Nance Keyes
ENGL O8A
22 November 2014
Never Forget In 1933, a deadly period in time known as the holocaust changed the Jewish nation forever. The word Holocaust by definition means “a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire” (Dictionary.com) and that’s what it was. From 1933 to 1945 six million European Jews lost their lives simply because they were Jewish. Unfortunately, I lost all of my extended family during this time period, however I am fortunate enough to have had four survivors in my family, but only have one still alive today. This time period will never be forgotten because the memory of each Jewish person will live on by the stories being told by the Jewish people and by the survivors speaking …show more content…
This was the largest concentration and extermination camp that was built in Poland. This camp was located in the center of Poland to be easily accessible. Birkenau was also known as Auschwitz II and was located almost two miles away from the original Auschwitz. This camp “functioned as a factory for mass murder”, consisting of four gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau was also the location where Dr. Josef Mengele performed unimaginable medical experiments. Prisoners were chosen to be a part of his experiments in the selection process. Auschwitz-Birkenau claimed the lives of more the 1,100,000 Jews and more than 150,000 other people. When Auschwitz was being liberated the Nazi’s gave the Jews an option to stay or to walk. Most of the Jews chose to walk because they were scared that the Nazi’s would gas anyone who remained. This march became known as the death march because of the amount of people who walk the countless …show more content…
From Blizyn she was shipped to Auschwitz. When I was interviewing Blumie she wanted to make sure that everyone knew that the Jews were still fighting back even in the concentration camps they weren’t just going to give up. One example that she experienced was the uprising in Auschwitz in September 1943. Seven inmates had escaped and destroyed four crematoriums. The Nazi’s caught four of them and hung them on the gallows for twelve hours, while all of the other inmates watch them hang there for all twelve hours. Blumie remained in Auschwitz until the Nazis one day gave them a choice to either leave or stay. The majority of the inmates decided to leave because they thought they would be gassed if they stayed. Right before the Soviets arrived at Auschwitz the Nazi’s marched tens of thousands of inmates out of the camp deeper into Germany. On this death march the Jews received very little food, water and rest. One in every four people died and if you couldn’t keep up you were shot. (Shapiro,