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112-539: Harris Ranch , or the Harris Cattle Ranch , feedlot is California 's largest beef producer, producing 150 million pounds (68 kt) of beef per year in 2010. It is located alongside Interstate 5 at its intersection with State Route 198 east of Coalinga , in the San Joaquin Valley of central California . The ranch is owned by Harris Farms. Founded by Jack Harris in 1937,

224-584: A "farm to fork" concept in the late 2000s, featuring not only beef but wine and other products made locally by the ranch. As of 2008 the restaurant was the 57th busiest in the United States and sixth busiest in California based on gross receipts. The site was chosen for a hydrogen vehicle fuel station as well as one of the first battery swapping Tesla stations . Later, 18 superchargers were added. Then, in 2021 an expansion of 80 more V3 superchargers

336-538: A $ 500,000 donation to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo if it sponsored a speech there by Pollan. In reference to the large number of cattle processed at its facilities, some critics have nicknamed the ranch "Cowschwitz", comparing the slaughtering of cattle to the slaughtering of Jews during the Holocaust at the Auschwitz concentration camp . Animal behavior expert Temple Grandin described

448-578: A car with a Red Cross symbol that carried the Zyklon B, as well as an SS doctor in case officers were poisoned by mistake. Inmates arriving at night, or who were too weak to walk, were taken by truck. Work on a new railway line and ramp (right) between sectors BI and BII in Auschwitz II, was completed in May 1944 for the arrival of Hungarian Jews between May and early July 1944. The rails led directly to

560-520: A drug to be added into a farms feed if required by a vet. Farmers generally work with nutritionists who aid in the formulation of these rations to ensure their animals are getting the recommended levels of minerals and vitamins, but also to make sure the animals are not wasting feed in their manure. In the American northwest and Canada, barley, low grade durum wheat , chick peas (garbanzo beans), oats and occasionally potatoes are used as feed. In

672-419: A few common methods of waste recycling within feedlots, with the most common being spreading it back on the cropping fields used to feed the livestock. Generally, feedlots provide bedding for their animals such as straw, sawdust, wood shavings, or other byproducts from crops (soybean chaff, corn chaff), which are then mixed in with the manure as the livestock use the bedding. Once the bedding has outlasted its use,

784-565: A finger into the water of the washbasin. Under the first is written: " So bist du rein " (like this you are clean), and under the second, " So gehst du ein " (like this you come to a bad end); and lower down, in doubtful French but in Gothic script: " La propreté, c'est la santé " [cleanliness is health]. Prisoners received half a litre of coffee substitute or a herbal tea in the morning, but no food. A second gong heralded roll call, when inmates lined up outside in rows of ten to be counted. No matter

896-606: A gas chamber in bunker 2, and a tour of the building site of Auschwitz III, the new IG Farben plant being constructed at Monowitz . Use of bunkers I and 2 stopped in spring 1943 when the new crematoria were built, although bunker 2 became operational again in May 1944 for the murder of the Hungarian Jews. Bunker I was demolished in 1943 and bunker 2 in November 1944. Plans for crematoria II and III show that both had an oven room 30 by 11.24 m (98.4 by 36.9 ft) on

1008-409: A gassing facility; the windows had been bricked up and its four rooms converted into two insulated rooms, the doors of which said " Zur Desinfektion " ("to disinfection"). A second brick cottage, the "little white house" or bunker 2, was converted and operational by June 1942. When Himmler visited the camp on 17 and 18 July 1942, he was given a demonstration of a selection of Dutch Jews, a mass-murder in

1120-534: A group of Soviet prisoners of war—took place around August 1941. By the end of that year, during what most historians regard as the first phase of the Holocaust, 500,000–800,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered in mass shootings by a combination of German Einsatzgruppen , ordinary German soldiers, and local collaborators. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich outlined

1232-549: A group of male prisoners arrived to set up an infirmary in October 1942, their first task, according to researchers from the Auschwitz Museum, was to distinguish the corpses from the women who were still alive. Gisella Perl , a Romanian-Jewish gynecologist and inmate of the women's camp, wrote in 1948: There was one latrine for thirty to thirty-two thousand women and we were permitted to use it only at certain hours of

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1344-572: A letter on 12 July 1940, Höss told Glücks that the local population was "fanatically Polish, ready to undertake any sort of operation against the hated SS men". By the end of 1940, the SS had confiscated land around the camp to create a 40-square-kilometer (15 sq mi) "zone of interest" ( Interessengebiet ) patrolled by the SS, Gestapo and local police. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned in the camp, most of them Poles. An inmate's first encounter with Auschwitz, if they were registered and not sent straight to

1456-550: A new women's camp ( Frauenkonzentrationslager or FKL) in Auschwitz II. This consisted at first of 15 brick and 15 wooden barracks in sector ( Bauabschnitt ) BIa; it was later extended into BIb, and by October 1943 it held 32,066 women. In 1943–1944, about 11,000 women were also housed in the Gypsy family camp , as were several thousand in the Theresienstadt family camp . Conditions in the women's camp were so poor that when

1568-521: A portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust . It consisted of Auschwitz I , the main camp ( Stammlager ) in Oświęcim ; Auschwitz II-Birkenau , a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers ; Auschwitz III-Monowitz , a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben ; and dozens of subcamps . The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to

