Irene Fogel Weiss Essay

Irene Fogel Weiss is a survivor of the holocaust. She says, “Thinking you were going to take a shower when in fact you were going to the gas chambers - that was the ultimate deceit.” Weiss was lucky in many ways. When her group was being distributed to either the gas chambers or slave labor, she was mistaken as an older girls. She claims, “This was the first chance I had to survive.” Weiss experienced many horrific things, but luckily, she found her two aunts when she was sent to Auschwitz Birkenau. She was later sent on the death walk when Soviets came to liberate the camps. She saw many deaths, even the death of her aunt. In the end her and her sister escaped; she went to school and became a teacher. After escaping she found out that only approximately ten people from her town survived - only two were children. She was very lucky to be alive (Connolly, Kate). Auschwitz was a cruel camp operating during World War II; this camp took the lives of many people of many different races. This horrific camp took lives in many ways, such as gas chambers, mass shootings, beatings,

It was in the center of many polish cities, therefore it was a golden place to ship prisoners to and from. Auschwitz was 15.44 square miles(“Auschwitz”). The goal was to “intimidate Poles and prevent resistance to German rule.” On April 27, 1940 Himmler ordered construction of Auschwitz (“Auschwitz-Birkenau - ‘The Death Factory’”). The camp had a total of twenty eight buildings that they divided into three sectors (“Auschwitz: The Camp of Death”). Auschwitz’s three main camps were Auschwitz I created in April 1940, Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) created in October 1941, Auschwitz III (Auschwitz-Monowitz) also created in October 1941(“Auschwitz”). Each camp contained huge pits they used as mass graves. These grave held approximately 107,000 stacked bodies(“Auschwitz: The Camp of