While the concentration camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz created by Nazi Germany during World War II had their similarities, it is through their differences in which one can truly learn the history of them and all involved. Three key differences provide an incredible insight into the details not so well known about concentration camps and provide incredible insight for any who seek to understand the Holocaust and how it was experienced.
To start things off rather bleakly, Treblinka was a concentration camp created solely for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill. This concentration camp had numerous ways in which they handled their incarcerated minorities, such as succumbing them to horrifying and inhumane methods of killing, including
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While each camp did contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths overall, each, the experiences Jewish people and all held within the camps underwent varied significantly between the two camps. While Auschwitz was considered to be an overall awful place to begin with, the concentration camp was not always bad. In lecture outline #10, the text quotes Primo Levi stating, “there were ‘good days.’” With this one quote, one can infer that Auschwitz, while still being a death factory, was not a horrible place all the time. These good days may very well have been part of the reason Auschwitz had “survivors. (TIR)” To contrast this, there were no good days for anyone within Treblinka. The concentration camp was a cruelk, torturous place to be held for nearly all if not all who were placed there. Advancing upon this, Treblinka is described in The Ignored Reality using one word, “hell.” Between the fact Treblinka had zero intentions but to kill and there being absolutely zero room for hope amongst prisoners, the experience at Treblinka was much, much worse than that of Auschwitz. These differing experiences of each concentration camp solidify the significance of learning the true details surrounding concentration camps and the Holocaust. Individuals within both camps did not undergo the exact same experience, thus it is through this difference in experience in which one can learn and embrace a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and the experiences of all