by Sara Bernardo

Created on: October 01, 2008

Gender in Auschwitz: A Comparative Analysis of Male and Female

Gender in Auschwitz: A Comparative Analysis of Male and Female Survivor Testimony.

The Jewish population of Europe in the 1930's was one living through and age of trepidation, frustration and fear. State sponsored anti-Semitism and vicious pogroms in nations such as Germany, Poland and Russia convinced thousands of Jewish families to flee, leaving them with the option of immigrating to areas such as the United States, Canada, South America and parts of Western Europe. Those who were unable or unwilling to flee soon found themselves being herded into ghettos. The Nazi Empire under the direction of Adolf Hitler began its forced ghettoization' of Jews in the late 1930's, concentrating the Jewish population of Germany, Poland and many other nations into small urban areas. Forced to live in tiny, cramped apartments after having much of their belongings stolen or forcibly sold to Germans at embarrassingly low prices, individuals living in ghettos were stripped of their comfort, pride, and possessions.

Ghettos were originally to serve as holding centers for prisoners who were to be deported into various areas of German-occupied territory as a way to rid Germany of their influence. Efforts to deport Jews to the far eastern pocket of Poland after the Anschluss failed miserably as moving, living and sanitary conditions for the deportees were deplorable, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Jews before they even reached their destinations.1
The idea of evacuation was abandoned after failed attempts to set up Jewish colonies in Africa and elsewhere, and the "KZ" (konzentrationslager) system was instead relied upon as a method of taking care of the pressing "Jewish problem." Despite their impoverished lifestyles and daily toils within the ghettos, life was easy in comparison to the unimaginable fate awaiting them in Auschwitz.
Auschwitz, the notorious death camp envisioned and created by the Third Reich's most prominent members, was not originally slated to become the mechanized factory of execution it would evolve into. In 1940, barely a year after the beginning of WWII, the camp itself was just beginning construction. A handful of German criminals deported to Auschwitz from the Sacshenhausen labor camp would be both its builders and first set of Kapos.2
Shortly after the beginning of its construction, some 20,000 Polish Jews were sent to aid in the labor effort. By 1942, more than half of these men were dead.

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