What Was a Day in the Life of a Prisoner Like Essay Example for Free

What Was a Day in the Life of a Pris whizr handle EssayThe Holocaust, the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators, depicts a serial of sad events. One may ask how was each pris wizardr treated upon arrival? The horrors that come to foreland are endless, and the pain each pris one and only(a)r must have gone through is undeniably brutal. Men, women and children of ages that change were interpreted a agency from their homes, stripped of their be abundantings and separated from their loved ones. each(prenominal) prisoner was identified, not by their birth names, entirely by serial figure of speechs tattooed onto their bole.Each prisoners head was shaved. Each prisoner was given over clothes off of corpses. Each prisoner went through the unspeakable. Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, contributes a great deal to the horrifying event in history. Elie Wiesel, a fifteen year any (prenominal)time(a) boy at the time, endured first hand the tragedies that many early(a)wise(a) Jews, along with Gypsies, the disabled, Poles, Russians, communists, socialists, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals and others faced. In the afternoon, they do us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments.We were told to roll up our go forth sleeves and file past the table. The three veteran prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed itemizes on our go forth arms. I became A-7713. From hence(prenominal) on, I had no other name. (Wiesel 42) During the Holocaust, preoccupation camp prisoners received tattoos scarce at one location, the Auschwitz density camp complex. Tattooing was introduced at Auschwitz in the autumn of 1941. As thousands of Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) arrived at the camp, and thousands rapidly died there, the SS governing began to tattoo the prisoners for identification purposes.At Auschwitz II (Birkenau), the SS staff introduced the pra ctice of tattooing in March 1942 to keep up with the identification of large numbers of prisoners who arrived sickened, and died quickly. The numbering scheme was divided into regular, AU, Z, EH, A, and B series. The regular series consisted of a consecutive numerical series that was used, in the early phase of the Auschwitz concentration camp, to line Poles, Jews, and most other prisoners (all male). For many, the blurred blue lines of a serial number on a forearm are an unerasable image of the Holocaust.The tattoos of the survivors have come to symbolize the utter brutality and of the concentration camps and the attempt of the Nazis to dehumanize their victims. further those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers those prisoners move directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos. Initially, the SS authorities marked prisoners who were in the infirmary or who were to be executed with their camp serial number across the chest with indeli ble ink. As prisoners were executed or died in other ways, their habiliment appearance the camp serial number was removed.Given the mortality rate at the camp and practice of removing clothing, there was no way to identify the bodies after the clothing was removed. Hence, the SS authorities introduced the practice of tattooing in differentiate to identify the bodies of registered prisoners who had died. Originally, a special metal stamp, holding interchangeable numbers made up of needles approximately one centimeter long was used. This allowed the whole serial number to be punched at one blow onto the prisoners left upper chest. Ink was because rubbed into the bleeding wound.When the metal stamp method proved impractical, a single-needle whatchamacallit was introduced, which pierced the outlines of the serial-number digits onto the skin. The site of the tattoo was changed to the outer side of the left forearm. However, prisoners from several transports in 1943 had their numbers tattooed on the inner side of their left upper forearms. Tattooing was generally performed during registration when each prisoner was assigned a camp serial number. (Rosenthal) The tattoos given to each prisoner, not only inflicted pain, it took away their true identity.Instead of cosmos treated like human beings, they were treated like objects, each with their own serial numbers. My family was interpreted away, my clothings were taken away, my bundles were taken away, but I had one more precious thing taken away. We all take it for granted, our names. Our beautiful names. Nessa Yalperi. I became prisoner 54,015 in the concentration camp of Stutthof. (Female survivor A) along with the tattoos, antithetic color stars on their jackets identified them. Each star made them stand out amongst the other prisoners (see figure 1).Prisoners were equired to wear color-coded triangles on their jackets so that the guards and officers of the camps could easily identify each persons background and pit the different groups against each other. Political prisoners, such as Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists wore red triangles. Common criminals wore green. Roma (Gypsies) and others the Germans considered asocial or shiftless wore black triangles. Jehovahs Witnesses