Holocaust and Online Research Available

¶ … Holocaust and online research available regarding the Holocaust. Specifically it will discuss the concentration camps of the Holocaust, focusing on Auschwitz and revisiting the camp today. The horrors of the Holocaust live on at Auschwitz, where visitors can see firsthand the conditions Jews were forced to suffer. The Holocaust museum at Auschwitz is a visual reminder of the millions who perished, and how heartless the Nazis were in their pursuit of the Jews. How could humans do the things they did to other humans? That question still haunts many Holocaust survivors. The Nazis were inhumane and evil in their treatment of the Jews, and the world allowed this treatment to take place.

The Nazis where inhumane in their treatment of the Jews for several reasons. Recently, Oprah Winfrey toured what remains of Auschwitz with author Elie Wiesel. Their tour included living conditions and prisoner treatment in the camp. The prisoners were forced to sleep on hard wooden bunks, up to six people jammed into one bunk. They had one set of clothing, which could disintegrate into rags before they received another. They were fed little more than bread and weak broth, and many died simply from the hard work and lack of food. The prisoners were treated worse than animals. The "then and now" photographs tell a story of pain and suffering that is unimaginable even today. Author Wiesel said to Oprah during their visit, "When the gas chambers were full, an SS man put on the gas mask, went to the roof, opened the little window there and threw such a can into the gas chamber. Unspeakable pain and horror -- that's how they were killed. Mothers and children hugging...'" (Winfrey). To participate in this mass murder was monstrous and unfathomable. These officers and men were doing more than simply following orders. They were effectively wiping out a part of the human race, and to sanction it, no matter the reason, was one of the biggest crimes against humanity ever committed. The Nazis inhumane treatment of the Jews during the war was nothing short of evil.

The treatment of the Jews was pure evil for any number of reasons. Their treatment of the Jews, from the time they rounded them up from their homes, forced them to live in Jewish ghettos, and then forced them onto the trains that would take them to the death camps was cruel and dehumanizing. The mass murder of millions of Jews, and the way the murders were accomplished, was pure evil. In addition, as the photos from Auschwitz clearly show, the day-to-day conditions were horrific, and to make matters worse, SS officers such as Dr. Josef Mengele conducted macabre experiments on prisoners, trying to find even more effective ways of exterminating the entire Jewish race. Mengele, "known as the Angel of Death, conducted sadistic medical experiments on prisoners, infecting them with diseases, rubbing chemicals into their skin and performing crude sterilization experiments in his quest to eliminate the Jewish race by any means possible" (Winfrey). This indicates pure evil at work. It is an evil so horrific that it is hard to imagine even today. However, the photos and the Winfrey tour show the relics of this evil, from the empty cans that contained the Zyklon B. poison used in the gas chambers, to the thousands of empty suitcases, clearly marked with names, which Nazi personnel emptied and appropriated after their owners were gassed to death. The Nazis not only took the lives of millions of Jews, they took everything that was a reminder of their lives. The world stood by while this occurred, and did nothing.

Why did the world stand by and allow millions of Jews to disappear into the death camps? Perhaps it was because most people could not comprehend anything so sinister and evil. Who could possibly believe that such evil could exist in the world? Who could believe that a race could incite so much hatred that another race would attempt to completely exterminate them? The very idea seems beyond imagination or possibility. Perhaps that is one reason the world stood by and watched as the Jewish ghettos emptied. They simply could not comprehend anything as evil as the Nazis treatment of the Jews. As one photo caption in the "Then and Now" exhibit states, "Entrance to the main camp, Auschwitz I. One sees the scene today, hears the terrible stories, and finds it hard to picture these things in their mind's eye" (Editors). If it is hard today to picture the gruesome treatment of the Jews and other prisoners today, it would have been even harder during the war. Stories of the death camps did circulate, and the mass disappearance of so many people could not have gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. And yet, very little was done to save the Jews or protest the death camps. Randolph Churchill did organize a rescue attempt to arm the Jews in the camps, but it was unsuccessful. Therefore, the outside world did know of the plight of the Jews, but they allowed the murders to continue until the war ended. The world's religious leaders also stood by and did nothing, which is overwhelming even today. In his tour of Auschwitz, author Wiesel commented on the evil that occurred there, and how incomprehensible it was even today. His comments seem to say that if the happenings at the death camps are impossible to believe today, they were even more improbable then, and that many people could not believe or comprehend that such evil could actually exist in the modern world. Perhaps the situation was so unbelievable that people simply did not think that much evil could exist in the world. Unfortunately, the relics at Auschwitz and the reminiscences of her survivors tell a far different and chilling story.