Holocaust

Holocaust Essay

Terrifying and almost unbelievable stories of how Jews were treated in the concentration camps during the Holocaust have been shared throughout the world. Many of these tell of Jewish men’s experiences however they were not the only ones. Women and children went through the same or sometimes even worse nightmares.

At a time when children should be playing they were going through things that most adults could not imagine. They were subjected to torture and cruelty. Germans were already raising their younger generations to hate just as much as they did. German children were raised to see Jewish children as inferior; prejudice at such a young age. Children of the Holocaust did not live the average lives they should have. Many were orphans and homeless because their parents were taken to concentration camps to be killed. Those that were fortunate enough to still be with their families often had to steal food to help support them. Those that were taken to death camps were either mercilessly killed or subjected to strange, painful experimentation. None of them got to live the childhood that they should have.

Women also came into contact with the same horrendous events that children did. Elisabeth De Jong was a survivor that told of her experiences while at Auschwitz. She went to Holland like many others because she thought she would be safe there. Holland was neutral the first World War so people thought it would be the same. However it quickly became apparent it was not. She was taken with other Jews to be sent to concentration camps. They slept on blankets thrown over some hay. When she arrived she was shaved like others and then was given the choice to go through experimentation and then the gas chamber or straight to the gas chamber. She went through the experimentation which involved 24 painful injections all over the body. They also injected formaldehyde into women’s womb and ovaries as some sort of sterilization test. The...