Holocaust
...s, homosexuals, Jehovah’s witnesses, priests, and ministers (World Book Encyclopedia 2000 Edition, P. 296). The image of the German invincibility had been shattered at the battle of Stahlingrad in January 1943. The Jews had revolted the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943, and again in the Trehlinka death camp in August 1943. However, it seemed that it was the Jewish uprising in the Sobibor death camp on October 14, 1943 that made the Nazis fear more such revolts; thus after the Sobibor revolt, Nazis ordered the killing of the remaining Jews. The killing was to be conducted all in one day, with almost no forewarning, to prevent any possible resistance (Aktion 1). Early in the morning of November 3, 1943, the Jews in Trawniki labor camp were taken from the barracks. They were then led in small groups to the Trawniki training camp for Soviet Socialists Auxiliors. Dance music played to drown out the noise of the shooting and the cries of the ding Jews. After being forced to undress, their clothes were added to the growing heap of clothing, and they were led to a pre-dug trench. The first groups were led through the trench and told to lie down. They were then shot. The same thing happened to the following groups. By late after noon, when the killing was over, approximately 9,000 to 10,000 Jews had been murdered in Trawniki on this single day (Aktion 1). On January 25, 1940, the Germans opened the infamous and worst of all the nazi death camps, Auschwitz. The beginning of the mass murdering of the Jews was in full motion. The first Nazi concentration camps were organized in 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power. By the 1930’s the facilities held tens of thousands of political prisoners arrested by the Nazis. Several of the new camps were establishes, with specially constructed gas chambers disguised as showers. When the new Jews arrived at a camp, an SS physician singled out the young and able-bodied, and the others were sent to the gas chambers. As many as 2,000 prisoners were sent to the gas chambers at one time. SS personnel poured containers of poison gas down an opening and within twenty to thirty minutes, the new arrivals were dead. The guards shaved the heads of the corpses and removed any gold teeth from their mouths. Then they burned their bodies in crematoriums or open pits. The able-bodied prisoners had their belongings seized. Camp personnel tattooed a number on the arm of each person. From then on, the persons were identified by numbers instead of their names. These prisoners were forced to work long ours under cruel conditions. When the prisoners were too weak to work any longer, they too were killed or left to die. (World book, P. 296). The Nazis kept approximately one hundred fifty Jews alive in Ponintowa, so that these prisoners would cremate the corpses. The Nazis also gathered approximately fifty more Jews, whom they found hiding throughout the camp. Yet these prisoners refused to cremate the bodies. Thus, those prisoners were replaced with one hundred and twenty Jews from another camp. (Aktion 2). By the end of the 1930’s the Nazi military force was in full force, and the Nazi Germany had gained Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxumbourgh, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Germany was the most powerful and largest force in ...