Dehumanization

A picture of how the bunkers looked in the wooden barracks.

This week has been a very emotional week for me as well as everyone in my team. We read several different texts to learn more about the Shoah, but there is so much that the readings could not cover. The picture above is a picture of one of the barracks that is located in Auschwitz II, Birkenau. When I first saw this barrack, my first thought was how similar it looks to a horse stable. The tour guide later mentioned that this, in fact, was a horse stable that was meant for 50 horses. However, the Nazi had about 400 to 500 men in just this barrack. I could not even begin to imagine how so many individuals would fit in such a small barrack.

In this picture, you can see that the “beds” they slept in were bunks of three. The stronger and healthier prisoners climb to the top bunk. Those who were weaker slept on the lower bunks. Being in the lower bunk made the weaker get even weaker. If anyone above them leaked any unwanted liquid (such as urine, throw up and so on), this would fall onto the person below them. In addition, you can see that there was no floor built. What you see is the ground level. When it rained or snow, the floor will be cover with water since there was no foundation. This only made the conditions in which they lived in, even worse. During the winter it was very cold, and during the summer it was too hot. Due to these conditions they lived in, diseases spread quickly. Moreover, there were 10 prisoners per bed. That means that each bunk of three had a total of 30 individuals.

In class and during our guided tours, we discussed how much weight the victims of the Shoah had lost due to lack of nutrient. Due to the drastic weight loss, the Nazis were able to fit so many victims into one bed. In the novel called The Holocaust Kingdom, Donat mentioned how low the calorie intake was. “Germans in Warsaw allotted 2,500 calories a day…The Jews ratio came to less than 200 calories a day” (Page 7). Only letting them eat such a low number of calories is inhuman. A healthy person should consume at least 2,500 calories which was what they let the Germans consume. Since they saw the Jews as animals, they made sure they barely ate anything.

This picture shows where you would tie the horse in this barrack.

The Nazi saw the Jews and all of their prisoners as animals. The picture above shows how this barrack was supposed to be used for horses. It has the ring where you would tie your horse to. Moreover, the Nazi only allowed them to shower once a month and go to the bathroom twice a day. By doing this, it continued to take away the prisoners' humanity, treating them like animals. For Nazi, it was as if they were taking their “pet” to the bathroom. They did everything they could do to dehumanize them. This is just one of the many examples of how they dehumanize their victims.

In one of the lectures that we had with Father Manfred and Stan Ronell, we learned that those who were taken were not seen as humans. They were seen less than human. They were given numbers rather than names. Their heads were shaved. The goal of the Nazi was to dehumanize and strip them of their identity in every possible way. Their reasoning for this was that they wanted to blame someone for their failure, and who else to blame but the group who does not have a home of their own, the Jews. Their ideology for doing this was to “Make Germany, Great Again.” They “knew it was hard, but it has to be done.” If someone questioned doing such acts for women and children, they were told that if they did not do it, it would be their own family who would suffer.” That this was done to save their own family and Germany.”