Kameron Marlow

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
UWRT 1102-003
September 21, 2015

Weekly Writing 3
Through an abundance of research, I have been pleased, satisfied, and upset at
times. I have learned much about how horribly the victims were treated in the Holocaust,
namely, concentration camps. I have found many articles that have done a good job of
going straight over my head until I found one on the Jewish virtual library. The title is
Auschwitz-Birkenau: Living Conditions, Labor & Executions. The source for this article
is The State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The point of this essay is to shed light to those who were treated so terribly in the
concentration camps and explain the severity of the suffering they went through. I believe
the writer is interested in giving details on the history of concentration camp layout. The
writer wants to describe and give a picture to the reader regarding the wall structure, bunk
bed living, and the floors. More than 700 people were assigned to the barrack. The
buildings were built very fast which resulted in poor insulation and was very cold.
It is hard for me to answer the of, how do I react to this article? The thought I
cant get out of my head is how all these victims were mistreated so badly. No one
deserves to live in an area that the roof leaks or they do not have proper cover and get
cold sores all over their bodies. The stalls the prisoners stayed in were initially designed
to hold horses. Not to mention the lack of food the prisoners were given each day. For a

physically demanding camp, the people were consuming around 1700 calories per day.
Others who were not exposed to that type of work received around 1300 calories per day.
That is not a sufficient amount of food for someone; especially one that is doing
strenuous labor.
I think this article is very interesting for two reasons. First, it gives more vivid
detail of the camps. The average person truly does not know what the living conditions
were like for those prisoners in the Holocaust. They do not know that many times
multiple people stayed in the same bunk, or others slept in horse stalls. They dont know
that the ceilings leaked and made it murky and damp a lot of the times. Second, it is
interesting to understand the severity of how the Jews, gypsies, and others were
suppressed. It makes me sick to think about how a people group could be treated so
poorly. No one deserves to live like that, and thankfully, they were rescued.
I would like this article to include information about why Hitler did it. What were
his intentions making a type of people, people group, the superior race in the world. He
did not even match that description. He had to have underlying thoughts to hurt and make
those peoples lives miserable and ultimately take their life however he could. I do not
know what I would do if I was in those innocent civilians situation. If you fight the
government, you get killed. If you do not fight and let them take you to the camps, you
still get killed. This seems in a lot of ways, a lose-lose situation to me.
This article connects to my topic in the face that I want to write about the women
and children in the camps. I am unsure what exactly I want to write about but I do know
that this article is beneficial because I got information in regards to my topic that I

wouldnt get otherwise. I am glad that we are able to use good resources that help us in
our research to contain better information.