Slavery Is Worse Than The Holocaust

I also warn users of what may be deemed graphic content in my post regarding a most tragic topic. Argument l Atrocities Committed by the NazisThe actual number of Jews who lost their lives during the Holocaust was actually 5,962,129, note that this was from a population of 9,508,340, which means that 63% of Jews who lived in that portion of Europe under Nazi control lost their lives. [1] The mere extermination is not the only reason that the Holocaust has been remembered as one of the worst events, if not the worst event in human history. Slave LaborNot unlike the slavery found in America, but even worse was slavery in Nazi Germany. "By the end of September 1944, some seven and a half million civilian foreigners were toiling for the Third Reich. Nearly all of them had been rounded up by force, deported to Germany in boxcars, usually without food or water or any sanitary facilities, and there put to work in factories, fields and mines. They were not only put to work but degraded, beaten and starved and often left to die for lack of food, clothing and shelter. "[2]These numbers are increased by two million if you take into account the prisoners of war that were forced into slavery, even creating the ammunitions and weapons that would be used by the Germans to kill their fellow countrymen. Children were also not spared, and in an operation called "Hay Action," top Nazi officials orchestrated the kidnapping of tens of thousands of children from the Eastern Front to be transported back to the Reich to be used as slave labor, in addition to deprive the Russians of their "biological potentialities. "[3]Once these people were transported, they also had to endure hellish conditions on the train. Here is an account from Dr. Gutkelch which describes the conditions of the trains. "Because of the corpses in the trainload of returning laborers a catastrophe might have occurred. .. In this train women gave birth to babies who were thrown out of the windows during the journey. Persons having tuberculosis and venereal diseases rode in the same car. Dying people lay in freight cars without straw, and one of the dead was thrown on the railways embankment. The same must have occurred in other returning transports. "[4]The conditions of the camps for many of the workers especially on the Eastern front were especially harsh. This is yet another account of the horrific circumstances these people had to deal with. "Its inhabitants were kept for nearly half a year in dog kennels, urinals and in old baking houses. The dog kennels were three feet high, nine feet long, six feet wide. Five men slept in each of them. The prisoners had to crawl into these kennels on all fours. .. There was no water in the camp. "[5]ExperimentationDuring the regime of the Third Reich they perfomed many "scientific" experiments which have now been known as the worst experimentation ever carried out on human beings. Here is an example from a Dr. Rascher who perfomed high altitude tests on humans. "The third test was without oxygen at the equivalent of 29,400 feet altitude conducted on a 37-year-old Jew in good general condition. Respiration continued for 30 minutes. After four minutes the test person began to perspire and roll his head. After five minutes spasms appeared; between the sixth and tenth minute respiration increased in frequency, the TP losing consciousness. From the eleventh to the thirtieth minute respiration slowed down to three inhalations per minute, only to cease entirely at the end of that period. .. About half an hour after breathing had ceased the autopsy was begun. "[6]This is a less scientific explanation of what would happen from an Austrian inmate Anton Pacholegg. "I have personally seen through the observation window of the decompression chamber when a prisoner inside would stand in a vacuum until his lungs ruptured. .. They would go mad and pull out their hair in an effort to relieve the pressure. They would tear their heads and face with their fingers and nails in an attempt to maim themselves in their madness. They would beat the walls with their hands and head and scream in an effort to relieve pressure on their eardrums. These cases usually ended in the death of the subject. "[7]Other experiments included tests on how men might try to survive bitterly cold conditions. Walter Neff, a camp inmate retells an example of a test performed on Russian Officers. "It was the worst experiment ever made. Two Russian officers were brought from the prison barracks. Rascher had them stripped and they had to go into the vat naked. Hour after hour went by, and whereas usually unconscious from the cold set in after sixty minutes at the latest, the two men in this case still responded fully after two and a half hours. All appeals to Rascher to put them to sleep by injection were fruitless. About the third hour one of the Russians said to the other, 'Comrade, please tell the officer to shoot us. ' The other replied that he expected no mercy from this Fascist dog. The two shook hand with a 'Farewell, Comrade'. .. These words were translated to Rascher by a young Pole, though in a somewhat different form. Rascher went to his office. The young Pole at once tried to chlorofom the two victims, but Rascher came back at once, threatening us with his gun. .. The test lasted at least five hours before death supervened. "[8]ExterminationsIn keeping with my arguments built off of accounts from the period, here are the words of Rudolf Hoess who was one of the Commanders at Auswitz in his honing in on the best way to exterminate mass amounts of people. "Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated, while at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course the fould and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communites knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz. "[9]Jews and Gentiles alike were being exterminated at the hands of the Nazis, all those taken to these death camps who could not work, which included children, were sent immediately to these gas chambers which then had elevators that expedited the bodies to the furnaces. Concluding StatementsThe tragedy of the Holocaust can never be understated, nor fully understood. While it is I believe it not to be the best idea to compare slavery in America with the Holocaust, there is nothing I believe that can top the Holocaust in it's utter cruelty towards mankind. Such events should stop us in our tracks and give us pause, so that the true victory of debates like this would be to inspire our fellow members of the human race to never let slavery or genocide happen again. Kind Regards,TrueScotsmanP. S. I used the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich mostly because it is perhaps the most scholarly writing on the matter, drawing primarily from primary sources. [1] . http://www.statisticbrain.com...[2] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 851[3] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 852[4] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 853[5] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 854[6] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 886[7] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 886[8] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 888[9] Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer pg. 871