I do not understand perhaps a survivor from a German concentration camp can answer?

S

Scouse

New member
Why did the people arriving at the concentration camps take the Germans on with their bare hands? Surely they knew they were going to die anyway. Many were highly intelligent leaders and no cowards. Was propaganda skillful?
One Wway Love u:
I agree you would not i hope I would not but why did they just walk to their deaths. They must have known.
 
im empathizing here
but if you knew you were going to die would you just sit back and take it or at least try?
people would try because they know they would be coming close to their deaths.
as the saying goes "if you never try, you never know"
so the people had to try even if it cost them their lives
x
 
From what I've read, they didn't know they were going to die. They were told they're going to work there, and if they work hard enough, they will be free. That's just an example, but there's more. When they were taken into gas chambers, they were told to get naked and take a shower. Instead of water, there was gas coming trough the pipes. So no, they didn't know.
 
They were disoriented. They were packed into cars like cattle without food, water, or a toilet. They would be in these train cars for hours, sometimes days, and would arrive during the night to a place that was filled with men with guns and dogs that were ready to tear them apart. The Nazis psychologically beat them down. They took their will.
 
You know you really have to step back and see this in context of the time period as well as the people's perspective. First off the camps were often in isolated areas near forests, fenced in. As someone else stated, people were in the trains to these camps for hours & days, not often knowing where the hell they were heading. It wasn't like Amtrak with a window. They were cargo cars. They were met by soldiers with guns & sometimes dogs. The Nazis didn't hesitate to use them either.

The people coming off the trains didn't know they were going to their deaths....that information didn't come out until at least 3 or more years into the war. Even people in the surrounding towns weren't sure what was going on in those fenced in areas. There wasn't an abundance of intellectuals walking around telling people---those were some of the first rounded up and put to death. There was NO mass communication. Most people didn't even have telephones, that was for business. Some people did rise up and try to fight, not on initial arrival but when they came to understand the REAL situation. It had to be very carefully and secretly planned. Also it took and immense amount of mental energy (motivation) to rise up once inside the camps as people didn't have much physical energy from starvation, and being beaten down every day, all day.

Propaganda can be skillfully used, but I'm not sure in what way do you mean.
 
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