In 1943, this was seen as the crucial stage of the existence of Auschwitz, and the bloodiest year that it had in the history of WWII. In march of this year, a series of new gas chambers were built and opened so that the SS could put into practice tens of thousands more murders of the Jewish race.
£125 million pounds was spent on 45 different concentration and death camps, with Auschwitz being the main and 45 others being 'sub camps'. This map shows where all of these were located across Germany, Poland and Austria.
The selection of the Jews happened immediately upon arrival. They were carted into the camps via cattle carriages, with only a bucket of water to drink and one bucket for sanitation. Many Jewish people refused to use these due to the amount of people that were put into each carriage. Children and mothers were sorted into one group, and men and women into another. Almost nearly all of the mothers and children were murdered within an hour of being in the camp, with all of their possessions stolen, their heads shaved and then marched to the gas chambers. The men and women were looked at and decided whether they were 'good' enough to work in the smaller factories they had running there. They were sentenced to death by work and slave labour.
One section of the camp was nicknamed 'Canada', and this was due to in the 1940's Canada was seen as a land of riches. The majority of the workers in this camp were women. Here they were allowed to grow their hair and have 'friendly' relationships with the German guards, although most of the Jewish women never replied to any of the love notes that the SS guards gave to some of the women. This resulted in the women being raped during the nights which was common practice.
Most of the workers here survived, as they were sorting through all the stolen clothes and possessions from the Jews, and could steal any extra food that they may have found. Many of the SS guards stole from the Jewish possessions, such as gold, diamonds and foreign currency was taken and hidden in SS lockers, for them to use for themselves on the 'black market'. Working in Auschwitz was very profitable for SS guards, and they wanted to be posted here. Why fight in bunkers on the front line if you could live like a king here?
On site, the SS built a mini town, with some Jewish people slaving over them. They had a cinema, canteen, theatre and sports centre with some teams. They had alcohol rations, which they took advantage of every night and got drunk, whilst feasting on stolen foods and beverages. They were allowed to do this due to the lack of military discipline in the camp, and got 'wildly drunk' every night. Probably to drown out the edge of killing millions of innocent people per day.
Inhumane testing on children during the 1940's
During this time, Nazi doctors took this open opportunity to use Jewish children as guinea pigs, predominately twins as the Germans were particularly interested in at this time. From Jewish eye-witnesses and survivors, the testing involved things such as taking blood from the left arm of the child, whilst being injected with a minimum of 5 injections in the right arm, of course many children fainted and became very ill from this. One survivor became very sick and the Nazi doctor diagnosed her to only have 2 weeks to live. This was common practice as if one twin died then they could murder the other with an injection to the child's heart. The German's needed both twins to die at the same time in order to do an autopsy and send body parts off to Berlin to be tested on. Mostly eyeballs in packets labelled 'urgent war parts'. As well as these brutalities, 'Dr.Death' as he was known, used to operate on 18 prisoners per day at his peak, using no anaesthetic; whilst amputating limbs or purely injecting poison into the hearts of victims and seeing how long it took for them to die. They were not 'scientific' tests, but one of a crazed sadistic man.
The Nazi doctors also tested on dwarves and inmates with gangrene on their faces - as a result of poor nutrition and living standards. Again their body parts were sent to Berlin for medical practice and testing.
all photos taken from googleimages.com
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