1. The presentation discusses the horrific conditions and treatment of children at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War 2. Over 1.5 million children under 16 were killed at the camp. 2. Upon arrival, children were immediately separated from their families and faced cruel experiments, torture, starvation, and abuse. If under 150cm tall, they were sent directly to the gas chambers. 3. Life for most children at Auschwitz was short and marked by constant terror, malnutrition, disease, and brutal labor until their deaths. Only a small number survived the atrocities.

1. Auschwitz Speech
1. Hello and welcome to my presentation. My name is Zuzanna and the topic I have chosen
for today's presentation is... Children's Lives At Auschwitz. First of all, let me tell you
some information about Auschwitz itself.
2. As you all probably know, Auschwitz is a concentration camp. Here is a picture of it. As
you can see, there is a sign on top of the fence. This sign is in German. It translates into
English as 'Work will make you free', which is pretty ironic, seeing as so many people
worked there and they didn't get freedom.
3. You might be wondering where Auschwitz is located. It is situated in Poland, in a town
called Oświęcim. Oświęcim is on the border of two provinces; Lesser Poland (Małopolska)
and Silesian (Śląskie). It is marked out on the map.
4. Let us now compare two pictures. On the left, there is a picture of children seventy
years ago, and on the right, is a picture of children nowadays. You can easily tell the
difference.
5. I have chosen this topic because we are all still children. We know what our lives are like.
We have new objects such as these on the board; I'm pretty sure that every one of us
has at least one of these things. But we don't always appreciate these things; we don't
appreciate how lucky we are. But I'm sure that after I show you this presentation, you
will realise that life seventy years ago was way different from our lives, especially for
the children at Auschwitz. You will realise that you are very lucky indeed.
6. I'll give you a number now. 1.5 million. When you think about it, it is a really big number.
It's the number of children under the age of sixteen who were killed at Auschwitz. 1.5
million is also the population of Gabon, a small country in Africa. Here it is on the board.
You'd have to kill every single person in that country. But that is only the number of
people under the age of sixteen who were killed. Overall, the number is much, much
higher.
7. Here is a quote by Lucie Adelsberger, describing what children at Auschwitz looked like,
'Like the adults, the kids were only a mere bag of bones, without muscles or fat, and the
thin skin like parchment scrubbed through and through beyond the hard bones of the
skeleton ignited itself to ulcerated wounds. Abscesses covered the underfed body from
the top to the bottom and thus deprived it from the last rest of energy. The mouth was
deeply gnawed by noma-abscesses, hollowed out the jaw and perforated the cheeks like
cancer. Many decaying bodies were full of water because of the burning hunger, they
swelled to shapeless bulks which could not move anymore. Diarrhoea, lasting for weeks,
dissolved their irresistant bodies until nothing remained,'.
8. In other words, she was describing these children. Because that's what children looked
like at Auschwitz. So skinny that you could see their bones sticking out.
9. As soon as the children arrived at Auschwitz, they were separated from their families.
Many of the children witnessed their parents being shot or taken away. The children
were then grouped. There was a line on the wall at the height of around 150cm, which is

