The Gate to Death

By: Matthew Humphreys

 

            Although the worst war was World War I, World War II killed more Jews than ever before even to this day. There were more than 6 million Jews killed in this horrible war. There were many death camps and concentration camps back then, but the three camps that made up Auschwitz were the worst, most powerful camps. Killing over 1,500,000 people, who were mostly Jews, is what made this camp so bad and violent. In Auschwitz was one of the worst death camps in Europe.

 

The toughest thing about Auschwitz was that they treated Jews like they were nothing, and many were killed right on the spot. Upon arrival, camp physicians would look at all the prisoners just brought to camp. Healthy Jews would be put to work and those that didn’t look healthy were sentenced to death. After the physicians made their selections, most prisoners would be sent off to be stripped of all of their belongings. After being stripped, Jews were shaved from head to toe of all excess hair because Nazis complained that when Jews were thrown into crematories they would leave a nasty aroma and also there would be horrible smoke. The gas chambers is what killed most people at these camps. The gas that these chambers projected was Zyklom B, which is used to make the victims suffocate and die within minutes. Near the end of the war, some men, women, and children were thrown into either ovens or into burning pits to be killed because Nazis wanted to save the gas in the chambers because they were running out of it. After the war, approximately 1,500,000 died in Auschwitzwitz and most were Jews who died in the gas chambers.

 

Many death camps had famous evil Nazis, but Auschwitz probably had one of the worst Nazis that you could ever imagine, his name was Dr. Josef Mengele.  Josef Mengele was one of the first doctors there and, perhaps, he was the worst doctor there. Dr. Mengele said that he loved kids and before he would take them in for an operation he would try to be as nice as possible and would spoil them rotten. Then that night he would take them when they were sleeping and put them in his laboratory and do his experiments. He would do most of his operations on twins in which he would inject poison into the child. Most of his operations seem pointless, but to him they really weren’t. Before doing his experiments on twins, he would inject a poison in them that would kill them immediately. In some operations he would take twins and sew them together so they would make Siamese twins. He would also inject chemicals into children’s eyes to attempt to change their eye color while they are still alive. Dr. Mengele’s nickname was the “Angel of Death.” His location was at Auschwitz 1 and he rarely ever traveled to either of the other camps. About 400,000 souls were lost at the hands of doctor Mengele and other doctors at Auschwitz.

 

Auschwitz had one of the best locations for there camps out of all the death camps. Auschwitz 1 was located in Oswieeim, Poland and was easily accessible by train. Auschwitz 2, or Birkenau, was located 1.5 miles from the original Auschwitz 1. Auschwitz 3, or Buna, originated in 1942. All of these camps were equally important to the all the death camps in World War II. Auschwitz comes out of nowhere and leads nowhere. The original camp of Auschwitz was established on April 27,1940 by Heinrich Himmler. Just about 90% of the prisoners at this camp were Jews and the other 10% of these people were Russian-POWS and non-Jews who helped the Jewish families hide or help them with their needs.

 

Although Auschwitz was the worst concentration camp they did have many accomplishments but none were any good because they usually benefited for evil ways. Auschwitz was the worst and most powerful death camp during World War II. If there were to ever be another day in which we have death camps then everyone should just take time to learn about Auschwitz so they can realize what they are getting into.