Dachau: The Holocaust

The term “holocaust” originates from the Greek word “holókauston.” The term translates to ‘sacrifice by fire’. However, the term in the twentieth century refers to the systematic killing of six million Jews during World War Two. During the war, the Nazi Party was forced to come up with a solution to the ‘Jewish Question’(a debate pertaining to the status and treatment of Jews in society). Hitler first commented on September 16, 1919, “Ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether.” From this, the concept of the death camp was formed. Death camps, also known as an extermination camp, was a prison for Jewish people, political prisoners, and just about anyone who was ‘unfit’ in the Germanic society. The camps were created …show more content…
Dachau was built on the grounds of an abandoned factory just northwest of the medieval town Dachau, Germany. The intended use for this land was to create a work forced labor camp. The prisoners of the camp were composed of people who had been declared as political prisoners of the Nazi Party. The camp had been built by the earliest prisoners between the years of 1933 to 1955. Dachau was composed of two main camps (one of the camps included a crematoria chamber). Upon entering the upcoming war, some prisoners also were forced to work as blacksmiths, tailors, and shoemakers to contribute towards the German war efforts. Most of the early prisoners had been set free after working however many hours they were sentenced to. When the Nuremberg Laws institutionalizing racial discrimination had been passed by Germany’s government in 1935, many new groups were sent to Dachau. The new prisoners were composed of Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Jewish emigrants, political figures, and Allie soldiers. Medical experiments (subjecting prisoners to; ice baths to induce hypothermia, pressure chambers, transplants while the prisoner is awake, and saltwater water diets) were conducted on the prisoners. Dachau was also very famous for being a S.S. training camp. According to the death toll, the precise number of victims to the death camp Dachau cannot be determined since they were …show more content…
Dachau was the first established death camp during WWII that imprisoned political figures and war enemies, but Auschwitz was more responsible for the mass killing of the Jewish race. Dachau was used more as a work camp where as Auschwitz mass numbers of people would die immediately. Without these two camps World War Two would have been shaped very