1680-485: A railway station or at one of several dedicated trackside ramps, including one next to Auschwitz I. The Altejudenrampe (old Jewish ramp), part of the Oświęcim freight railway station, was used from 1942 to 1944 for Jewish transports. Located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, arriving at this ramp meant a 2.5 km journey to Auschwitz II and the gas chambers. Most deportees were forced to walk, accompanied by SS men and

1792-492: A serial number, on their left breast for Soviet prisoners of war and on the left arm for civilians. Categories of prisoner were distinguishable by triangular pieces of cloth (German: Winkel ) sewn onto on their jackets below their prisoner number. Political prisoners (Schutzhäftlinge or Sch), mostly Poles, had a red triangle, while criminals ( Berufsverbrecher or BV) were mostly German and wore green. Asocial prisoners ( Asoziale or Aso), which included vagrants, prostitutes and

1904-519: A telegraph wire, so close together that we could not help soiling one another. Langefeld was succeeded as Lagerführerin in October 1942 by SS Oberaufseherin Maria Mandl , who developed a reputation for cruelty. Höss hired men to oversee the female supervisors, first SS Obersturmführer Paul Müller, then SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler . Mandl and Hössler were executed after the war. Sterilisation experiments were carried out in barracks 30 by

2016-440: A thousand people were crammed into the superimposed compartments of each barracks. Unable to stretch out completely, they slept there both lengthwise and crosswise, with one man's feet on another's head, neck, or chest. Stripped of all human dignity, they pushed and shoved and bit and kicked each other in an effort to get a few more inches' space on which to sleep a little more comfortably. For they did not have long to sleep. Sunday

2128-733: A time, the Sonderkommando were able to burn some 8,000 bodies a day. This maximum capacity was rarely needed; the average between 1942 and 1944 was 1,000 bodies burned every day. After examining several sites for a new plant to manufacture Buna-N , a type of synthetic rubber essential to the war effort, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben chose a site near the towns of Dwory and Monowice (Monowitz in German), about 7 km (4.3 mi) east of Auschwitz I. Tax exemptions were available to corporations prepared to develop industries in

2240-476: A transport of Polish Jews from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, which had just come into operation. On 26 and 28 March, two transports of Slovakian Jews were registered as prisoners in the women's camp , where they were kept for slave labour; these were the first transports organized by Adolf Eichmann 's department IV B4 (the Jewish office) in

2352-416: A typical feedlot, a cow's diet is roughly 62% roughage, 31% grain, 5% supplements (minerals and vitamins), and 2% premix. High-grain diets lower the pH in the animals' rumen . Due to the stressors of these conditions, and due to some illnesses, it may be necessary to give the animals antibiotics on occasion. A feedlot is highly dependent on the health of its livestock, as disease can have a great impact on

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2464-442: Is forward contracting , in which prices are determined the same way but are not directly influenced by market demand fluctuations. Forward contracts determine the selling price between the two parties negotiating for a set amount of time. However, this method is the least used because it requires some knowledge of production costs and the willingness of both sides to take a risk in the futures market. Another method, formula pricing,

2576-500: Is becoming the most popular process, as it more accurately represents the value of meat received by the packer. This requires trust between the packers and feedlots though, and is under criticism from the feedlots because the amount paid to the feedlots is determined by the packers’ assessment of the meat received. Finally, live- or carcass-weight based formula pricing is most common. Other types include grid pricing and boxed beef pricing. The most controversial marketing method stems from

2688-653: Is controlled by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency CFIA . In Australia this role is handled by the National Feedlot Accreditation Scheme (NFAS). The cattle industry works in sequence with one another, prior to entering a feedlot, young calves are born typically in the spring where they spend the summer with their mothers in a pasture or on rangeland . These producers are called cow-calf operations and are essential for feedlot operations to run. Once

2800-435: Is not drinkable; it has a revolting smell and often fails for many hours. The walls are covered by curious didactic frescoes : for example, there is the good Häftling [prisoner], portrayed stripped to the waist, about to diligently soap his sheared and rosy cranium, and the bad Häftling, with a strong Semitic nose and a greenish colour, bundled up in his ostentatiously stained clothes with a beret on his head, who cautiously dips

2912-508: Is to be rebuilt to hold approximately 30,000." Construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau—called a Kriegsgefangenenlager (prisoner-of-war camp) on blueprints—began in October 1941 in Brzezinka , about three kilometers from Auschwitz I. The initial plan was that Auschwitz II would consist of four sectors (Bauabschnitte I–IV), each consisting of six subcamps (BIIa–BIIf) with their own gates and fences. The first two sectors were completed (sector BI

3024-570: The 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The number of victims includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 non-Jewish Poles , 21,000 Romani , 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war , and up to 15,000 others. Those not gassed were murdered via starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments . At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 , two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who operated

3136-606: The 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army . Several other German industrial enterprises, such as Krupp and Siemens-Schuckert , built factories with their own subcamps. There were around 28 camps near industrial plants, each camp holding hundreds or thousands of prisoners. Designated as Aussenlager (external camp), Nebenlager (extension camp), Arbeitslager (labor camp), or Aussenkommando (external work detail), camps were built at Blechhammer , Jawiszowice , Jaworzno , Lagisze , Mysłowice , Trzebinia , and as far afield as

