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Auschwitz: Efficient Evil

Today, the word Auschwitz has become synonymous with terror, genocide, and The

Holocaust (Auschwitz- Birkenau: History and Overview). The largest mass murder in history

was conducted at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Between 1939 and 1945, over 1.1 million

Jews were killed at Auschwitz, and out of the millions who were taken to the camp, only two

hundred thousand survived (Auschwitz). Jews were forced to survive in inhumane

environments, and were sent to the gas chambers in mass executions. The world did not know

about Auschwitz until it was too late and, when the camp was finally liberated, the world was

appalled by what it saw. Auschwitz was the most terrible concentration camp/death camp, the

pinnacle of Hitlers Final Solution, and where the Nazis perfected the execution and genocide of

the Jewish race.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was built in a small Polish town called Oswiecism.

Oswiecism is translated to Auschwitz in German. It was constructed originally to serve as a

concentration camp, but later turned into a death camp in response to the Final Solution. The

Final Solution was Hitlers plan to exterminate the Jews. When the camp was established, SS

(Schutzstaffel) Rudolf Hss was placed in charge of it (Rees 5). The Auschwitz complex was

composed of three main camps. The first was Auschwitz I. Construction of it began in April

1940, and it was created to hold Jews and non- Jews alike. Towards the end of World War II, it

started to focus more on eliminating the Jews (Auschwitz). When Auschwitz I was

constructed, Hss had the phrase Arbeit macht frei put on the gate. The phrase meant Work
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sets you free (Rees 9). The second camp was Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz- Birkenau.

It was constructed in October 1941. Out of the three camps, this one had the largest total prisoner

population. Auschwitz- Birkenau was built more for the purpose of exterminating the Jews, and

therefore played a major role in the Final Solution. In early 1943, four more crematoriums were

constructed in it to speed up the extermination process. The final camp was Auschwitz III, also

known as Auschwitz- Monowitz. This camp was constructed in October 1942. Auschwitz-

Monowitz was built more for the non- Jewish prisoners, such as prisoners of war, and criminals,

but still contained some Jews. The camp offered Labor Education for the non- Jewish prisoners,

which was pretty much just labor intended to discipline the prisoners (Auschwitz). Overall, the

Auschwitz camp was one of the longest surviving camps, lasting from 1940 to 1945

(Wachsmann 291).

The experience of arriving at Auschwitz was a terrible ordeal in itself. When the Jews

first arrived, all of their possessions were taken. Jewelry and valuables were kept to turn into

profit for the war. Next, they were separated into men and women. This obviously split up

families. Some, depending on their age and health, were taken straight from the cattle cars to the

gas chambers. Those that were left had to throw their own clothes in a pile, and were given rough

prison uniforms. The Jews would only be given one uniform, which they would have to wear for

the entirety of their imprisonment. All the hair on their bodies was cut off with scissors, and the

hair was used to make more camp uniforms. After they had gotten their uniforms, they were

assigned barracks to stay in, and were given tattoos. The tattoos were a couple letters and then a

series of numbers. From that point on, the Nazis only addressed the Jews by their tattoos,

essentially making it their new name. Any Jews with gold teeth or fillings had them forcibly
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extracted by a dentist to help fund the war. The reason for doing these things was to strip the

Jews of their identities, and to make them feel less than human (Processing and Routines).

The living conditions in Auschwitz were dreadful, and disease was everywhere. Jews had

to stay in old, un- kept barracks, and slept on triple- bunk beds. The barracks were not sanitary

because the Jews were hardly able to wash themselves due to limited water, and there were no

sanitary facilities or sources of heat (Living Conditions, Labor & Executions). The barracks

were damp because of a variety of fluids, including bodily fluids and waste. The bunks were not

well kept either. The mattresses were made of straw, and they smelled as well as being ridden

with lice. The mattresses were also often soiled (Living Conditions, Labor, & Executions). The

barracks were filled way past the maximum occupancy. A two story barrack that was meant to

hold seven hundred people held up to twelve thousand Jews (Life in the Camp). When the

barracks were all filled, basements and attics of buildings were used to keep Jews in (Living

Conditions, Labor, & Executions). The Jews were forced to live in awful conditions at the

Auschwitz camp.

Jews were forced to do hard labor at Auschwitz. They worked eleven hours a day, and

there were various jobs. Some were assigned to construction. Here, the Jews worked on building

new sections of the camp or repairing structures. The Jews also worked in different factories,

making items such as clothing and rubber (Living Conditions, Labor, and Executions). Others

had the job of putting bodies into the crematorium, taking possessions off of dead bodies, and

other various tasks. The Jews who worked in the crematoriums were known as

Sonderkommandos (10 Interesting Auschwitz Facts). Other Jews dug coal, produced
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armaments and chemicals, and built and expanded industrial plants (Living Conditions, Labor,

& Executions).

