was the auschwitz camp mainly used to house jews or was it used to house political? prisoners?
101377
"House" is a generous term.\n\n"At first, Poles were imprisoned and died in the camp. Afterwards, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and prisoners of other nationalities were also incarcerated there. Beginning in 1942, the camp became the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity, which was committed against the European Jews as part of Hitler's plan for the complete destruction of that people. The majority of the Jewish men, women and children deported to Auschwitz were sent to their deaths in the Birkenau gas chambers immediately after arrival."
207791
Everyone in Germany and other countries saw it, but were afraid to question the officers of the German Army.  SS officers were usually at the transportation point, so most people were afraid.  If you asked where the people were going, they could just as easily throw you in the train.  So the average Germans thought the Jews were being transported to detention camps and not death camps.  The SS or German secret service were very intrusive and violent, so the general public left them along.
515375
Holocaust (hŏl'əkôst', hō'lə–) , name given to the period of persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. Although anti-Semitism in Europe has a long history, persecution of German Jews began with Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Jews were disenfranchised, then terrorized in anti-Jewish riots (such as Kristallnacht), forced into the ghettos, their property seized, and finally were sent to concentration camps. After the outbreak of World War II, Hitler established death camps to secretly implement what he called “the final solution of the Jewish question.” Extermination squads were also sent to the fronts: In one operation alone, over 30,000 Jews were killed at Babi Yar, outside Kiev. After 450,000 Jews were sent to death camps from the Warsaw Ghetto, news of their fate led the last 60,000 to rebel (1943), fighting until they were killed, captured, or escaped to join the resistance. The main Jewish resistance was spiritual: observing their religion and refraining from suicide, while Zionists evacuated some to Palestine. By the end of the war 6 million Jews had been systematically murdered. The Allies refused rescue attempts and American Jews were warned against attempting them. While the European churches were silent, some clergy and individual non-Jews saved many. The Danes sent most Danish Jews to Sweden in private boats while under German occupation.\nAfter the war Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes at Nuremburg, and West Germany later adopted (1953) the Federal Compensation Law, under which billions of dollars were paid to those who survived Nazi persecution. In the mid-1990s a number of suits were filed against Swiss banks that held accounts belonging to Holocaust victims but had denied the fact and failed to restore the money. A settlement reached in 1998 established a $1.25 billion fund to be used to compensate those who can document their claims and, more generally, Holocaust survivors, the latter as restitution for undocumented accounts and for Swiss profits on Nazi accounts involving Holocaust victims' property. In 1998 the Roman Catholic Church issued a document acknowledging Catholic complicity in the long-standing European anti-Semitism that was background to the Holocaust. Under the terms of an agreement signed in 2000 by the United States and Germany, a $5 billion fund was established by the German government and German industry to compensate those who were slave or forced laborers or who suffered a variety of other losses under the Nazi regime.\n\nThe destruction of European Jewry has demanded a reevaluation by Jews the world over. The renascent Jewish community in the state of Israel, itself largely a byproduct of the Holocaust, now serves as a focal point for much of this energy. A vast literature consisting of histories, diaries, memoirs, poetry, novels, and prayers has emerged in an effort to understand the Holocaust in terms of its religious and secular implications. The secular materials attempt to explain how it happened and the reactions of the victims; some have suggested that an underlying and pervasive anti-Semitism in Germany was fueled by a deep and complete despair combined with a corrosive and unacknowleged sense of worthlessness that had been created by crushing and humiliating hardships and the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. The religious materials focus on the problem of whether one can still speak in traditional Jewish terms of a God, active in history, who rewards the righteous and who maintains a unique relationship with the Jewish people. Museums and memorials have been established in a number of cities worldwide to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.\n\nsome sites to check out are - \nwww.ushmm.org/wlc/en\nwww.holocaust-history.org\nholocaust.about.com\nen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust
496572
Extermination of jews and other minorities in Germany. 11-12 million dead, 6 million jews. THey were tortured, gas chambered, mass shootings, hangings, strange experiments. THe germans thought they were the great race and they tried to kill all jews. This is known as genocide. there were 200 concentration camps and about 36 extermination camps.
