Aim: To understand the purpose of concentration camps Success Criteria : To describe what life was like at Auschwitz

Starter Task Write down a sentence explaining how the Jews were treated by the Nazis.

Genocide During the Second World War, Nazi persecution of the Jewish people worsened into 'genocide' – the attempt to kill all the Jewish people in Europe.

What Was Auschwitz? Built by the Nazis as both a concentration and death camp, Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi's camps and the most streamlined mass killing center ever created. It was at Auschwitz that 1.1 million people were murdered, mostly Jew

What Was Auschwitz? Auschwitz I (or "the Main Camp") was the original camp. This camp housed prisoners, was the location of medical experiments, and the site of Block 11 (a place of severe torture) and the Black Wall (a place of execution).

Arrival Jews were gathered, stuffed on trains, and sent to Auschwitz. When the trains stopped at Auschwitz, they were told to leave all their belongings on board and were then forced to disembark from the train and gather upon the railway platform, known as "the ramp."

Why leave their belongings?

Arrival Families were quickly and brutally split up and ordered into two lines. Most women, children, older men, and those that looked unfit or unhealthy were sent to the left; while most young men and others that looked strong enough to do hard labour were sent to the right.

Arrival

Although they didn’t know, the left line meant immediate death at the gas chambers and the right meant that they would become a prisoner of the camp. (Most of the prisoners would later die from starvation, exposure, forced labour, and/or torture.)

Gas Chambers The people who were sent to the left, which was the majority of those who arrived at Auschwitz, were never told that they had been chosen for death. It was important to keep this a secret from its victims. If the victims had known they were headed to their death, they would most definitely have fought back.

Gas Chambers the masses of victims believed it when they were told they first needed to be disinfected and have showers.

Life at Auschwitz Those that had been sent to the right were now camp prisoners. All of their clothes and any remaining personal belongings were taken from them and their hair was shorn completely off. They were given striped prison outfits.

Video (click picture)

Life at Auschwitz The new arrivals were then thrown into the cruel, hard, unfair, horrific world of camp life. Within their first week at Auschwitz, most new prisoners had discovered the fate of their loved ones that had been sent to the left. Some of the new prisoners never recovered from this news.

Life at Auschwitz Prisoners slept cramped together with three prisoners per wooden bunk. Toilets in the barracks consisted of a bucket, which had usually overflowed by morning. In the morning, all prisoners would be assembled outside for roll call (Appell). Standing outside for hours at roll call, whether in intense heat or below freezing temperatures, was itself a torture

Roll-Call

In your book Write down some of your thoughts about Auschtwitz. How were people treated? Your feelings? Prisoners experience Why should we learn about it?

Liberation When the Nazis realized they were losing WW2, they decided to start destroying evidence of Auschwitz, burying much in huge pits and covered with grass. Many of the warehouses were emptied, with their contents shipped back to Germany.

Liberation In January 1945, the Nazis removed the last prisoners from Auschwitz and sent them on death marches. The Nazis planned on marching these exhausted prisoners all the way to camps closer or within Germany.

Death Marches

Liberation On January 27, 1945, the Russians reached Auschwitz. When the Russians entered the camp, they found the 7,650 prisoners who had been left behind. The camp was liberated; these prisoners were now free.

Video (click Picture)

Diary Entry Your task is to write a diary entry from the point of view of soldier or prisoner. Think back to the video and describe their thoughts and feelings. Why are you feeling that way?