The Jews at Auschwitz were treated with extreme cruelty. To the greatest possible

extent, Jews fell victim to starvation, cold, hard labor, constant harassment and abuse, and

various kinds of cyclical extermination operations (Treatment). At any time, the Nazis would

beat Jews for no apparent reason. The Nazis viewed the Jews as non-human, so therefore that is

how they treated them (Dwork 203). The Jews were only given a minimal amount of food per

day, and had to live in environments not suited for people. The Nazi to Jew relationship was not

good, and the Jew to Jew relationship varied as well. Some Jews would help each other out,

sneaking extra portions of bread and such to each other. Others only fended for themselves. The

treatment the Jews received reduced them to having to living like animals, fighting for existence.

Dr. Josef Mengele was a SS physician at Auschwitz who conducted horrific medical

experimentation on Jews. He was born on March 16, 1911, in Gunzburg, Germany, and joined

the Nazi party in 1937. In 1938 he joined the SS. He was transferred to Auschwitz to conduct his

studies. He worked in Auschwitz- Birkenau (Josef Mengele, Angel of Death). He was

nicknamed Angel of Death or White Angel for his coldly cruel demeanor on the ramp (Josef

Mengele). Once the Jews were unloaded from the cattle cars and put into lines, Mengele would

go through and pick out which Jews to experiment on, and the rest were either sent to the camp

or the gas chambers. Those he picked he conducted brutal and inhuman experimentation on. The

majority of the Jews died as a result of the experimentation, or were killed once the

experimentation was over (Josef Mengele). He did not feel compassion for the Jews. There

was a barrack at Auschwitz that housed seven hundred and fifty Jewish women that became
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infected with lice. When Mengele heard about it, he sent all seven hundred and fifty women to

the gas chambers to get rid of the epidemic. In another instance, a mother was refusing to be split

up from her daughter and was resisting, so Mengele shot both the daughter and the mother, and

had the rest of the Jews in that transport sent to the gas chambers (Josef Mengele, Angel of

Death). When Auschwitz was eventually liberated, Mengele escaped and evaded capture for

thirty- four years. He lived in Brazil after the war, and had a stroke while swimming and

drowned. He died on February 7, 1979. (Josef Mengele).

Mengele performed experiments on children such as putting them in pressure chambers,

drugging them, freezing them, and castrating them. Once he was done experimenting on a

patient, he would usually kill them and dissect their body. Mengele had a fascination with twins,

he loved to experiment on them. When Mengele found twins coming out of the cattle cars, he

would give them special treatment like extra food, candy, and even riding around in his own car.

He would do this to get them to trust him, then he would bring them to his laboratory. Mengele

performed experiments like transfusions of blood, isolations endurance, and reactions to various

stimuli. He made injections with lethal germs, sex change operations, the removal of organs and

limbs, and incestuous impregnations (Josef Mengele, Angel of Death). All this was done

without any pain killing drugs. He would kill twins and dissect every part of their body

extensively. In one instance, he sewed two twins together to create Siamese twins. The following

is an excerpt from Josef Mengele, Angel of Death of a man recalling what happened to his

twin brother: "Dr. Mengele had always been more interested in Tibi. I am not sure why - perhaps

because he was the older twin. Mengele made several operations on Tibi. One surgery on his

spine left my brother paralyzed. He could not walk anymore. Then they took out his sexual
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organs. After the fourth operation, I did not see Tibi anymore. I cannot tell you how I felt. It is

impossible to put into words how I felt. They had taken away my father, my mother, my two

older brothers - and now, my twin .... Very few twins survived experimentations, and those who

did survive had to carry around the scars and deformities left behind.

The Nazis had various effective ways of exterminating the Jews. The first, and main way

of killing the Jews, were gas chambers. Around seventy percent of the Jews that stepped out of

the cattle cars were gassed right away. Before Jews were gassed, they were separated into two

lines based on their sex. They stripped their clothes off and showered, then they were shoved into

the chamber naked. The doors were sealed and Zyklon B was dumped in through slits in the

sides. After about twenty minutes, the doors were opened and other Jews were sent in to retrieve

the bodies. The bodies were either burned or thrown into mass graves (Steinbacher 96). Zyklon B

is pellet that, when dropped into water, would create an extremely deadly gas. Zyklon B was a

relatively new invention at the time, and Auschwitz was one of the first camps to use it. Jews

were also shot in mass numbers as a way of execution, then they were thrown into pits. There is

one story where a group of Jews were shot and thrown into a pit and buried, but for the next

couple days the ground heaved and moved as Jews who had not died yet tried to dig themselves

out. A combination of lack of food and too much hard labor killed many other Jews. Still other

were killed from experimentation and poor treatment. Often the Nazis had public hangings of

Jews caught trying to escape. This was used as an intimidation factor toward the other Jews

(Living Conditions, Labor, & Executions). Auschwitz was the culmination of the different

extermination tactics. The Nazis discovered that gassing was the most efficient way of killing

large numbers of Jews at once, so that is why towards the end of the war Auschwitz primarily
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used their gas chambers to kill Jews. Zyklon B was another product of Nazi ingenuity.

