Concentration Camps During the Holocaust Essay Example

to the very harsh persecution which in the end resulted in ruthless killings of about 6000,000. Jews fatalities of the German’s deliberate and systematic attempt of thrashing the whole Jewish inhabitants of Europe were a strategy denoted by Hitler as ‘Final solution.' This is the part of worst history ever happen in German (Bart pg.56). This reveals that some of the cause of these undertakings may be as a result of German being defeated in World War 1 hence causing it be chastened by the Treaty of Versailles that ought to have condensed its prewar space. All in all, it is evident that the consequences were devastating as the public agonized from economic uncertainty that further deteriorated during the period of worldwide depression case in point being 1929 New York stock market crash. This led to massive characterized by increased rates of unemployment. Afterward, the Nazi party led by Hitler using the political unrest gained electoral foothold hence fueling clashes in the communist as well as carrying out vicious publicity campaign in contrast to the political opponents. This killed democracy and mounted into a regime of dictatorship with the core objective of eradicating Jewish people whom in accordance with their views, were cowards and lazy people who are the cause of all the problems that had faced Germans. These are some of the thinking and ways of doing things that cannot be tolerated in the world of today. The effect that the above encounters had on western public outlook diminished in comparison with the impression that was exerted in spring 1945. This is more so in consideration of the time the American together with the

British army liberated the concentration camps situated in the western Germany (Berg pg.112).

The considerable truth argument that can be analyzed in this scenario is that the said concentration in addition to slave-labour camps, positioned throughout the Reich, was not the same as the annihilation camps (Rubinstein, pg 236). Even though the concentration camps were as well dwellings of awful anguish and death, the ruling classes 'merely' locked up the inmates. This includes the resistance activists, criminals, political and religious prisoners, shirkers as well as internees at the only locked at the sites instead of exterminating them. In the course of the last months of the war, as the associates progressed towards Auschwitz, it is undertaken that Germans force-marched numerous camp’s Jewish inmates though rail to other, formerly over-full, concentration camps. So this reorganization of the Jewish prisoners combined with the existence of the administrative chaos engulfing the Third Reich is believed to have steered to various concentration camps. These camps thereof disintegrating further into living hallucinations of hell that ought to be packed with famishing desiccated in addition to disease-ridden prisoners (Goda pg.216).

It is the American army units that, in the beginning, came to find out the existence of such camps on 4 April 1945 as they liberated the not-long-ago wild slave labor camp at Ohrdruf, in parts of Thuringia in Germany (Rubinstein, pg 241). Following that on 11 April, the American forces as well liberated the camps located at Buchenwald, neighboring Weimar, together with the V2 rocket slave-labour camp that was situated at Nordhausen in Harz Mountains. More to that, it was not until four days after that when the British army liberated its

firstly such camp Bergen-Belsen, situated on Lüneberg Heath southern of Hamburg. Consequently, British forces liberated other similar camps, in this case, Neuengamme, that was located adjacent Hamburg. In 1943, the Nazis primarily formed a detention camp for 8,000 foreign prisoners at Bergen-Belsen. And in the course of late 1944 and at the beginning of 1945, approximately 60,000 Jewish inmates from further concentration camps were considered to have been transported to Belsen. The reality is that these personalities had until that time been banished from the Auschwitz-Birkenau annihilation and the system of the slave labor camp (Hildebrandt pg.98).

It can be argued that the initial task for the liberators included the aspect of tackling the medical nightmare. Nonetheless, in spite of the heroic determinations, it is believed that there was a limit to what could have been done by the British medical teams in the appearance of a large-scale tragedy. According to British estimates, of the 50,000 inmates, about 20,000 were critically ill. Inmates were admitted to the makeshift hospital that was set up in the camp. It is at that point that doctors endeavored to rehydrate in addition to feeding them, as they treated their infections (Solkoff pg. 29). Nevertheless many were so ill to be saved. The big question is, did these people receive justice? It is enough to say that all is done? Is there enough mechanism to prevent such happenings from ever again taking place in any part of the globe? Many questions than answers need to be addressed.

As the allied forces traveled across the Europe to attack the Nazi Germany, they began to come across concentration camps where thousands of prisoners were

held. Most of these prisoners were lucky since they were not victims of forced marches where a majority of them were put to death. The prisoners were suffering from hunger as well as diseases. The Soviet troops were the first one to reach the major camp in 1944 that had been established by Nazi. Since the Germans did not expect the Soviet forces to arrive at the camp so rapidly, they began to demolish the camp with the purpose of hiding the mass murder of the Jews. Those who were manning the camp set a large fire on the crematorium that was used to burn the prisoners who were massacred. During the 1944 summer, the Soviet forces overran three centers that were used as killing sites of the prisoners (Rubinstein, pg 229). At that time, Nazi supporters had already dismantled the camps after a majority of the Jews of Poland origin had been killed.

