Gross-Rosen
Hitler planned to squeeze every inch of Poland area for the living space of the Germans. He created the Government General, a
gathering place for the Poles and Jews. Gross-Rosen became a major Polish camp, active in Hitler's subjugation of the Polish people.
The Nazis established Gross-Rosen in August 1940 in Lower Silesia. The SS intended to have the prisoners work in the nearby
granite and marble quarries.
Prisoners lived on a daily ration of 300 grams of bread and a spoonful of jam. As extra sustenance, they also received a cup of
barely warm soup made of flavored water and salt three times a week. The commander of the Gross-Rosen SS killed 65,000 Russian
inmates in six months by feeding them soup made of grass, water, and great amount of salt, followed by quantities of cold water.
He also awakened inmates in the middle of the night, drove them naked into the icy cold, and forced them to do three or four hours of
intense exercise.
SS Dr. Karl Brandt created a complex organization and process to implement the euthanasia program under Hitler. Under the
program, thousands of prisoners were transported to euthanasia stations, particularly Bernburg and Hartheim, and murdered. The
purpose of the program was to eliminate undesirables. Every German mental institution as well as several concentration camps
received questionnaires to complete for each inmate. Then the experts evaluated the questionnaires to determine if the patient should
be sent to a killing station. One of the main purpose of the euthanasia program was the extermination of Jews. Aryan prisoners at
least received a medical examination before selection, Jewish inmates were sent without any doubt.
Another purpose of the euthanasia project was to kill all mentally and physically deficient children and insane Russians and Poles.
Arteriosclerosis, tuberculosis, and cancer patients were also selected to end their lives. The program defined persons without any
value to the state as "useless eaters. From 1939 to 1940, under the euthanasia project, the doctors killed about 100,000 humans by
a variety of methods: gas, injections, starvation.
