The Nazi Death Camps

Introduction

The Germany camps were built in the early 1939 to 1945 by the Nazi regime under "protective custody" during the world war two. This was authorized by the government from the law of February 28, 1933 to the police for them to take custody of all suspected criminals by imprisoning them without offering them a chance of legal council or even a trial in order to prove their innocence. These camps were separated from the road by a fence and looked very harmless on the outside. The whole situate was big and it looked like a complete town filled with garrisons since it was painted green beautiful color. Inside there were crowded civilians and soldiers, the central avenue was locked by a barbed- wire where it was opened in order for the cars to be parked. On the opposite side of the avenue were these huge green barracks, it was noted that that was where large numbers of prisoners arriving at the camps were brought in. these barracks were made of concrete on the inside and water would come out of the walls instead of well made taps (Clay, 1994). Inside them there were benches and clothes were kept there then collected, meaning it is where they used to undress then took a bath after finishing they would be directed in to the next room. Those rooms they were directed after taking the showers "still naked" were surrounded by concrete all over the wall, the rooms had no windows (Gurland, 2004).

The women were separated with children and men; they were forced in to these concrete boxes which were dark and had only a tiny light on the ceiling. After they stayed inside these five yard square boxes locked, hot air was forced in from the ceiling, then a pale blue crystal of Cyclone were sprinkled on the naked people, this suffocated them and within minutes all were dead. There were six existing concrete boxes which used to hold almost two thousand individuals inside; this was humiliating and scary at the same time. The inmates who were incriminated were; democrats, political criminals, socialists, homosexuals and certainly the Jews. Various types of camps were built across the whole country, these camps included; extermination camps, labor camps, concentration camps, and POW camps. The extermination camps were camps involved with murder they were built as a place of assassinating the prisoners, there were different types of extermination camps; Auschwitz-Birkenau, chelmno, and Belzek  . These killings were mostly done to a large number of prisoners by infusing fumes from truck engines, gas vans and also gas chambers. There was also the introduction of the Zyklon-B-pellets used in the latest camps. This gas was originally manufactured for pet control thus was not fit for human health; the mentioned gasses were used to terminate a large number of prisoners by suffocating them (Jaroszynska-Kirchmann, 2002).

Extermination Camps

Labor camp were involved with the practice of labor, this is where the prisoners were forced to work under strict supervision, if one made a mistake he/she was assassinated. These labor camps were mostly near factories, these prisoners worked till they died from lack of malnutrition and diseases. The sick people were injected with lethal medication in order for them to die instantly.  Concentration camps were established to lock up political prisoners who were regarded as "enemy of the regime", the criminals and security risk (Fessak, 2003). The situations that occurred in these camps were terrifying, and horrific, while the death rate kept rising there was no evidence provided that they were mercilessly killed. The intentions of building these camps were to terminate prisoner and maintain power. All the Jews were exterminated from all countries occupied by the Germans (Pablo, 1950).

However the Soviet Jews were not captured and thrown in to the camps but killed on the spot. This shows that there was a strong rivalry between the Germans and the Jews, in camps such as Majdanek were used to terminate the soviet prisoners of war by torture. Between the years 1933 to 1936 the concentration camps were used to delete the political antagonists and the forbidden German labor movement organization. These camps were kept under the supervision and control of Heinrich Himmler, who was as well in charge of the police in different kind of stages of the Reich. He later appointed Theodore Eicke who was advised on how to control and command the Dachau concentration camp as an inspector of SS guard unit and the concentration camps, the guard units were later identified as the death head units a system known for punishing. Apart from the from the criminals and the political enemies held in these camps, the beggars and tramps were also looked in to the concentration camps since they were classified as "asocial element" in addition to "habitual criminals" by the Nazi jargon. Inside these camps there were about six thousand prisoners held in the first year of their establishment, there reached a point where a discussion was held on either the camps should be closed down or not. However Hitler who was a commander sided with those who favored the prolongation of the camps. Because of the extension of the war, the concentration camps were extended apart from the Dachau camp; the new big established camps were placed alone (Friedlander, 2002).

These camps were; concentration camp for women which were recognized in the early 1939, Sachsenhausen in 1936, Mauthausen 1938, Buchenwald 1937, Natzweiler 1941, Auschwitz 1940, and later the Neuengamme which was also known as the satellite camp which later became the independent camp. In the untimely 1942 extermination camps were established, these camps were controlled by Chelmno and they were; Majdanek, Sobibor , Belzec  and the Treblinka. These extermination camps were established as part of Aktion Reinhard. This is where the Jews and Europeans were terminated. The camps that kept the prisoners were established in 1937 had a brickyard near them; this is the place where the prisoners were forced to work therefore leading them to open a factory for that reason. When the war broke out rapidly, the re were over 25,000 prisoners locked in the camps, this kept on increasing until the number was too large leading to large population inside the camps. The prisoners rose up to 60,000 therefore causing congestion this being led by the majority who were from Poland. Due to high number of prisoners, the staff that controlled these camps decided to delete them by installing devices that shot the prisoners to death. The order given to kill them was known as the "commissar order".

They did not stop since they ended up introducing forced labor in to these camps leading to death because of overworking them; this was an indication of punishing and prosecuting them. Auschwitz and Majdanek were joined up together therefore leading to congestion, this was where they established the termination process of using gas chambers. The Jews who were mostly the arrived were killed instantly. Research documents done on the 6^th army exposed that over 300,000 soviet soldiers volunteered to work for the Germans; their outcome after working for the Germans was unknown since they were so many and they maybe fell in to the hands of the SMERSH whereby they underwent along procedure of their interrogation, this remained unknown and never solved by anyone (Shulman, 1987).

The whole society of the Jews were captured and brought to camp Auschwitz from different countries namely; Belgium, and France this took place on the late 1944.They were later sent to a new section in camp Birkenau which was used to accommodate the prisoners of war (POW), the biggest area was used to lick up women and only few concentration camps had gas chambers. Therefore this is the reason to why the prisoners were squeezed up in small gas chambers since they were scarce. For the duration of the tree years of operation taking place in Nazi camps since 1944, there were an estimation number of 1.5 million people who died inside those camps. These holocausts portrayed all distinctiveness of sagacity: control, predictability and efficiency including the definitive dehumanization of the dead, this whole scenario of horrific experience proves that the people involved with this unlawful behavior treated death as an element of production (Chubenko, 1985).

The Auschwitz camp was built in the early 1941 and it was completed in March 1942, the camps were shut down since the prisoners started to complain by forming groups and striking because of bad health in the camps which includes; poor sanitation, poor diet, mistreatment and torture. During this period the prisoners were claimed to be a threat to the human right since the human right organization were to find out if they were interrogated .the 6^th officers were captured and interrogated thus revealing a regime of torture, beatings, starvation and forced labor among the prisoners. Due to these reasons some camps were shut down and were reopened in the early 1956 and 1960s. This time they were clean and the government had a close eye on them, they were used for imprisoning criminals but this time the guilty ones (Bartov, 2000).