2. half a metre. If the children reached the desired height, they were sent to work hard.
If they didn't, they were sent to the gas chambers. Many of the children stood up on
their toes to reach the height, especially the young ones.
10. Some of the children were used for experiments or tests by Josef Mengele and other
'camp doctors'. These doctors tortured and made children suffer incredibly. These
children were mainly Jewish, Gypsy or others. Josef Mengele, who was a German doctor,
became known as 'the Angel of Death' because of these experiments.
11. Mengele concentrated on twin studies. He chose twins because he thought they held
secrets which would create a good future. Before he started the experiments, he drew
sketches of the twins. He injected one of them with different substances, dripped
chemicals into his or her eyes to change their colour and once he was finished with the
twin, he injected chloroform into his or her heart. This would cause the child to die
almost immediately. He then killed the other twin, dissected both of them and compared
the results.
12. Before all of this happened, the children were taken to have a shower to make sure they
were clean; they were allowed to keep their hair and clothes. They then had to be
measured and tattooed with a number from a special sequence. The next step was to fill
out some forms about their brief history, measurements and other information. If they
were too young, an officer would do it for them. And then Mengele inspected them and
looked for unusual traits.
13. Life for these children was one of the best at Auschwitz. The children had roll call at
6am, a small breakfast and then Mengele would come for an inspection. The children had
makeshift 'classes', they were sometimes allowed to play football and they only had the
jobs of messengers. They had no punishments, either. The only downside was that the
children had to have blood drawn every day, from their fingers and arms. Sometimes
both arms simultaneously. Small children had to have their blood drawn from their necks
because their hands and fingers were too small. This blood was taken for further medical
experiments. Then, the trucks would arrive, taking the children for the experiments. The
children often wondered whether their number would get called out.
14. Here are some interesting facts for you. The children weren't scared of Mengele. In
fact, they called him 'Uncle Mengele' because he often brought them treats, talked to
them and sometimes played with them. Also, Mengele and the other camp doctors were
found to be psychologically normal. They kissed their wives morning and night and tucked
their children into bed.
15. What about the rest of the children? They weren't as lucky as this. Once they were
separated from their families, they had to work very hard every single day. They barely
ate any food which explains why they were so skinny. These children weren't treated like
humans at all. They were often punished, beaten and sworn out. The guards yelled at
them, using very offensive names. Auschwitz had an impact on the children. The children
played games as well. But these games were based on what they saw. So, they pretended
that they were gassing people or burning them. That's how much of an impact the
concentration camp had on them.
Here's a story for you about the way the children were treated. One day, a transport

3. cart came to Auschwitz. There were mothers with their children inside it. Mengele
decided that he wouldn't waste his time 'playing' by gassing the children. He ordered
some holes to be dug and petrol to be poured in them. Then, the guards set fire to the
petrol and children were thrown in there. All of this happened before the children's
mothers. They saw everything. Mengele himself took the children out of the carts and
threw them in.
16. And the conditions? These children at Auschwitz had to sleep with thousands of other
people in cabinet-like beds. They had to sleep on their clothes or wrap themselves with
them, so that they couldn't be stolen. These children weren't allowed to wash either.
They were filthy and their hair had to be shaved off, so that lice wouldn't spread. If a
child had long, beautiful hair, it would be cut off and made into a wig for a rich person.
You might ask, what about the food? Each prisoner at Auschwitz, was supposed to
receive 350g of bread a day. If you could call it that, seeing as it was made out of flour,
but it also had sawdust in it. The prisoners would also get half a litre of coffee and a
litre of turnip and potato soup. They were supposed to receive 20g of meat a week, but
the meat often didn't reach the plates from which they ate.
17. There were different fates at Auschwitz. Most of them were killed upon arrival. Some
were made slaves and worked to death. Some were used for medical experiments. Some
died when the camps were evacuated on foot in January 1945. This was also known as a
death march. But only a very few survived. And these who survived say that it's nothing
to be proud of. It's something that you'll remember forever; something that will haunt
you for the rest of your life. The views of the bodies piled up, the cries in the middle of
the night which made you shiver, the bang of a gun being fired in the distance and the
smell of death hovering in the air.
So, I hope you realise how lucky we are to live in such good conditions. I hope that you
realise that so many children died. These children didn't die because they did something
wrong. They died because they were different. But these children were strong. These
children kept believing, they still had faith. We should try to be like those children and
we should remember those children. So, next time when you whine about something, think
about those millions of children who died. They lived in worse conditions than you do now,
but they still stood strong until the last moment of their lives. They still had love. And
one day, we will all be united.
18. Because 'RESTING WHERE NO SHADOWS FALL, IN PEACEFUL SLEEP, THEY
AWAIT US ALL; GOD WILL LINK THE BROKEN CHAIN, WHEN ONE BY ONE WE
MEET AGAIN,'. Thank you.