3248-658: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question to senior Nazis, and from early 1942 freight trains delivered Jews from all over occupied Europe to German extermination camps in Poland: Auschwitz, Bełżec , Chełmno , Majdanek , Sobibór , and Treblinka . Most prisoners were gassed on arrival. A former World War I camp for transient workers and later a Polish army barracks, Auschwitz I was the main camp ( Stammlager ) and administrative headquarters of

3360-617: The Jewish question . After Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp . The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles (for whom the camp was initially established). For the first two years, the majority of inmates were Polish. In May 1940, German criminals brought to

3472-624: The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia. Industries with satellite camps included coal mines, foundries and other metal works, and chemical plants. Prisoners were also made to work in forestry and farming. For example, Wirtschaftshof Budy , in the Polish village of Budy near Brzeszcze , was a farming subcamp where prisoners worked 12-hour days in the fields, tending animals, and making compost by mixing human ashes from

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3584-739: The Reich Security Head Office (RSHA). On 30 March the first RHSA transport arrived from France. "Selection", where new arrivals were chosen for work or the gas chamber, began in April 1942 and was conducted regularly from July. Piper writes that this reflected Germany's increasing need for labour. Those selected as unfit for work were gassed without being registered as prisoners. There is also disagreement about how many were gassed in Auschwitz I. Perry Broad , an SS-Unterscharführer , wrote that "transport after transport vanished in

3696-878: The Reichstag passed the Nuremberg Laws . One, the Reich Citizenship Law , defined as citizens those of "German or related blood who demonstrate by their behaviour that they are willing and suitable to serve the German People and Reich faithfully", and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor prohibited marriage and extramarital relations between those with "German or related blood" and Jews. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, Hitler ordered that

3808-582: The Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg , Germany, to inspect it. Around 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) long and 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide, Auschwitz consisted at the time of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story. A second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were built. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , approved the site in April 1940 on

3920-490: The Star of David , overlaid by a second triangle if they also belonged to a second category. The nationality of the inmate was indicated by a letter stitched onto the cloth. A racial hierarchy existed, with German prisoners at the top. Next were non-Jewish prisoners from other countries. Jewish prisoners were at the bottom. Deportees were brought to Auschwitz crammed in wretched conditions into goods or cattle wagons, arriving near

4032-888: The fed cattle are transported to a slaughterhouse . Typically the total mixed ration (TMR) consist of forage, grains, minerals, and supplements to benefit the animals' health and to maximize feed efficiency. These rations are also known to contain various other forms of feed such as a specialized animal feed which consists of corn, corn byproducts (some of which is derived from ethanol and high fructose corn syrup production), milo , barley , and various grains. Some rations may also contain roughage such as corn stalks, straw, sorghum, or other hay, cottonseed meal , premixes which may contain but not limited to antibiotics , fermentation products, micro & macro minerals and other essential ingredients that are purchased from mineral companies, usually in sacked form, for blending into commercial rations. Many feed companies are able to be prescribed

4144-440: The war on terror , volunteers from the San Joaquin Valley , especially Bakersfield, supplied with beef from Harris Ranch, have volunteered to serve steaks to service-members who are OCONUS . In January 2012, an arsonist destroyed fourteen cattle trucks on the ranch. The Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility. At over 800 acres (320 ha) and with a population of over 100,000 cattle, and hundreds harvested daily,

4256-603: The " Jewish question ". Both during and immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933, acts of violence against German Jews became ubiquitous, and legislation was passed excluding them from certain professions, including the civil service and the law. Harassment and economic pressure encouraged Jews to leave Germany ; their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden from advertising in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts. On 15 September 1935,

4368-725: The Auschwitz II Sonderkommando , who had been forced to dig up and burn the remains of that camp's mass graves, thought to hold over 100,000 corpses. After visiting Auschwitz I in March 1941, it appears that Himmler ordered that the camp be expanded, although Peter Hayes notes that, on 10 January 1941, the Polish underground told the Polish government-in-exile in London: "the Auschwitz concentration camp ...can accommodate approximately 7,000 prisoners at present, and

4480-520: The Auschwitz [I] crematorium." In the view of Filip Müller , one of the Auschwitz I Sonderkommando , tens of thousands of Jews were murdered there from France, Holland, Slovakia, Upper Silesia, and Yugoslavia, and from the Theresienstadt , Ciechanow , and Grodno ghettos. Against this, Jean-Claude Pressac estimated that up to 10,000 people had been murdered in Auschwitz I. The last inmates gassed there, in December 1942, were around 400 members of

4592-592: The Harris Ranch Beef Company (now operated by Jack Harris' son John ) was originally a cotton and grain operation. In the 1970s the ranch opened a burger stand near Interstate 5 . The farm also operates an inn and restaurant, raises fruit and vegetable crops, and breeds thoroughbred horses. Overall, the operation has more than 400 employees. Approximately 14,000 acres (5,700 ha) are devoted to garlic , broccoli , pomegranates , and tomatoes , among 35 types of fruits and vegetables. During