727485
I know a truly amazing woman who survived a concentrarion camp when she was 16-17.  It happened without a doubt.  And the numbers don't matter  If it was 300,00 it is still appalling.  It was not just Jews either.  Gypsys, homosexuals, physically and mentally disabled, anyone the Nazis consider undesirable were also targeted.
637422
www.google.com\nor wikipedia.\n\nI know for sure that the Soviet labor camps were less harsh, but more risky. The labor wasn't as disgusting as in the Nazi camp. Josef Stalin was very paranoid and would order anybody to be killed at the drop of a dime. So, if you messed up in the labor camps, there was no second chance. The labor wasn't as hard or gruesome, it was just like digging rocks and stuff, but if you didn't do it you would die. Anybody who spoke out or showed any sign of revolt or anything at all not compliant would just be shot. The end.\n\nI know that in the Nazi camps, the tasks were harder and longer, but you didn't die as easily. You were more likely to be tortured or starved instead of just killed and put out of your misery. The labor was the sort of digging graves and burying people, putting people into the crematorium, taking all of the valuables of dead people, and lots more to do with dead bodies. Most often the Jews and Gypsies, all those people in the Nazi camps, were forced to stand up for hours, or jog for hours, or go days without food. The only way they determined if you were to live or die was if you didn't pass their selections or if you were sick and there was a risk of spreading your disease or if you were caught doing something bad. Believe it or not, the Nazis didn't enjoy killing people unless they had a good reason. They would have much rather made the poor guy suffer or starve then just end his life and be done with it. \n\nI'm not as clear on Stalin's camps as in the Nazi camps but I hope that helps. The first link is Nazi, the second is Stalin's life (not as helpful as the other one) - enjoy.
338576
casue they were jews.
236343
Most were released.  The major criminals, like Goering were executed (poor example, he committed suicide just before his execution).  Guys like Eickman were captured later and executed.  Guys like Speer served long prison terms. The majority of Waffen SS were released, except for some of the generals....anyway, the long and short of it, the Nuremburg Tribunal tried the top Nazis and executed at least half of them, giving the remainder prison terms.. . Others were tried in abstencia and captured or remained free.  As a side note, not all the German prisoners of war were in the Nazis party, in case you were asking about these prisoners.
159972
The Nazi imposed a “New Order” marked by exploitation, torture, and mass murder.\n\nThe Germans captured 5.5 million Russian prisoners and held them captive in concentration camps.  More than 3.5 million of these prisoners died, mainly due to starvation.\n\nThe Germans imprisoned and executed many Polish intellectuals and priests and slaughtered an immense number of Gypsies.\n\nUsing modern day technology the Nazis murdered six million Jews and nearly one and a half million children. (two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe)\n\nDue to the insane view of Nazism Hitler’s elite guard carried out these murderous acts with dedication and idealism; believed that they were exterminating men, women, and children who threatened the German nation.
512272
At first this question offended me.  I suspected a touch of anti-semitic bias.\n\nThen I went on the web to look at some facts regarding the number of non-Jews who were also victims of the holocaust.  The facts lend legitimacy to the question.  There may have actually been MORE non-Jews killed in the death camps.  \n\n(For a quick read on this, go to the Wikipedia link below)\n\nSo, back to the original question..."Why is it that we only hear about the Jews killed in the concentration camps?"  \n\nMy guess is that they exist both as a homogenous group (Jewish) and as a nation (Israel) that is a close ally of the U.S.  All through the cold war years when we were writing our version of the history of the holocaust, many of the non-Jewish populations that were affected had fallen behind the iron curtain (Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc.).  For nearly 40 years the interests of these people and the stories of how they too suffered at the hands of the Gestapo were not foremost in our national awareness and empathy (let alone our textbooks). \n\nOther under-represented victims included the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists and political dissidents, trade unionists, Freemasons, and some Catholic and Protestant clergy, many of whom were also persecuted and killed.  All of these were also less politically viable after the war or were also victims of our own ignorance and bias here in America.\n\n\nTo sum up, I don't think that there is some "devious plan" to manage the perception of the holocaust as an exclusively Jewish persecution.  I think that the rest of the various (and many) groups that were targeted simply didn’t engender anything like the unified outrage of the Jewish community and the state of Israel. \n\nGood question…made me think.
