Misplaced Pages

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Long discussion

I just removed the external link Critique of Gas chamber thesis from the article. I strongly support free speech, but the contents of the website are that much questionable (and even illegal in some countries, e.g. Switzerland and Germany; in fact that website even had to be blocked by internet providers in Switzerland according to law) that I think it can not just be left uncommented. If somebody really thinks it should be in Misplaced Pages please add it again to the article on Revisionism. --Bvontob 17:12, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

"More notoriously, it was used in the Nazi Third Reich during the 1930s a part of a public euthanasia program..." -- This is new to me. Not doubting you but do you have a cite on this? Thanks.

The cite on my desk right now is Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, by Yitzhak Arad, who describes the development of the Operation Reinhard death camps. There are several books about the euthanasia program, which I have at work, but I don't have a primary citation off the top of my head. To quote Arad on page 9: "The first time gas had been used in Nazi Germany for murdering people was for the 'euthanasia program.' Over seventy thousand mentally or otherwise hopelessly ill Germans--not Jews--were killed between September 1939 and late summer 1941." He cites Nationalsozialistische Masentötengen durch Giftgas, Frankfurt-A.M., 1983, p. 62. Danny

Okay, thanks.

Moved some controversial statements here until we can get some citations. They are as follows:

The culprit can see the poison and is advised to hold the breath as long as possible for the next breath is going to bring death.

Some argue that they in fact knew, but still submissively went to meet their fate rather than to confront the armed guards who they vastly outnumbered in proportions 1:100 or more. The helpers in the technical matters of execution were fellow Jews whose lives were spared. These facts are cause of a lot of controversy and shame among Jews.

Is this info true, or revisionist history? Whatever the case, it needs to be rewritten before it's included in the entry. -- StormWriter

This is outrageous! You cannot deny the facts by erasing them repeatedly, check http://www.hagalil.com/shoah/holocaust/greif-0.htm if you dont believe. Instead of erasing you could rewrite it if you suggest it should be done!!

Nig

Niger, I am denying nothing, nor am I erasing these items; you might notice that these statements, which many (even non-Jews) would consider provocative at best, have been moved here, to the talk page. I appreciate your citation, but I'm wondering if it's definitive. Does anyone have a constructive comment? StormWriter

A thought: Niger, why don't you create a page about the Sonderkommandos? Since this page is about the gas chamber, I'm not sure an in-depth discussion of the Sonderkommandos belongs here. Again, I don't mean this as a form of censorship; the subject's just a bit off-topic for this page. StormWriter

OK, I can see that some folks want this information to be included. That being the case, I'm going to rewrite it and tone down the language. I still want a higher authority to decide whether it fits here or not. Stormwriter

By the way, why would the executed person be told to hold their breath as long as possible? To put on a show for the viewers, or what? Isn't the whole point just to get them killed ASAP?

(Did someone call for a sysop? I'm one of several. --Ed Poor)

That was me. Any comments? Stormwriter

Comments? No: you haven't said anything to reply to :-) I did take the liberty of making some changes to the article. I added "death follows quickly", divided capital punishment from genocide, and marked the controversy section. Any comments? ;-) --Ed Poor

Actually, I was hoping you could resolve the issue of whether or not the "Controversy" section really belongs here. Perhaps it should be moved to a new page about the Sonderkommandos? Stormwriter

Why not write a separate, short article about this controversy? I have repeatedly come across this point when reading about the holocaust. Why didn't the Jews resist? (Maybe the "non-resistance" thing is fuel for holocaust-denial arguments.) Anyway, the 2 positions seem to be Those stupid Jews should have resisted more and How can unarmed civilians resist an army? Care to take a crack at it? --Ed Poor

I'll certainly consider it, though I'm not well-versed about the Holocaust in particular (I just have lots of useless trivia floating around in my head). I am, however, a great researcher! :D Stormwriter

These sorts of comments have always seemed to me to be blaming the victims, as if other people in the same position (such as the writers of these comments?) would have somehow overwhelmed their armed guards and escaped. Anyone who thinks that terrorised, starved, unarmed people can overcome armed guards... should be invited to try it.

There's a case on record of a GI who captured an entire battalion of enemy soldiers in WWII, armed with only a machine gun. He spoke German, ordered them to form ranks, and marched them all back to friendly lines. And these guys were in good shape, disciplined, etc. But he had the drop on them. --Ed Poor

Precisely. And that's what makes the remarks so insidious, with their suggestion that the death camp victims were somehow cowards (with the unsaid implication that they therefore deserved their deaths).

