Gas van: Difference between revisions
m -restored the version that was the outcome of a prolonged discussion; i do not see any new evidence, in fact, not even an argument presented on the talk page |
OK, I fixed the lead per talk - "invented" removed |
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[[Image:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg|thumb|300px|Burned-out [[Magirus|Magirus-Deutz]] furniture mover van near [[Chełmno extermination camp]], type used by the Nazis for suffocation, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van had not been modified, as explained by ''Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality'' (1946),<ref name="ww2today.com">{{cite web | url=http://ww2today.com/16th-may-1942-ss-discuss-the-use-of-mobile-gassing-vans | title=SS use of mobile gassing vans | publisher=World War II Today | work=A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland | date=2011 | access-date=April 22, 2013 | quote=''Source:'' Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression'' – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418}};</ref> nevertheless, it gives a good idea about the process.]] |
[[Image:Chelmno Gas Van.jpg|thumb|300px|Burned-out [[Magirus|Magirus-Deutz]] furniture mover van near [[Chełmno extermination camp]], type used by the Nazis for suffocation, with the exhaust fumes diverted into the sealed rear compartment where the victims were locked in. This particular van had not been modified, as explained by ''Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality'' (1946),<ref name="ww2today.com">{{cite web | url=http://ww2today.com/16th-may-1942-ss-discuss-the-use-of-mobile-gassing-vans | title=SS use of mobile gassing vans | publisher=World War II Today | work=A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland | date=2011 | access-date=April 22, 2013 | quote=''Source:'' Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: ''Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression'' – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418}};</ref> nevertheless, it gives a good idea about the process.]] |
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A '''gas van''' or '''gas wagon''' ({{lang-de|Gaswagen}}) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile [[gas chamber]]. During [[World War II]] Nazi Germany used gas vans on a large scale as |
A '''gas van''' or '''gas wagon''' ({{lang-ru|душегубка}} (''dushegubka''); {{lang-de|Gaswagen}}) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile [[gas chamber]]. The first usage of the gas was documented in the Soviet Union in 1936. The vehicle had an air-tight compartment for the murdered victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running. The murdered victims were gassed with [[carbon monoxide]], resulting in death by [[carbon monoxide poisoning]] and [[Asphyxia|suffocation]]. The gas van was used by the Soviet [[NKVD|secret police]] in 1930s.<ref name="rob_gell">''[[Komsomolskaya pravda]]'', October 28, 1990; this source has been cited by several other authors: (i) Catherine Merridale. ''Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.'' [[Penguin Books]], 2002 {{ISBN|0-14-200063-9}} p. 200; (ii) Timothy J. Colton. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis.'' [[Harvard University Press#Related publishers, imprints, and series|Belknap Press]], 1998. {{ISBN|0-674-58749-9}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&dq=gas+chamber+butovo&ei=bTrHSpm3EJeIyQSl6p32Aw#v=onepage&q=gas%20chamber%20butovo&f=false p. 286], (iii) Солженицын А.И. [[Two Hundred Years Together]] (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, {{ISBN|5-85887-151-8}}, p. 297, (iv) [[Yevgenia Albats]], ''KGB: The State Within a State''. 1995, page 101., (v) [http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1265324 Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007. ], (vi) [https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2010/08/02/2213-chelovek-v-kozhanom-fartuke Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31).] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100806171843/http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag10/00.html |date=2010-08-06 }}.</ref> During [[World War II]] Nazi Germany used gas vans on a large scale as an [[genocide|extermination]] method to murder inmates of asylums, Romani people, Jews, and prisoners in occupied [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|Poland]], [[German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II|Belarus]], and [[World War II in Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]].<ref>{{cite book|ref=harv|last=Bartrop|first=Paul R.|editor=Paul R. Bartrop; Michael Dickerman|title=The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u4I2DwAAQBAJ|volume=1|year=2017|publisher=ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara|isbn=978-1-4408-4084-5|chapter=Gas Vans|p=234–235}}</ref><ref>[http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/chelmno/sonderdruck.html "Gas Wagons: The Holocaust's mobile gas chambers"], an article of [[Nizkor Project]]</ref> |
