Why were the Jews branded and numbered?

Answer 1

The five-digit Hollerith number assigned to inmates at the Auschwitz death camp was part of a punch card system by IBM to track the Nazis' prisoners.

In August 1943, a timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, arrived at Auschwitz. He was among a group of 400 inmates, mostly Jews. First, a doctor examined him briefly to determine his fitness for work. His physical information was noted on a medical record. Second, his full prisoner registration was completed with all personal details. Third, his name was checked against the indices of the Political Section to see if he would be subjected to special punishment. Finally, he was registered in the Labor Assignment Office and assigned a characteristic five-digit IBM Hollerith number, 44673.

Tattoos, however, quickly evolved at Auschwitz. Soon, they bore no further relation to Hollerith compatibility for one reason: the Hollerith number was designed to track a working inmate-not a dead one.

Dr. Josef Mengele, who performed cruel experiments, tattooed his own distinct number series on "patients.

-spero news-

The number system that was tattooed to the prisoners wasn't meant to track them at all. It was just another means of keeping track of them at role call. Meaning if the number wasn't there, they knew he or she was gone and missing.

Answer 2

1. To keep track of them.

2. To dehumanize and humiliate them. The Jews have a religious srticture against tattoos.

Answer 2:If you mean "numbered" as in "limited", because most Jews were sent to concentration camps by the Nazis, which most of them were eventually tortured or killed in them. -Dan Barry

Answer 3

To identify each prisoner in the camps

Answer 4

It was a form of identification.