Marquez Robinson

Mr. Hawkins
Modern world history-p
8 April 2016
Expansion of the concentration camp system

The expansion of the concentration camp system started with first official organized, and
permanent concentration camp Dachau. When Himmler came into power he started to transfer
more soldiers to larger concentration camps like Dachau. In this essay I am going to talk about
how concentration camps came to be and how the Nazis managed these concentration camps as
well as the largest concentration of them all.
Concentration camps like Auschwitz are where over one million jews were killed. The
killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau, between 1940 and 1945 are: Jews (1,095,000 deported to
Auschwitz, of whom 960,000 died)(YAD VASHEM.ORG). When Jews were detained and sent
to this camp almost 100% of the Jews sent to Auschwitz died from asphyxiation, poison gas, and
by shooting. The first killing center was built in 1941 it is called chelmno located in West
Poland. The term "concentration camp" is used to refer to an installation where persons are
incarcerated without regard to due process and the accepted norms of arrest and imprisonment(
ushmm.org). Concentration camps werent like prisons because you were detained there without
a trial instead it was a way for the nazis to completely exterminate Jews everywhere under the
sun. If I were to make dictionary definition of what a Concentration camp was it would
be,Concentration camp: A facility in which millions of Jews and other racially inferior races
were murdered in mass numbers with objective of genocide. The first prisoners at Auschwitz

included German prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany,

where they had been incarcerated as repeat criminal offenders, and Polish political prisoners
from Lodz via Dachau concentration camp(ushmm.org). The concentration camps werent just
for Jews either it even held every race or criminal who doesnt agree with nazi political views or
werent upstanding were to be put in these killing centers. Even Germans werent safe from the
killing centers.
The concentrations camps were part of an operation to kill millions of Jews. Operation
Reinhard (Einsatz Reinhard) became the codename for the German plan to murder the
approximately two million Jews(ushmm.org). The Nazis were already planning to killing so many
Jews so the Nazis were going to come up with the most effective ways to exterminate the Jewish
race. They put the Jews in gassing chambers and packed tightly in the darkness of the chamber.

"They fell out. People fell out like blocks of stone, like rocks falling out of a truck
(holocaustresearchproject.org). The gassing chambers were invented because the Nazis
originally sent people out go kill the Jews in squads but those workers complained that it was too
tiring and it weighed on their conscience. The gassing chambers was so that they could nice and
quick without having to kill them with their bare hands which really didnt make any less
difference someone still had carry out the dead bodies. A prisoner on the Sonderkommando saw
a woman in the undressing room, who was the wife of a friend of his. He came right out and told
her You are going to be exterminated. In three hours youll be ashes. The woman believed
him because she knew him. She ran all over and warned the other women Were going to be
killed. Were going to be gassed(holocaustresearchproject.org). The Nazis didnt care that they
were about commit genocide of an entire race. As a matter of fact that was there plan in writing
to exterminate the Jews it was called Operation Reinhard

The largest concentration camp was called Auschwitz II it was the largest concentration
camp of them all with three facilities. It was located in Upper Silesia, a province of interwar Poland

that was annexed directly to Germany. SS authorities established Auschwitz-Birkenau in the

spring of 1942(ushmm.org). Auschwitz II was at first used for soviet prisoners but then jewish
prisoners were deployed as the main work force as slave labor. Auschwitz reached max killing
capacity in 1944. Auschwitz-Birkenau reached peak killing capacity: the SS gassed as many as
6,000 Jews each day. By November 1944, the SS had killed more than a million Jews and tens of
thousands of Roma, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war in Auschwitz-Birkenau. At least 865,000
Jews were killed immediately upon arrival(ushmm.org). That was such an overwhelming number
Jews killed in just one camp just imagine how many Jews were killed altogether. Its such a
surprise that the Nazis complete their goal of genocide all the inferior races because of how
effective the Nazis killed so many Jews. The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and
murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933
and 1945(projetaladin.org). The Nazis almost committed genocide the worst crime on earth. Im
glad that that are holocaust survivors to tell their stories, and their horrors.
In conclusion the concentration camp system are used to subjugate and murder, gas
millions of Jews. In mass numbers and in the most effective way possible.