Originally an Austrian artillery barracks, Auschwitz was to be supposed to be built at the intersection of the Sola River and the Vistula. Heinrich Himmler, commander of the Schutzstaffel (the Fuher's private guard), was to lead the building of the camp. Himmler placed SS major Rudolph Hoess in charge of the construction (Friedrich 5).

The first people who worked to build the camp of Auschwitz were thirty German criminals, brought there on May 20,1940, by an SS officer named Gerhard Pallitzsch (Friedrich 7). The town council of Oswiecim cooperated with Hoess's orders of rounding up, and enslaving over two hundred Jews to help work on the construction (Friedrich 7). Already, Hoess was receiving letters of when the camp would be ready to accept prisoners. Before he even had time to respond, the first trainload of

May 12 brought a turning point in the history of Auschwitz. The fifteen hundred Jews on the train from Sosnowiek that arrived that day were the first to go directly to the gas chambers. There was no selection on the ramp, and no wave to the right. Auschwitz finally became what it was originally planned to be: a Vermichtungslager- an extermination camp. The root word Vernichtung: "To make something into nothing. Total annihilation." (Friedrich 19-30).

You must deep breath in the chambers. That expands the lungs. . . ." The

Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of the European Jewry. New York: Oxford, 1990.

chambers filled. . . . People were standing on other's feet. . . . The SS forced as

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1773
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)