A Not So Happy Subject

Happy Easter everyone! Easter is such a happy holiday that gives hope to all Christians as we are given the opportunity for forgiveness and salvation. Unfortunately, I must turn the subject away from Easter as it is not the subject that I will be discussing. Today, I would like to discuss the concentration camps used by the Nazis during World War II. In class, we are watching Schindler's List, and so, I thought that I would give some historical background to the movie.

Concentration camps got their name as they were camps used to imprison a mass amount of people. These people were not judged individually, but were placed into the camp because of a general involvement. In the case of the Germans, they used concentration camps to imprison Jews. Jews were proclaimed as being weak and behind the Germans, forcing the Germans to be brought to a lower level. Therefore, Jews were discriminated against and forced to leave their homes.

Most concentration camps were not meant to be used as Hitler and Stalin used their camps, but Hitler and Stalin had a different motive for their camps. The British were the first people to establish the concentration camp, using them during the Boer War. Stalin changed the methods used at his camps by either working or starving his prisoners to death, and Hitler used his camps for "medical experiments," using gas chambers and ovens.

These horrible camps first started after the Nazis took control in 1933. Many of the camps did not remain in use after World War II, but some did continue its work. The Germans also established extermination camps for the mass murdering of Jewish people. These camps were established in 1941, and became known as the Holocaust. Over three million Jews were killed in these camps by the end of the war.

Both the concentration and extermination camps were famous for their horrible treatment of their prisoners and for the terrible conditions. The prisoners were worked under small food rations and very poor sanitary conditions until they could work no longer. At this point the prisoner was killed if he provided no more useful labor. Prisoners were killed either through gas chambers, mass shootings, or severe starvation. The guards at these camps were encouraged to practice their shooting, using humans as targets. Many times we try to forget the awful events that transpired at these camps, not being able to understand how one man could treat another man so terribly.