research paper holocaust

Sarah Jackson
Mr. Nueburger
 ENG 101-101
2 April, 2013
Research Paper
Nazi Extermination Methods during WWII
 There is probably no greater tragedy in this world than the Holocaust on the Jews during World War II. The gentle Jewish community was deemed unworthy by the Nazis and blamed for the past transgressions that the Germans suffered. The Jewish community suffered much at the hands of the Germans, such that it will never be forgotten. One of the most horrifying aspects of the Holocaust was the extermination methods of the Germans, followed closely by the selection methods of the Nazi Doctors. The Final Solution a decision made by Hitler and a Conference of allies to decide what was to be done about the Jews, supplies were running low from the war and it was becoming too costly to keep them alive. According to( A History of the Holocaust,) A Revised Edition, The Final Solution was decided at the Wannsee Conference. The Conference was held to decide to what to do with the Jews, Hitler wanted to move them into Russia, but that was not possible. After only fifteen minutes of discussion, it was decided to exterminate all of the Jews. Not just to exterminate all of the Jews, but to exterminate them as fast as they could leaving no evidence about what was to happen. The extermination methods started out as a mere Firing squad and became more advanced as the years went on. The firing squad was made up of SS soldiers, infantry men of the Nazi Army. According to the book (The World Must Know), the SS killing squad was also called the Mobile Killing Squad, and one incident of a demonstration of their terrible force where was at Piryatin located in the state of Poltava Oblast in the Ukraine, the Mobile killing squad murdered 1,600 Jews on April 6, 1942. The Jews were led out of the city and were marched five miles out into the countryside and were forced to dig their own grave a massive pit. They were forced to take off their clothes and valuables, forced into the pit and shot five at a time. In 1942 and 1943 when the Germans began to lose, they returned to these giant pits to dig up these mass graves and to burn the bodies to try to get rid of the evidence. The firing squad was soon to be found to not be a very good method as the constant shooting of women, children, and the elderly was a constant drain on moral. According to the Adolf Eichman Trail Collection (AETC) the Germans began experimenting with poison gas for the purpose of mass murder in the late nineteen thirties, with the killing of mental patients. It was called euthanasia, a Nazi word referring to the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazi’s deemed unworthy of life because of mental illness or physical disability. There were six gassing installations were established as part of the Euthanasic Program, these were located at; Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadannar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstien. These killing centers used pure chemically manufactured carbon monoxide gas; that was dropped into the room through vents in the ceiling and then sealed off. Furthermore, it took only a few minutes of intense suffering before the prisoners were killed. Later on Gas Chambers were used to kill the Jews, Gas Vans were hermetically sealed trucks with engine exhaust diverted to the interior compartment. It took around forty-five minutes for the Jews to die, so the Germans would have a round trip, then the Germans would burn the bodies in a Crematorium. (AETC) However according to A History of the Holocaust Revised Edition (AHoHRE), the first gassing experiment took place at Auschwitz in September of 1941 on Soviet Prisoners of War and a number of sick inmates. Between April of 1942, and November of 1944 in addition to a number of Soviet Prisoner of War, the gas extinguished the lives of probably up to 6,000 Roma (Gypsies), and around 1.25 million Jews, in that Concentration Camp alone. Zyklon B gas was dropped in a crystalized form into the hermetically sealed form through a small opening in the ceiling and then sealed, it again only took a few minutes for the prisoners to die. In the second and third Crematoriums of the Camp, 2,500 people could be killed in just thirty minutes. (AHoHRE) These Extermination Camps, or Concentration Camps, were first set up to merely contain the Jews, and to work them till death. However, according to the article “Extermination Camps,” on the website Yad Vasham, (EC) the first Extermination Camp to be established was Chelmo; the camp was established on December 8, 1941. It was located near Lodz, and ceased operation in the summer of 1944. The victims were murdered by gas vans, some 320,000 people were murdered here. Other Extermination Camps located in Poland are; Birkenau (which was known as Auschwitz Birkenau, Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Majdanek. Furthermore, the most famous of concentration camps was Auschwitz, it was both a Concentration Camp, and a Extermination Camp, its Extermination Camp Birkenau was instituted in March of 1942, during its short operation of only two years, its prisoners were murdered by Zykon B Gas, and tens of thousands of Jews were murdered as well as thousands of Gypsies, and Soviet Prisoners. The other camps were set up in late 1942, and early 1943; Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinker. Belzec, muredered 600,000 Jews, Treblinker killed the most Jews out of the three with 870,000 Jews murdered, and Sobibor killed the least amount Jews, with 250,00 Jews murdered. These were only three out of many Concentration camps in Europe; however they were three of the most famous. One aspect of the Holocaust that always baffles one was how the Germans could decide who could live and could die. When the people were rounded from their homes, they were forced into train cars like cattle, and were taken to the nearest Concentration Camp. According to the book “The World Must Know” (TWMK) once they were at the Extermination Camp, those who did not make the trip were removed from the trains, and the living moved on. However; if then they were also taken away immediately to the crematorium, those who could walk faced their first selection. The German word for selection is Selektion, and during this selection, an SS Officer would point to the left or the right, and the people who were sent to the left to be killed were; old people, young children too young to work, pregnant women, and the infirm. They were not given a chance to work at all, and these people segregated by sex went to the gas chambers, where they were removed of their clothes and their valuables. The Germans deceived these condemned up until the last minute, the Gas Chambers were labeled “showers” and they were told that they were simply going to take a shower. (TWMK) Those selected for work, they were immediately registered, branded, and sheared of all the hair on their head. The SS Officer in charge of the Selection was usually a physician, and the most famous of all was Dr. Joseph Mengele. In according to the documentary “Forgiving Dr. Mengele,” (FDM) a Holocaust Survivor Eva Moses Kor, was a victim of Dr. Mengele, he was an evil Doctor who performed terrible experiments on twins, simply because he wanted to. He was not a real Dr, however since he was experimenting on Jews; no one was going to stop him. Furthermore, Dr, Mengele, would torture the twins to test how the Jews would react, if one twin would die. In conclusion the Holocaust will be forever remembered as one of history’s most horrific tragedies. Though we can never truly understand or relate to the tragedies of the Holocaust it should forever be remembered, and never discredited. The suffers that the Jews of Poland, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and many more will always remain ingrained in our ancestry.   Works Cited Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust Revised Edition. N.p.: Franklin Watts A Division of Scholastic, 2001. Print. The "Final Solution" Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. Print. "Eichman Title." Yad Vashem. Steven Speilberg Jewish Film Archive & Israel State Archives, 23 June 1961. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. "The Exterminaton Camps." Yad Vashem. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2013. Nueburger, Larry, Mr. "Class Notes." Interview. n.d.: n. pag. Print. Ozarks Technical Community College

