Concentration Camps of WWII --

Concentration Camps of WWII -- Who was held, Where did they come from, What happened to them there and what to them after they were released.

Nazi Concentration Camps

The Holocaust has generated a lot of suffering, to its victims, and to society as a whole, given the magnitude of the event. Nazi concentration camps served as a living hell for those who were unlucky enough to visit them as prisoners. Experiencing such an incident was extremely humanizing, both for the detainees and for the guards themselves. In spite of the fact that the process of ethnic cleansing that Hitler initiated was not eventually successful, it nonetheless managed to produced a great deal of distress and memories that will never be forgotten because of their intensity. The concentration camps held a series of people coming from varied environments, ranging from Jews-one of Hitler's primary targets, to virtually anyone believed to be a threat for the well-being of the Third Reich.

It rarely happens for time to go by without the world to be reminded of the Holocaust, as it is frequently related to, with new information constantly emerging or with information that is already known being discussed, this most probably being an attempt society makes to understand what could have triggered such a disaster and how it was possible for good people to be unwilling to prevent it (Zettl, 2005).

At first, Hitler's intention had not been obvious, and no one could imagine someone wanting to do such horrors. However, the war evolved and Jewish people were being sent into working camps from various areas in occupied Europe. It had not been long before the first reports of Nazis treating Jews ruthlessly appeared. Even with the legends going on, it had virtually been impossible for someone to picture the reality existing in the working camps. It was only consequent to the Second World War when the camps and their functionality were discovered and it took several decades for the world to discover exactly what had happened in concentration camps. In most cases, people think about piles of corpses put on top of each other and survivors that are half-dead when they hear the word Holocaust.

Although the world slowly but surely recovered from the incident, the people who actually lived it and who were held prisoner in Nazi concentration camps were never able to completely recuperate. In spite of the fact that there are more than six decades from when the Holocaust ended, its survivors were never actually capable to properly reintegrate society, given that their memories haunted them everywhere they went. "Some of these survivors also struggle with everyday challenges, mental crises and with the woes of aging, retirement and illnesses which may seem insurmountable when viewed in perspective of the shadows of the past" (F Kellermann, 1999). What is more worrying is that while some admit that the event has left a permanent mark on them, others are reluctant to acknowledge that they are suffering as a result of having been prisoners in concentration camps and are left to suffer without being provided with professional assistance.

Some of the primary groups selected for imprisonment in concentration camps were Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, criminals, and virtually anyone who was not considered worthy of being free. Jewish people were the main target of the Nazis, hence the reason for which most victims of the Holocaust are Jewish in origin. Any individual believed to be of Jewish faith or of Jewish descent was immediately selected to be sent to concentration camps. Most notable concentration camps were located in Poland, largely because the country had a high number of Jews.

In most cases Gypsies were the second group that Nazis targeted with the purpose of being sent in concentration camps. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Gypsies that were killed during the Holocaust, this largely being a consequence that the group had no secure place in the world, considering that it is even impossible to determine the number of Gypsies in the present. The Nazis were also accustomed to sending prisoners of war to concentration camps and presented them with no preferential treatment, as these people were in most cases treated even badly than other groups.

Hitler was known to be unwilling to accept homosexuals in the Third Reich and as a result had a list made with all the homosexuals in Germany, with the purpose of sending them in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Groups that expressed an unsupportive character toward war in general were considered to be eligible for termination, with the Jehovah's Witnesses religious group having been among the ones Hitler did not want to roam free in Nazi territory. Jehovah's Witnesses were generally against armed warfare and thus did not want to join the military, influencing Nazis in believing that they did not want to support the Third Reich and that they could also be a bad influence on the rest of people in Germany. Because of their political preferences, communists were not favored by the Nazis and anyone who was believed to be connected to the Communist Party was selected to be sent in concentration camps. Given that they committed crimes against the German state, criminals were considered to be an unwanted segment of the German population and were sent to concentration camps. The sphere of influence related to people who were unwanted in Nazi Germany was much larger, as Hitler did not want to support individuals who were believed to be against the concept of Aryan purity. Those who were disabled or mentally ill were taken away from their families or from the institutions they belonged to and were relocated to concentration camps. In particular cases, the Nazis went as far as sending old people to concentration camps for the purpose that they could not serve the Nazi state in any way.

