normally resulted in death, trauma, disfigurement or permanent disability. Later on the gas chambers began to spread even after the camp had been closed down by U.S. troops.
At Auschwitz, people were treated very poorly.
They were limited on the amount of food and drink that they were allowed to have. For prisoners, meal times were the most important event of each day. After morning roll call the prisoners would be given their breakfast. This would consist of imitation coffee or herbal tea. At lunch prisoners may have been given watery soup. Occasionally, the lucky ones found a piece of turnip or a potato peel. Prisoners may have been given a small piece of black bread and tiny piece of sausage or cheese in the evening. The prisoners would try to hide the bread on their person whilst they slept because it was suppose to last them til morning. The small rations were only intended to keep the prisoners alive so that they could work. “The Nazis did not provide prisoners with sufficient nutrition to carry out heavy manual work. Many thousands died from starvation or illnesses brought on by lack of
nutrition”(www.theholocaustexplained.org).
The gas chambers had stopped working at the end of October 1944. On January 18, 1945, the Auschwitz camps were abandoned. On January 27, 1945, the liberation of Auschwitz began by the Soviet Union (www.scrapbookpages.com).