The Terrible Auschwitz - Research Paper Example

?Auschwitz The “Auschwitz” will be remembered as one of the most terrible places in the modern world. It was originally a small and quiet Polishtown called Oswiecim until it was invaded by the Germans at the beginning of World War two and turned into a concentration camp. Over the years from 1940 until 1944 it became the largest concentration camp of all where more than 1,100,000 men, women and children were killed (Auschwitz website). Today it is a museum and, at the same time, a place of memorial where people can come and reflect on what happened and remember all those people who suffered there. It has a solemn educational purpose to teach future generations about what happened there, in the hope that this knowledge will help to ensure that such a thing never happens again. The first thing that strikes a visitor to the museum is the large entrance which has the words “Arbeit macht frei” over the gate. This phrase means “work makes you free” in German and it shows what kind of image the Nazis wanted the place to have. It was supposed to look like a work camp, and these words of encouragement suggest that if the people work hard, they will one day be free. In fact, however, this was a false encouragement, because the people came into this camp to be worked until they died, or to be exterminated in a mass programme of genocide. There is a railway track leading up to the entrance, and the rail tracks just stop there. This is a symbolic reminder that the people who were brought here in cattle trucks day after day would not be going anywhere else. This place is the end of the track. The camp was set up in 1940 under the orders of Heinrich Himmler as the seventh concentration camp after Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Flossenburg Mauthausen and Ravensbruck. (Steinbacher and Whiteside: 2005, pp. 22-23) The main camp was built first and called Auschwitz and the second camp called Birkenau came next. Many smaller areas were built as well to provide sleeping areas for the increasing numbers of workers. The area had been an army barracks before, and many of the buildings from that time were used for this new purpose. A mortuary was turned into a temporary gas chamber, which was used to kill people in large numbers. As the population grew bigger and bigger, further chambers were built. The first inmates were Polish people who were in some way seen as a threat by the Nazis. Later on there were more Jewish people. It is hard to understand why people treated the inmates at Auschwitz so badly. The many photographs and information posters in the museum describe in very great detail what happened to them. They were usually brought in large wagons over long distances and they arrived hungry and thirsty, and suffering from the cold in winter or the heat in summer. The prisoners were divided into groups and each group was taken away to learn its fate. Men and women were separated, and Jewish people were often taken straight to the gas chambers. Those who remained were forced to have a number tattooed on their skin. This is an inhuman thing to do, because it treats people like animals, or like objects, which are just numbers in the big Nazi project to change Poland into a German territory and remove any people who were not part of their big plans. There were other people in the concentration camp, apart from Jewish people. Political opponents of the Nazi regime were sent there, and a lot of Roma gypsy people. The living conditions were terrible: very crowded with very little sanitation. The Birkenau camp was even worse than the main camp. It was built originally for 180 people to sleep in huts, but the Nazis forced 700 people to live there. Food was very bad and not nearly enough. Many thousands of people died of starvation. There were also babies born there, and they, too were tattooed and imprisoned with their mothers. The camp was managed by the elite SS part of Hitler’s army. Some of them had already gained experience in other concentration camps and they ruled everything with an iron hand. If anyone tried to escape or cause problems, they were shot. It took a great many people to manage such a large camp: “By the end of the war a total of about 7000 people attached to the SS had been working in the camp – as guards, SS messenger girls, and medically trained SS nurses – some 200 women.” (Steinhauser and Whiteside, 2005, p. 40-41) Some of them lived in barrack houses inside the camp and some lived in the nearby Polish town. These people worked together in an extremely well organized system to make the slave labor and the killing of the inmates into an efficient operation. The museum displays many notebooks, typewriters, forms and files of paperwork which show just how deliberate the whole process was. Records were kept and numbers were counted day by day so that the camp could report back to Germany how many people were in the camp at any one time. It is a very chilling experience to see the neat numbers and names, and realize that each line represents a life that has been lost. In recent times some people have tried to deny that the Nazis killed so many people, and there have been people who say that the gas chambers are a myth. The Auschwitz museum preserves the evidence of what really happened, and shows the facts to anyone who wants to know the real truth. It is possible to view the actual gas canisters that were used to exterminate the Jews and others. The gas was called Zyklon B, and it was specially designed for the purpose of mass extermination. There are also other objects which show Nazi cruelty. There are whips and guns, and also many disturbing pictures which show the bodies of the victims piled up and waiting for burial or cremation. The camp has been preserved as close to the original condition as possible. Of course there have to be repairs since many years have passed since the camp was liberated by the Russians in 1944. Rooms have been painted, and paths have been improved etc, but the original camp layout remains as it was. The careful maps and plans of the Nazi builders are also available, and it is obvious that everything is organized to ensure that people are taken quickly to the gas chambers. They were told that they were going to have a shower, and the gas chamber looks like a shower, with a device at the top which could have been for water. But of course many prisoners had heard the rumors about the camp and knew very well what was going to happen. There were soldiers guarding the camp, and there are guard towers everywhere, linked by barbed wire. A lot of the hard labor of managing the camp was done by inmates and civilians. The dreadful task of disposing of the thousands and thousands of dead bodies was one job that inmates were forced to help with. There was a requirement to dispose of up to 6000 bodies per day, and this was not just a horrific experience for those forced to do it, but also a huge technical challenge. They built huge a crematorium with tall chimneys to burn the bodies. It must have been a horrible experience to live there, as a prisoner or even as one of the employees of the camp, knowing what was going on in that part of the camp. Some of the prisoners were chosen