Research Paper

Holocaust: Auschwitz-Birkenau (The Death Factory)

Darius Jones

Dual Credit College English

L. Neuburger

February 19, 2009

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Many survivors to this day remember the horrible and horrific actions that took place

from 1933 to 1945. During the time of the Holocaust, Nazis set up many death facilities.

However one still known today as the worst death facility would be Auschwitz-Birkenau the

largest and most horrific death facility. Holocaust survivors will state that Birkenau was not a

place where one would want to end up when sent to a death facility.

As Nazi tyranny spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted

and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million Soviet prisoners of war

were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the

non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians

for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland where these individuals worked and often

died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities

persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms.

German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents including Communists,

Socialists, and trade unionists and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah's Witnesses). Many of

these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.

Earlier in the years of the Nazi regime, the national socialist government established

concentration camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological prisoners. Later

increasing in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews,

gypsies, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. The Germans decided to

create ghettos, transit camps, and labor camps for Jews during the years to maintain and monitor

Jewish population and for them to work. The Germans also established numerous forced-labor

camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-
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Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.” (www.ushmm.org) Most of the Nazi prisoners

were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau

When prisoners were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau by train then marched or were picked

up by truck to the main camp. Here the prisoners went through registration. When registered

prisoners would be tattooed, completely shaved of all body hair, and then had their clothes

disinfected with Zyklon-B gas. After registration “prisoners entered the camp under the infamous

gateway inscribed 'Arbeit Macht Frei'” (Labor make you free) according to www.jewishgen.org

Also according to www.jewishgen.org Auschwitz Birkenau “was established in October

8, 1941, where it was divided into three major facilities or camps. Auschwitz I main camp or

Stammlager; Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, established on October 8th, 1941 as a

'Vernichtungslager' (extermination camp); Auschwitz III or Monowitz, established on May 31,

1942 as an 'Arbeitslager' or work camp; also 51 sub-camps were built.” Testing new ways of

killing and disposing Jews, Gypsies, Poles, and any other, the Nazis felt were enemies was

Birkenau’s main purpose. Auschwitz-Birkenau clamed thousands of victims within its walls

Www.jewishgen.org also states “There were up to seven gas chambers using Zyklon-B

poison gas and three crematoria. Auschwitz II included a camp for new arrivals and those to be

sent on to labor elsewhere; a Gypsy camp; a family camp; a camp for holding and sorting

plundered goods and a women's camp. Auschwitz III provided slave labor for a major industrial

plant run by I G Farben for producing synthetic rubber (see Blechhammer). Highest number of

inmates, including sub-camps: 155,000. The estimated number of deaths: 2.1 to 2.5 million killed

in gas chambers, of which about 2 million were Jews, and Poles, Gypsies and Soviet POWs.”

Auschwitz-Birkenau is located at Oswiecim, Poland. Though when first constructed

Birkenau was not supposed to be a death camp but was mainly going to be used as a
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concentration camp, to be more of an intimidation to Poles and Soviet soldiers and prevent

resistance to German rule. Himmler commanded Birkenau should hold 30,000 prisoners. Also, a

second camp should be added to hold another 10,000 prisoners.

Later Himmler reported to Hoss and told him of the “Final Solution.” Many Soviet

POW’s were used for experimental testing. Zyklon-B a gas consisted of “hydrogen cyanide, a

stabilizer, and a warning odorant that were impregnated onto various substrates, typically small

absorbent pellets seald up tight in a container and when exposed to air released a very potent

gas.” Says Richard J. Green. Zyklon-B was the gas the Germans felt best to use to eraticate their

prisoners. After discovering Zyklon-B, Birkenau the third and final camp was built. Along with

building Birkeanu fifty-one sub camps were built to hold prisoners for various reasons.

Auschwitz clamed 11 percent of the ‘Final Solution’ victims. Though Auschwitz-

Birkenau was the largest death facility and camp it did not last long. Jewishgen.org had this to

say, initially the new facilities were ‘underutilized’. From April 1943 to March 1944, only

160,000 Jews were killed at Birkenau, but from March 1944 to November 1944, when all the

other death camps had been abandoned, Birkenau surpassed all previous records for mass killing.

The Hungarian deportations and the liquidation of the remaining Polish ghettos, such as Lodz,

resulted in the gassing of 585,000 Jews. This period made Auschwitz-Birkenau into the most

notorious killing site of all time.

In October 1944, the 'Sonderkommando' crew crematoria IV revolted and destroyed the

crematories. In November Himmler ordered gassings to stop, and a 'cleanup' operation was

inaugurated to conceal traces of the mass murder. In January of 1945, the Germans evacuated

58,000 prisoners who could walk. They left behind in the main camp, Birkenau and in Monowitz

about 7,000 sick or incapacitated who they did not expect would live for long.
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When Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found these pitiful

survivors as well as 836,525 items of women clothing, 348,820 items of men clothing, 43,525

pairs of shoes and vast numbers of toothbrushes, glasses and other personal effects. They found

also 460 artificial limbs and seven tons of human hair shaved from Jews before they were

murdered. The human hairs were used by the company "Alex Zink” for confection of cloth. This

company was paying the human hairs 50 pfennig/kilo.

Remarkably, there were instances of individual resistance and collective efforts at

fighting back inside Auschwitz. Poles, Communists and other national groups established

networks in the main camp. A few Jews escaped from Birkenau, and there were recorded assaults

on Nazi guards even at the entrance to the gas chambers. The 'Sonderkommando' revolt in

October 1944 was the extraordinary example of physical resistance.

In the years of the Holocaust great damage was done. No one ever wanted to see death,

yet so much happened. The United States could not do much about the war until the county was

involved. Jews and many others who went through horrific events during the Holocaust could

tell you just from what they had heard themselves that Auschwitz-Birkenau was the most

horrific death camp of all times.

Bibliography

http://www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm

http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/AuschwitzEng.html

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143
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