I present the following entries from Wikipedia with very little comment or analysis. I did not include the section of Wikipedia where it was noted that the Nazis tested their efficient killing gas on residents of a mental institution before they went on to efficiently kill more than 2 million Jews in extermination camps. Four million others were killed in concentration camps. (mostly Jews, but also, "sexual deviants", resisters, the disabled, and the mentally ill).
If there are inaccuracies in these quoted excerpts from Wikipedia, please let Wikipedia know. There is certainly a great deal of hacking and last minute attempts to sanitize great evil on many websites and by many of the people paid to lie for corporations.
To people who work for regular media, for social media, for television, and anything that claims to be journalism, you will have to live with yourselves for what you have allowed to happen in this country over the last seven years, over the last twenty years. If we had real justice in this country, many of you would go to prison for the lies you willingly spread for the media companies that own you. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we are a flawed democracy, we are not the better democracy that we can be, and you will go on to say vapid words of no real consequence while babies, children, adults are terrorized, arrested, evicted, demonized, and shot by people who should never have access to guns.
I usually try to stay online to read and respond to comments, but I am tired, and disabled, physically unfit, (but not mentally unfit). I'd really rather use my energy on more important things than reading the comments of vile, racist people. I commend the Daily Kos Staff for wading through the trolls, devil's advocates, genuinely curious comments, and the genuinely stupid comments that people post on this site.
Finally, to the many people who worked so hard over the last six years mobilizing voters, making calls, writing letters and postcards, knocking on doors, and then going to vote: thank you. Thank you for saving our democracy.
From Wikipedia:
Main subject entry : Nazi concentration camps
Subsection: Institutionalization (1934–1937)
"In early 1934, the number of prisoners was still falling and it was uncertain if the system would continue to exist. By mid-1935, there were only five camps, holding 4,000 prisoners, and 13 employees at the central IKL office. At the same time, 100,000 people were imprisoned in German jails, a quarter of those for political offenses."
"Believing Nazi Germany to be imperiled by internal enemies, Himmler called for a war against the "organized elements of sub-humanity", including communists, socialists, Jews, Freemasons, and criminals."
Subsection: Rapid expansion (1937–1939)
"By the end of June 1938, the prisoner population had expanded threefold in the previous six months, to 24,000 prisoners. The increase was fueled by arrests of those considered habitual criminals or asocials.[23] According to SS chief Heinrich Himmler, the "criminal" prisoners at concentration camps needed to be isolated from society because they had committed offenses of a sexual or violent nature. In fact, most of the criminal prisoners were working-class men who had resorted to petty theft to support their families.[24] Nazi raids of perceived asocials, including the arrest of 10,000 people in June 1938,[25] targeted homeless people and the mentally ill, as well as the unemployed.[26] Although the Nazis had previously targeted social outsiders, the influx of new prisoners meant that political prisoners became a minority.[25]"
Subsection: Public Perception
"Arrests of Germans in 1933 were often accompanied by public humiliation or beatings. If released, prisoners might return home with visible marks of abuse or psychological breakdown. Using a "dual strategy of publicity and secrecy", the regime directed terror both at the direct victim as well as the entire society in order to eliminate its opponents and deter resistance.[77] Beginning in March 1933, detailed reports on camp conditions were published in the press.[78] Nazi propaganda demonized the prisoners as race traitors, sexual degenerates, and criminals and presented the camps as sites of re-education.[79][78] After 1933, reports in the press were scarce but larger numbers of people were arrested and people who interacted with the camps, such as those who registered deaths, could make conclusions about the camp conditions and discuss with acquaintances.[80]"
Subsection: World War II
"In April 1941, the high command of the SS ordered the murder of ill and exhausted prisoners who could no longer work (especially those deemed racially inferior). Victims were selected by camp personnel or traveling doctors, and were removed from the camps to be murdered in euthanasia centers. By April 1942, when the operation finished, at least 6,000 and as many as 20,000 people had been killed[36][37]—the first act of systematic killing in the camp system.[38] Beginning in August 1941, selected Soviet prisoners of war were killed within the concentration camps, usually within a few days of their arrival. By mid-1942, when the operation finished, at least 34,000 Soviet prisoners had been murdered. At Auschwitz, the SS used Zyklon B to kill Soviet prisoners in improvised gas chambers.[39][36]"
Subsection: Organization
"Most of the camp SS leadership was middle-class and came from the war youth generation [de], who were hard-hit by the economic crisis and feared decline in status. Most had joined the Nazi movement by September 1931 and were offered full-time employment in 1933.[56] SS leaders typically lived with their wives and children near the camps where they worked, often engaging prisoners for domestic labor.[57] Perpetration by this leadership was based on their tight social bonds, a perceived common sense that the aims of the system were good, as well as the opportunity for material gain.[58]"
From Wikipedia
Main Subject Entry: Extermination Camps
Subsection : History
"For political and logistical reasons, the most infamous Nazi German killing factories were built in occupied Poland, where most of the intended victims lived; Poland had the greatest Jewish population in Nazi-controlled Europe.[38] On top of that, the new death camps outside of Germany's prewar borders could be kept secret from the German civil populace.[39]"
Subsection: Gassings
"SS Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS, told a Swedish diplomat during the war, about life in a death camp. He recounted that on 19 August 1942, he arrived at Bełżec extermination camp (which was equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers) and was shown the unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead. The rest were marched naked to the gas chambers, where:"
Unterscharführer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel [engine] did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, "like in the synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian (Trawniki) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes – the stopwatch recorded it all – the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons, in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ... Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See, for yourself, the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day – dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!"
"A prisoner unit Sonderkommando (Special Detachment) assisted in the process of extermination; they encouraged the Jews to undress without a hint of what was about to happen. They accompanied them into the gas chambers outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles, and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before the chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the door until the end. The Sonderkommando talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing.[53]
To further persuade the prisoners that nothing harmful was happening, the Sonderkommando deceived them with small talk about friends or relations who had arrived in earlier transports. Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that the delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the Sonderkommando comforted older children who might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion".[54]
Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such psychological tactics; Commandant Höss spoke of Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless ... [they] found the courage to joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream like maniacs"; the Sonderkommando immediately took them away for execution by shooting.[55] In such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed the identities and "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding".[56]
Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses. Commandant Höss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion"; the Auschwitz camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon B gas, which killed before the victim began suffering convulsions.[57] The corpses were additionally found half-squatting, their skin discolored pink with red and green spots, with some foaming at the mouth or bleeding from their ears, exacerbated by the crowding in gas chambers.[58]"
