camp conditions
As soon as everyone got off the trains, there were bright lights pointed to their faces and dogs barking at them. They were shoved into lines to determine whether you would die instantly or tortured slowly in the labor camps or gas chambers. Although at the time, no one knew what was happening. The Nazi’s were shouting at the prisoners, assuring everything was going to be fine; that they’ll get all their things back and see their family again. Although that was all just a lie.
"The writing 'Arbeit Macht Frei' was a blatant lie. 'Work Will Set You Free'. We really thought that if we worked hard, everything would be fine. But it turns out that work was only a way of exterminating us prisoners,” said Kazimierz Albin, a fellow Auschwitz prisoner.
Once you got inside, you’d be taken to separate buildings. The Nazi’s ordered everyone to take their clothes off and wait in line until they tattooed an ID number on your arm, shave your head, and then give you your new uniforms. Many people died because of hypothermia and hunger on their first day and that wasn’t even all they had to face. In the morning, you’d be put to do meaningless work all day that was specifically meant to break you physically and psychologically, leading to quicker deaths. People went mad and couldn’t go through the hunger and pain, leading many suicides and self-medicated deaths.
"The writing 'Arbeit Macht Frei' was a blatant lie. 'Work Will Set You Free'. We really thought that if we worked hard, everything would be fine. But it turns out that work was only a way of exterminating us prisoners,” said Kazimierz Albin, a fellow Auschwitz prisoner.
Once you got inside, you’d be taken to separate buildings. The Nazi’s ordered everyone to take their clothes off and wait in line until they tattooed an ID number on your arm, shave your head, and then give you your new uniforms. Many people died because of hypothermia and hunger on their first day and that wasn’t even all they had to face. In the morning, you’d be put to do meaningless work all day that was specifically meant to break you physically and psychologically, leading to quicker deaths. People went mad and couldn’t go through the hunger and pain, leading many suicides and self-medicated deaths.
Prisoners Working and Suffering in a Consentration Camp. Emaze
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"Enterence." Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team,
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Transport and arrival. The Holocaust Explained
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rebelling
Witold Pilecki was frightened just as everyone else, but in order to make it all stop and somehow escape, they had to have a plan and start somewhere. Witold was SS and helping all the prisoners in need without getting caught.
They...
They...
- Harvested lice, infected with typhoid, and contaminated their guards’ clothes with the diseased insects.
- Stole bits of food like bread and sugar, from the warehouse, for the sick
- Compile intelligence on the mass executions of the Home Army, hoping to stir them into action with a raid, by sending messages through with released prisoners working off campgrounds
The camp photo of Witold Pilecki, the founder of resistant movement in KL Auschwitz. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
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esscapePilecki and two fellow inmates got a job in a bakery outside of campgrounds. After weeks of planning, they manage to remove the hinges from the door, steal some clothes they saw in the bakery, and make a break for it running into the woods. They unbelievingly make it and lose the SS guards. They were free.
In August 1943, after months of hiding on the countryside, Pilecki makes it back to Warsaw. From a secret location, witold writes an 11 page report of his experience in Auschwitz. Information on the Nazi death camps reaches Winston Churchill and America's, President Roosevelt. Thanks to Pilecki, the truth about the terrors in Auschwitz, but will anyone believe him? |