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Rachael Raymond

Mr. Neuburger

English Comp 129-101

12 April 2011

Research Paper

Auschwitz

The Holocaust was a horrific time period where unthinkable crimes were committed

against the Jews, Gypsies, and other racial groups. No one would have imagined the thousands of

helpless people that were massacred during Hitler's reign. Jews' silent pleas and prayers would be

unheard until the liberation day came. In the mean time, thousands of Jews and other racial

groups were sent from ghettos to concentration camps, one of them being Auschwitz. There were

three death camps located at Auschwitz. Several forms of extermination came about over time to

speed up the killing process. Life at a death camp was either cut short or they squeezed every

drop of life out of you. On top of all this, experiments on dwarfs, twins, and other misfits were

carried out by Joseph Mengele.

Before the Nazis started extensively shuffling Jews into ghettos, political investigations

took place. Supposedly everyone was jealous of the Jews. Many of them had prosperous

businesses. According to Alfred Caro, Nazis began breaking into houses and stealing items for

political investigation. To continue their investigation, one member from a household had to

report to Berlin. Unable to hide any longer, Alfred Caro went to save his family members from

any harm. He stayed in Berlin for two days before being transported to the Sachsenhausen

concentration camp. No investigation ever took place. At the camp they were kicked, degraded,

and lucky to be alive. They had nothing and the Nazis "did everything to make life misery,"

Closed off GhettoSource: http://bit.ly/i3Gqq2

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stated by Alfred Caro. Surprisingly enough, he was only at the camp for six weeks before they

let them leave. Some people from Sachsenhausen were later transferred to Auschwitz. While

Alfred Caro was taken for political investigation, Joseph Morton experienced a ghetto firsthand.

According to Joseph Morton, "The Nazis spared no time in rounding up all the Jews. They

started putting Jews in a ghetto on a Wednesday and arrived on a Friday." As a child, Joseph

Morton was put in a ghetto, although he does not recall its name. Approximately 250,000 Jews

were in a ghetto starting in 1940. Gypsies were also put into a separate ghetto. Upon arrival,

there were three or four dead guys hanging. This set the example of what would happen to you if

you did not listen and what the Nazis were capable of. Once they rounded up the majority of

Jews, the ghetto was closed off with wired walls. People

were taken frequently from the ghetto to work on the

crematories for Auschwitz or to be tortured just for being

a Jew. Some form of torture involved sticking Jews

heads into barrels of crap. Other Jews were assigned as

police officers and were to enforce the laws inside a

ghetto. Joseph Morton's dad was a Jewish police officer. It was interesting that the Jews

themselves were in charge of each other instead of the SS guards. Besides being caged up like

animals, they were fed poorly. As stated by Joseph Morton, "There was no problem with getting

a Jew to work for the Nazis. What kind of rules could they have, everybody was interested to

have a meal in front of them, to have something to eat." In September 1944, trucks started

blocking off streets and taking Jews away to work. According to Mr. Morton, "Fifty or sixty

Jews were loaded into each kettle car." When the cars arrived to the destination, no one knew

what to expect. They were told to go right or left, not knowing what each side meant. Morton

Original Gas ChamberSource: http://bit.ly/hBW76L

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was on the right side and one of the lucky ones. They were told to undress and put into striped

uniforms. At night, the SS guards would go around hitting them to see if they were hiding gold

or diamonds. Around the same time, Auschwitz was sending Jews to other concentration camps

to work. Joseph and the remaining portion of his family were checked out to see if they could

work and were shipped off to Germany. They spent four years in a ghetto and could not stand

two weeks in Auschwitz. Joseph replied, "We wanted to get out of there as soon as possible."

Auschwitz was comprised of three death camps. In May 1940, Auschwitz I was built and

equipped with a gas chamber and crematorium to start eliminating small groups. This is where

medical experiments by Joseph Mengele took place. Auschwitz II, also called Auschwitz-

Birkenau, came about in the early part of the year in 1942. This camp was designed solely for

killing only. There were four main crematoriums and several gas chambers surrounded by

electrical barbed-wire fencing. In October 1942, the last Auschwitz death camp was built.

Auschwitz-Monowitz, Auschwitz III, housed prisoners assigned to work at Buna where they

made rubber and fuel. There were forty-five sub camps under this factory. In July 1944, around

426,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Approximately 320,000 of them were sent to the gas

chamber at Auschwitz II and 110,000 were used for labor ("Auschwitz", par. 12). Altogether, 1.1

million Jews were deported to Auschwitz and at least 960,000 Jews were murdered

("Auschwitz", par. 13 & 15).

Crystalline Hydrogen Cyanide gas, otherwise known as

Zyklon B, was used as the major extermination method.

Before Zyklon B came about, the Nazis first form of

execution was the firing squad. A line was formed near

a huge pit and one by one, each prisoner was shot. This

Tattooed Identification NumberSource: http://bit.ly/icQBWj

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proved time consuming, so they moved onto other torturous and easier methods. Crematories

were the next stage. Smoke hung over the camp like a thick blanket with the smell of burning

flesh filling the air. At one point, the Jews working at one of the crematoriums managed to blow

one up, slowing down the killing process for a short time. Needless to say, everyone running that

crematorium was gassed. No matter how many more Jews were killed with this method, Hitler

was not pleased. Zyklon B's purpose was to kill dozens of people in a small time frame. This

insecticide was used on prisoners in Auschwitz I in Block 11 on September 3, 1941 for

experimentation ("Auschwitz: Chronology", par. 4). With the success of Zyklon B, it was

decided that on February 15, 1942 the SS camp authorities would kill all of those who arrived

with this insecticide ("Auschwitz: Chronology", par. 6). The Nazis accomplished this by making

it look like the Jews were going to take showers. They even had shower heads in there so no one

became suspicious and would be able to revolt before entering into their doom. Once in the small

confined cubicle, Zyklon B was the ultimate weapon.

