Everyone involved in the holocaust were individual human beings, including victims, perpetrators, bystanders and collaborators. Rudolf Hoess lived with his family at Auschwitz-Birkenau as an SS guard. His family described their time living there as a happy time. Despite the fact he killed people he was still human. Learning the stories of perpetrators, bystanders and collaborators helps us understand why and how the holocaust happened more thoroughly. For example, many women joined the SS as it was a chance to travel Europe as they could be stationed in places like Paris.

In Kitty Hart Moxons testimony, she said on her first night in the camp a gypsy read her palms telling her that she’d survive, the next day when Kitty woke up she found that this woman had passed during the night. Kitty survived for two years and then was liberated in 1945. Kitty also stated that in order to survive in a place like Auschwitz you had to “live like an animal” and make use of other peoples belongings when they no longer needed them. To survive Kitty and her mother worked together, she would often steal potatoes by hiding them in her clothes to later share with her mother. At one point Kitty’s mother worked in the hospital in the camp and would often drink the spare soup, but speculated that the Nazis were adding a “white powder” to the soups which would make the prisoners ill. Kitty worked in several parts of the camp, yet she found working in the Schiess Kommando was an advantage as it meant she has access to the toilets. Prisoners were only allowed two toilet breaks a day, but the toilets were concrete holes over a ditch which multiple people would use at once. Kitty also worked at Kanada, which was where all the belongings of the prisoners were assorted. She would smile he food like meat from Kanada and share with several girls in her barrack. In addition to this, Kitty said in her testimony that mutual support was essential in the camps to survive, women would form small families to help one another. Rumours began in August 1944 that Auschwitz was being evacuated, Kitty’s mother was selected as one of the several hundred prisoners to be removed from the camp. Her mother saw the commandant and deferentially requested that her daughter, Kitty, he allowed to leave the lamp with her to which the commandant obliged. This small act kept Kitty and her mother together, the last two remaining from their family. In November 1944 Kitty was taken along side several hindered prisoners to Gross-Rosen concentration camp. They were later forced on death marches across the Sudeten Mountains and were then shipped across Europe to Porta Westfalica in northwest Germany. However, only 200 of the original 10,000 prisoners survived the journey including Kitty and her mother. Eventually, Kitty and her mother were both sent to Bergen-Belsen, at which point they were abandoned in a locked train and left to die. Shortly afterwards, they were released by a group of German soldiers and were transported to a camp near Salzewedel. On Saturday 14th April 1945 Salzwedel was liberated by the American army.

The book of names is a memorial in Auschwitz-Birkenau which consists of 4.2 million names of the jewish people who were murdered during the holocaust. 1.1 million individuals were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau itself. However, over 2 million names are missing, as they have been lost due to whole families, towns and cities being killed during the holocaust. Whole communities were destroyed resulting in 2 million identities being lost. It is vitally important that we re-humanise the victims of the holocaust as simply seeing the Jewish people as victims makes us blind sighted to the torture to their human souls and dignity. This makes us forget the mental hardships of having no water, food, hair, individuality, privacy and comfort that they went through. It further makes us forget the prejudice they experienced years before the holocaust began.

Before being transported to the labour and death camps many Jews across Europe were living in ghettos. In the Warsaw ghetto alone over 400,000 Jews were crammed into an area covering a few square miles. The conditions in these ghettos were inhumane, about 450,000 jews died in the Polish ghettoes from malnutrition, ill-treatment and related diseases. However, armed jewish resistant developed in the ghettos. The largest uprising occurred in the Warsaw ghetto in April-May 1943 when a few hundred young fighters held the Germans at bay for weeks. Jewish partisans fought throughout Poland and Russia wherever the conditions were favourable. For example, Tuvia Bielski and his brothers from Novogrudek led a remarkable partisan group in the Nalibocki Forest where they created a family camp.

Anna Glinberg was a three year old Jewish girl killed during the massacre at Babi Yar, September 1941. Babi Yar is a ravine outside Kiev, Ukraine, where 33771 Jews were murdered in two days of shootings.

