Dylan Crimm

Ms. Schmidt
Honors English 9
2/23/2018
An Annotated Biography;Auschwitz

History.com Staff. “Auschwitz.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009,

www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/auschwitz.

This source helps explain the horrifying history of Auschwitz. The source speaks of the

making of the dreaded facility. It speaks of the barbaric torture the Jews were subjected to

such as experiments and starvation. It gives you the statistics of how many people lost

their lives in Auschwitz. It tells us the length and width of the incredibly large facility

counting all its subdivisions.

Its subdivisions were known as Auschwitz II or Birkenau and Auschwitz III also known

as Monowitz. These were the main divisions but there were many smaller divisions. We

learn how many people died from the gas chambers and the crematorium but there were

many more ways of execution. The Nazis would starve their prisoners as well as shoot

them down once they disobeyed. In some cases if they did something outrageous the

Jews would be hung.

In 1945 Auschwitz was abandoned by the Nazis once they knew the Soviets were

arriving. All Jews were moved on death marches. Once the soviets arrived they found the

sick and the piles of corpses littered throughout the camp. They found tons of clothes and

personal items as well as tons of hair. This website helped picture how awful it was to

experience that period in time.

www.auschwitz.org. “AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU.” Polski,

auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-i/

This source speaks of the original Auschwitz camp known as Auschwitz I. Auschwitz I

was founded in 1940 when the Nazi party needed a place to hold their enemies as

prisoners. This would include captured soviets, poles, gypsies, and of course Jews. This

idea quickly escalating to a concentration camp. In that camp prisoners were tortured

severely and then exterminated in disturbing ways.

The camp was the first camp of the Auschwitz branch. Auschwitz is composed of

multiple camps. All of them have the same goal, to murder their prisoners. The mass

extermination would be carried out until stopped by the allies. The camps would be

abandoned and liberated in 1945.

Auschwitz I held approximately 16 thousand people. Approximately 10 thousand of the

prisoners were Jews. Auschwitz all together covered 40sq miles with 40 branches spread

throughout the core area. In the whole complex there were approximately 135 thousand

prisoners which accounted for 25% of all the people in the camp. This website teaches

the statistics of the amount death that occurred.

“Concentration Camp of Birkenau - Introduction.” The Holocaust History - A People's

and Survivor History

Remember.org, remember.org/camps/birkenau/bir-introduction.

This site explains the second camp of Auschwitz known as Auschwitz II otherwise

known as Birkenau. Birkenau may have been the second camp but it was the largest.
 Birkenau held most prisoners and was located just outside of Auschwitz I. Birkenau was

where most of the exterminations occurred. Most gassing and shootings occurred there.

Birkenau striked fear in any prisoner who knew that was their final destination. They

heard the stories of what occurs in that facility. They knew of the mass murder but had no

control over their fates. They would descend into a lost of hope and faith. It was then that

they truly died not when they were truly killed.

Birkenau was also liberated in 1945. The facility still stands today. People visit the

compound to have the feeling of being in a place of mass amounts of death. They witness

the history of what occurred first hand. This site helps to understand what occurred after

the liberation of Birkenau.

Berenbaum, Michael. “Auschwitz.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1

Feb. 2018,

www.britannica.com/place/Auschwitz.

In this site teaches us about some facts and some history of Auschwitz. Auschwitz was

located in southern Poland. Auschwitz was used as a prison camp, extermination camp,

and a slave-labor camp all at the same time. Auschwitz was especially valuable due to its

location as a railway junction it could receive multiple prisoners. Auschwitz would hold

its prisoners in barracks where they would be stuffed with thousands of other people.

New prisoners would be put through the process of “selection”. This process would

divide the people into the ones who could work and the ones who could not. Those who

weren’t fit to work were either killed or experimented on. Those who were experimented
 on suffered a fate far worse than death. Women would be sterilized, and twins would be

exposed to radiation until both were dead.

In 1944, just before the Hungarian Jew deportation process two prisoners escaped and

told the resistance leaders of Slovakia what was occurring. The plans were sent to the

western intelligence service and were talking of bombing Auschwitz. This would never

happen, and Auschwitz would be liberated in 1945. This site gave some facts that I did

not know about Auschwitz.

Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. Hill and Wang, A Division of Farrar, Stratus and Giroux,

In the book Night Auschwitz was crucial in the story. Elie Wiesel was a young Jewish

boy sent to Auschwitz with his father. It was there where Wiesel had to learn to take care

of himself and his father. He was starved, beaten, tortured, and forced to endure it again

everyday. Wiesel witnessed the most horrific sights of the Holocaust at Auschwitz.

It was there where Wiesel witnessed the burning of bodies in the crematorium. He

witnessed hangings, shootings, and mass murder in general. He started to lose the faith he

tried so hard to keep at that facility. He lost bits and pieces of his sanity as well as his

humanity. That facility took away his mother and sister from him.

Wiesel lost his father because of the torture that the guards put him through. Wiesel had

to survive all on his own knowing if he did he’d have no family outside of the camp.

Wiesel had the strength to persevere and survive. Through the torture and starvation or

the death marches and brutal conditions he lived to tell the story. The book helped explain

the importance of remembering what occurred those terrifying years.