The Atrocities and Horrors of Auschwitz By Sarah Weisgal

The Beginning of Auschwitz Auschwitz Concentration Camp was built and approved in April of 1940, after German dictator Adolf Hitler demanded that “Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links.” Before the order, anti-Semitism was already occurring, stripping Jewish people of their citizenship and human rights.

Population The barracks of the extermination camps were so over-congested that areas meant to hold 5,000 prisoners would hold as many as 8,000 to 9,000 at a time.

An Early Start A prisoner’s day in Auschwitz would start around 3:30am (4:30am in the winter) with a four hour long roll call. The prisoners would line up in rows of five and wait for the SS guards to arrive.

An Early Start (cont.) During the long hours, guards would beat the prisoners for infractions such as a missing button on their coat, or their food bowl not being clean. Even the dead had to be present, being held up by fellow bunk mates until attendance had been taken.

Work Details A working day lasted around 12 hours during the summer and a little less in the winter, and no rest periods were allowed. The uniforms were striped camp clothing, no underwear, and wooden shoes with no socks.

Block 11 Block 11 of Auschwitz was punishment within the camp. Some prisoners were punished with standing cells, which held four men where they could do nothing but stand, and were forced the work the next morning. Prisoners sentenced to death for escape attempts were locked in a dark cell and deprived of food and water until they were dead.

Block 11 (cont.) In the basement “dark cells” were located. They had a very tiny window and a metal door. People placed in these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the breathing air in the cell.

Extermination In December of 1941, Hitler decided to kill all Jews immediately. Plans for complete extermination of the Jewish population of Europe were decided at the Wannsee Conference on January 20th, 1942. Some would be labored to death and the rest would be killed.

Extermination (cont.) The first mass killing at Auschwitz happened in September of 1941 – 900 inmates were killed by the poisonous gas Zyklon B in the basement of Block 11.

Aftermath Over two and a half million people were killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of the war in 1945.