Actually, there were Sonderkommandos, they did not participate in the killing (though they did accompany the victims to the gas chambers--killing was reserved for the guards), and their primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses. They were forced into the position, but accepted it because it meant a few more months of life. After their terms, each group of Sonderkommandos was killed. They also led the revolts in Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz. Finally, a small handful survived. For a personal account of a Sonderkommando, read Eyewitness Auschwitz by Filip Müller. Danny

PS.: The article quoted by Niger above, while interesting, is also a questionable source. It claims that 3 million Jews were killed in Auschwitz, when the actual number is closer to 1.2 - 1.5 million. Danny

Stormwriter summarized: Changed "not pretty" to "unpleasant" in an attempt to maintain NPOV. Need a stronger but non-loaded term!

Maybe we have to mention that opponents of capital punishment regard the gas chamber as cruel. The US Constitution specifically bans "cruel and unusual punishment". --Ed Poor

Very true, and in the eyes of some individuals, all death penalties are cruel and unusual. Don't know if it should appear here, though. While I can understand this viewpoint, I also believe that capital punishment is justified in many cases. Obviously electrocution, beheading, hanging, the gas chamber, and the like are not pleasant for the condemned criminal, and in many cases may deserve the term "cruel and unusual", it was only relatively recently that effective lethal injection methods were developed. It's my contention that the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended this stricture to cover torture and means of execution that were unnecessarily painful, extravagant, and undignified, such as "inching" and quartering. But then, we've been arguing about what the Constitution means for over 200 years. Stormwriter

213.253.40.134 removed some remarks that were sidetracking this discussion.

Thanks, .134 --Ed Poor

Sorry, guess I left my NSOH (neutral sense of humor) home today. Stormwriter

"A few minutes longer" is inaccurate. It was actually a couple of months. With the Russians beating back the Germans on the front, that was a serious matter of life and death. Sonderkommandos also led the death camp revolts, so the rest of the statement is inaccurate too. You might want to see the new movie The Gray Zone for a fictionalized account of one such revolt. Finally, surviving Sonderkommandos report various motives: pure survival instincts, a desire to tell the world, a desire to revolt, and more. Obviously, it is almost impossible to assess what really went through people's minds at the time and under the circumstances. Still, it's easy to be a hero from the distance of history. Danny

Consider what the phrase under duress means. If someone is faced with a choice of (A) signing a contract or (B) being murdered on the spot, and he signs it -- then is the contract valid? Not where I live. This leads into several larger ethical issues... --Ed Poor

I've deleted the remarks about the homosexuals and Jehova's witnesses, since these people weren't gassed, they were put into concentration camps and put to death by labor, or by shooting them, etc. Added the mentally ill, since these people actually were gassed in huge numbers. --Korpo

Something I wanted to clarify about my last edit:

I simply had a problem with the original post since it wasn't accurate. Gas chambers were specifically built for exterminating the groups mentioned in my edit. Jehova's witnesses and homosexuals were put into concentration camps, and surely mistreated beyond any measure conceivable to us. The fact remains though, that they presented a normal, and small portion, of those prisoner populations, and were not treated different than the rest of the prisoners. Jews, Sinti and Roma were people the Nazis specifically targetted for extermination as a people. Later on there wasn't even imprisonment for these people, they were simply transported to the death camps.

A Jehova's witness could have saved its life by denouncing its community's faith and agreeing to be drafted to the Wehrmacht, a choice Jews didn't have. But this isn't my point and I'm not suggesting they should have done that.

But the fact I want simply to put out by my edit, is:

I've read about the Holocaust and the Euthanasia operation, I've read about the concentration and death camps, and the SS, Gestapo and SD "security" apparatus, but I didn't read about Homosexuals or Jehova's witnesses being specifically targetted for extermination by gas as distinct groups, maybe still as a part of the prisoner population, but not specifically.

As a reference I want to suggest Eugen Kogons "The SS state" or the books of Raul Hilberg.

--Korpo

As to the Some argue that they in fact knew, but still submissively went to meet their fate rather than to confront the armed guards who they vastly outnumbered in proportions 1:100 or more. The helpers in the technical matters of execution were fellow Jews whose lives were spared. These facts are cause of a lot of controversy and shame among Jews. statement: this is partially true. Contrary to the western societies who (despite constant reports from the Polish and Czechoslovak underground) learnt of the genocide only after the war, most Poles knew what the concentration camps are. Thanks to countless people like Witold Pilecki who voluntarily went to Auschwitz and then escaped to tell the tale, the Polish society was quite well informed of the gas chambers. There are countless reports of people who were surprised that the showers they were rushed in were actually showers since they believed that they will be killed on the spot.

Perhaps it wasn't true for many Jews who were transported to the death camps from the West, but note that most of people killed in concentration camps were Poles and knew perfectly well what is going to happen.

