Final answer:
The term 'selection' in Nazi concentration camps denotes the process where prisoners were chosen to live or die. At camps like Auschwitz, SS officers conducted selections to determine who would become slave laborers and who would be sent to gas chambers. This was part of the Nazi's 'Final Solution,' aimed at the extermination of Jews and other targeted groups.
Step-by-step explanation:
The word "selection" in the context of Nazi concentration camps, particularly the infamous Auschwitz, refers to the process by which prisoners were chosen to live or die. Upon arrival at these camps, individuals were immediately subjected to a selection process, where the SS decided who would be sent to work as slave labor and who would be sent to the gas chambers. The selection process was ruthless and was a direct implementation of the Nazi policy known as the "Final Solution," aiming to systematically exterminate Jewish people and other targeted groups.
Those not picked for labor, which was often a temporary reprieve, faced immediate murder. Many Jews not capable of labor were killed using fast-working methods like gas chambers, and those selected to work became part of a slave labor force until they were worked to death or became too weak to be of use, at which point they too would face extermination.
This system of selection exemplified the brutal reality of life and death within the concentration camps and was part of the larger, horrific strategy of genocide carried out by the Nazi regime against the Jewish people and other persecuted groups during the Holocaust.