It is extremely difficult for Holocaust survivors to be at peace with themselves, with most of them being uncertain whether they should try to forget or if they should come forward and tell the whole world what happened in concentration camps.

The first official mass killings took place during the early 1940s, with the Nazis mass murdering people both in the east and in the west. Hitler apparently wanted to hurry things as he gave the order for the Final Solution to be implemented. Large numbers of Jewish people were being killed first by shooting and later by being gassed in special-made gassing chambers. The conditions in the working camps had been horrible, and people often died of starvation or because they had contracted a certain disease.

In spite of the fact that it had not been until the Second World War that people have become acquainted with Nazi concentration camps, the institutions went back to the early stages of Nazi Germany, as Hitler founded a series of camps meant to hold whomever posed a threat to the well-being of the state. Historians typically focus on the last years of the Second World War when trying to describe Nazi concentration camps, ignoring the fact that people have suffered as a result of being held in such complexes years before the war actually began. The incredible growth in prisoners is likely to fuel this. "Inmate numbers shot up from 110,000 in September 1942 to a staggering 715,000 in January 1945" (http://www.camps.bbk.ac.uk/history/History%20Introduction.pdf 2).

Some of the first camps were designed with the purpose of silencing and intimidating those who did not support the Nazi system. The commencing of the war made it possible for Germans to understand the financial potential work camps represented. Hitler actually increased the number of concentration camps with the purpose of supporting the war. This influenced the increasing number of deaths in concentration camps, given that most people were unable to survive such torment.

One of the largest and most significant concentration camps was located in Oswiecim, near Cracow, Poland. Although most people are unlikely to be familiar with the small town's actual name, they have most probably heard a great deal of things about the Auschwitz extermination camp. Hitler's people established the camp at this location because it was a meeting point of some of the most important roads and railways in Poland, thus meaning that people could be brought here in large numbers relatively fast. The town of Oswiecim was also significant because it held a great number of Jewish people, making it easier for the Germans to bring them into the camp. Auschwitz has presently become a hallmark of the Holocaust primarily because of its size and because people from all across Europe were sent here in large numbers with the purpose of being exterminated.

The contemporary society is virtually unable to fully understand what Auschwitz was for the people held prisoner there, just as no one could understand, regardless of everything they ever saw or heard about. The concentration camp was a complex system meant to murder or to subject Jewish individuals to terrifying suffering. "Some Holocaust survivors have said that not only did the barbed-wire surrounding Auschwitz tremble and howl, but also the tortured earth itself moaned with the voices of the victims" (ISurvived.org).

The first waves of prisoners arrived at Auschwitz in March, 1942, and from there on trains filled with people arrived on a regular basis, with the last years of the war seeing tens of thousands of prisoners arriving every day. Once inside Auschwitz prisoners would have their names forgotten as they received a number that was tattooed on their arms in return. The process of being a prisoner inside of the camp was extremely dehumanizing, as from the very first moments of their journey to a work camp people were put into cattle-cars and forced to stay there for prolonged periods of time and in inhumane conditions.

Even when they entered the camp, they did not know for sure if they would remain in the complex or if they would simply cross it in their journey toward gas chambers. Concentration camp prisoners lived in extreme conditions as they struggle to survive over the day.