How to make Chicken Salad

Free Write 4-3-2013

He knew that if she was put into rehab then she would tell them what he was doing and then he would go to prison. And as a licensed psychiatrist he could say he was trusted. She biked down the road as quickly as she could, a skeleton on wheels, and pedaled into the bus station. Ellie put the bike into the bike rack, and checked her watch, she was right on schedule, taking a couple of precious seconds she caught her breath and  walked calmly inside. She smiled at the man behind the ticket booth, and bought one bus ticket to Denver Colorado, the bus would be leaving in just five minutes. Time for a change, Ellie went to the bathroom, and changed her clothes into a pair of sweat pants, and a comfy sweater, and pulled her short hair up into a hat, and washed away her makeup, as skinny  as she is, Ellie could easily pass as a young boy.  Once again checking her watch, she saw that it had been only fifteen minutes since she had left her house, she was going to make it. She would not relax though until, she was safely.

free write 4-1-2013

Everything is going fine, everything is fine. maybe if I say that enough then it will actually become true thought Ellie Mayfire as she ran down the road from the home that she was escaping. She only had one small backpack across her back and another cross body bag stuffed full of her belongings. Her hair was cut short and died burnette, something she had done in five minutes the only five minutes she had spared before she was out the door and running down the street to where she had a bike hidden in the bushes from there she would bike to the local bus stop and then she would be gone forever. She looked at her watch, a little kids one she had bought for a dollar at the supermarket. Her husband had never allowed her to have a watch, to know what time of the day it was, she was only allowed to see the clock on the microwave to know when to cook his meals. To know when the house needed to be cleaned by. Slowly day by day, year by year, Ellie had saved enough money to run away. She had saved a total of one thousand dollars, enough to get somewhere new and make a new start, Ellie could even rent a small apartment; she just had to make it there alive first. Making the first check point, Ellie jumped on the bike her neighbor had given her and rode as quickly as she could down the road, she was quickly becoming tired though. Ellie had never been allowed to work out, Mac liked his women small, petite and unathletic. Once when he had found out that she had started doing pilates at home, he had beaten her, and locked her in the bathroom for three days. By then, Ellie was on the verges of starvation. He took her to the hospital and gave some excuse to explain away the bruises,  how skinny she was, the Hospital had wanted to put her in rehab but he said no.

Unfinished Film Response

The movie The Unfinished Film is a documentary of staged and accidental un-staged video recordings of life in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a compilation of videos, never put together, meant for the eyes of the German public only to continue to fuel the German’s systematic destruction of the Jews. This movie had a very great impact on my thoughts on the Holocaust; I have seen many documentaries on the Holocaust and pictures, but to have it put that graphically put it in a very new and very real light. I think that is the way it was for everyone in the classroom. The film shows how the Germans would torture the Jews by starving them, public humiliating them, and starving them. The films would show dead corpses along the side of the road, just lying in the street though there is no were to take the dead bodies, and there is a viedo clip of later on in the stages of the Warsaw Ghetto of the Jews digging a mass grave, and being forced to dump the dead into it, as many as the pit would hold, and the numbers were many. Nearly every single one having died of starvation. I think it is horrible the amount of terror that the Jews were forced to go through during World War I. One survivor who was intervied during the movie who had lived at Warsaw said that her mother had gotten an abortion shortly after the ity was made into a Ghetto, and if she hadn’t then they all would have been  killed because of that baby. I think it is a very sad thing that happened and a very sad movie and I hope the world never sees any thing like this again in our time or ever again.