for special purposes. Younger women were forced to act as prostitutes for the SS men and children were used in medical experiments. The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele carried out scientific studies on twins, for example, using them to test out his theories regarding medical drugs or procedures. He would treat the twins in two different ways in order to compare the results. When one of them died he would then kill the other and look at their bodies to discover what effects his treatments were having on them. This is unimaginable cruelty, showing no sympathy at all for the children and treating them like worthless beings, just there to provide data for his theories. The experience of going to Auschwitz was not an easy one. Our class visit to the camp was part of a larger project, and we had already done some work on the topic before we arrived there. We had some idea what to expect because we had studied the Nazi period. Nothing could have prepared us for the effect of the actual place because it was overwhelming in its size. Looking at the rows and rows of low wooden or brick buildings, the barbed wire, and the desolate landscape brings it all very much to life. As we stepped out of the bus we were all thinking what it must have been like to step out of one of the transport wagons and go into the camp. The museum displays many ordinary objects which belonged to the prisoners. There are piles of broken spectacles, thousands of shoes, and also suitcases. Some of these suitcases have names on them, and they look worn and shabby. It was these small items that were most moving for me, because they had been attached to real people, and they were all that was left to remember them by. Some of the camp uniforms were there too, looking like striped criminal suits, and this made me realize that the Nazis had turned these people into criminals and had punished them, even though they were innocent. The camp was an atrocity, and a huge injustice and this made me both very sad and very angry. The museum proves also that conditions in the camps were despicable. There are a few cups and spoons which are very simply made, and there is evidence that the prisoners had to manufacture everyday items out of scraps, just in order to survive. An important part of the exhibition for me was also the collection of pictures and documents from the actual time of the concentration camp’s activity. The Nazi guards in their uniforms stand over crowds of anxious women and children, for example, and they have no pity for their fellow human beings. I could not look at the images of corpses, because they were too distressing. I did study one picture of some prisoners at the moment when they were being rescued by the Russian soldiers. I could not believe how thin and sick they were. The only other image that compares with this is the image of famine in Africa, where people are dying of starvation. It was shocking to see this, and the pictures bring home the reality of the physical torture that these poor people endured. One positive thing that I found, along with all the anger and sadness, was that many prisoners wrote down short letters and narratives to describe what was happening. These descriptions of the cruelty of the guards, the horrible living conditions, and also the kindness of prisoners for each other, showed me that the Nazis had not managed to destroy all of their humanity, even though they tried very hard. They desperately tried to get messages out to the world outside, warning everyone about what was happening there. I feel admiration for their courage under such conditions, and I know that these writings are valuable historical documents that keep the knowledge of what happened alive for future generations. My final feelings on leaving Auschwitz and during my journey back home were feelings of thankfulness, that I was not born in that time or in that place, and that I did not have to suffer these horrible things. I feel also a sense that people did not do enough to stop the Nazis at the time, and I wonder what I would do if I was faced with the choices that German and Polish people had in the 1930s and 1940s. On the one hand I cannot imagine being one of the guards and obeying orders to kill or torture innocent people, but on the other hand I wonder what I would do if my family was threatened, or if I was told to do this work or become one of the victims. The visit to Auschwitz showed me that human beings are capable of the most terrible crimes and it made me aware that even today we must guard against any similar occurrences. In the months since the visit I have been thinking also about Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and those who are sitting on Death Row, and this made me wonder if we have learned enough from the lesson of Auschwitz. Even though there are good reasons why people should be imprisoned, there are also good reasons why we must always be aware of the dignity and preciousness of human life. If we ever forget that, even for the best of motives, then we are in danger of committing the atrocities that we see in Auschwitz. It seems that when people have too much power, as often happens in a war situation, then they can be tempted to use that power in all the wrong ways. In the modern world there are powerful countries which dominate other nations, and this can lead to some people viewing other people as less than human. From this position it is easy to slip into a habit of treating others as objects, and overlooking their pain and distress. I believe that we have a responsibility to look after weaker or less wealthy people than ourselves, and to make peaceful contacts with those who have a different religion or culture than our own. If we do this then something like Auschwitz could never happen again. I would like to think that humanity has learned from this and will never be tempted to do such a thing again. Somehow it seems that we are destined to repeat those old mistakes. I do not think that in Europe or America there is any chance that such an organized state-led persecution of large groups of people could occur but I do think that there are tendencies within all people which could lead to smaller scale cruelties. One of the things that I intend to do next is to read more about the Jewish people and try to understand more about the history of Judaism and the way that the modern world tries to deal with the aftermath of the holocaust. I would also like to understand more about the mentality of the Nazis, because I still do not understand exactly why and how such a civilized and developed nation could use such despicable tactics. I know there was some resistance to Hitler, but I wonder why there was not more resistance. Finally, I am glad that the museum is there, and that it continues to educate people, and especially young people, about what happened. I would not say that I enjoyed my visit to Auschwitz, but I do believe that it has changed me and helped me develop mature views about human nature. References Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum Website: http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/ Steinbacher, Sybille and Whiteside, Shaun. Auschwitz: A History. London: Penguin, 2005. Read More