Confusion spreads like a virus once those kettle car doors

slid open. Men, women, and children were ripped apart and

ordered to go to the left or right side. No one knew what was

going to happen to them until it was too late. The few lucky

people that survived round one of the gas chambers had an

identification number tattooed on their arm. Everyone sent to

the chambers were told to undress and shoved in a so called "shower," awaiting their fate.

According to the article, Testimony on the gassing of Auschwitz, it took five to seven minutes

for the gas to kill each and every one of them (par. 3). Once everybody had the life sucked out of

them, the SS guards took their bodies out of the cells, so they could scavenge out any gold teeth

The Ovitz Family of DwarfsSource: http://bit.ly/eh0UiU

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and dentures the victims had. Afterwards, they were sent to crematories or large burning pits.

The ones that lived were held in inhumane conditions and did back breaking labor until they

died. A prisoner's day consisted of waking up early for roll call, working, waiting in a line for

food and evening roll call (Auschwitz-Birkenau, 2). During roll call you were required to stand

for hours until everyone was accounted for. Groups of Jews kept rotating, replacing old and worn

out laborers. A normal life expectancy was only a couple of weeks. By August 1944 there were

105,168 prisoners in Auschwitz and was killing around 6,000 people every day (Auschwitz-

Birkenau, 3).

Joseph Mengele was a SS physician and captain at the Auschwitz killing centers

beginning on May 30, 1943. He conducted experiments on hundreds of people with disabilities,

such as dwarfs, identical and fraternal twins. He was fascinated with their genetics that were

associated with various diseases. Another group of people he was interested in were

heterochromias. These people had different eye colors. Mengele was hoping this was the start of

his medical career. He had thirty physicians at his hand for all his experiments. Eva Mozes Kor

and her twin sister Miriam were one of Mengele's two guinea pigs. "The Nazis made me feel like

I was nothing more than a mass of cells, a piece of meat" (Kor, par. 1). They were taken three

times a week to a room, so that Joseph Mengele could measure their bodies. "A minimum of two

blood vials were taken from their arms. Each week they were given fifteen injection which

contained chemicals that are still not identified to this day" (Kor, par. 5). Mengele wanted to see

how much someone can lose and still had the will power to live. Another family Joseph Mengele

experimented on was the Ovitz. The Ovitz family was a

family of twelve who lived in Northern Romania. What

made them so special to Joseph Mengele was that five of

Joseph Mengele“Angel of Death”

Source: http://bit.ly/gQoP19

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them were dwarfs. Upon arriving at the selection process, the Ovitz family was immediately split

up. The other seven claiming family members convinced him that they were related to the

dwarfs. Sparks were flying in Mengele's head as he realized he could compare them for one of

his experiments. This family would be added to his 'human zoo' collection. Since Mengele did

not want the dwarfs to be trampled, the family was given their own living quarters. They enjoyed

some pleasures, such as being able to keep their original clothes and having individual fleece

blankets. Some of the first tests were done on their baby Shimshon Ovitz. They tested the baby's

blood plasma because it supposedly contained all of their genetic traits. Stated in the article

Mengele and the Family of Dwarfs, "other tests on the family members included extracting bone

marrow, putting drops into their eyes that would leave them blind for a certain amount of time,

and dropping boiling or freezing water into their ears" (par. 7). When he was not consumed in his

experiments, he was on the ramp determining who was going to be saved for labor or sent to the

gas chambers. Mengele was given the nickname "Angel of Death" since he decided all of the

prisoners' fate. Joseph Mengele died of a stroke and drowned somewhere

around Bertioga, Brazil, on February 7, 1979 ("Joseph Mengele", par.

13). For all the thousands of people he sent to the gas chambers and

hundred he experimented on, his death was not painful enough.

The Nazis slaughtered thousands of helpless Jews and other racial groups for no apparent

reason. They were monsters capable of inflicting incredible pain and fear into their clueless

victims. Besides being killed, these people were tortured and degraded. They made the last

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moments of their life complete misery. No person should have ever been treated the way the

Nazis were to the Jews. Most of the killing was done at Auschwitz. There were three specific

camps under Auschwitz, each designed for a major purpose. With the new finding of Zyklon B,

the execution rate kept increasing. By the end of the Nazis' reign, a total of 1.1 million Jews were

held at Auschwitz and of that group 960,000 Jews were executed in inhumane ways. We cannot

take back what the Nazis did to several racial groups, but we can make sure we never forget how

many lives were lost and the ultimate sacrifice these people made.

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References

"Auschwitz." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan. 2011.

Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

"Auschwitz-Birkenau." Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs', 2011. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

"Auschwitz: Chronology." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 31 Mar. 2011.

Caro, Alfred. "Holocaust Survivor Alfred Caro Testimony." Interview by Robert Cooper.

Anniston. USC Shoah Foundation Institute, 31 July 1997. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.

"Joseph Mengele." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 6 Jan.

2011. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

Koren, Yehuda. "MENGELE AND THE FAMILY OF DWARFS." database. History Today,

Feb. 2005. Ebscohost- Academic Search Elite. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

Meadows, Bob, and Lorna Grisby. "From The Flames." database. Time Inc., 15 Dec. 2003.

Ebscohost- Academic Search Elite. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

Morton, Joseph. "Holocaust Survivor Joseph Morton Testimony." Interview by Dan Gelfond.

Mortongrove. USC Shoah Foundation Institute, 4 Aug. 1997. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.

"Testimony on the gassing at Auschwitz." database. Great Neck Publishing, Jan. 2009.

Ebscohost- Academic Search Elite. Web. 7 Mar. 2011.

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