Free Write 3-20-2013

Faith. What does faith mean to you? To me Faith is to follow someone or something to the very best ability and in the end to have found that you have nothing left. I was never one to be the most faithful growing up, to my parents, to my school work, or even my boyfriends, it seemed like the only thing I was really very faithful to was sports, and living my life basically how I wanted. This is not to say that I did not go to church, or follow the rules of my parents, and try to be a good kid. But I was totally lacking in my faith. Faith in everything, and more importantly God. I knew he was there in my life, and I believed in Him with all of my heart, but I had no Faith in him. Faith that He knew what was best for me, that He had a plan for me, and that I would be all right. No, I thought I am the controller of my own destiny, I make the decisions for my own life, I don't need anyone's help. Well I was terribly wrong, though it is true we do make our own decisions but we do need God's hand in everything that we do, for if we don't how do we expect to manage?

It seems like all when we are trying to blame someone for something or we are mad at someone all we can remember about that person is the bad things they did to us, or the things that they did not give us; and I think we often do this with God as well. We are faithful, and up singing praise, and are happy with God when everything goes our way, but when things don't go our way it is then that we are unhappy with God and decide to take matters into our own hands.How many of you have tried to get your kids into C of O or know some one who has tried?  I can remember, the fall of my Junior year of High School, I was trying to get into College Of the Ozarks, and I was so right with God, I was attending regular church again, and I wasn't just attending church I was leading the life I needed to be living. I felt so right, when I went for my interview, I talked with the interviewer longer than most others, and I felt like it was were I was supposed to be I even met all of the requirements. When it came time to get the letter however, I got those dreaded lines, "We regret to inform you. .". Instead of taking that letter and hanging it up as a way to stay determined to get in, I threw it away, and decided to take matters into my own hands. I stopped praying, and stopped going to church, I began listening to Hard Rock again, and stopped praying. It wasn't until the spring of my Senior year, over a year later that I began to get back on track for real. It had started before that, I just began giving up, I couldn't find a job, I was single, which to a teenage girl seems like the end of the world, and I was stuck in a rut. So I just gave up, but I gave up in a good way, I gave up to God. I gave everything to him, and decided to be patient, whatever he wanted for me, I would accept it gratefully. It wasn't but a short time later, that I got a job, and started going back to church, and then I went to the Marshfield First Baptist, to attend the D-Now, which is short for Discipleship Now. There I rededicated my life to Christ, and gave up everything that was weighing me down. I even met the love of my life and best friend Garrett. God opened so many doors for me, just because I decided to put finally put all of my cards on his table, and he continues to open doors for me everyday!

Jeremiah 29:11
¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Holocaust Survivor Testimony David Abrams

David Abrams was born David Abraham in Deadash Romania on the twelfth of December of 1928,  his father was Joseph Abraham, and was a professional Baker, his step mother Sarah Goldsteen was a stay at home mom, he had four sisters; Alga, Ettle, Irene, and Lebalmakle, and three younger brothers; Udaria, Zackiel, and Zack. His biological mother died six days after David was born, from child birth complications. He came from a very religious family, and he was a very secular student and began school at age six.

When Hitler took over his town in 1941, and gave it to Hungary, there was celebration, because the Hungarians were nice to the Jews. But this all changed in 1943 when there were restrictions and there were Jewish Laws. His father could no longer own his business, they were shortly taken to a Ghetto, they could only pack one back-pack and they were given a small patch of ground to live on, and were told they would have to sleep there in the open air for awhile and were helped build a small shelter by their neighbors. They lived in the Ghetto for one month and then were put onto a train, with a 1,000 Jews and were carted to Auschwitz like cattle. While in the Ghetto his father died, and everyone else died in the concentration camps. During Selection, they were asked random questions just to send people to the gas chambers. After four days at Auschwtiz he went to Malhauesn, and was given little food. There they were processed again and sent to work camps, during his stay there he was admitted to the hospital, and it was a blessing because he was given extra food, and was able to rest. During Processing their numbers were put on their prison clothes, and painted triangles were put there also. Yellow for Jews, Red for Political Prisoners, and Green for German Criminals. After he was liberated he went to America.

"The secret weapon of the Jews was Hope"

"Never be complacent, never say it won't happen here, that is what we said in Germany,"