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4704-497: The Monowitz concentration camp, it was the first concentration camp to be financed and built by private industry. Measuring 270 m × 490 m (890 ft × 1,610 ft), the camp was larger than Auschwitz I. By the end of 1944, it housed 60 barracks measuring 17.5 m × 8 m (57 ft × 26 ft), each with a day room and a sleeping room containing 56 three-tiered wooden bunks. IG Farben paid

4816-546: The Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed. The area around Auschwitz was annexed to the German Reich , as part of first Gau Silesia and from 1941 Gau Upper Silesia . The camp at Auschwitz was established in April 1940, at first as a quarantine camp for Polish political prisoners. On 22 June 1941, in an attempt to obtain new territory, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union . The first gassing at Auschwitz—of

4928-457: The Roma, wore black. Purple was for Jehovah's Witnesses ( Internationale Bibelforscher-Vereinigung or IBV)'s and pink for gay men, who were mostly German. An estimated 5,000–15,000 gay men prosecuted under German Penal Code Section 175 (proscribing sexual acts between men) were detained in concentration camps, of whom an unknown number were sent to Auschwitz. Jews wore a yellow badge , the shape of

5040-462: The SS ordered that the site be evacuated, sending 9,000 inmates, most of them Jews, on a death march to another Auschwitz subcamp at Gliwice . From Gliwice, prisoners were taken by rail in open freight wagons to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps. The 800 inmates who had been left behind in the Monowitz hospital were liberated along with the rest of the camp on 27 January 1945 by

5152-920: The SS personnel, were members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände ( death's head units). Other SS staff worked in the medical or political departments, or in the economic administration, which was responsible for clothing and other supplies, including the property of dead prisoners. The SS viewed Auschwitz as a comfortable posting; being there meant they had avoided the front and had access to the victims' property. Certain prisoners, at first non-Jewish Germans but later Jews and non-Jewish Poles, were assigned positions of authority as Funktionshäftlinge (functionaries), which gave them access to better housing and food. The Lagerprominenz (camp elite) included Blockschreiber (barracks clerk), Kapo (overseer), Stubendienst (barracks orderly), and Kommandierte (trusties). Wielding tremendous power over other prisoners,

5264-408: The SS three or four Reichsmark for nine- to eleven-hour shifts from each worker. In 1943–1944, about 35,000 inmates worked at the plant; 23,000 (32 a day on average) were killed through malnutrition, disease, and the workload. Within three to four months at the camp, Peter Hayes writes, the inmates were "reduced to walking skeletons". Deaths and transfers to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II reduced

5376-464: The absentee was found or the reason for the absence discovered, even if it took hours. On 6 July 1940, roll call lasted 19 hours because a Polish prisoner, Tadeusz Wiejowski , had escaped; following an escape in 1941, a group of prisoners was picked out from the escapee's barracks and sent to block 11 to be starved to death. After roll call, prisoners retired to their blocks for the night and received their bread rations. Then they had some free time to use

5488-444: The added benefit of economies of scale . Most feedlots require some type of governmental approval to operate, which generally consists of an agricultural site permit. Feedlots also would have an environmental plan in place to deal with the large amount of waste that is generated from the numerous livestock housed. The environmental farm plan is set in place to raise awareness about the environment and covers 23 different aspects around

5600-427: The animals, and controlling sickness can be difficult with numerous animals living together. Many feedlots will have an entrance protocol in which new animals entering the lot are given vaccines to protect them against potential sickness that may arise in the first few weeks in the feedlot. These entrance protocols are usually discussed and created with the farm's veterinarian, as there are numerous factors that can impact

5712-541: The area around the gas chambers. The day began at 4:30 am for the men (an hour later in winter), and earlier for the women, when the block supervisor sounded a gong and started beating inmates with sticks to make them wash and use the latrines quickly. There were few latrines and there was a lack of clean water. Each washhouse had to service thousands of prisoners. In sectors BIa and BIb in Auschwitz II, two buildings containing latrines and washrooms were installed in 1943. These contained troughs for washing and 90 faucets;

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5824-445: The camp as functionaries established the camp's reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for the most trivial of reasons. The first gassings —of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II began the following month, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of

5936-529: The camp be established. Living with his wife and children in a two-story stucco house near the commandant's and administration building, he served as commandant until 11 November 1943, with Josef Kramer as his deputy. Succeeded as commandant by Arthur Liebehenschel , Höss joined the SS Business and Administration Head Office in Oranienburg as director of Amt DI, a post that made him deputy of

6048-606: The camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . Auschwitz is the site of the largest mass murder in a single location in history. The ideology of Nazism combined elements of " racial hygiene ", eugenics , antisemitism , pan-Germanism , and territorial expansionism, Richard J. Evans writes. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party became obsessed by

6160-706: The camp complex. Fifty kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Kraków , the site was first suggested in February 1940 as a quarantine camp for Polish prisoners by Arpad Wigand , the inspector of the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) and deputy of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , the Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia. Richard Glücks , head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate , sent Walter Eisfeld , former commandant of

6272-459: The camp, including with the SS. Nevertheless, their life expectancy was short; they were regularly murdered and replaced. About 100 survived to the camp's liquidation. They were forced on a death march and by train to the camp at Mauthausen , where three days later they were asked to step forward during roll call. No one did, and because the SS did not have their records, several of them survived. Uniquely at Auschwitz, prisoners were tattooed with

