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Authors: Gordon Kerr
Tags: nonfiction
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to work and those – mostly women and children – who looked unfit. Families were separated from each other during this process.
Those selected for work had their heads shaved and numbers tattooed on their arms, in this way around 400,000 were registered. Around 340,000 of them died as a result of the cruelty they experienced. Those unfit for work went to the gas chambers, at Birkenau, within several hours of their arrival. The cyanide gas Zyklon-B was used, but only after the victims’ hair was shaved off for use in making haircloth and gold fillings were removed from teeth to be made into gold bars and sent to Berlin.
As the Russians moved towards Auschwitz, at the end of the war, the Nazis tried to destroy the evidence of what had taken place. When it was liberated, on 27 January 1945, they found a mere 7,600 survivors. Around 58,000 had been sent on a death march to Germany.
Not long after the Germans and Russians had partitioned Poland between them, the Germans built a forced labour camp at Bełżec, housing 11,000. As a forced labour camp, it played host to thousands of deaths from disease, starvation and execution. However, in 1942, it became a death camp, commanded by Odilo Globocnik, the area’s police chief, known as Himmler’s chief mass murderer. Jews arrived from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
Initially diesel fumes were used, but the more efficient Zyklon-B was soon introduced. Late in 1942, however, the killing ceased and the dead, who had been buried in mass graves, were dug up and cremated, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of the horrors that had been perpetrated.
Sobibór was built in 1942, in eastern Poland. It had five gas chambers in which 250,000 Jews from Russia, Poland, Slovakia and western Europe met their deaths. Only 50 prisoners of Sobibór survived the extreme cruelties they faced.
Treblinka was the location of the extermination of the entire Warsaw ghetto. More than 700,000 Jews died there in the same way as at Sobibór and Bełżec. They were told they were being transported to labour camps, but first were ordered to remove their clothing so that they could be bathed and disinfected. They were then gassed – and if they resisted, they were beaten and clubbed with rifle butts. Special work units of Jewish prisoners, known as Sonderkommandos, were used to remove gold teeth and dentures from the corpses. They also dealt with the burial and cremation of the victims. When they were too weak to continue working, they, themselves, went to the gas chambers.
The Kommandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl, was arrested in Brazil, in 1967, and extradited to Germany, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the part he played in the murder of 900,000 people. He died six months later.
Majdanek held some non-Jewish prisoners and there was some work done there. However, in October 1942, a crude gas chamber was constructed in a wooden barracks. Later, a more sophisticated chamber was built of concrete, with airtight steel doors. Carbon monoxide gas was used initially, but, as with the other camps, Zyklon-B soon became the preferred method. It is unclear exactly how many died at Majdanek. Some say it may have been as many as 1,380,000. In 1943, as the Russians closed in on Lublin, the camp was being closed. The 17,000 prisoners still held at the camp were shot in an operation euphemistically called Erntefest – Fall Harvest.
Bugsy Siegel
810 Linden Drive, Beverly Hills, California, USA
In the 1930s and 40s, 810 Linden Drive was the picture of Beverly Hills luxury. The house was rented by Bugsy Siegel's 'moll', Virginia Hall, who happened to be in Paris on the night of 20 June 1947, when her lover was pumped full of bullets by a mafia hitman, intent on silencing the troublesome mobster once and for all.
It was 20 June 1947, and Bugsy Siegel was king of the world. He had just returned to the sumptuous villa
Those selected for work had their heads shaved and numbers tattooed on their arms, in this way around 400,000 were registered. Around 340,000 of them died as a result of the cruelty they experienced. Those unfit for work went to the gas chambers, at Birkenau, within several hours of their arrival. The cyanide gas Zyklon-B was used, but only after the victims’ hair was shaved off for use in making haircloth and gold fillings were removed from teeth to be made into gold bars and sent to Berlin.
As the Russians moved towards Auschwitz, at the end of the war, the Nazis tried to destroy the evidence of what had taken place. When it was liberated, on 27 January 1945, they found a mere 7,600 survivors. Around 58,000 had been sent on a death march to Germany.
Not long after the Germans and Russians had partitioned Poland between them, the Germans built a forced labour camp at Bełżec, housing 11,000. As a forced labour camp, it played host to thousands of deaths from disease, starvation and execution. However, in 1942, it became a death camp, commanded by Odilo Globocnik, the area’s police chief, known as Himmler’s chief mass murderer. Jews arrived from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Romania.
Initially diesel fumes were used, but the more efficient Zyklon-B was soon introduced. Late in 1942, however, the killing ceased and the dead, who had been buried in mass graves, were dug up and cremated, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of the horrors that had been perpetrated.
Sobibór was built in 1942, in eastern Poland. It had five gas chambers in which 250,000 Jews from Russia, Poland, Slovakia and western Europe met their deaths. Only 50 prisoners of Sobibór survived the extreme cruelties they faced.
Treblinka was the location of the extermination of the entire Warsaw ghetto. More than 700,000 Jews died there in the same way as at Sobibór and Bełżec. They were told they were being transported to labour camps, but first were ordered to remove their clothing so that they could be bathed and disinfected. They were then gassed – and if they resisted, they were beaten and clubbed with rifle butts. Special work units of Jewish prisoners, known as Sonderkommandos, were used to remove gold teeth and dentures from the corpses. They also dealt with the burial and cremation of the victims. When they were too weak to continue working, they, themselves, went to the gas chambers.
The Kommandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl, was arrested in Brazil, in 1967, and extradited to Germany, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the part he played in the murder of 900,000 people. He died six months later.
Majdanek held some non-Jewish prisoners and there was some work done there. However, in October 1942, a crude gas chamber was constructed in a wooden barracks. Later, a more sophisticated chamber was built of concrete, with airtight steel doors. Carbon monoxide gas was used initially, but, as with the other camps, Zyklon-B soon became the preferred method. It is unclear exactly how many died at Majdanek. Some say it may have been as many as 1,380,000. In 1943, as the Russians closed in on Lublin, the camp was being closed. The 17,000 prisoners still held at the camp were shot in an operation euphemistically called Erntefest – Fall Harvest.
Bugsy Siegel
810 Linden Drive, Beverly Hills, California, USA
In the 1930s and 40s, 810 Linden Drive was the picture of Beverly Hills luxury. The house was rented by Bugsy Siegel's 'moll', Virginia Hall, who happened to be in Paris on the night of 20 June 1947, when her lover was pumped full of bullets by a mafia hitman, intent on silencing the troublesome mobster once and for all.
It was 20 June 1947, and Bugsy Siegel was king of the world. He had just returned to the sumptuous villa
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