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| ⚫ | The first usage of gas vans was described in the [[Soviet Union]] in 1930s<ref name="rob_gell" /> According to this publication,<ref name="rob_gell">''[[Komsomolskaya pravda]]'', October 28, 1990; this source has been cited by several other authors: (i) Catherine Merridale. ''Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia.'' [[Penguin Books]], 2002 {{ISBN|0-14-200063-9}} p. 200; (ii) Timothy J. Colton. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis.'' [[Harvard University Press#Related publishers, imprints, and series|Belknap Press]], 1998. {{ISBN|0-674-58749-9}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&dq=gas+chamber+butovo&ei=bTrHSpm3EJeIyQSl6p32Aw#v=onepage&q=gas%20chamber%20butovo&f=false p. 286], (iii) Солженицын А.И. [[Two Hundred Years Together]] (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, {{ISBN|5-85887-151-8}}, p. 297, (iv) [[Yevgenia Albats]], ''KGB: The State Within a State''. 1995, page 101., (v) [http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1265324 Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007. ], (vi) [https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2010/08/02/2213-chelovek-v-kozhanom-fartuke Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31).] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100806171843/http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2010/gulag10/00.html |date=2010-08-06 }}.</ref> A team of [[NKVD|secret police]] officers was suffocating batches of prisoners with engine fumes in a camouflaged bread van while driving out to the [[Mass graves from Soviet mass executions|mass graves]] at [[Butovo firing range|Butovo]], where the prisoners were subsequently buried.<ref name="tim_colt">Timothy J. Colton. ''Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis.'' [[Harvard University Press#Related publishers, imprints, and series|Belknap Press]], 1998. {{ISBN|0-674-58749-9}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=lXM2H6tWHskC&pg=PA286&dq=gas+chamber+butovo&ei=bTrHSpm3EJeIyQSl6p32Aw#v=onepage&q=gas%20chamber%20butovo&f=false p. 286],</ref> According to [[Yevgenia Albats]], "Owning to the shortage of executioners, ... Chekists used trucks camouflaged as bread vans for mobile [[Gas chamber|death chambers]]. Yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of the Auschwitz were built"<ref name="Albats">[[Yevgenia Albats]], ''KGB: The State Within a State''. 1995, page 101</ref> The use of gas vans was supervised by Isay Berg, the head of the administrative and economic department of the [[NKVD]] of [[Moscow Oblast]] who acted on the orders from the higher [[NKVD]] administration.<ref>[https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1265324 On the way to the place of the execution, the convicts were poisoned with gas (Russian)], by Yevgeniy Zhirnov, [[Kommersant]]</ref> According to [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], "I. D. Berg was ordered to carry out the decisions of the [[NKVD troika]] of Moscow Oblast, and Berg was decently carrying out this assignment: he was driving people to the executions by shooting. But, when in Moscow Oblast there came to be three troikas having their sessions simultaneously, the executioners could not cope with the load. They hit upon a solution: to strip the victims naked, to tie them up, plug their mouths and throw them into a closed truck, disguised from the outside as a bread van. During transportation the fuel gases came into the truck, and when delivered to the farthest [execution] ditch the arrestees were already dead."<ref name="two-hundred">Солженицын А.И. [[Two Hundred Years Together]] (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, {{ISBN|5-85887-151-8}}, p. 297</ref> Berg himself was arrested and convicted by the NKVD in 1937.<ref>[https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2010/08/02/2213-chelovek-v-kozhanom-fartuke The man in the leather apron (Russian)], by [[Nikita Petrov]], [[Novaya Gazeta]]</ref> |
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==Nazi Germany== |
==Nazi Germany== |
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The gas vans are extensively discussed in some of the interviews in [[Claude Lanzmann]]'s film ''[[Shoah (film)|Shoah]]''. |
The gas vans are extensively discussed in some of the interviews in [[Claude Lanzmann]]'s film ''[[Shoah (film)|Shoah]]''. |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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*[[The Holocaust]] |
*[[The Holocaust]] |
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*[[Operation Reinhard]] |
*[[Operation Reinhard]] |
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*[[Charcoal-burning suicide]] |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 01:57, 29 September 2019
A gas van or gas wagon (Russian: душегубка (dushegubka); German: Gaswagen) was a vehicle reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. The first usage of the gas was documented in the Soviet Union in 1936. The vehicle had an air-tight compartment for the murdered victims, into which exhaust fumes were transmitted while the engine was running. The murdered victims were gassed with carbon monoxide, resulting in death by carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation. The gas van was used by the Soviet secret police in 1930s.[2] During World War II Nazi Germany used gas vans on a large scale as an extermination method to murder inmates of asylums, Romani people, Jews, and prisoners in occupied Poland, Belarus, and Yugoslavia.[3][4]
Soviet Union
The first usage of gas vans was described in the Soviet Union in 1930s[2] According to this publication,[2] A team of secret police officers was suffocating batches of prisoners with engine fumes in a camouflaged bread van while driving out to the mass graves at Butovo, where the prisoners were subsequently buried.[5] According to Yevgenia Albats, "Owning to the shortage of executioners, ... Chekists used trucks camouflaged as bread vans for mobile death chambers. Yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of the Auschwitz were built"[6] The use of gas vans was supervised by Isay Berg, the head of the administrative and economic department of the NKVD of Moscow Oblast who acted on the orders from the higher NKVD administration.[7] According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "I. D. Berg was ordered to carry out the decisions of the NKVD troika of Moscow Oblast, and Berg was decently carrying out this assignment: he was driving people to the executions by shooting. But, when in Moscow Oblast there came to be three troikas having their sessions simultaneously, the executioners could not cope with the load. They hit upon a solution: to strip the victims naked, to tie them up, plug their mouths and throw them into a closed truck, disguised from the outside as a bread van. During transportation the fuel gases came into the truck, and when delivered to the farthest [execution] ditch the arrestees were already dead."[8] Berg himself was arrested and convicted by the NKVD in 1937.[9]
