Essay about Extermination Camps - 2646 Words

Nazi Extermination Camps Anti-Semitism reached to extreme levels beginning in 1939, when Polish Jews were regularly rounded up and shot by members of the SS. Though some of these SS men saw the arbitrary killing of Jews as a sport, many had to be lubricated with large quantities of alcohol before committing these atrocious acts. Mental trauma was not uncommon amongst those men who were ordered to murder Jews. The establishment of extermination camps therefore became the â€Å"Final Solution† to the â€Å"Jewish Question†, as well as a way to alleviate the mental trauma that grappled the minds of Nazi soldiers. The following essay will examine various primary and secondary sources to better illuminate the creation, evolution, practices and†¦show more content†¦nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;After the gas vans of Chelmno were phased out, SS officials began devising new methods of extermination that would kill more Jews at an accelerated rate. Fischer notes that the Nazis â€Å"decided that ex ecution by poison gas in remote annihilation camps was the most efficient and ‘humane’ method of murdering the Jews.† Aktion Reinhard (named after Reinhard Heydrich who was assassinated in Czechoslovakia) was the plan aimed to exterminate Polish Jews living within General Government to the East. Because the Jewish population here was high (2.3 million), three major death camps equipped with large gas chambers were established. Jews who were considered unfit for work (including many women and children) were extracted from labor camps to be exterminated. Belzec, located on the southwest border of former Poland, was the first extermination center initially built to kill off Jews from the Galicia and Lublin regions in order to make room for German Jews in the labor camps. Noakes interestingly notes that Belzec was â€Å"an experimental solution to a regional problem rather than the start of a Europe-wide extermination programme.† In other words, Belzec was desi gned initially to kill the Jews in the East, while the decision to murder the entirety of Europe’s Jewish population had not yet been realized. According to Noakes,Show MoreRelatedThe Extermination Camp At Chelmno Concentration Camp2172 Words   |  9 PagesDuring the Nazi Holocaust, multiple working and death camps were created to hold the captured Jews. While the Jews lived in this camp, they were tortured, mistreated, worked to death and eventually were put to death by either execution by firearm or were put into a death camp which exterminated the Jews using poison gas. The Nazi Party had developed many death camps in the central european area including the 6 death camps of Poland; Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Majdanek. LittleRead MoreThe War Of The Concentration Camp And Extermination Camp At Auschwitz Birkenau Essay1037 Words   |  5 PagesStates was against and why it would not go through with the bombing operation of the concentration camp and extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the brief McCloy laid out five specific reasons as to why the department would not be carried out the military plan at that point in time during the war. The five reasons that made up McCloy’s argument were: first, â€Å"Positive destruction of these  camps would necessitate precision bombing, employing heavy or medium bombardment, or attack by low-flyingRead MoreNazi Death Camps : A Mass Extermination Of A National, Racial, Political, Or Cultural Group (968 Words   |  4 PagesNazi Death Camps Genocide: The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group (Dictionary.com). This happened in the early 1940’s with the Holocaust when there was a mass extermination of the Jewish race by the Nazis. The strongest weapon were the death camps where Jews were put to ultimately be killed. There were six different Nazi death camps, in which there were terrible living conditions, and harsh treatment. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largestRead MoreLiterary Representation Vs Visual Testimony Essay2242 Words   |  9 Pagesvisits to German Holocaust sites across Poland, including three extermination camps. It presents testimonies by selected survivors, witnesses, and German perpetrators, often secretly recorded using hidden cameras. (Lanzmann) Franz Suchomel uses key symbolism to describe how as the trains arrived in Treblinka, an extermination camp built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, by pointing to a map of the Treblinka camp and indicating, â€Å"we stacked them (the bodies) here, here and hereRead MoreI Agree With The Argument (Gaies) That Chapter 16 (â€Å"Passover†),1322 Words   |  6 Pagesdid not expect to survive. They were not fighting to survive, they were rebelling to slow down the extermination of the Jews. A survivor himself is stating that their escape should not be the center of attention, and I have to agree. It is not the high point of the novel. Death camps were not created in the interest of keeping Jews around for forced labor. Most of the people that entered these camps were dead within an hour after arriving. 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Moving on to what Arendt meant when she said that Eichmann was the banality of Evil she means that with his motive for organizing the deportation of Jewish people to the extermination camps was in a sense practically mundane. Basically meaning that his motive of just wanting to advanceRead MoreGenocide from the Jews in the Holocaust to the Mayans in Guatemala848 Words   |  4 Pagesstudent’s question about the Holocaust which Jones cannot answer. The Holocaust was a horrific event that occurred from 1933 to 1945. This atrocity was initiated by Adolf Hitler, who tortured and murdered over eleven million Jewish people in extermination camps. Today, the Holocaust is considered â€Å"genocide,† a word that was first coined in 1944 by a lawyer by the name of Raphael Lemkin. Genocide is â€Å"the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group†Read MoreNegligence in Reporting the Jewish Holocaust1123 Words   |  4 Pagescomplicated scheme of Jewish extermination. Over six million Jewish lives were lost in this mass murder. America, usually portrayed as the country that lends a helping hand to all nations in desperate need, did absolutely nothing to aid the vulnerable Jews. America entirely neglected the Jewish Holocaust, did nothing to prevent the catastrophe from worsening, and strongly opposed publicizing these issues in its media. Auschwitz, the most well know and inhumane of the death camps during World War II, isRead More Holocaust Essay1014 Words   |  5 Pagespredictability and control are even more inhumane in that every extermination system was planned to kill as many Jews as possible, as fast as possible. This methodical slaughter of 11 to 12 million human beings began in late 1938 and ended in 1945. Of the approximately 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, more than half were systematically exterminated in the inhumane death traps, such as furnaces and gas chambers, of the Nazi Death Camps between 1942 and 1945 (History 1). nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The