|
|
| Sighet: Weisel's hometown |
|
| Entry to Auschwitz |
Weisel grew up in Sighet and was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. After being deported
to Buchenwald in 1945, his father died. If I was in Elie's situation, I would have probably gone insane.
Hardly anyone today knows the kind of suffering that he and many other Jews went through. However, Weisel was able to
find the mental strength to survive. If somehow I would have survived the intense workload, I probably would have
died from the harsh conditions and diseases being passed around.
The Nazi camp system began as a system of repression against political opponents of the
Nazi state. At first, the Nazis imprisoned mostly Communists and Socialists. In about 1935, they also began to imprison those that they
designated as racially inferior, especially Jews. During World War II, the organization and scale of the Nazi camp system grew quickly and the purpose of the camps
evolved beyond imprisonment toward forced labor and murder. People arrested for resisting German rule were mostly sent to forced-labor or concentration
camps. Within three years the number of prisoners quadrupled, from about 25,000 before the war to about 100,000 in March 1942. The camp population came to include prisoners from almost every European nation.
|
| Buchenwald slave laborers- Weisel is 2nd row, 7th from the left |
|
