Do you have memories of the days spent at the summer camp? Holocaust prisoners also had memories of the camp, but not the kind you'd want to reminisce with your best friend next summer. The Holocaust lasted from 1939 to 1945. During that time, Nazi Germany targeted Jews and other marginalized people, including Roma or Gypsies, the mentally and physically disabled, and homosexuals. Many of these people were deported to concentration or extermination camps built by the Nazis in Poland. In Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, daily life included work, pain, misery and death. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, was the main extermination center during the Holocaust. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal regulations of arrest and confinement (Concentration Camps 1933-1939). Auschwitz was a network of concentration camps built and operated in Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was the largest of the German camps consisting of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II – Birkenau (extermination camp), Auschwitz III – Monowitz (also known as Bena, a labor camp), and 45 smaller camps (Auschwitz concentration camp). One million three hundred Jews, two hundred and eighty thousand Poles, forty thousand Gypsies and twenty thousand Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Auschwitz where the Nazis killed them (Auschwitz; Nazi concentration camp). Almost all children, women with children, all the elderly and all those who appeared weak to the camp doctor were sent to be killed (Auschwitz concentration camp). Children were often killed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Children born in the camp were generally killed on the spot. Towards the end of the war, to reduce costs, children were placed directly into ovens or open-air pits (Auschwitz, Nazi extermination camps). The daily life of Holocaust prisoners began early in the morning and was filled with agonizing work. The day began at 4.30 with the roll call. The Kommandos (workers) went to their place of work. The working day lasted twelve hours in summer and slightly less in winter. Prisoners were not allowed rest periods during the day. After work there was the obligatory roll call. If a prisoner was missing, the others waited for him to show up or be found. After the evening roll call, punishments were distributed and prisoners were allowed to retreat to their (sleeping) blocks to receive rations of bread and water. The curfew went into effect two or three hours later. Prisoners slept in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes, so that they would not be stolen (Auschwitz concentration camp). When punishment was meted out, it was usually cruel and unusual. The method used to make prisoners obedient was brutal beatings. In the camps no mercy was shown to children; they were starved, dirty, and brutalized by the guards (Saldinger 57). The so-called “doctors” of the camp, including the infamous Josef Mengele, tortured Jewish children, Gypsies and many other children by placing them in pressure chambers, testing them with drugs, castrating them, freezing them to death and exposing them to other trauma (Auschwitz, Nazi Death Camps ). Every day prisoners were put to work in dangerous and painful conditions. The prisoners had jobs such as building additions to the camp, building roads, digging drainage ditches, producing chemicals and weapons which the Nazis used to.