Hol·o·caust - Destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war; a Jewish sacrificial offering that was burned completely on an altar.

In total, more than 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler's final solution, about 5.5 million from the Soviet Union and Poland alone. However, another 11 million were slaughtered alongside, from disabled people, to homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, prisoners of war, Serbians, Polish and Soviet civilians, and Romani. In total, around 17 million people were killed (Buchholz).

The concentration camps and work camps were the primary assassins. These 24 massive camps were designed for a single purpose: the systematic elimination of its people. The survival rate of a concentration camp was 1 in 28, or ~3.5% (Frankl 118). The worst of them, Auschwitz, killed at least 1.1 million of its 1.3 million prisoners (Frost). People died not only from the gas chambers, but from burning, abuse, starvation, disease, and the frigged cold. These images are brutally describes in Wiesel's Night, Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and just about any other narrative you will find on this page. 

Cattle cars (like these) were often used to transport the prisoners from one camp to another where they were trapped for days without food, water, or even air. Wiesel describes 100 people pushed into one, only for 12 to leave the car at the end of the journey (dying from the cold and fights for bread). Borowski, in This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, describes cleaning out these cars with "human excrement" and "trampled infants" as small children died from trampling and suffocation. 

Once at the camps, any people that could not work were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Those who were chosen for work were given minimal food and required to perform difficult work with high mortality rates. Frankl describes 10 oz of bread and a pint of thin, watery soup a day on the best of days, while Zhana Dawson describes 2-5.25oz of daily bread given to the Jews in their Ukrainian ghetto in Hiding in the Spotlight. 

Work, for camps similar to Dachau, included building railways for the Nazi army, digging mass graves for themselves or their fellow Jews, building sewage lines, creating ammunition, etc. (Frankl). Weather conditions and illness were usually not considered, so there were many cases were workers completed this work in literal snow storms for fear of execution or gas. Those that were unable to work either gave up and died (stopped eating or moving) or were sent to the gas chambers. Survivors stayed in a perpetual state of near-death and constant starvation.

Besides the camps, the Nazi's were especially effective in conducting mass executions. Ukraine, in particular, was hit hard by these murderous rampages. Babi Yar's death toll of 33,771 Jews in just 2 days stands as testament to the brutal consequence and scale of these executions. Only 29 Jews survived that execution (~0.0009% change of survival) with another 100,000-150,000 Jews, prisoners, and other civilians executed the following weeks (link for more). This was the second largest massacre, second to the "Harvest Festival" massacre 2 years later.

This page is, consequently, dedicated to material that showcases the worst of humanity and, in some respects, the best who have endured these inconceivable atrocities. Wiesel's Night, the central text for this unit, acts as the thematic omphalos for this unit. All other texts, poetry, and art will be understood in its relation to Night.

Written by Pavel Tretyak, April 25, 2021