wore purple and homosexuals pink. Letters indicated nationality for example, P stood for Polish, SU for Soviet Union, and F for French. (Kahan)Not only were they tattooed, but they were shaved as well. The hair of the Jewish girls and ladies was shaved when they entered the camp. They were taken to the camp barber where all of their body hair, head to toe, was removed. The shaved parts were then rubbed by disinfectant. We were waiting for our numbers to be tattooed, and we stood in line. And of feast I was f reformened and I called for my mother, and I heard her voice in back of me, and by then her hair had been shaved, now all of her hair has been shaved, and I turned around and I looked for her and I co uldnt recognize her because she was without hair. Female survivor B) Their heads were shaved so that the Nazis would know if the Jews belonged in the camps.We no longer looked human, with our raddled bodies, sunken faces and shaved heads (Safran). The shaving of heads down to bare skin presented me with a problem since I had long hair in which was hidden He said himself that it would be a pity to do so because my hair was so pretty. As I found out later, they shaved heads not so a great deal to prevent infestation as to collect the hair and use it in brush production. I was given a strip of dirty cloth with which to hide my hair.The shaving of womens heads disfigured them terribly. (Lutostanska) The Nazis wanted the Jewish females to happen helpless and in a lower position, and they achieved this by buzzing off all of their hair. Not only were the prisoners in the Holocaust shaved and tattooed, they were beaten, and their possessions, such as their clothes, were taken away. As so on as we arrived in Shutoff, our little bundles were taken away from us. They told us put it away, youll come back and take it later. My group of women was taken into a very large room where we were told to strip completely naked.It was a very traumatizing experience for a child of 16 (Female survivor A). Uh, we stood in line there uh, a, a Jewish prisoner, he was I think from Germany who was there for a long time held a, a speech to usthere were a couple SS stand next to himthat anyone who has got any valuables, gold, silver, any kind of jewelry, this is the time to bring it out and give it up right now. He said uh, yesterday seventeen people have lost their lives from not handing in their valuables. If youve got it in your shoes or wherever you had it hidden uh, this is the time, youre last chance to give it up.A number of people stepped forward, gave up. Most of us didnt have anything. And uh, that started the life of Auschwitz. (Kahan) Each prisoner was forced to give up the b elongings they had on them, and the clothes on their backs. They were humiliated and dehumanized, forced to strip in front of one another. We were given clothes that were probably recycled, taken off of a corpse and just given to us. And then we were expected to die too, so then they would take the clothes and give it to someone else. In other words, the clothes were much more valuable than human beings (Female survivor B).The beloved objects that we had carried with us from get to place were now left behind in the wagon (Wiesel 29). Around five oclock in the morning, we were expelled from the barrack. The Kapos were beating us again, but I no longer felt the pain. We were naked, holding our shoes and belts. An order Run As we ran, they threw the clothes at us pants, jackets, shirts (Wiesel 36). The Nazis, standing around us, beating upon us, chasing us from one end of the room to the other (Female survivor A).Along with all of this, they were separated from their loved ones ( see figure 3). following thing, one man, the point of the thumb to the right, to the left. My brother was sent to the mens camp, my mom, who was at that time 46, she was sent to the left. I found myself at the age of 16 all alone (Female survivor B). Families were beaten and killed in the concentration camps. Prisoners in the concentration camps were treated with much disrespect. As Jewish families were sent to Nazi concentration camps and separated, the survival of small children was nearly non-existent.Most were sent straight to gas chambers or offer in front of ditches dug for mass graves. Older children survived by being forced into hard labor, and some children were selected for medical experiments, especially twins. Along with children, older men and women were mistreated. Women were raped and beaten by Nazis in the camps, and men were forced to work. The Holocaust, an event that displayed mass murder and mistreated prisoners, is remembered by horrifying stories of those who survived these tragic events.The German Nazis wanted to control, destroy and deliberately hurt Jews, along with Gypsies, homosexuals and the disabled. Also, Poles, Russians, communists, socialists, Jehovah Witnesses and others were victims of the Holocaust. In politics theres absolutely nothing new. Again, out of impatience I feel myself beginning to fall into melancholic There is really no way out of this for us (Sierakowiak). The lives of many people were destroyed because of the horrors they faced. The way they were treated was inhumane, and their individual experiences should never be forgotten.