The Nazi Concentration Camps

Paper Summary:

This paper takes a look at the lives of those living in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The purpose of this paper is to try and show the inhuman brutality of these concentration camps. The paper further discusses the extermination camps that were built in 1942 with the purpose of murdering Jews.

From the Paper:

" Many prisoners eventually became what were known as Muselmanner. The Muselmanner are persons destroyed, devastated, shattered wrecks strung between life and death. They are the victims of a stepwise annihilation of human beings. The mere external appearance of the Muselmanner bespoke profound dehumanization. In a final stage of emaciation, their skeletons were enveloped by flaccid, parchmentlike sheaths of skin, edema had formed on their feet and thighs, their posterior muscles had collapsed. Their skulls seemed elongated; their noses dripped constantly, mucus running down their chins. Their eyeballs had sunk deep into their sockets; their gaze was glazed. Their limbs moved slowly, hesitantly, almost mechanically. They exuded a penetrating, acrid odor; sweat, urine, liquid feces trickled down their legs. The rags that covered their freezing frames were full of lice; their skin was covered with scabies. Most suffered from diarrhea. They ate anything they could lay their hands on--moldy bread, cheese wriggling with worms, raw bits of turnip, garbage fished from the bins. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Allen, Michael Thad. The Business of Genocide: The Ss, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Questia. 1 Apr. 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=106468255>.
• Des Pres, Terrence. The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
• Inside the Concentration Camps Eyewitness Accounts of Life in Hitler's Death Camps. Trans. Thomas Whissen. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.
• Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp. Trans. William Templer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Questia. 30 Mar. 2007 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99838057>.

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