Life During The Holocaust

About 10 - 17 million people were killed during the Holocaust, and so many more lives were affected outside of this number. Six million of those killed were Jews, seven million were Soviet civilians, and the rest killed were other minorities such as homosexuals, gypsies, and people with disabilities. The holocaust is one of the most horrific and complicated events in history, and it had a lasting effect on all the people involved on both sides. Nazis put the people they were going to kill into places called concentration camps. Life was difficult on the in the concentration camps and survivors from the concentration camps tell horrifying stories of the inhuman conditions. Many people reported that the prisoners slept on straw that was sewn into wooden boards. They were also denied basic human rights and they were forced to perform their bodily functions outside in unscreened privies. Everyone walked around filthy as they didn’t have access to running water (). These conditions permanently influenced the lives of survivors even after they were liberated. A …show more content…
Many of the guards are facing trial for their crimes. One example is Oskar Groening, age 94, who is currently on trial in Germany, charged with being a part of several hundred thousand murders. Some of these guards admit to moral guilt but still don’t admit to directly killing anyone. When these guards are tried, they are many factors that make the ruling difficult. The guards claim to have been “under the influence of powerful propaganda”. Many of them claim they didn't realize what they were doing was wrong, and this makes it difficult for judges to make a good ruling. It also brings up many moral debates. However, quite a few guards accept their wrongs. Groening states that: “I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened because I was