DAILY LIFE IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP The journey towards concentration camps of the Holocaust began with the arrival of the Jews at the concentration camps in trains, having travelled for several days without food and water. They were ordered to then get off the train, and get ready to work. The Jews were always criticized by officers, telling them that they ought to put their lives to some constructive use. Men were made to perform laborious tasks, while women were either to work with the men or maintain the house. Children were to go to school.
____ 1 __________ __________ English 13 May 2014 Courage and survival Arek Hersh was a concentration camp survivor he was born in Poland and his father was a boot maker for the army. Jews in Poland were bothered with anti-Semitism; this was after the ‘polenkation’ of 1938 when Germany forced many polish Jews citizens across the border. September 1st of 1939 the Germany army attacked Poland. Arek’s family had to leave there home town and live in Lodz. In 1940 the Jews who lived in Lodz had to start wearing the Star of David on their clothes and were forced into a ghetto, where food was controlled and people lived in tight conditions.
She was living in Bielitz, Poland, where she was born, and she reacts with terror as she watches her neighbors meet the invading Nazis with happiness. They were trying to hide the fact of war from Gerda’s father because he was sick and they didn’t want to worry him. When their town was invaded they couldn’t keep it a secret from him any more. Bad things started happening to the Jews, and the Nazis were taking Jewish men. In October, Gerda’s brother Arthur, was forced to leave with a Nazi and all of the other young men in town.
Lots of Jews were moved to ghettos in a “single stroke” on February 8, 1940. Once all of the Jews were moved to the concentration camps, the gates were closed to the ghettos in November of 1940 (Byers 72). The conditions of the ghettos were horrible. Most of the ghettos had high, sturdy walls, armed guards, and barbed wire (Allen 4). Germans made the Jews wear armbands, or identification badges, like the Jewish Star of David (Ghettos).
Nazi Death Marches During WWII, Hitler ordered for all Jews to be taken to work camps, where they were forced to work in with little to no food. Most of the time the Jews would be making stuff for the German army such as, tools or clothing. The Jews had to have a strong spirit, or they would perish. But, towards the end of the war American troops invaded Germany, finding the work camps. Afraid of the American troops finding the work camps; Hitler ordered all work camps to be evacuated to death camps deep in Germany.
In the beginning of the Holocaust, many people were sent to labor camps but died of infections or from working so much. There were about six large concentration camps that were used to kill the Jews upon entry into the camp. The Jews that weren’t immediately sent to concentration camps lived in Ghettos until they were sent to the extermination camps. Living in ghettos was terrible, considering the size of the area was condensed and many families had to live in one house together. Gas chambers were invented as a way to kill Jews and others quickly.
In addition, Jews were excluded from public schools and universities. The Jews of Amsterdam were forced to live in sealed off ghettos, and after May 1942 they forced to war the yellow star. By the end of 1042, approximately 38,500 Jews had been departed from Holland to death camp near Poland. Dutch Christians made thousands of heroic efforts to save Jews and hide them, but most were caught by the Nazis. Alfred and his parents were transported to the Sobibor death camp near Lublin, Poland.
His experience was horrible, “One day as he begged to see his year old son, guards beat him and told him to run” (Holley). He was there for 7 weeks until he was ordered to march to Gorlitz, on the way many of the other Jewish prisoners died from starvation. Russian soldiers liberated the camp on May 15, 1945, nearing starvation he was giving a potato. After that he moved to the U.S. in 1950, along the way he acquired tuberculosis from being in the camp. In 1970 they decided to travel to Israel a life long dream.
The trip took about 4 days, 4 days in which they were not given any food or water, and were not permitted to leave the train for any reason on its many stops. When they arrived at Auschwitz, they were subjected to the first of several selections into groups. The German SS soldiers divided them into two groups, the ones who could work and the ones who couldn’t- such as women, children, and older men. Husbands and wives were split from each other with the promise they would be together again later, a lie the Germans used to manipulate the prisoners into their ultimate death. 135 of the people on Levi’s train went into Auschwitz and the rest straight to the gas chamber.
By dropping the names of some of his Nazi friends and making a couple of threats, he was finally able to rescue the workers and escort them safely back to his factory. In early 1943 the Nazis ordered the final evacuation of the Krakow ghetto. The man put in charge of the operation was a young SS officer named Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Plaszow forced labor camp just outside the city. Jews who were healthy