6384-536: The camp. Only two Jewish calendars made in Auschwitz survived to the end of the war. Prisoners kept track of the days in other ways, such as obtaining information from newcomers. About 30 percent of the registered inmates were female. The first mass transport of women, 999 non-Jewish German women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp , arrived on 26 March 1942. Classified as criminal, asocial and political, they were brought to Auschwitz as founder functionaries of

6496-502: The camps inspectorate. Richard Baer became commandant of Auschwitz I on 11 May 1944 and Fritz Hartjenstein of Auschwitz II from 22 November 1943, followed by Josef Kramer from 15 May 1944 until the camp's liquidation in January 1945. Heinrich Schwarz was commandant of Auschwitz III from the point at which it became an autonomous camp in November 1943 until its liquidation. Höss returned to Auschwitz between 8 May and 29 July 1944 as

6608-410: The cattle take longer to reach market weight. Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( German : Konzentrationslager Auschwitz , pronounced [kɔntsɛntʁaˈtsi̯oːnsˌlaːɡɐ ˈʔaʊʃvɪts] ; also KL Auschwitz or KZ Auschwitz ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in

6720-460: The ceiling to resemble showerheads. The daily capacity of the crematoria (how many bodies could be burned in a 24-hour period) was 340 corpses in crematorium I; 1,440 each in crematoria II and III; and 768 each in IV and V. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational, but crematorium I was not used after July 1943. This made the total daily capacity 4,416, although by loading three to five corpses at

6832-506: The ceiling. Historians have disagreed about the date the all-Jewish transports began arriving in Auschwitz. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, the Nazi leadership outlined, in euphemistic language, its plans for the Final Solution . According to Franciszek Piper , the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss offered inconsistent accounts after the war, suggesting the extermination began in December 1941, January 1942, or before

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6944-477: The crematoria with sod and manure. Incidents of sabotage to decrease production took place in several subcamps, including Charlottengrube, Gleiwitz II , and Rajsko . Living conditions in some of the camps were so poor that they were regarded as punishment subcamps. Rudolf Höss , born in Baden-Baden in 1900, was named the first commandant of Auschwitz when Heinrich Himmler ordered on 27 April 1940 that

7056-465: The day. We stood in line to get in to this tiny building, knee-deep in human excrement. As we all suffered from dysentry, we could barely wait until our turn came, and soiled our ragged clothes, which never came off our bodies, thus adding to the horror of our existence by the terrible smell that surrounded us like a cloud. The latrine consisted of a deep ditch with planks thrown across it at certain intervals. We squatted on those planks like birds perched on

7168-414: The distribution of some fat (known as marbling in butchered meat). The marbling is desirable to consumers, as it contributes to flavour and tenderness. These animals may gain an additional 400-600 pounds (180 kg) during its approximate 200 days in the feedlot, depending on its entrance weight into the lot, and also how well the animal gains muscle. Once cattle are fattened up to their finished weight,

7280-499: The end of June or beginning of July 1940. Initially intended not for mass murder but for prisoners who had been executed or had otherwise died in the camp, the crematorium was in operation from August 1940 until July 1943, by which time the crematoria at Auschwitz II had taken over. By May 1942 three ovens had been installed in crematorium I, which together could burn 340 bodies in 24 hours. The first experimental gassing took place around August 1941, when Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch , at

7392-404: The end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp's population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day . In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi , Viktor Frankl , Elie Wiesel , and Edith Eger wrote memoirs of their experiences, and

7504-422: The establishment of the women's camp in March 1942. In Kommandant in Auschwitz , he wrote: "In the spring of 1942 the first transports of Jews, all earmarked for extermination, arrived from Upper Silesia." On 15 February 1942, according to Danuta Czech , a transport of Jews from Beuthen, Upper Silesia ( Bytom , Poland), arrived at Auschwitz I and was sent straight to the gas chamber. In 1998 an eyewitness said

7616-421: The factory; and that Auschwitz prisoners be used in the construction work. Auschwitz inmates began working at the plant, known as Buna Werke and IG-Auschwitz, in April 1941, demolishing houses in Monowitz to make way for it. By May, because of a shortage of trucks, several hundred of them were rising at 3 am to walk there twice a day from Auschwitz I. Because a long line of exhausted inmates walking through

7728-424: The farm is going to feed to their animals, down to the minerals. New farms are required to complete and obtain a license under the livestock operations act, which looks at proper manure storage as well as proper distance away from other farms or dwellings. A mandatory RFID tag is required in every animal that passes through a Canadian feedlot, these are called CCIA tags (Canadian Cattle Identification Agency) which

7840-496: The farm that may affect the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency has authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate all animal feeding operations in the United States. This authority is delegated to individual states in some cases. In Canada, regulation of feedlots is shared between all levels of government. Certain provinces are required by law to have a nutrient management plan, which looks at everything

7952-582: The feedlot industry is constantly being upgraded with new knowledge and science as well as technology. In the early 20th century, feeder operations were separate from all other related operations and feedlots were non-existent. They appeared in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of hybrid grains and irrigation techniques; the ensuing larger grain crops led to abundant grain harvests. It was suddenly possible to feed large numbers of cattle in one location and so, to cut transportation costs, grain farms and feedlot locations merged. Cattle were no longer sent from all across

