_{Many people know about Nazi Germany. They already know a lot about what happened in concentration camps.  This is not a newly visited subject. But, I thought it would be interesting to revisit this subject because of the astronomical changes that are occurring in modern history at this very moment--i.e. having a black president, foreign wars over religion, and unease about how to handle government's control over a nation. I have to admit, having a German spouse has some altruistic motive for me. However, I'd like to point out that my spouse and his family are not supporters of genocide and the Nazi regime.}

 March 1942 began the journey for many to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Auschwitz was located in Oswiecim outside of Cracow, Poland,because it was a central intersection of roads and railways. Sometimes several trains would arrive on the same day, each carrying one thousand or more human beings coming from the ghettos of Eastern Europe, as well as from Western and Southern European countries.

Between 1.3-1.5 million people were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz -- more than 90% were Jews. The other ten percent were Poles, Soviet Prisoners of War, Sinti Roma, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals and others. The vast majority of the victims --who came from both Western and Eastern Europe including Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries-- were unaware of their destination and of their fate. They were transported like animals in cattle-cars and arrived in a state of total collapse to the camp. Most of the people actually never really entered the camp, but just crossed it on the way to the gas chambers.

Jack Oran, A Holocaust survivor, relates:

"Everyone worked so hard, got beaten up…and came back to the camp -- the exhaustion alone pushed him to the bunk to lie down and sleep throughout the night and get enough strength so that s/he might be able to do that again tomorrow. …In the morning, sixty percent of the six people [in the bunk] did not wake up. The other forty percent went over the pockets of the dead people to find a piece of bread…The hygienic condition was very, very poor in that period. I remember that I searched a dead body in the bunk and I found a piece of bread. That piece of bread was crawling with lice and you shook them off the bread and put it in your mouth and ate it. We all were crawling with lice. Taking a shower was not an option. To get out in the morning, to walk toward the barrack where there is water, running water &endash; you didn't want to walk through mud. If you walked through the mud you probably lost a shoe and then you had to go barefoot. So it would be damned if I do and damned if I don't. Those were the conditions."

 

Many Jewish people didn't have time to say good bye to their loved ones. Often they would be in the middle of eating supper, for an example, and be interupted and taken against their will. If families arrived at the camps together, they were often brutally seperated, formed into lines, and one line would be immediately taken to the gas chambers to be killed. The others would be slowly and agonizingly tortured by slave labor, prostitution, medical experiements, etc.

Over 50% of the registered prisoners died as a result of starvation, labor that exceeded their physical capacity, the terror that raged in the camp, executions, the inhuman living conditions, disease and epidemics, punishment, torture, and criminal medical experiments.

Originally the camps were set up for Polish prisoners.

In all, 1.1 million people died during the four and a half years of Auschwitz's existence; one million of them were Jewish men, women and children.

Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, people with disabilities, homosexuals and prisoners of conscience or religious faith were also murdered.

Only an estimated 11 percent of Jewish children who were alive in 1933 survived the Holocaust.