For example, Jack Oran, a Holocaust survivor, relates: "Everyone worked so hard, got beaten up…and came back to the camp -- the exhaustion alone pushed him to the bunk to lie down and sleep throughout the night and get enough strength so that s/he might be able to do that again tomorrow. & #8230;in the morning, sixty percent of the six people [in the bunk] did not wake up. The other forty percent went over the pockets of the dead people to find a piece of bread…the hygienic condition was very, very poor in that period. I remember that I searched a dead body in the bunk and I found a piece of bread. That piece of bread was crawling with lice and you shook them off the bread and put it in your mouth and ate it. We all were crawling with lice. Taking a shower was not an option. To get out in the morning, to walk toward the barrack where there is water, running water & endash; you didn't want to walk through mud. If you walked through the mud you probably lost a shoe and then you had to go barefoot. So it would be damned if I do and damned if I don't. Those were the conditions." (ISurvived.org)

Auschwitz initially served as a concentration camp for Polish individuals whom the Nazis would detain because of the supposed threat they represented. At the apogee of the Third Reich German occupied territory contained numerous concentration camps that were categorized in accordance with the prisoners that were expected to reside in them. Camps were designed for prisoners of war, for transit, and for putting people to death. In their initial press releases regarding concentration camps, the Nazis claimed that it would be dangerous for society as a whole if the prisoners they kept were to be released.

Influential German individuals such as Heinrich Himmler, in charge of the SS, contradicted most stories related to conditions in the concentration camps through claiming that prisoners were actually favored during their detention. Reality was however completely different.

Guards would apply unnecessary punishments and executed people for no actual purpose. Prisoners were given a set of clothes at the moment of their arrival and were required to wear them all across their stay in the camp (the Holocaust: Lessons for Humanity, 2004, 32).

The Nazis were not satisfied with robbing the Jewish people of their lifelong fortunes and their lives. In addition to murdering Jews, the Nazis took advantage of the situation to perform various experiments on their prisoners. The experiments had been initially intended to help Germans understand how the human body works in a range of circumstances.

The experiments were considered to be helpful for the medicine world, as they provided answers to problems that German doctors encountered in their work. Also, the Germans experimented on people in order find the best solutions to certain dilemmas which the Nazi soldiers came across after having been wounded.

In addition to torturing people in concentration camps, the Nazis would also exploit their victims anyway they could, human experimentation being one of the most terrible accounts reported in such institutions. Animal experiments had been a common sight in the Nazi world, with doctors and scientists taking advantage of the fact that the bodies of certain animals had had some similarities to that of the human body. Consequent to the coming of the prisoners in large numbers, the Nazis realized that the medical experiments that they performed would be more effective if they would be performed on real human beings.

Consequently, they did not hesitate to start new experimental programs in which prisoners would be forced to go through a diversity of ordeals (Kater, 2000, 225). "Experiments were conducted with total disregard for the principles and ethics of medical and scientific research" (the Holocaust: Lessons for Humanity, 2004, 32).

During the first months of 1942, Rascher had become a main physician in Munich, where he had been assigned with conducting experiments performed in special pressure chambers. At first, Rascher used monkeys in his tests, but, because he considered the animals to have to little similarities with people, he asked Himmler the permission to use prisoners for the work camps. The experiment took place in Munich and it lasted from February and until May. It involved two hundred prisoners being obliged to spend time in low pressure chambers in order for them to undergo conditions like those sustained by pilots of the Luftwaffe when they had to eject at high altitudes.

The pressure chambers that Rascher had used in his experiments had been provided by the German Air Force. Once in the chambers, the prisoners would be put through several changes in pressure with great rapidity.

The lives of over one hundred people have been claimed as a result of the experiment. People died in horrible conditions during or subsequent to spending time in the pressure chambers. The ones that survived did not have much time to regain their strength, as Rascher went on with the experiment. After being subjected to the pressure chambers, people had been analyzed in order to determine how they had been affected. This sometimes involved doctors operating and dissecting brains while the patients were still alive. Not a single prisoner survived from the two hundred that had been initially part of the experiment, as some died as a result of the experiment and the others had been executed. The experiments led by doctor Rascher had been entirely sponsored by the German Luftwaffe and by Himmler's corps. The Nazi authorities claimed that the experiments had been beneficial through the fact that they had been meant to provide assistance in saving the lives of German pilots (Kater, 2000, 125)

At first, Rascher believed that only certain people that have been guilty of terrible crimes were to be selected for participating in the experiment. However, as it had later been revealed, and, as Himmler had ordered, it did not matter if the prisoner had or had not been guilty or a particular crime. All across the experiments, Rascher observed the reactions experienced by people as they behaved abnormally because they were virtually suffocated by the sudden change in pressure.

