How was Nazi Concentration Camp worser than Soviet Concentration Camps - Movie Review Example

Please clearly each point to how Nazi concentration camps are worse than soviet concentration camps? In reality, both camps were horrible in their entirety, however; it is the Nazi concentration camp that left irremovable horror marks on the world human psychology. The question, “who was worse, Nazi or Stalin?” can be considered in two different contexts. This can be interpreted as which regime killed more people? Or who’s motives were more heinous behind taking innocent lives?The Nazi regime killed on racial basis.

There is no doubt that they were eliminating an entire race of people based on religious or ethnic hate. On the other hand, Stalin regime was no worse. They killed millions of people for political gains. In the end, it all boils down to quality vs. quantity. Under which regime did more people died? Vs. which regime killed more brutally? The popular perception is that perhaps Stalin regime probably killed far more people than the Nazis. But records from relevant sources (scholars from Poland, Israel and Germany) show that Stalin regime killed far less people than Nazis.

The Nazi regime focused their attention on one race. Holocaust was targeted towards Jews and the majority of them were tortured to death or died from starvation. Stalin regime did kill millions of people in Gulag but these numbers are far less than Nazi killings. There is a certain reason as to why the Holocaust is considered far worse than the crimes committed by the Stalin. Labeling an entire race of people as ‘outcasts’ is more brutal than finding political excuses to take people’s lives.

People who suffered under Stalin regime probably could have found an excuse to spare their lives by paying strict taxes but Jews had no chance under Hitler’s rein. They were either supposed to flea of die. It is sad and satirical to count dead bodies and claim a winner in this debate. Numbers of killings doesn’t matter. It’s about human lives and tragedy that was hammered down upon people living in both countries. Some people say that the number in Stalin camps were far more than the people at Nazi concentration camp.

But when a loved one is lost, it is only the family that actually suffers and knows how much it hurts. For instance the argument about the number of people who were murder at Treblinka; whether they were 780,862 or 780,863 doesn’t make much sense. It is a huge number and the tragedy doesn’t subside by thinking that it is a huge number. The individual life matters and there is no truth beyond that. All these people were humans and they left loved ones to mourn their death. Nazis killed much more people than Stalin regime.

According to rough estimation the people perished at the hands of Hitler is somewhere around 11 million and these were non-combatants, whereas people who lost their lives in Gulag and other territories between 1933 and 1945 (where Stalin regime was in power) is somewhere around between 2 and 3 million. People can misunderstand the catastrophe that was brought down upon by nature for the brutality of Stalin. A huge number of people died from starvation, not by deliberate killings. Above 5 million people perished in the famine of 1930-1933 when USSR was under Stalin regime.

But that fact doesn’t lessen the crimes of Stalin. Out of that staggering number of 5 million, over 3.3 million people were deliberately killed under some ‘policy’. Between 1932 and 1933, USSR announced a policy tied to national interests that required liquidating prosperous peasants ‘kulaks’. This was in the hopes of expanding the industry muscles of the country by taking capital resources from the agriculture and putting them into industry. Stalinism killings (most of them) took place in the time of peace and can be related to nationalism, political motives and related arguments.

However, the main culprit of waging and fanning the flames of war is Nazi Germany. They targeted specific ethnicity (racial imperialism). Nazi concentration camps were far worse than Stalin camps. They were more brutal and took more lives. There can truly be no comparison as far as the sheer brutality of killings is concerned. When Hitler came to power, he had one motive in mind; to eliminate Jews from Europe. Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka were known for their ‘gas vans’ and ‘death factories’, which were only designed to exterminate Polish Jews.

That is why the Nazi concentration camps were far worse than Stalin’s. Source"The New York Review of Books." Hitler vs. Stalin: Who Was Worse? by Timothy Snyder. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. .