Some of the historians undertake that the Soviet forces did not come across the concentration camps by accidents, but they had the information that those camps had been established and they were used to exploit, oppress and kill the Jews (Longerich pg. 192). As the Soviet was targeting their enemies, they also had the interest to liberate the prisoners from the ruthless rule of the Nazi Germany. Arguably, before the Soviet troops engaged the battle with their enemies, they were aware of all their inhuman acts against the prisoners. It seems that, even when the concentration camps were established, those who fought against the German had a clue of these camps whose purpose was to kill the Jews. It is worth to

note that, Soviet forces found the first camp rapidly and this surprised the Nazi since they did not expect them to find the camp so rapidly. This means that the forces were not just moving across the Europe, but they had a mission of liberating the concentration camps from the hands of the Nazi Germany.

In 1945, after the U.S. joined the battle, its forces liberated the concentration camp at Buchenwald just shortly after the Nazis started to evacuate the camp (Alison pg. 01). During the liberation day, a prisoner resistance that was operating underground took control of the Buchenwald camp to stop any atrocity that could be committed by the guards who were retreating at the camp. At this camp, the U.S. troops liberated over 2000 prisoners, and they continued to liberate other camps. British forces played a crucial role as they liberated camps that had been established in the Northern part of Germany (Rubinstein, pg 231). Most of the prisoners were in critical conditions as they suffered from various types of diseases and a significant number died shortly after liberation. The forces who were involved in the liberation confronted horrible conditions that were found in the camps. Later on, the horrors were exposed for the world to witness. Those who managed to survive were weak due to malnutrition, forced labor as well as maltreatment. The disease was prevalent such that many camps were burned down to stop the spread of diseases (Longerich pg. 197).

It is alleged that the U.S., British, Soviet and other states were aware of the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis. The Nazis took a substantial amount of time to

plan, establish and force the Jews into those camps. All these activities took a long time. It is worth to note that, when millions of prisoners were forced into these camps and suffered under the hands of the Nazi Germany, those who turned up to liberate them had the power to do so before most of the Jews were put to death. Thus, if they took that bold action, they could have saved so many lives that were lost during the forced marches. Millions of the lives were lost since the liberators took a long time to dismantle the concentration camps that was used to the advantage of Germans. A significant number of the prisoners died as they contracted various diseases and suffered from starvation (Helga pg. 01). Other inmates died shortly after the liberation. If the allied forces had responded early enough, the lives of those who died due to the spread of epidemic could have been saved since the camps could have already been dismantled and those being held released.

As Schwartzman (pg. 281) explains, the American forces who liberated Jews in the camps felt sympathy and some of them made efforts to assist the survivors. However, the sympathy was not extended by the officers who arrived as a result of troop rotations. As a matter of fact, these officers did not sympathize with the Jews regardless of the fact that they had the power to help in their quick recovery. The American troops developed an innate personal discrimination with the anti-Semitic Germans, and this made the commanders perceive that Jews had communist beliefs. The officers did not treat the displaced persons well and

this further affected the relationship between them and them and the liberated Jews. Some of the American forces sympathized with the liberated Jews who were recovering from horrible experiences in the concentration camps (Schwartzman pg. 286). Some scholars argue that all the officers who assisted in the liberation ought to show sympathy to the Jews since they had witnessed what they had gone through. However, a section of the American officers failed to show sympathy, and this begs the question of whether the Jews were fully liberated. It shows that liberation was the only removal from the concentration camps where millions of the prisoners lost their lives. It seems that the only difference between these officers and the Nazi Germany is that the former did not exterminate them as the latter did. Therefore, the Jews were only happy that they were removed from the death camps, but they still suffered a kind of discrimination that one could not expect from the liberators (Longerich pg. 194).

Conclusion

It is apparent that millions of community lost their lives as a result of shooting, starvation, and disease. Even if the U.S., Soviet and British forces liberated the prisoners, it was too late as most of them had been put to death. After liberation, one would expect those who were involved in liberation to show sympathy, but some still ended up discriminating against the Jews. At the time of liberation, the images roused further need for justice that climaxed in the whole process of War Crimes. Indeed, the impact of the Holocaust becomes so deep-rooted in almost all popular culture and the name turn out to be a synonym for the

worst case in point of inhumane. That connotation remains as strong as it is today.

Work Cited

1. Alison, Male. “Germany Confronts, in Unique Exhibit, Its ‘Holocaust of the Bullets.” The New York Times 23 Oct 2016.
2. Bart Smith, (2009) "The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust (4th edition)", Reference Reviews, Vol. 23 Issue: 8, pp.56 – 56
3. Berg, Nicolas. The Holocaust andthe West German Historians: Historical Interpretation and Autobiographical Memory. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015. Discovery eBooks.
4. Hildebrandt, Sabine. "Research Article: Insights intothe Freiburg Anatomical Institute during National Socialism, 1933–1945." Annals of Anatomy 205. (2016): 90-102.
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   Helga Weiss, Interview by Nicholas Shakespeare. Newsweek 19 Feb 2013.
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   Rubinstein, W. (2002). The Myth Rescue. New York: Routledge.
7. Solkoff, Norman. "Children of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust: A critical review of the literature." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 51.1 (1981): 29.
8. Schwartzman, Roy. "Sutured Identities In Jewish Holocaust Survivor Testimonies." Journal Of Social Issues 71.2 (2015): 279-293. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.