8064-509: The frontier regions under the Eastern Fiscal Assistance Law, passed in December 1940. In addition to its proximity to the concentration camp, a source of cheap labour, the site had good railway connections and access to raw materials. In February 1941, Himmler ordered that the Jewish population of Oświęcim be expelled to make way for skilled laborers; that all Poles able to work remain in the town and work on building

8176-524: The functionaries developed a reputation as sadists. Very few were prosecuted after the war, because of the difficulty of determining which atrocities had been performed by order of the SS. Although the SS oversaw the murders at each gas chamber, the forced labor portion of the work was done by prisoners known from 1942 as the Sonderkommando (special squad). These were mostly Jews but they included groups such as Soviet POWs. In 1940–1941 when there

8288-534: The gas chamber, was at the prisoner reception centre near the gate with the Arbeit macht frei sign, where they were tattooed, shaved, disinfected, and given a striped prison uniform. Built between 1942 and 1944, the center contained a bathhouse, laundry, and 19 gas chambers for delousing clothing. The prisoner reception center of Auschwitz I became the visitor reception center of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum . Construction of crematorium I began at Auschwitz I at

8400-480: The gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. After the Holocaust ended, only 789 Schutzstaffel personnel (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial. Several were executed, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss . The Allies ' failure to act on early reports of mass murder by bombing the camp or its railways remains controversial. As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward

8512-434: The ground floor, and an underground dressing room 49.43 by 7.93 m (162.2 by 26.0 ft) and gas chamber 30 by 7 m (98 by 23 ft). The dressing rooms had wooden benches along the walls and numbered pegs for clothing. Victims would be led from these rooms to a five-yard-long narrow corridor, which in turn led to a space from which the gas chamber door opened. The chambers were white inside, and nozzles were fixed to

8624-425: The growth of harmful bacteria such as Clostridium perfringens and E. coli . Too much grain in the diet can cause cattle to have issues such as bloating, diarrhea and digestive discomfort, which is why close monitoring of the animals, as well as working with ruminant nutritionists is very important for farmers. Animal welfare is a major controversy towards farms today as consumers have shown their concern for

8736-451: The health of feedlot cattle. One challenging but crucial role on a feedlot is to identify any sick cattle, and treat them in order to rebound them back to health. Knowing when an animal is sick is sometimes difficult as cattle are prey animals and will try and hide their weakness from potential threats. A sick animal will generally look gaunt, may have a snotty nose and/or dry nose, and will have droopy ears, catching these symptoms early may be

8848-574: The higher number is probably attributable to the logistics of evacuating the camp. Female guards were known as SS supervisors ( SS-Aufseherinnen ). Most of the staff were from Germany or Austria, but as the war progressed, increasing numbers of Volksdeutsche from other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states, joined the SS at Auschwitz. Not all were ethnically German. Guards were also recruited from Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Camp guards, around three quarters of

8960-416: The instruction of Rudolf Höss, murdered a group of Soviet prisoners of war by throwing Zyklon B crystals into their basement cell in block 11 of Auschwitz I. A second group of 600 Soviet prisoners of war and around 250 sick Polish prisoners were gassed on 3–5 September. The morgue was later converted to a gas chamber able to hold at least 700–800 people. Zyklon B was dropped into the room through slits in

9072-477: The key to successfully treating an animal. The best indicator of health is the body temperature of a cow, but this is not always possible when looking over many animals per day. The diet of the animals and the different ingredients within the ration are controversial. Cattle in feedlots are fed grain rather than more natural forage. This is designed to make them gain weight faster, but it leads to internal abscesses and discomfort. Grain-based diets can also lead to

9184-697: The local SS garrison commander ( Standortältester ) to oversee the arrival of Hungary's Jews, which made him the superior officer of all the commandants of the Auschwitz camps. According to Aleksander Lasik , about 6,335 people (6,161 of them men) worked for the SS at Auschwitz over the course of the camp's existence; 4.2 percent were officers, 26.1 percent non-commissioned officers, and 69.7 percent rank and file. In March 1941, there were 700 SS guards; in June 1942, 2,000; and in August 1944, 3,342. At its peak in January 1945, 4,480 SS men and 71 SS women worked in Auschwitz;

9296-457: The manure is either spread directly on the fields or stock piled to breakdown and begin composting . A less common type of recycling in the feedlot industry is liquid manure which is where minimal bedding is found in the manure, so it stays a liquid and is then spread on the fields in a liquid form. Increasing numbers of cattle feedlots are utilizing out-wintering pads made of timber residue bedding in their operations. Nutrients are retained in

9408-627: The minimum space needed to exist". The prisoners were forced to live in the barracks as they were building them; in addition to working, they faced long roll calls at night. As a result, most prisoners in BIb (the men's camp) in the early months died of hypothermia , starvation or exhaustion within a few weeks. Some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I between 7 and 25 October 1941, but by 1 March 1942 only 945 were still registered; they were transferred to Auschwitz II, where most of them had died by May. The first gas chamber at Auschwitz II

