The Holocaust

By: Jenni Gray
Litchfield Middle School
January 31, 2006
783 Words

The Holocaust was the worst event in the twentieth century. Six million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Jews were not the only people that were tortured and killed. Others included the mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, prisoners of war, socialists and trade unionists among others. The total of all of the people killed in the Holocaust reached higher than eleven million. These groups were sent to ghettos, forced labor camps, transit camps, concentration camps and extermination camps. There, people were starved, shot, beaten to death, worked to death, and killed in killing facilities.

Ghettos were established by the Nazis. They established over 400 ghettos. Ghettos were used to segregate the Jews from non-Jewish people. Ghettos were enclosed mostly by a wall or by a fence. Conditions in ghettos were horrible. People there didn’t have nearly enough food to survive. Several families were crowded into a small apartment. People were forced to work for the German Reich.

Before extermination camps, people were taken to transit camps. Extermination camps were death factories. People were killed by being shot or by being gassed. Forced labor camps were used for Jewish people to work for German companies and to produce the weapons Germans needed to win the war. Concentration camps were called that to conceal their true uses, which were extermination or forced labor. All camps had horrible conditions. There was little medical care, poor clothing, poor shelter and very poor food. People were beaten and shot on a daily basis for no reason at all. In conclusion, no matter what camp you went to, you would find horrid conditions and harsh treatment.

One extermination camp was Auschwitz. This camp was by far the worst camp. There were three main camps at Auschwitz: Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2 (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz 3 (also known as Monowitz). Auschwitz 1 was a concentration camp. The hospital barrack, which was barrack 10, was where scientists conducted experiments on men, women and children. The scientists’ favorite people to do experiments on were dwarfs, twins and infants. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the death camp part of Auschwitz. In the gas chambers, people were gassed with Zyklon B gas. The bodies were burned in one of the four crematoriums. Gassing was still used until November of 1944. Auschwitz 3, or Monowitz, was the forced labor camp. German companies took advantage of the cheap labor.

Only one person was able to get people out of Auschwitz. That person was Oscar Schindler. He saved twelve hundred lives by having people from the Cracow Ghetto work in his factory. At first, Oscar was just in it for the money. Then, after seeing how the Jews were being treated and realizing how awful it was, he decided to help them. He saved people from the Plaszow concentration camp, where Amon Goeth shot people for no reason at all. Schindler made a list of people that he wanted to have work in his new factory, Brunnlitz, after his old factory, Emalia, was shut down. The list that he made, Schindler’s List, was given to the Germans and Schindler’s workers were sent to Brunnlitz. However, eleven hundred people, three hundred women and eight hundred men, were mistakenly taken to Auschwitz. On the way to the showers, the women were not sure whether water or gas, Schindler called out and asked what the officer thought he was doing with Schindler’s Jews. The women, who had been at Auschwitz for a while, were overjoyed at the thought of being rescued. After he had everyone of "His Jews" Schindler was happy. His factory always had enough food for everyone and everyone was treated humanely, unlike all of the other camps. Most of Schindler’s Jews made it through the war because of Schindler’s kindness and respect for human life. Schindler spent millions of dollars on trying to save his Jews and I think we would all agree that his money was well spent. In conclusion, despite what was going on outside of his factory, Schindler stood up for what he believed in, the well being of his fellow humans.

How one person could cause so much destruction and kill so many people seemed impossible. Somehow, it happened. Millions of people were murdered and those left alive had emotional scars. Bruises and cuts may fade, but not scars on the heart. No one that lived through the Holocaust will ever forget the pain it caused. Neither should we. It is our duty to make sure no one ever forgets the Holocaust and to never let it happen again. All in all, the Holocaust was a horrible time period that should never be repeated.

Bibliography

20 December,2005.

20 December, 2005.

20 December, 2005.

20 December, 2005.