The Luftwaffe supported several other tests on prisoners, as they wanted to find more methods through which the lives of pilots could be saved. Airplane pilots often found themselves having to parachute in remote areas which had extremely cold temperatures. Most efforts made by the German doctors with the intention to revive victims that have entered states of advanced hypothermia failed. As a result, the Nazis turned their attention on finding methods of warming those that have gone through extreme temperatures.

Subsequent to the high altitude experiments, Rascher and his colleagues started an experiment which had prisoners going through freezing temperatures in order to find methods of warming them. The experiments had been conducted in the Dachau camp, where prisoners were being held in freezing water or were being obliged to spend several hours outside naked in very low temperatures.

As a subject grew colder and colder, his body temperature fell dramatically to the point when he became unconscious. Patients often displayed deviant behavior such as spasms and the appearance of foam at their mouths. After such experiments, Rascher and his companions attempted various techniques of bringing the victims back to their initial state. These techniques involved people being put in very hot baths and even being put between the bodies of two women prisoners. As Rascher observed, people usually died after their bodies reached the temperature of 28 degrees.

The experiments performed by Rascher have proved to be inefficient, and hundreds of people have either died or gone through unimaginable suffering in vain. According to Kater, Rascher had not really been interested in the experiments, as he actually wanted the experiments to bring him more academic experience which would later lead to him having a high university post. Ultimately, Rascher did not only fail in his career, but he had also been executed by the SS because he had stolen babies that he later claimed to have been his.

Apparently, Rascher had not been among the only doctors that have chosen to activate in work camps. Numerous German medics of the time had gone to serve in work camps in order to prevent the Nazis from assigning them to serve on the front. Also, Nazi doctors had chosen to operate in work camps because of financial reasons and because of the opportunity to become renowned worldwide.

Clearly, the Nazis did not show any pity when putting their experiments into exercise. When regarding the suffering that the victims went through during the Nazi experiments, one can say that the other prisoners that had been put to death through shooting or through gassing had actually been luckier.

The Nazi authorities had also attempted to lessen the number of those that came from an inferior race through sterilization. While most people that had undergone sterilization had done so through traditional methods, others had been part of an experiment started by the Nazis in order to discover newer and easier methods of sterilization. Doctors tried to use diverse drugs or rays in order to have success in their experiments. What they wanted had been to find a method to sterilize people by using minimum efforts and little time.

Unlike the experiments performed by Rascher which had been performed on several hundred of prisoners, the sterilization experiments had had several millions of prisoners as subjects. Consequent to being sterilized through radiation or through castration, the patients were being observed in order for scientists to calculate the effects that the experiments have had.

The women going through the sterilization process generally suffered more than the men. Women had been put through several phases in which doctors injected them with drugs which later caused the subjects to suffer great pains or even to perish. The doctors did not care that people died in great numbers as a result of the medical experiments performed, as their only objective had been to find a proper sterilization method.

Doctors would sometimes forcefully introduce caustic substances into the uteruses of perfectly healthy women. Also, women prisoners had been artificially inseminated with human semen and at times told that they had been inseminated with sperm collected from animals. The agony felt by the women that have gone through such horrors must have been unimaginable.

In their campaigns across Europe during the Second World War, the German soldiers also had to fight invisible enemies. Due to the fact that most doctors had only been prepared to treat basic affections, numerous soldiers had died after having contracted a disease which could not be cured by military doctors. Again, the doctors involved in experimenting directly on human beings from the Nazi work camps saw the opportunity of providing cures for diseases which were making the lives of Germans hard.