During the time of the Holocaust, many destructive concentration camps were built. Adolf Hitler built these camps to kill the Jews as well as other undesirables throughout Germany and all of Europe. These camps had atrocious living conditions with many of the prisoners dying of starvation, disease, and execution. In addition to torturing and eventually executing most of the prisoners in the camps, the Germans also used them to perform hard manual labor that was necessary to support the war effort. Three of the most well-known and most frequented camps during this time include Dachau, Bergen Belsen, and Auschwitz.
Dachau was one of the concentration camps established in March 1933. Hitler described it as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners”. During the first year of the camp, about …show more content…
It is said between 1940 and 1945, about Jews 1 million were deported to the camp and about 900 thousand had died (4). Thousands of other nationalities had also died during this time period. The main camp was Auschwitz 1 which is where the prisoners lived and worked. This part of the camp also had a crematorium and a gas chamber. SS physicians also carried out experiments on the prisoners. This let the Germans to find other methods of killing the prisoners as well. Auschwitz 2 had the largest population out of the three subcamps. This camp also included a place to live and work for the prisoners. In October of 1942, Auschwitz 3 was made. This subcamp was also called Buna or Monowitz (4). This camped housed prisoners that were assigned to work at the synthetic rubber works. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army had entered Auschwitz and liberated around 7,000 prisoners which were either ill or dying. These were the prisoners left over from when the SS started to evacuate and march the prisoners west. So many had died in this camp that there is not a number for how many had