Daily Life in The Holocaust Brad Schuyler “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice.” This was said by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and it shows how victims of the Holocaust suffered more than anyone should ever be put to, putting daily life in an unlivable state. For example, the people forced into hiding had to change their whole lives just to stay alive. Also, the concentration camps that these poor people had to attend to was the most horrific display of torture one person has done to another. Not to mention the Ghettos, which had revolting living conditions. Day to day life was changed dramatically during these harsh times, and people had to adjust to extreme conditions just to attempt to survival.
The undesirables in hiding were very limited and had a very unfortunate living. Because the places people hid were varied, some people had more freedom than others, but all in all, the majority of people could not move at all for days at a time. There was no sunlight, barely an education for children and little possession. And because people couldn't get out of their hiding places to get food, water or other basic necessities humans need to live, people had very little of it. No water lead to no bathing nor washing clothes, then leading to diseases and lice. Not to mention that if someone in hiding got a disease, they could not get to a doctor, or if someone died, get rid of the body. Even in one interview, Selma Golstein, a survivor who was in hiding during the Holocaust, talks about her dad dieing while in hiding and what they did to get him buried (Rosenburg 1). “The problem was to get him out of the house... So my father was sewn into a bed and the neighbors were told the bed had to be cleaned. The bed was carried out of the house with my father in it. Then it was brought to a country estate out of town where a good policeman stood guard while my father was buried.” This quote shows how is someone died while in hiding, it was difficult it was difficult just to get that person without being seen.
Another form of hiding other than physically hiding was for people to hide their identities. A family would change their names and literally... their identities. Parents did everything humanly possible to protect their family. Some children did not even know they were Jewish. The majority of people who changed identities were women. This is because it was necessary for Jewish men to have an uncircumcised penis, which gave it away that they were Jewish. As a solution, sons were dressed up as girls. But this was not the only problem overall for children. Children had limited toys to play with, and things like that are crucial in a child's development. Children also had to mature faster in this time period. A saying people used to say about children was, “Old people with children's faces, without a trace of joy, happiness, or child's innocence.” Hiding limited everyone's development and daily life harshly.
Daily life at the concentration camps was also unimaginable and unfit for human survival. To get to a camp, victims of Hitler's reign were shoved into freight trains, caged for days with little food or water. Conditions varied, but it always, at best, very unsanitary. A reason for that might be that the only bathroom on a train car fill with more or less a dozen people, was a single bucket. Many died before getting to the concentration camps. But when arriving there, the schedule got worse.
At the camps, the undesirables' living quarters were no bigger than a bed, but looked like stacked bunk beds. They were made of wither wood or brick and the only beds offered were straw plagued with diseases like Typhus. To top that off, if the prisoners wanted food but didn't do labor, they only got a maximum of 1,300 calories and for a prisoner who did do labor, they only received 1,700 calories. The minimum amount of calories a person is supposed to have is 1,800 per day, so these conditions caused starvation. At minimum, people had to spend ten hours a day working. And the guards would abuse and torture if the work wasn't up to their standards. For example, if a person feinted, the guards would beat them until they got up, or died.
When the war would break out, the Germans made the plan: The Final Solution. This plan was for all the European Jews to be exterminated. That was when the Nazis began to really use the gas chambers to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. In the camp Auchwitz, there were four gas chambers, and 6,000 Jews were killed their each day. Experiments were also common, such as a pregnant woman being cut open and having her child removed, months before its due date, just to see if it would survive. Daily life at the camps undesirables were forced to be sent to is now the home of 12 million innocent Jews.
The definition of the word ghetto is as follows; a part of a city, especially a slum area occupied by a minority group or group. This definition would have to be extremely exaggerated to define the ghettos during the Holocaust. In these ghettos, it was amazingly unsanitary, and diseases and death were very common. There was a very limited amount of food, water and other basic necessities humans need to survive, and because of this, many smugglers stole to barely live. German soldiers beat many people, and even killed people publicly. There was no electricity or plumbing, so feces and urine was literally thrown into the streets. To escape the horrid place, one of the most common ways of death was suicide.
The children living in the ghetto faced many issues which children should never face. Children were usually orphaned because their families couldn't take care of them. They could often be found begging for food on street corners. And the Winter was extremely tough for this abandoned youth, for they couldn't survive it and would freeze to death. But on a strong note, many still went to secret meetings arranged by adults for them to try and get educations. Also, toys were limited, so kids were usually better off making toys themselves.
All in all, day to day life was changed dramatically during these harsh times, and people had to adjust to extreme conditions just to attempt to survival. The undesirables forced into hiding, whether it be physical or identity, had their routine schedules take a turn for the worst. Also, the camps that these poor people had to live through was horrific display of torture one person has done to another. Not to mention the ghettos, which were guaranteed to have miserable and unsanitary living conditions. As Gerda Weissman, a survivor of the Holocaust, stated, “When you go to your home, look at what not is missing, but what is there.” Every human has the urge to take its life for granted. The human being takes their daily life as if they deserve better, but when day to day life becomes hell, normal life is someone's fantasy.
This photo shows a hiding place that an undesirable would hide in during the Holocaust.
This Picture shows Jewish prisoners, wearing rags and being starved while in a a camp.
This picture shows two abandoned children in a ghetto.