9520-512: The nickname as a matter of public misperception, saying that the company "does a great job" of keeping its animals. 36°20′35″N 120°12′54″W  /  36.343°N 120.215°W  / 36.343; -120.215 Feedlot The basic purpose of the feedlot is to increase the amount of fat gained by each animal as quickly as possible; if animals are kept in confined quarters rather than being allowed to range freely over grassland, they will gain weight more quickly and efficiently with

9632-459: The population by nearly a fifth each month. Site managers constantly threatened inmates with the gas chambers, and the smell from the crematoria at Auschwitz I and II hung heavy over the camp. Although the factory had been expected to begin production in 1943, shortages of labour and raw materials meant start-up was postponed repeatedly. The Allies bombed the plant in 1944 on 20 August, 13 September, 18 December, and 26 December. On 19 January 1945,

9744-611: The ranch is the largest on the West Coast. It is also among the largest (when including density) in the United States. A vertically integrated operation, it owns a fleet of trucks that take cattle from several ranches with which it deals, and does its own finishing, slaughtering , and packaging. The ranch supplies the hamburger meat for the In-N-Out Burger chain, and also distributes beef and prepared meals through grocery stores and restaurants nationwide. Harris Ranch

9856-517: The recommendation of SS- Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss of the camps inspectorate. Höss oversaw the development of the camp and served as its first commandant. The first 30 prisoners arrived on 20 May 1940 from the Sachsenhausen camp. German "career criminals" ( Berufsverbrecher ), the men were known as "greens" ( Grünen ) after the green triangles on their prison clothing. Brought to the camp as functionaries, this group did much to establish

9968-514: The sadism of early camp life, which was directed particularly at Polish inmates, until the political prisoners took over their roles. Bruno Brodniewicz , the first prisoner (who was given serial number 1), became Lagerälteste (camp elder). The others were given positions such as kapo and block supervisor. The first mass transport—of 728 Polish male political prisoners, including Catholic priests and Jews—arrived on 14 June 1940 from Tarnów , Poland. They were given serial numbers 31 to 758. In

10080-594: The same day. According to Danuta Czech , this was the first registered transport sent to Auschwitz by the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA) office IV B4, known as the Jewish Office, led by SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann . (Office IV was the Gestapo .) A third transport of 798 Jewish women from Bratislava , Slovakia, followed on 28 March. Women were at first held in blocks 1–10 of Auschwitz I, but from 6 August 1942, 13,000 inmates were transferred to

10192-474: The sound of " Arbeitskommandos formieren " ("form work details"), prisoners walked to their place of work, five abreast, to begin a working day that was normally 11 hours long—longer in summer and shorter in winter. A prison orchestra, such as the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz , was forced to play cheerful music as the workers left the camp. Kapos were responsible for the prisoners' behaviour while they worked, as

10304-449: The southern states to places like California, where large slaughter houses were located. In the 1980s, meat packers followed the path of feedlots and are now located close by to them as well. There are many methods used to sell cattle to meat packers. Spot, or cash, marketing is the traditional and most commonly used method. Prices are influenced by current supply & demand and are determined by live weight or per head. Similar to this

10416-526: The toilet facilities were "sewage channels" covered by concrete with 58 holes for seating. There were three barracks with washing facilities or toilets to serve 16 residential barracks in BIIa, and six washrooms/latrines for 32 barracks in BIIb, BIIc, BIId, and BIIe. Primo Levi described a 1944 Auschwitz III washroom: It is badly lighted, full of draughts, with the brick floor covered by a layer of mud. The water

10528-464: The town of Oświęcim might harm German-Polish relations, the inmates were told to shave daily, make sure they were clean, and sing as they walked. From late July they were taken to the factory by train on freight wagons. Given the difficulty of moving them, including during the winter, IG Farben decided to build a camp at the plant. The first inmates moved there on 30 October 1942. Known as KL Auschwitz III–Aussenlager (Auschwitz III subcamp), and later as

10640-594: The train contained "the women of Beuthen". Saul Friedländer wrote that the Beuthen Jews were from the Organization Schmelt labor camps and had been deemed unfit for work. According to Christopher Browning , transports of Jews unfit for work were sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz from autumn 1941. The evidence for this and the February 1942 transport was contested in 2015 by Nikolaus Wachsmann . Around 20 March 1942, according to Danuta Czech,

10752-537: The vertical integration of packer-owned feedlots, which still represents less than 10% of all methods, but has been growing over the years. The alternative to feedlots is to allow cattle to graze on grass throughout their lives, but this is not efficient and can be very challenging. For Canada and the Northern USA, year round grazing is not possible due to the severe winter weather conditions. Controlled grazing methods of this sort necessitate higher beef prices and

10864-485: The washrooms and receive their mail, unless they were Jews: Jews were not allowed to receive mail. Curfew ("nighttime quiet") was marked by a gong at nine o'clock. Inmates slept in long rows of brick or wooden bunks, or on the floor, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen. The wooden bunks had blankets and paper mattresses filled with wood shavings; in the brick barracks, inmates lay on straw. According to Miklós Nyiszli : Eight hundred to

10976-403: The waste timber and livestock effluent and can be recycled within the farm system after use. Biogas plants are also able to use livestock manure to create biofuels, and these anaerobic digestion systems are known to capture methane in a usable form, while concentrating nitrogen, a valuable nutrient found in the manure which they then use to spread on their fields. Cattle feeding on a large scale