777212
www.nizkor.com\n\nSpecifically, the research guide is located at \n\nhttp://www.nizkor.com/faqs/auschwitz/\n\nNizkor is a Hebrew word which means "We will remember."
895906
Are you asking in general what they did?  One thing is the Holocaust in which they killed over 6 million Jewish people, as well as political prisoners, gypsies, invalids, etc.  However, that really began after 1939.  Up until then, Hitler focused on labelling these people as scapegoats for why Germany fell so hard economically after WWI.  Besides the Holocaust, the Nazis improved the German economy and military, allowing them to be capable of invading and capturing so many countries during WWII.
644523
The Nazi group or National Socialist Party was technically a political group. One of the visions of Hitler was to return Germany to it's former glory and to create an elite Aryan race. Blond hair and blue eyes were one of the defining characteristics. The art and literature parts of the cultural expression were virtually non existent. Since the Nazis burned books and horded art the only "cultural expression" was Nazi propaganda. If the Third Reich didn't want it out then it was deemed illegal. Many people were put in concentration camps and killed during this time for "unauthorized" cultural expression.
583393
go to www.wikipedia.org\n\nand search for holocaust.\nBig study and lots of info there
824892
you can teach \n\nWomen serving jewish families at the time\nwomen who where nurses\nwomen in the third reich\n\nCheck my sources, there is a whole list. Include all those in my answer ;-)
850247
For centuries, Jews had faced persecution, and were often forced to live in designated areas called ghettos . \n\nThe Nazis' ghettos differed, however, in that they were a preliminary step in the annihilation of the Jews, rather than a method to just isolate them from the rest of society. As the war against the Jews progressed, the ghettos became transition areas, used as collection points for deportation to death camps and concentration camps .  \n \nHitler incorporated the western part of Poland into Germany according to race doctrine. He intended that Poles were to become the slaves of Germany and that the two million Jews therein were to be concentrated in ghettos in Poland's larger cities. Later this would simplify transport to the death camps. Nazi occupation authorities officially told the story that Jews were natural carriers of all types of diseases, especially typhus, and that it was necessary to isolate Jews from the Polish community. Jewish neighborhoods thus were transformed into prisons. The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw , Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov. \n\nOn November 23, 1939 General Governor Hans Frank issued an ordinance that Jews ten years of age and older living in the General Government  had to wear the Star of David on armbands or pinned to the chest or back. This made the identification of Jews easier when the Nazis began issuing orders establishing ghettos. \n\nIn total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between 1939 and 1945. There was no uniformity to these ghettos. The ghettos in small towns were generally not sealed off, which was often a temporary measure used until the residents could be sent to bigger ghettos. \nLarger cities had closed ghettos, with brick or stone walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire defining the boundaries. Guards were placed strategically at gateways and other boundary openings. Jews were not allowed to leave the so-called "Jewish residential districts," under penalty of death. \n\nAll ghettos had the most appalling, inhuman living conditions. The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3,000 people. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400,000 people. Lódz, the second largest, held about 160,000. Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included Bialystok, Czestochowa, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Lvóv, Radom, and Vilna. \n\nMany of the ghetto dwellers were from the local area. Others were from neighboring villages. In October 1941, general deportations began from Germany to major ghettos in Poland and further east. Also, Jews from Austria and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were sent to the ghettos. \n Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. Disease was rampant. Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold winters without adequate warm clothes and heating fuel. Food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death. \n\n Additional notes on ghetto nutrition including examples of daily caloric rations. \n\nEven in the midst of these horrible conditions, many ghetto dwellers resisted dehumanization. Parents continued to educate their children, although it was considered an illegal activity. Some residents secretly continued to hold religious services and observe Jewish holidays. \n\nThe Nazis established the Theresienstadt  (or Terezín) ghetto in northwestern Czechoslovakia as a so-called model Jewish settlement to counter rumors in the international community about the poor conditions in the ghettos. Flower gardens, cafés, and schools were constructed to demonstrate to visiting International Red Cross inspectors and audiences of Nazi propaganda films the humane conditions of a "typical" ghetto. Terezín also functioned as a transit camp for many who were later sent to Auschwitz or other death camps.
710794
I'm not sure, but for people like Andy, concentration camps were set up all across Europe, not only Germany. I do believe it is held in Germany, but it could be held anywhere in Europe at the same time.