Jewish Living Conditions During The Holocaust

One of the many reasons why the jewish called them “DEATH CAMPS”. (living conditions, labor and executions)

The conditions that the Jews and other were put through were super horrible. They were forced into boxcars that didn’t have anything in them and they wondered where they were and where they were going. They stood in the boxcars for days with no food or water to keep them alive. (Joseph)(Source 3) Along their way to the concentration camps they were exposed to harsh weather. In the summer it was scorching hot and in the winter it was freezing cold. Since they were shoved amongst each other they suffered from suffocation. Along their journey many young and old died along the way (“The Holocaust”)(Source 2). Inside the boxcars there was no windows or anyway to breath. It was also very unsanitary because of the abundance of people in them and they didn’t have any water to at least wash themselves with. All they could do was stand there in the dark and wait (Joseph) (Source

Have you ever heard of the nasty, disgusting, and horrible conditions that jews had to suffer with in concentration camps during the Holocaust? Lice and fleas are a big part of conditions in concentration camps, another horrible condition in the camps are diseases and sanitation, lastly another awful condition in concentration camps is mass murder and starvation. Many people died in concentration camps during the Holocaust because of the environment the jews had to live in and deal with, and many families were split and torn apart because loved ones of theirs had died because of the horrible conditions in the camps.

The Jewish Concentration camps had substandard living conditions compared to the Japanese Internment camps, “Then Jack would snap back to reality, his stomach turning inside out from hunger, his body infested with lice, men around him dying from hunger, disease and sorrow” (Warren 72). This shows the reader the Jews

Over six million people died in the Holocaust. Family, friends, and other people with the same ethnicity that they didn't even know were killed left and right. From the crematory to getting hung. Was it best for them to help each other or was it to protect themselves and not care about anyone else? (Prompt 5)

Have you ever been in a room so crowded you thought you might implode? Or been so sick you questioned if you were still alive? How about so hungry you felt as though you would shrivel up and simply cease to exist? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you may almost be able to imagine what life was like in the Jewish ghettos. There were ghettos before the Holocaust, the first being in Venice in the 16th century, there are ghettos today, and there will be ghettos in the future, but the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust are by far the most prominent.

Since the start of the Nazi occupation in Europe, Jewish communities and individuals were struggling with survival, and fought for their existence. Many Jews tried to evade or overcome the degrading Nazi decrees, that stripped them of civil and human rights, triggered isolation and denied them a livelihood. The Nazis simply wanted to create a condition in which no human being, particularly Jewish, can live or even exist. For a long time, the Jews’ view on the sanctity of life, a duty to protect one’s life, encouraged them to endure the period of intense pain and suffering. From past experience, the Jews thought that the terrible events of the Nazis would pass, the same as the pogroms. Over a period of centuries, from the Crusades to the

"It was crying and praying. So long we survived. And now we waited only that they shoot, because we had not else to do" (267). This quote from the end of the novel ironically describes what the Jewish people endured after the concentration camps. Vladek Spieglman among other suffered through traumatic experiences; though Vladek certainly did survive the holocaust, old Vladek did not. Post-Holocaust it is revealed by Spieglman that his father, Vladek, develops two personalities—before and after the concentration camps. Vladek’s post-holocaust life was haunted by the horrors he witnessed while being in the concentration camps; he went from a young, handsome resourceful man to a miserable, old man who does nothing but complain.

One of the most famous concentration camps, Auschwitz, had some of the poorest living conditions. In Auschwitz, the prisoners lived crammed tightly in small, brick barracks. Since the prisoners simply couldn’t all fit inside these barracks, they were also forced into basements and lofts, along with hundreds of others. The tight living quarters were a main factor in the spreading of diseases and epidemics. In another concentration camp named “Birkenau”, the barracks had two styles which included both brick and wood. The brick barracks were hastily built, and were very dangerous and unsafe. Even though these brick barracks weren’t fit to hold people inside them, more than 700 prisoners were assigned to each barrack. The barracks did not have any way to heat or cool the rooms, and also lacked any sanitary facilities. The second style of barrack at the Birkenau concentration camp was another wooden barrack, except these were made to fit approximately fifty-two horses, not hundreds of prisoners. These barracks had many rodents and vermin, and had no way to prevent the damp roofs from leaking on the prisoners. Also, the foul smell and prisoner’s diarrhea made the already difficult living conditions much