11088-469: The weather, they had to wait for the SS to arrive for the count; how long they stood there depended on the officers' mood, and whether there had been escapes or other events attracting punishment. Guards might force the prisoners to squat for an hour with their hands above their heads or hand out beatings or detention for infractions such as having a missing button or an improperly cleaned food bowl. The inmates were counted and re-counted. After roll call, to

11200-463: The welfare of these animals. Indoor feedlots with concrete surfaces can cause leg problems including swollen joints. On outdoor feedlots, welfare issues include mud in rainy areas; heat stress in feedlots that are not shaded; insufficient water to drink; excessive cold, and problems with cattle handling (e.g. electric prods ). Water troughs shared among many cattle can increase the spread of diseases including bovine respiratory disease . There are

11312-438: The women's camp. Rudolf Höss wrote of them: "It was easy to predict that these beasts would mistreat the women over whom they exercised power ... Spiritual suffering was completely alien to them." They were given serial numbers 1–999. The women's guard from Ravensbrück, Johanna Langefeld , became the first Auschwitz women's camp Lagerführerin . A second mass transport of women, 999 Jews from Poprad , Slovakia, arrived on

11424-402: The young calves reach a weight between 300 and 700 pounds (140 and 320 kg) they are rounded up and either sold directly to feedlots, or sent to cattle auctions for feedlots to bid on them. Once transferred to a feedlot, they are housed and looked after for the next six to eight months where they are fed a total mixed ration to gain weight. Feedlot diets encourage growth of muscle mass and

11536-436: Was 300 grams of bread, often moldy, part of which the inmates were expected to keep for breakfast the next day, with a tablespoon of cheese or marmalade, or 25 grams of margarine or sausage. Prisoners engaged in hard labour were given extra rations. A second roll call took place at seven in the evening, in the course of which prisoners might be hanged or flogged. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing until

11648-461: Was an SS escort. Much of the work took place outdoors at construction sites, gravel pits, and lumber yards. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner was assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels. Lunch was three-quarters of a litre of watery soup at midday, reportedly foul-tasting, with meat in the soup four times a week and vegetables (mostly potatoes and rutabaga ) three times. The evening meal

11760-430: Was first introduced in the early 60's, when a demand for higher quality beef in large quantities emerged. Farmers started becoming familiar with the finishing of beef, but also showed interest in various other aspects associated with the feedlot such as soil health , crop management, and how to manage labour costs. From the early 60's to the 90's feeding beef cattle in the feedlot style showed immense growth, and even today

11872-825: Was initially a quarantine camp), but the construction of BIII began in 1943 and stopped in April 1944, and the plan for BIV was abandoned. SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff , an architect, was the chief of construction. Based on an initial budget of RM 8.9 million, his plans called for each barracks to hold 550 prisoners, but he later changed this to 744 per barracks, which meant the camp could hold 125,000, rather than 97,000. There were 174 barracks, each measuring 35.4 by 11.0 m (116 by 36 ft), divided into 62 bays of 4 m (43 sq ft). The bays were divided into "roosts", initially for three inmates and later for four. With personal space of 1 m (11 sq ft) to sleep and place whatever belongings they had, inmates were deprived, Robert-Jan van Pelt wrote, "of

11984-484: Was not a workday, but prisoners had to clean the barracks and take their weekly shower, and were allowed to write (in German) to their families, although the SS censored the mail. Inmates who did not speak German would trade bread for help. Observant Jews tried to keep track of the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays , including Shabbat , and the weekly Torah portion . No watches, calendars, or clocks were permitted in

12096-467: Was one gas chamber, there were 20 such prisoners, in late 1943 there were 400, and by 1944 during the Holocaust in Hungary the number had risen to 874. The Sonderkommando removed goods and corpses from the incoming trains, guided victims to the dressing rooms and gas chambers, removed their bodies afterwards, and took their jewelry, hair, dental work, and any precious metals from their teeth, all of which

12208-450: Was one of the first to build a brand around itself as a specialty niche product, and is credited as a forerunner of companies like Niman Ranch and Dakota Beef . The restaurant was targeted to local farmers when it opened in 1977, but later became popular as a halfway stop on the busy highway connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles . A 153-room luxury inn was added in 1987. It was built in hacienda - style . The restaurant evolved into

12320-514: Was operational by March 1942. On or around 20 March, a transport of Polish Jews sent by the Gestapo from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the Oświęcim freight station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, then buried in a nearby meadow. The gas chamber was located in what prisoners called the "little red house" (known as bunker 1 by the SS), a brick cottage that had been turned into

12432-454: Was planned for 2022, making it the world's largest supercharger location. The ranch is known to travelers for the "ripe, tangy odor of cow manure", described alternately as a "horrible stench" and "a good, honest, American smell". This smell inspired food writer Michael Pollan to conduct the research on factory farming that led to his sustainability book, The Omnivore's Dilemma . The owner of Harris Ranch, in turn, threatened to withhold

12544-420: Was sent to Germany. Once the bodies were stripped of anything valuable, the Sonderkommando burned them in the crematoria. Because they were witnesses to the mass murder, the Sonderkommando lived separately from the other prisoners, although this rule was not applied to the non-Jews among them. Their quality of life was further improved by their access to the property of new arrivals, which they traded within

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