
Killing Centers and The United States Nick Foland
Background • Place where prisoners were sent to die • Most efficient way for mass murder • Murdered nearly 2,700,000 Jews • Killed by poison gas or shot • 5 definite killing centers; 1 is controversial • Re-landscaped to disguise the mass murder
How Hitler did it • Deported prisoners from concentration camps and ghettos to death camps • Said they were being re-located for labor • Given Work permits and told to bring tools • Gave them food on the train • They had no idea
The Camps • Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Belzec • These were strictly death camps • Maidanek and Auschwitz were also death camps, had work camps attached to them
Auschwitz-Birkenau • The largest death Camp • Killed up to 6,000 prisoners daily • Gas chamber could hold 2,000 • Told to remove clothing for bath • Workers removed bodies from chamber to crematoria after removing all gold teeth
The United States Role • Did not do much for rescuing prisoners • Hard to get behind enemy lines • “The United States failed to act decisively to rescue victims of the Holocaust.”-ushmm.org • Ruled out using military personnel for rescue missions • Said that the best relief would be a swift end to the war
Bombing Requests • World Jewish Congress and the U.S. government's War Refugee Board made requests to bomb Auschwitz • Requests were denied • Yet they bombed I.G. Farben less than five miles away from Auschwitz • Said it would have hindered killing operations and shown that we care about their fate
Works Cited • http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/Holocaust/killing.html • http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005145 • http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html