Jackie Camacho

Mr. Hawkins
Period 4
11 April 2016
The First Concentration Camps

I picked The First Concentration Camps to be the topic for my inquiry question
#2 project because I thought it was the most interesting topic out of all of the others. I
found out that Dachau , one of the first Nazi concentration camps, opened in March
1933, and at first interned only known political opponents of the Nazis: Communists,
Social Democrats, and others who had been condemned in a court of law. The
'Concentration camps' are open-air pens for humans. They were taken from their homes
and also their ways of life and forced to live with others and were cruelly treatedstarved, beaten, forced labored, raped, experimented on, and exterminated. They had
no rights and sometimes a Little or no medical attention. Feared for your life and your
family's every minute. They were fenced in by barbed wire and armed guards all day. I
found The concentration camps, 1933-1945,Concentration Camps: What are
Concentration Camps?, and Auschwitz: The Camp of Death as the most interesting
topic to help me find the information to my topic.

The First Concentration Camp was Dachau in the wake of Hitlers takeover of
power in 1933. By the end of the war, 22 main concentration camps were established.
A concentration camp was not the same as an extermination camp camps
constructed with the specific purpose of mass murdering Jews and other victim

groups(website 1). The Concentration Camps were being claimed by many I mean
thousands of victims. I also found out that a Imprisonment in a concentration camp
meant inhuman forced labour, brutal mistreatment, hunger, disease, and random
executions. It is confirmed that several hundred thousand of people died in the
concentration camps. In comparison, there were more than three million Jews were
being murdered in the extermination camps. Forced labour played an important
role in the Nazi regimes Jewish policy as well as for the economy of the
concentration camps. Forced labour became particularly important following the
outbreak of World War II, when the Nazi war economy demanded an enormous
effort"(website 1). Force Labour played an important role in the Nazi regimes because
of the economy of the concentration camp. In Auschwitz and Majdanek, have the role of
both being a working and an extermination camp, which the Jews were being divided
upon arrival into those capable of the working and those that do not work. Those who
worked in the factories were hired but not because they wanted but because of private
businesses. The use of gas chambers was the most common method of mass
murdering the Jews in the extermination camps. The Jews were herded into the
gas chambers, then the camp personnel closed the doors, and either exhaust gas
or poison gas in the form of Zyklon B or A was led into the gas chamber(website
1). They used gas chambers to kill, and poison people in the concentration camps.
Another way was In Chemno they were using gassing trucks, most of them were Jews,
after they driven into the trucks, they were suffocated by the exhaust fumes that were
led into them in the truck. A third method was a mass shooting of the Jews and a lot of
other groups were using all these methods. These all three evidence peices helped me

understand how The concentration camps worked in the beginning and how they killed
people.

The evidence that I found in the website Concentration Camps: What are
Concentration Camps? Was very interesting because it mentions what a concentration
camp really is. Concentration camps underwent a series of developments over
time - from 1933 to 1936, they were used for incarcerating political adversaries,
trade unionists, political dissidents, communists, and others. In 1936, operational
responsibility for the camps was consolidated under the SS and the camp
universe expanded incrementally. In 1941 to 1942, the major killing centers came
on line: Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek as well as the Aktion Reinhard
camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka(website 2). All The Concentration Camps
that were made were killing a bunch of people not just a little it was millions of innocent
people. The people were in need of a lot of people to help out in the camps. which had
already become Judenrein which was a camp on foot in which became known as death
marches. The marches either took the prisoners to other camps or they were simply
continued endlessly until all the Jews died. World War II wrought changes in the
concentration camp system. There was an increase in the number of prisoners,
extension of the network of concentration camps in and outside Germany, and an
alteration in the camps' function. The security function was subordinated to the
economic exploitation of detainees and mass murder, especially as the war
progressed and German planners understood that an immediate victory would
not be forthcoming and they had to plan for an extended conflict. Under the
renewed security pretext, ten times as many political prisoners were arrested in

the Reich as had been arrested in the years 193536(website 2). There were a
bunch of people who were prisoners and that's how the camps funtion in germany. In
just one year there had been a much of people getting put in prison because of political
security pretext. There was mass of murder because of how much they hated the jews
and how much they didnt want them to be alive and specially work with them. As
the Russians advanced from the east and the British and Americans from the
west, Himmler ordered the emergency evacuation of prisoners from camps in the
occupied territories. No means of transportation was available for the evacuation,
and in early 1945 most of the prisoners were dragged by the thousands in long
death marches lasting several days in cold and rain and without equipment or
food(website 2). The Jews were exhaustion, starvation, thirst, and the killing of
escapees and the weak accounted for hundreds of thousands of the victims. The local
populations, who had been incited against the prisoners, attacked them and refused
sanctuary to those who escaped. They wanted all the Jews died so thats why they tried
to make them suffer by making them starve, attack them. These all three evidence
peices helped me understand how The concentration camps worked and how they
treated the Jews.

The Auschwitz: The Camp of Death was the most effective concentration camp
established by the Nazi regime in pursuit of the Final Solution. Unknown numbers of
people of various nationalities perished in the camp. Even today the name holds a cold
and somber connotation. The concentration camp at Auschwitz had a total camp
area of 40 square kilometers with a surrounding radius of five kilometers for
isolation. The 28 two-story buildings which made up the camp were divided into

three sections: Auschwitz I , Auschwitz II, and Auschwitz III (website 3). When
first entering the camp of Auschwitz I, the prisoners saw a bunch of words which were in
the entrance which meant work will give you freedom. These words were used to
promote the false hope that the hard work that was done by the prisoners would result
in their freedom. However the sad truth was that the prisoners were doomed to slave
labor and death was the only real escape at the Auschwitz I . The prisoners just wanted
freedom but when they saw these words they realized that they should have hope.
The death block housed the criminals in the camp. These barracks held the
court rooms where the prisoner was tortured into confession, unfairly tried, and
sentenced to death(website 3). There was firing wall located at the side of the
street which was the location for carrying out the sentences by lining up all the
prisoners against the wall and they were shooting them until they were killed and then
they would place their bodies in a grave. There were about 200,000 inmates were
housed in the Auschwitz II barracks. They had about 250 barracks located throughout
the Birkeneau and they had about 52 horses. Before dawn, the prisoners were
roused from their overcrowded, unsanitary wooden beds for roll call. The inmates
were required to make their beds, each of which consisted of a small thin blanket
and a mattress of wooden boards. If the job was not done to the satisfaction of
the SS guard, punishment followed(website 3). These prisoners were treated like
nothing they were taken out there bedrooms with nothing covering them outside the
camps in the snow and rain for hours. By the time they were done there was a bunch of
prisoners sick, some were dying, and some even died because of the coldness. These
roll calls lasted all night and included beatings and shootings. These all three evidence

peices helped me understand how The Auschwitz: The Camp of Death was the most
effective concentration camp established by the Nazi regime in pursuit of the Final
Solution. Unknown numbers of people of various nationalities perished in the camp.

The Concentration camp is a very horrible place and it would be a horrible

experience to be in but it's a very interesting topic. Learning a lot about what they do to
the Jews and how much they hurt them is unacceptable and very sad. I really think that
it was a awesome topic. They had no rights and sometimes a Little or no medical
attention. Feared for your life and your family's every minute. They were fenced in by
barbed wire and armed guards all day and they also were starving dying because of the
guards making them be outside in the cold rainy and snowy weather all night. I found
The concentration camps, 1933-1945,Concentration Camps: What are Concentration
Camps?, and Auschwitz: The Camp of Death as the most interesting topic to help me
find the information to my topic.