Also, many accounts mention that the groups of inmates working at the gas chambers and supervising the transports from the train station to the gas chambers often told people whom they were escorting that they are about to die in a matter of minutes and they have a last chance of consolating with God. ] 11:17, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

scope of article

removed this text -

The American method may be contrasted with the method used in Nazi Germany, which was instituted en masse and secretly. The victims were apparently unaware of their fates; they died in the belief that they were entering the chambers to be cleaned and deloused.

Controversy

However, there is an ongoing controversy about whether the condemned knew what would happen to them. Some say they knew, but elected to live an extra few minutes rather than confront armed guards. Many regard such comments as an attempt to shift blame from Nazis to their victims, suggesting the death camp victims were cowards. While the guards were vastly outnumbered, the condemned were unarmed, often ill and emaciated, and were imprisoned in areas where the general populace was hostile, indifferent, or too fearful for their own lives to aid escaped prisoners.

Some prisoners called Sonderkommandos were forced to help the Nazis murder their fellow prisoners by leading prisoners to the gas chambers and disposing of the bodies.

Some Jews did resist, most notably in the 1944 Sonderkommando uprising at Auschwitz, during which one of the gas chambers was destroyed.

I don't see how a discussion of whether or not the Jews should have or did resist is appropriate here. Shouldn't this sort of thing be on the nazi concentration camp or Holocaust page?

IMO it is appropriate as part of the history of the usage. (Trish, please sign your posts.) Mikkalai 19:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

sorry about the non-signing - I wasn't very awake. And you would do well to indent when replying. As far as the edit is concerned - the resistance had nothing to do with gas chambers specifically with concentration camps. The paragraph as written is not appropriate. - Trick 00:04, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I considered my text to be a parallel opinion, you know, of the same bullet level, not an answer or comment to your remark. Mikkalai 03:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Diesel exhaust used for gassing?

Someone inserted recently: "Carbon monoxide was also used in large purpose-built gas chambers, provided by diesel engines designed for use in tanks or submarines". But:-

• Diesel exhaust does not contain much carbon monoxide unless the engine is running under load. This is a case where smellyness does not equal lethalness.
• As far as I know, the Germans did not have diesel tanks available.
• In at least one case they used a tank as a source of gas, right enough, but it was a petrol-driven tank.

Anthony Appleyard 23:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I made that edit, on the basis of Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust (5th imprint, 1990), p 425:

'At Belzec, Chelmno, Treblinka, and Sobibor, ..., Jews were killed by the exhaust from diesel engines: carbon monoxide poisoning. At Treblinka, it was the engines of captured Russian tanks and trucks which provided the exhaust.' --Squiddy 23:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

When does the original source information use the word "diesel", and when does it merely specify a lorry-sized engine? In those times most Army vehicles, even the largest, were petrol-driven; the main WWII exception was later types of Russian tanks, but the tank(s) used at Treblinka were likeliest captured early in the war and thus would be a petrol-driven type. I admit that the Nazis may have used diesel exhaust sometimes, but not always. Anthony Appleyard 07:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The para quoted above doesn't have a footnote ref, but 2 pages later (p427) there is verbatim quote from the Nuremberg testimony of Kurt Gerstein (SS Technical Disinfection Services chief), which refers to 'the diesel, whose exhaust was to kill these poor unfortunates.', 'seventy minutes and the diesel still would not start.' and 'the diesel engine started up after two hours and 49 minutes'. The reference given is 'Kurt Gerstein, statement of 6 May 1945, Tubingen: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-2170.' The incident recounted took place at Belzec in 1942, when Gerstein was visiting with Odilo Globocnik.

I'm not an engineer, but wouldn't it be possible to change the proportion of CO/CO2 in the exhaust by partially obstructing the air intake of the engine?

I've also changed submarine engine -> lorry engine, because I can't now remember where I read that, and Gilbert only mentions tank and lorry engines. --Squiddy 10:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the link from the article to this talk page, (just for encyclopedic style), but I'm willing to be proved wrong if you have sources. Martin Gilbert has slipped up in the past, so I don't consider him infallible. --Squiddy 23:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

See also , 3rd para from the end. --Squiddy 00:28, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Who was drunk?

Mcshadypl in his edit cited www.deathpenaltyinfo.org when he wrote "Later it was revealed that the executioner, Barry Bruce, was drunk", but here The American Prospect reports: "The execution went horribly wrong (there were even rumors that Thomas Bruce, who oversaw it, was drunk at the time)". So it's hard to know if there was someone drunk at the time, and his eventual identity. I'd rather choose not to mention this detail. Amux 20:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Undertakers injured

I have removed: There have been several documented instances where undertakers have been injured because the cyanide gas was still present in the individual's body following death.. This may be documented but I cannot trace a single reference. Can anyone help, please? BlueValour 03:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)