Holocaust

From early 1942 Auschwitz operated as both. The only other camp that served as both a concentration camp and extermination camp was Majdanek.

After the first World War, in order to gain power and leverage, Hitler needed someone to blame for all the trouble Germany had landed themselves into, due to being shouldered with massive reparation payments. The Jews were a majority in bank owners, and a general thought of antisemitism was prevalent at the time.

The Soviets liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. Soviet forces also liberated the Stutthof, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrueck concentration camps (after Germany surrendered).

U.S. forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. They also liberated Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg, Dachau, and Mauthausen.

British forces liberated concentration camps in northern Germany, including Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen.

Concentration camps were torturous and painful.

Inmates had to work and do hard labour, men arguably had to do more physically demanding jobs. People had to wear clothes resembling a pair of pajamas that had been worn before. People were beaten by guards and made to do seemingly illogical tasks. The camps were cold, wet, damp, and muddy. Jews were starved to death. There were outbreaks of harmful diseases such as Typhus. In the ghettos people often died at such a rate that the disposal of the corpses could not keep up, so; bodies were often piled up in streets.

Also they were put in gas chambers. they would be forced to take all their clothes off and go in to a big room this room was filled with up to two thousand Jews and a doctor would pour gas pellets into the room. Dead bodies would then be processed, gold teeth and hair would be harvested and the corpses searched. The corpses would then be burned in a special oven called a crematorium.

An estimated 50,000 children were kidnapped by the Nazis in Poland.

The first gassings of prisoners occur in Auschwitz I on Wednesday 3rd September 1941. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 850 people, Mainly soviet POWs and people who were weak and ill. Testing takes place in a gas chamber in the cellar of Block 11 in Auschwitz I. The success of these experiments leads to the adoption of Zyklon B as the killing agent for Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

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However, those early gassing were experimental. Auschwitz did not become a routine gassing centre till well into 1942, after Treblinka and Belzec.

To survive in a Camp, you had to forget tomorrow, you had to forget your family, or your past. Think of NOW, nothing else, and unless you were picked for death when on a parade, or died from disease, or lack of food, you might, just might, live until tomorrow.

People who thought about tomorrow, or their past, or their families, died...they just died, sometimes for no real reason such as being beaten by the guards. They died because their 'spirit' was broken. They 'thought' too much.

You had to keep your spirit, your humanity, you had to accept what was going on around you, and think of NOW.

A getto. Really, it originated when Adolf Hitler captured

Jews and made them stay in run-down buildings. This was in the period of the Holocaust.

The person in charge for the Nazi concentration camps was Heinrich Himmler. Himmler committed suicide in May 1945.

because Hitler though that the Jews were an inferior race , that they were trying to take over Germany, that the Jews killed Jesus, that the Jews were an undesirable race and because when Hitler mother was working for a Jew family they mistreated her

Around 10% of Polish Jews survived the Holocaust. This number is particularly low since the Nazi Regime designed the Holocaust to specifically remove Poland's Jewish community. Prior to the war, Poland had 3.3 million Jews, the largest single Jewish community in Europe outside of the USSR. After the war, only 300,000 Polish Jews remained.

The driving force behind the Holocaust was Hitler, gleefully assisted by Himmler and the rest of the Nazi leadership.

On the Jews.

The Nazi persecution of the Jews, 'gypsies', Communists, Social Democrats and other opponents of the regime was never a secret. The concentration camps were not a secret, either. After all, the Nazi media boasted that there taking a tough line against these groups ... People knew - though usually they did not know all the details of what happened in camps.

The yellow star, curfews for Jews, bans on their using park benches, public transport, visiting cinemas, cafes and so on was perfectly obvious. The deportation of the German Jews, supposedly for 'resettlement' in Eastern Europe, was also public knowledge.

As for the Holocaust (genocide) it was supposed to be secret, but in practice information leaked. For example, most German soldiers on the Eastern Front had some idea of what was going on behind the front; they sometimes went home on leave and talked ... According to the historian Helga Grebing, writing in 1959, the predominant attitude was 'hear no evil, see no evil': most people had some idea and did not want to know more.

Westerbork (Transit Camp).Then on to Auschwitz II (Women's Camp)On 30 October 1944, she and Margot were moved to Bergen-Belsen, where they died of typhus in March 1945 (exact dates unknown).

Anne Frank (and the others from the Secret Annex) spent a short time at Westerbork, a transit camp. She and her family were then sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. This is where they were separated. After being used for a time for physical labor and starved in filthy conditions, she and Margot were moved to Bergen-Belsen on 30 October 1944. She and Margot died of typhus there only weeks before the camp was liberated on April 15th, 1945.

Anne Frank was first sent to Westerbork Transit Camp in the Netherlands (Holland). Then she and the rest of her family was sent to Auschwitz. On 30 October 1944 she and Margot (were put on the last transport from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen (near Hanover), where they died of typhus. (Her parents were left at Auschwitz, where her mother died on 6 Janaury 1945, and her father was liberated).

It would be best if you had a prefered angle to come from:

The Nazis: Were ordinary soldiers forced to perpetrate the Holocaust?

The Victims: Did the Jews of occupied countries think that their governments would save them?

The Allies: Why were there not more relief efforts to save the survivors after liberation?

Reflection: Did the rise in Holocaust denial in the 70's and 80's lead to an increace in Holocaust research?

obviously it depends on what level you are at.

Nothing, absolutely nothing gave them any right to kill the Jews. The Nazi regime did as it pleased and didn't care about right and wrong: the Nazi leadership had no morality and no conscience. The Nazis operated on the principle "we do what we can get away with" - just as any psychopath does. (In fact, Nazi ideology expressly rejected conscience as weak, 'servile', Jewish and Christian ...)

That is why it was called "a War crime".

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The 'right of might' has always existed and will always exist. Every empire (whether they call themselves an empire or not), Kingdom or State has used it, even in today's world, just look at the newspapers. It is the same principle as 'Victor's justice', if you are stronger, then you can do whatever you want.

One could ask what gave Stalin the right to kill even more (of his own people).

Nazi party structure was built on a "if you want something, then take it'" policy, as the Nazis believed that this would produce the strongest leaders, rather than those who could talk the best (like Hitler).

Do not be fooled into believing that Nazis were psychopaths or otherwise insane, they were calculating and above all, they actually believed that they were doing good (though they knew that this was not the recoginsed opinion).

The Nazi party had rather harsh views of the Jewish people. Most notably, their view of racial supremacy led them to believe that the Jewish people were less than human, and the blame placed on the Jews for the loss of World War 1 led the Nazi party to believe the Jewish people needed eliminated to better society.

Between 1938 and 1945, which was when ww2 ended...