The doors were sealed shut so no jew would escape. “There are eighty of you in this wagon. If anyone is missing, you'll all be shot, like dogs”..(22) “ The heat, the thirst the pestilential stench, the suffocating lack of air.” (24) Jews were cramped up in small wagons headed off to Auschwitz the concentration camp. If one would escape all would be die. Many had no water and they didn't have a break to use the bathroom. Jews had it miserable for them. They no longer knew what freedom was. Many innocent jews died because of one man thinking it would be best to wipe off a whole complete race and have a pure white race which was not understandable at

The conditions of the camps varied from one to another, but from Stalags and Concentration camps, they were close to the same. A large portion of deaths in POW camps were from “lack of food” (Uhl 1). The recommended daily minimum was a 2,000 calorie diet (Rees 5).However this was impossible to do with the shortage of food. (Rees 5). Some of the food was “potatoes and moldy bread” (Uhl 1) which was part sawdust (Uhl 1). Many only got “5 grams” of bread (Solzhenitsyn 25). Millions of people were surely to die (Jones 11). Although the camps were harsh, the prisoners were allowed to do many activities such as sports, newspaper, musicals, and more (Uhl 2). Many camps featured musical and plays to entertain others and to be used as propaganda (Uhl 2). Even though the POW’s had better choices, they were still beaten and murdered like the others captured. (Uhl 2). In eight months, Nazis murdered 2.8 Russian Pow’s, exceeding the amount of mass murder during the holocaust. (Uhl 2). While in the camps, many died from the Baatan Death March that killed off all remaining prisoners of the Japanese (“Prisoners of War” 4). The weather was also a large aspect to the deaths. The prisoner’s “fingers were

There were more than 40,000 concentration camps during the Holocaust. One of the worst and most destructive camp was Auschwitz, which was located in southern Poland (“Gilbert” 1). It contained three camps that were all known as Auschwitz. Auschwitz was a death camp and a concentration camp that claimed the lives of thousands. Survivors say that when the doors first open on the boxcar at Auschwitz there was an orchestra playing, this was to trick the prisoners into thinking there were somewhere better (“The Death Camps” 21). Physician Gisella Perl described the overall picture of Auschwitz she received when she first arrived as “Like big, black clouds, the smoke of the crematory hung over the camp. Sharp red tongues of flame licked the sky,

Have you ever wondered what it was like for the jews living in the camps? The daily life in the camps is a realistic clarification of how jews were treated and taken cared of in the concentration camps. People were taken out of their homes by the Nazis and were forced into concentration camps. The Nazis were a party of people that believed that their German race was better than any other race that is why jews and many others were forced out of their homes into the camps. The largest number of prisoners were jews but other individuals were arrested and locked up for many purposes such as, for nationality and for political joining. Prisoners were subjugated to unbelievable torture from the very moment they reported to the camps

First and foremost, the living conditions of Auschwitz-Birkenau was extremely notorious. 200 Jewish inmates were deported from Hungary (“The Holocaust Chronicle” 505). Before being deported, more than 60,000 Jews living in Hungary at the time had been killed before German occupation. Once deported, each person received numbers A-5729 through A-7728. In Auschwitz 1, the primary types of housing were barracks. The barracks were made of bricks and wood. These weren’t the only housing options. There were also overcrowded basements and lofts that were occupied as living quarters (“Living Conditions, Labor & Executions” 1). The second type of accommodation was horse stables. Stables built to hold 52 horses were partitioned into makeshift stables and housed hundreds of inmates, where only a few could fit in. There were multiple accounts of victims describing the scenario of the stables and housing in general, “Dampness, leaky roofs, and the fouling of straw and straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from diarrhea

Eighteen million Europeans went through the Nazi concentration camps. Eleven million of them died, almost half of them at Auschwitz alone.1 Concentration camps are a revolting and embarrassing part of the world’s history. There is no doubt that concentration camps are a dark and depressing topic. Despite this, it is a subject that needs to be brought out into the open. The world needs to be educated on the tragedies of the concentration camps to prevent the reoccurrence of the Holocaust. Hitler’s camps imprisoned, tortured, and killed millions of Jews for over five years. Life in the Nazi concentration camps was full of terror and death for its individual prisoners as well as the entire Jewish