Death in the Concentration Camps

"As the bodies were being pulled out of one of the gas chambers, one member of the Sonderkommando suddenly stopped and stood for a moment as if thunderstruck. He then pulled the body along, helping his comrades. I asked the Kapo what was wrong with him. He found out that the startled Jew had discovered his own wife among the bodies."

~ SS Kommandant Rudolf Hoss of Auschwitz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bodies piled outside Buchenwald

Most of the Jews who were sent to the death camps died in the Gas Chambers. Children, the elderly, the sickly, and most women were gassed upon arrival. It is estimated that between 1.3 and 1.5 million people were murdered in the Gas Chambers of Auschwitz (90% of whom were Jews).

"I knew...that within a couple of hours after they arrived there ninety percent would be gassed."

~ Rudolph Vrba (Escapee from Auschwitz)

However, this was not the only fate which awaited the victims of the Holocaust. Many Jews, exspecially Children, were Experimented on in the concentration camps. Nazi Physicians performed many horrible Experiemenations on their hostages...many died terribly painful deaths. Those who survived the experiments and were later liberated suffered from illness (some died later in life because of chemicals that had been injected into them) and fear (especially of doctors and hospitals) for the rest of their lives. 

(above left) Former prisoner demonstrates how SS officers tortured those in Dachau (above right) Table used for flogging at Dachau

Still others were beaten, shot, starved, or suffered from illness. During the winters of 1942 and 1943 Typhoid fever spread throughout Dachau concentration camp, killing 25% of the prisoners. (Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945 at the age of 15 from Typhus, a disease she contracted in the barracks). Often those who were extremely sick were gassed.

Click Here to read about the hospitals at Auschwitz concentration camp

(above left) Crematoria (above right) Survivors demonstrate how bodies were dragged to the cremetoria

The bodies of those who died in the concentration camps were usually burned in the crematoria. During the summer of 1944, Auschwitz began killing over 8,000 Jews per day, an amount too great for the crematoria to facilitate. So the bodies were burned en mass outside or thrown into mass graves. As the Allied troops moved closer and closer during the end of World War II, many concentration camp Kommandants panicked. In some cases, the population of the entire concentration camp was killed. In other cases, all the able bodied prisoners were sent on Death Marches. The sick who were left behind were either killed or left to die. In their final days the concentration camps were strewn with bodies which had been neither burned nor buried.

Learn More:

Hear an Eye-whitness account of the Death Marches 

Learn more about the Death Marches 

Return to the Concentration Camps home page or continue on and read about The Men Who Ran the Concentration Camps