Extermination Camps
...were regularly rounded up and shot by members of the SS. Though some of these SS men saw the arbitrary killing of Jews as a sport, many had to be lubricated with large quantities of alcohol before committing these atrocious acts. Mental trauma was not uncommon amongst those men who were ordered to murder Jews. The establishment of extermination camps therefore became the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Question", as well as a way to alleviate the mental trauma that grappled the minds of Nazi soldiers. The following essay will examine various primary and secondary sources to better illuminate the creation, evolution, practices and perpetrators of the extermination camps wherein the horrors of the Holocaust were conducted.
Pridham Noakes maintains that the creation of extermination camps began for two important reasons, the first already being mentioned as a way of soothing the psychological stress imposed upon Nazi soldiers of the Einsatzgruppen ordered to kill Jews with firearms. Fischer discusses the mental consequences which overcame soldiers of the Einsatzgruppen as a result of these brutal murders: "The men
were physically and psychologically drained. Some sought refuge in alcohol, some became physically ill, a few committed suicide." The second reason for the creation of the extermination camps was to better conceal "subhuman" extermination from public (and foreign) view while accelerating the process of mass genocide.
The first extermination camp was located in Chelmno, Poland, where gas vans were used to kill the camps' victims. Gas vans had been introduced in Poland in 1939, Noakes maintains, and had initially been used to murder Russian POWs. The gassing of Polish Jews began in 1941 after the Nazis had forcefully gathered the majority of them into ghettoes around Lodz and Warthegau. The process was of crude design: Jews (and other subhuman'...
View Full Essay