Nazi Germany
In August 1941, SS chief Heinrich Himmler attended a demonstration of a mass-shooting of Jews in Minsk arranged by Arthur Nebe, after which he vomited. Regaining his composure, Himmler decided that alternative methods of killing should be found.[10] He turned to Nebe to explore more "convenient" ways of killing that were less stressful for the killers. Nebe decided to try experimenting by murdering Soviet mental patients, first with explosives near Minsk, and then with automobile exhaust at Mogilev.[11] Nebe's experiments led to the utilization of the gas van.[12] This vehicle had already been used in 1940 for the gassing of East Prussian and Pomeranian mental patients in the Soldau concentration camp.[13] Another source states that the vans were first tested on Soviet prisoners in Sachsenhausen.[14]
Gas vans were used, particularly at Chełmno extermination camp, until gas chambers were developed as a more efficient method for killing large numbers of people. There were two types of gas vans in operation, used by the Einsatzgruppen in the East. The Opel-Blitz, weighing 3.5 tons, and the larger Saurerwagen, weighing 7 tons.[15] In Belgrade, the gas van was known as "Dušegupka" and in the occupied parts of the USSR similarly as "душегубка" (dushegubka, literally (feminine) soul killer/exterminator). The SS used the euphemisms Sonderwagen, Spezialwagen or S-wagen ("special vehicle") for the vans.[16] The gas vans were specifically designed to direct deadly exhaust fumes via metal pipes into the airtight cargo compartments, where the intended victims had been forcibly stuffed to capacity. In most cases the victims were suffocated and poisoned from carbon monoxide and other toxins in the exhaust as the vans were transporting them to fresh pits or ravines for mass burial.
The use of gas vans had two disadvantages:
- It was slow — some victims took twenty minutes to die.
- It was not quiet — the drivers could hear the victims' screams, which they found distracting and disturbing.
By June 1942 the main producer of gas vans, Gaubschat Fahrzeugwerke GmbH, had delivered 20 gas vans in two models (for 30–50 and 70–100 individuals) to Einsatzgruppen, out of 30 ordered from that company. Not one gas van was extant at the end of the war. The existence of gas vans first came to light in 1943 during the trial of Nazi collaborators involved in the gassing of 6,700 civilians in Krasnodar.[citation needed] The total number of gas van gassings is unknown.[17]
The gas vans are extensively discussed in some of the interviews in Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah.
See also
References
- ^ "SS use of mobile gassing vans". A damaged Magirus-Deutz van found in 1945 in Kolno, Poland. World War II Today. 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2013.
Source: Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression – Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Office, 1946, Vol III, p. 418
; - ^ a b c Komsomolskaya pravda, October 28, 1990; this source has been cited by several other authors: (i) Catherine Merridale. Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia. Penguin Books, 2002 ISBN 0-14-200063-9 p. 200; (ii) Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286, (iii) Солженицын А.И. Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, ISBN 5-85887-151-8, p. 297, (iv) Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101., (v) Е. Жирнов. «По пути следования к месту исполнения приговоров отравлялись газом». Коммерсантъ Власть, № 44, 2007. , (vi) Н. Петров. «Человек в кожаном фартуке». Новая газета, спецвыпуск «Правда ГУЛАГа» от 02.08.2010 № 10 (31). Archived 2010-08-06 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bartrop, Paul R. (2017). "Gas Vans". In Paul R. Bartrop; Michael Dickerman (ed.). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. p. 234–235. ISBN 978-1-4408-4084-5.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) - ^ "Gas Wagons: The Holocaust's mobile gas chambers", an article of Nizkor Project
- ^ Timothy J. Colton. Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Belknap Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-58749-9 p. 286,
- ^ Yevgenia Albats, KGB: The State Within a State. 1995, page 101
- ^ On the way to the place of the execution, the convicts were poisoned with gas (Russian), by Yevgeniy Zhirnov, Kommersant
- ^ Солженицын А.И. Two Hundred Years Together (Двести лет вместе), volume=2, Москва, Русский путь, 2002, ISBN 5-85887-151-8, p. 297
- ^ The man in the leather apron (Russian), by Nikita Petrov, Novaya Gazeta
- ^ Longerich, Peter (2012). Heinrich Himmler: A Life, p. 547, ISBN 978-0-19-959232-6.
- ^ Lewy, Guenter (2000). The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, pp. 204–208, ISBN 0-19-512556-8.
- ^ The path to genocide: essays on launching the final solution By Christopher R. Browning
- ^ The destruction of the European Jews, Part 804, Volume 1 By Raul Hilberg
- ^ Saul Friedländer. The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, HarperCollins, 2007, p. 234 ISBN 978-0-06-019043-9
- ^ Ernst. Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess (1991). "The gas-vans (3. 'A new and better method of killing had to be found')". The Good Old Days: The Holocaust As Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Konecky Konecky. p. 69. ISBN 1568521332. Retrieved 2013-05-08.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Patrick Montague (2012). "The Gas Vans (Appendix I)". Chełmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler's First Death Camp. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. Appendix I: The Gas Van. ISBN 0807835277. Retrieved 2018-09-15.
- ^ "Gaswagen, from deathcamps.org, in German". 2006. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
External links