Towards the end of the second world war, Nazi leadership tried to destroy all evidence of these labour and death camps. All four of the Crematoriums at Birkenau were destroyed before the Soviets liberated the camp on January 27th 1945. The gas chambers were dismantled and destroyed over the winter of 1944-45. The men of the Sonderkommando were forced to assist in the mass killings of other prisoners, they were deemed fit enough to help the Nazis process the new arrivals- taking them from the trains, giving them false reassurance and leading them into the gas chambers and then disposing of the mountains of corpses. Some of whine where their family and friends. On October 7th 1944 the Sonderkommando launched a violent uprising and attempted an escape in Crematoria four, lighting it on fire. 200 members attempted to escape in the surrounding area. A group was formed in Autumn 1943 to begin plotting the revolt, they collected items like flammable liquids, small axes and knives. This group collaborated with female prisoners who delivered gun powder to make grenades, smuggling it from the factories using ingenuous techniques. For example, they would hide tony sashays of powder in the false bottoms of food trays or in corpses on their way to the crematorium. The revolt started when the SS members were choosing individuals from the Sonderkommando to send to the gas chamber, a member attacked the guard with a hammer when his number was called out. The revolt began, some prisoners cut through the barbed wire to escape into the surrounding woods however the SS guards opened fire with machine guns. The revolt was brief killing 3 SS guards and injuring a dozen other. Out of 699 prisoners involved, 450 were killed. Though this attempt failed it proved the prisoners were resilient enough to stand up to the prejudice regimes of the Nazis

Many jewish people within the camps relied on spiritual resistance. Throughout the camp women discussed traditional recipes passed down by their ancestors. By sharing this, these women shared where they were from, their tradition and other aspects of their diverse culture. Five cookbooks were written in different camps, their resilience was a form of sharing something they all had in common, nourishment. Though the prisoners in these camps were fed less than 600 calories a day, food rations would be traded to use prayer books which had been smuggled in. This was extremely dangerous as being caught with these prayer books would’ve been punishable by death, nonetheless by continuing their faith in their religion this gave them the strength to continue living despite their circumstances. In December 1944, a plumber snuck into the women’s barracks and gave them two small candles for Hanukkah with two matches and candies. Hanukkah is the festival of lights celebrated by jewish people which celebrates a miracle that happened in Jerusalem over 2000 years ago. This small act of kindness would’ve gave these women restoration in their hope. These acts of resilience were so important to prisoners such as Primo Levi, as even though they were being dehumanised by cynical acts, their faith and religion would never risk them. By reciting prayers, songs and recipes they were ensuring that their traditions would survive, even if they didn’t. By continuing their faith this gave them the inner resolve to continue to survive.

Transportation to the camps was just as cruel as the camp itself, despite the harsh conditions many jews were forced to pay for their own tickets for trains and ships. The SS formed deals with Albert Genzenmuller- the man responsible for the railway system across Nazi occupied Europe, when more than 400 people were going to be on board train tickets would become half price. This prompted the Nazis to constantly aim for over 400 people on one train no matter the size in order to make financial savings. The first transportation of jews to Birkenau arrived from Slovakia on March 26th 1942.

On June 14th 1944 1800 jews were deported from the island of Corfu to Auschwitz with the journey lasting nine days, this demonstrates how determined the Nazis were to erase all jews from Europe. However large trips like this resulted in large numbers of civil liam workers from every country across Europe to be involved with the transportation of jewish people. These people were profiteers, nobody- military or civilian- was forced to participate in the holocaust. This misconception that people across Europe were forced to partake in the holocaust has allied their forgiveness, to humanise the holocaust we much also truthfully tell their parts of the events

What not many people know is that Auschwitz-Birkenau, the biggest concentration camp, was a camp designed and built to house polish ‘political’ prisoners and soviet prisoners of war. The first people to enter the camp were Polish prisoners of war on June 14th 1940. However, mass killings of jews in the soviet untuck took place in the summer of 1941, and by the end of the year Nazi leadership decided on the ‘final solution’ - the plan to murder every single jew across Europe. It’s unclear if the mass murder of jews in the soviet union promoted the nazis to also do the same, nonetheless the holocaust has begun. Within Auschwitz-Birkenau SS members would choose one out of every ten jews to work forced labour, who would only survive six weeks to three months due to the harsh and inhumane conditions. The nine out of ten people were sent straight to the gas chambers. What i found deeply moving was that on their way to the gas chambers they would sing prayers. For example, they would sign the tenenths of faith, a declaration that this wasn’t the end for them, as their ancestors did when facing oppression over the centuries.

The holocaust was the murder of approximately six million jewish men, women and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the second world war. To further understand how the holocaust took place we must know what was occurring in Nazi Germany beforehand. A series of anti-jewish laws began in 1933, declaring jewish people as a separate race, subhuman from the german aryan race. However, anti-semitism can be further traced back to the medical ages. Therefore, anti-semitism was already deeply rooted within European society allowing for the holociast to take place in 1941

“Whoever listens to a witness, becomes a witness.”-Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor. After attending lessons with the Holocaust Educational trust and listening to the emotional and eye opening testimony of Kitty Hart Moxon I felt compelled to further share her story and many others