Previously, the Nazis would gas Jews by starting a vehicle engine and using the carbon

monoxide to gas the Jews. It was not very effective because it took time for the Jews to die, and

even after they were done gassing Jews would still be alive and the Nazis would have to shoot

them anyway. The Nazis found that Zyklon B was extremely poisonous when turned into a

gaseous form, and killed quickly and efficiently. It was also cheap and easy for the Nazis to get

their hands on Therefore they used it first in Auschwitz, because it was such an important camp

to the plan. After gassing, the Nazis found it was effective to burn the bodies in the crematoriums

so they would not have to take the time to have mass graves dug. The most effective

extermination tools were used in Auschwitz to make it the pinnacle of Hitlers Final Solution.

Towards the end of World War II, the Final Solution really started to come into effect.

The Final Solution was Hitlers plan to eliminate all Jews. It was originally thought up by Hitler.

Out of the three Auschwitz camps, Auschwitz- Birkenau played the biggest role in the

elimination part of the plan (Final Solution: Overview). The Final Solution was a series of

steps. The first was racism. At the beginning of World War II, the Jews were prohibited from

certain places, they had to wear the Star of David, and life was made harder on them. Later they

were forced to move out of their homes and live in ghettos. In the second phase, the Nazis

rounded up the Jews into cattle cars and took them to the concentration camps. Now they had the

Jews under their control and in concentrated areas. The final step was the elimination of the

Jews. The Nazis began to kill off the Jews with their various methods (Final Solution:

Overview). This is where Auschwitz- Birkenau came in to play. More gas chambers were built
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in the camp so the Nazis could kill more Jews at once. Overall, the Final Solution claimed six

million Jewish lives (Auschwitz- Birkenau: History & Overview).

Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945, by Soviet troops (Auschwitz- Birkenau:

History & Overview). The Nazis at Auschwitz started to evacuate the camp before the Soviets

arrived, and took sixty thousand Jews with them. The Jews marched from Auschwitz to a city

called Wodzislaw in Poland. If any Jew fell behind or was not able to go on, they were shot. Over

fifteen thousand Jews died in what became known as the death march (The Liberation of

Auschwitz). When the Soviets finally got to the camp, there were no Nazis anywhere, and very

few Jewish survivors. Around seven thousand prisoners were liberated (Auschwitz).

The Auschwitz concentration camp was different than other camps because it was not just

as concentration camp. Towards the end of the war, it started to serve as a death camp as well. It

also differed because it had the highest death toll of any camp. Part of this was due to the camps

longevity, but it was also due to the camps effectiveness. The camps used more effective ways

of killing Jews, such as Zyklon B. The gas was very lethal to humans and killed very quickly. It

was also very easy to get. Auschwitz was special because it was a concentration

camp/death camp. At a death camp, the Jews were killed right away usually by being gassed. At

a concentration camp, there were still executions taking place, but a lot of Jews died from

starvation and labor. Auschwitz used both of these tactics to kill Jews, so naturally the Nazis

were able to kill a greater number of Jews. At Auschwitz, ninety percent of the deaths were Jews.

This shows that the camp was built to target and effectively kill Jews. As time progressed, more

gas chambers and crematoriums were put in to kill more Jews. Auschwitz was one of the only
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combined camps, meaning it was one of the only camps that served as a concentration and death

camp (The difference between concentration camps and death camps).

Auschwitz was the most terrible concentration camp/death camp, and where the Nazis

perfected the execution and genocide of the Jewish race. For five years, Jews were transported to

Auschwitz and experimented on, starved, killed, and treated less than human. Due to the various

techniques and the uniqueness of the camp, over one million Jews were killed. Rudolf Hss, the

camp commandant, was sentenced to death for his crimes and was hanged on the main gate of

Auschwitz I (10 Interesting Auschwitz Facts). As a concentration camp, and extermination

camp and the hub of forced- labour deployment, Auschwitz embodies all aspects of the Nazi

concentration camp system (Steinbacher 3). Auschwitz was an awful place, and the people who

worked there, such as Josef Mengele, made it even worse. Auschwitz not only shows how

sadistic man- kind can be, but also how depraved. The Nazis had Auschwitz built so they could

torment the Jews and kill them, all because they were Jews. The name Auschwitz will always

bring to mind the persecution and attempted extermination of the Jewish race.