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Persecution involves imprisoning groups in ghettos or concentration camps, forcibly removing them from their homes, stealing from them.
Persecution involves imprisoning groups in ghettos or concentration camps, forcibly removing them from their homes, stealing from them.
Before WWII even started, Hitler was stripping rights away from Jewish people. One thing that Hitler did was force Jewish people out of their homes and into ghettoes. Ghettoes were crowded unsanitary neighborhoods that Jews were forced into. Diseases spread quickly in the ghetto, and people struggled to get enough food, water, and fresh air. In 1940, the Nazis began destroying ghettos and moving Jews to camps where they would be "exterminated" or mass murdered.
While Nazis were building death camps in Poland for their "Final Solution," the German army continued to push eastward, conquering new lands as World War II progressed. Rather than "wasting resources" by putting Jewish people in these newly captured countries into ghettos or camps, they were immediately killed. The Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) moved east killing all Jewish people in every city and town that the Nazis conquered. The Einsatzgruppen took Jews to secluded areas, stripped them of all valuables and made them dig mass graves. The Jews were then shot at the edge of the pit. Many were buried alive. Some Jews managed to escape, but over 1 million were rounded up and killed this way.
Concentration camps (labor camps)
Concentration camps (labor camps)
Jewish people who were strong enough to work were sent from the ghettos to concentration camps, instead of straight to death camps. Concentration camps are also known as forced labor camps, because this is where they would be forced to work in factories to produce weapons and other goods for the Nazis.
Jews in concentration camps were forced to sleep in long crowded rooms called barracks. They were crowded into bunk beds with no mattresses or pillows, just bare wood. They were frequently abused, assaulted, and killed by Nazi camp guards for no reason, and lived in constant terror. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire or even electrified fences. Guards positioned atop tall turrets would shoot and kill anyone who tried to escape. Prisoners in labor camps were given about 300 calories of food per day (instead of the 2000-2500 required for health) and worked to death. Once they became too weak to go on, they either died, were killed by Nazi guards, or were shipped off to death camps.
First-hand account from a Concentration Camp Survivor
First-hand account from a Concentration Camp Survivor
This is a first-hand account from Irma Sonneberg Menkel, a Jewish woman who survived the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
My husband and brother both died [at the concentration camp]... When I went in, I weighed more than 125 pounds. When I left, I weighed 78.
There were about 500 women and girls in my barracks. Conditions were extremely crowded and unsanitary. No heat at all. Every morning, I had to get up at 5 and wake the rest. At 6 a.m., we went to roll call. Often we had to wait there for hours, no matter the weather. Most of the day, we worked as slave labor in the factory, making bullets for German soldiers... There were no showers in our barracks. And no bedding. The day was spent working and waiting. At 10 p.m., lights out. At midnight, the inspection came-three or four soldiers...Typhus [a disease] was a terrible problem, especially for the children. Of 500 in my barracks, maybe 100 got it, and most of them died. Many others starved to death.
There was so little to eat. In my early days there, we were each given one roll of bread for eight days, and we tore it up, piece by piece. One cup of black coffee a day and one cup of soup. And water. That was all. Later there was even less. When I asked the commandant for a little bit of gruel for the children’s diet, he would sometimes give me some extra cereal... In the evening, we tried to help the sickest. In the morning, it was part of my job to tell the soldiers how many had died the night before. Then they would throw the bodies on the fire.
Experimentation on Jewish prisoners
Experimentation on Jewish prisoners
Nazi doctors performed gruesome experiments on prisoners. Jews were boiled, frozen, poisoned, and cut to pieces. Some even shrunk heads and made lampshades from human skin.
Jewish children who were experimented on with poisons
This is a display of items found in Nazi doctors' and guards' homes. They include a lamp shade made from human skin, preserved body parts, and shrunken heads.
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