Concentration Camps Essay Example

A concentration camp is where prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and

political prisoners are detained and confined, typically under harsh

conditions, or place or situation characterized by extremely harsh

conditions. The first concentration camps were established in 1933 for

confinement of opponents of the Nazi Party. The supposed opposition soon

included all Jews, Gypsies, and certain other groups. By 1939 there were six

camps: Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenburg, and

Ravensbruck.

Auschwitz

Auschwitz, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, is the best-known of all Nazi death

camps, though Auschwitz was just one of six extermination camps. It was also

a labor concentration camp, extracting prisoners' value from them, in the

form of hard labor, for weeks or months. Auschwitz was the end of the line

for millions of Jews, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other innocents.

Some spend almost two years in this most infamous of concentration camps. The

average prisoner only survived eight weeks in Auschwitz. Some learned the ins

and outs of survival in Auschwitz. Auschwitz was the largest concentration

and extermination camp constructed in the Third Reich. Located 37 miles west

of Krakow, Poland, Auschwitz was home to both the greatest number of forced

laborers and deaths.

The history of the camp began on April 27, 1940 when Heinrich Himmler,

the head of the SS and Gestapo, ordered the construction of the camp in

northeast Silesia, a region captured by the Nazis in September 1939. The camp

was built by three-hundred Jewish prisoners from the local town of Oswiecim

and its surrounding area. In June of 1940 the camp opened for Polish

political prisoners. By 1941 there were about 11,000 prisoners, most of whom

were Polish. From May 1940 to the end of 1943, Rudolf Hess was head

commander of Auschwitz. Under his leadership, Auschwitz quickly became known

as the harshest prison camp in the Nazi regime.