Trey Anteau

Ms. Watts
ENG HON 2 P2
25th October 2016
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Millions of people were killed in concentration camps during WWII, Auschwitz
being the site of the most fatalities, with an estimated 1.1 million murders. Of the deaths in
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, nearly 90% died in Birkenau; around 1 million victims. 9 out
of 10 of these victims were Jews, deported to Auschwitz to be exterminated. Deportees would
arrive at the camps, and be selected for death, or work, they would then be either be transported,
or walk into their work camp and work until they died, or until the liberation of Auschwitz
during 1943.
Upon arrival, prisoners would be told to line up in a single file line. From there a
German officer would see then one-by-one, telling them to go left, or to go right, either of
which could mean life or death. If you were not fully grown, weak, short, or ill, you would most
likely be chosen to die. Those selected for death, were gathered from Auschwitz along with
other camps, to be slaughtered on a massive scale (auschwitz.org, prisoner classification). Many
of the victims of the holocaust died right after being selected to die, including the elderly,
disabled, even infants were not spared from the selection process. After selection, the prisoners
would then be sent to their camp to start their labor.

At the camps, prisoners would be forced to go through merciless forced labor by

the officers there. Initially, they worked at building the camp: leveling the ground, erecting
new blocks and buildings, laying roads, and digging drainage ditches.
(http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, Living Conditions, Labor & Executions). But dont be
wrong: Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was made above all else for the killing of Jews brought there.
(Auschwitz.org, Auschwitz II-Birkenau). Labor in the camps were meant to work the prisoners
down to exhaustion and starvation. Shirking prisoners would occasionally be flogged, but more
often would be executed, sometimes shot right on spot to make an example for the other
laborers.
Eventually, officials at Auschwitz resorted to direct extermination, before on the
27th of January, 1945, only 7,000 prisoners live to see the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet
army. This was near the end of the war, and soon to the surrender of Germany to the allied
forces. Following the war, Germanys reputation had been ruined, nearly of their population
killed, and forced to pay war costs. While talking to higher ranks in Poznan on October 4, 1943,
the head of the German police, Himmler, stated "Most of you here know what it means when
100 corpses lie next to each other, when 500 lie there. . .. This is an honor roll in our history
which has never been and never will be put in writing, him expressing the want to never record
the history of what Germany had done during the war.
The construction of Auschwitz show the horrors of war and just how far bad
ideas can go if not intervened. Religious and racial tolerance is something we must learn as a
world if we ever want to have true peace. Let's hope that we as a world can prevent events like
the Holocaust from every repeating itself.

Bibliography
Auschwitz-Birkenau: Living Conditions, Labor &Amp; Executions. Living Conditions, Labor &Amp;
Executions at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/holocaust/auconditions.html.
www.auschwitz.org. AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU. Auschwitz-Birkenau, auschwitz.org/.