https://en.wikipedia.

org/wiki/Extermination_camp

Heinrich Himmler visited the outskirts of Minsk in 1941 to witness a mass shooting. He was told by
the commanding officer there that the shootings were proving psychologically damaging to those
being asked to pull the triggers. Thus Himmler knew another method of mass killing was required.
[44]

After the war, the diary of the Auschwitz Commandant, Rudolf Hss, revealed that psychologically

"unable to endure wading through blood any longer", many Einsatzkommandos the killers either
went mad or killed themselves.[45]
The Nazis had first used gassing with carbon monoxide cylinders to kill 70,000 disabled people in
Germany in what they called a 'euthanasia programme' to disguise that mass murder was taking
place. Despite the lethal effects of carbon monoxide, this was seen as unsuitable for use in the East
due to the cost of transporting the carbon monoxide in cylinders. [44]
Each extermination camp operated differently, yet each had designs for quick and efficient
industrialized killing. While Hss was away on an official journey in late August 1941 his deputy, Karl
Fritzsch, tested out an idea. At Auschwitz clothes infected with lice were treated with crystallised
prussic acid. The crystals were made to order by the IG Farben chemicals company for which the
brand name was Zyklon-B. Once released from their container, Zyklon-B crystals in the air released
a lethal cyanide gas. Fritzch tried out the effect of Zyklon B on Soviet POWs, who were locked up in
cells in the basement of the bunker for this experiment. Hss on his return was briefed and
impressed with the results and this became the camp strategy for extermination as it was also to be
at Majdanek. Besides gassing, the camp guards continued killing prisoners via mass shooting,
starvation, torture, etc.[46]

Gassings
See also: The Holocaust Gas chambers, Gas chamber Nazi Germany and Criticism of Holocaust
denial Use of gas chambers
SS Obersturmfhrer Kurt Gerstein, of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS, during the war told
a Swedish diplomat of life in a death camp, of how, on 19 August 1942, he arrived at Belzec
extermination camp (which was equipped with carbon monoxide gas chambers) and was shown the
unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead, but the rest were marched
naked to the gas chambers, where:
Unterscharfhrer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't
go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it
all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel [engine] did not
start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, "like in the
synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious,

Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian (Trawniki) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the
face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes the stopwatch recorded it all the diesel started. Up to that
moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons,
in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be
seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few
moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead ...
Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain
Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See, for yourself,
the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find
every day dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!"

Kurt Gerstein

[47]

March of new arrivals along the SS barracks at Birkenau toward the gassing bunker near crematoria II and III;
as if nothing bad was going to happen, 27 May 1944

Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Hss reported that the first time Zyklon B gas was used on
the Jews, many suspected they were to be killed despite having been deceived into believing they
were to be deloused and then returned to the camp. As a result, the Nazis identified and isolated
"difficult individuals" who might alert the prisoners, and removed them from the mass lest they
incite revolt among the deceived majority of prisoners en route to the gas chambers. The "difficult"
prisoners were led to a site out of view to be killed off discreetly.
A prisoner Sonderkommando (Special Detachment) effected in the processes of extermination; they
encouraged the Jews to undress without a hint of what was about to happen. They accompanied
them into the gas chambers outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles,
and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before the chamber door closed. To
psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the
door until the end. TheSonderkommando talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the
suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very
young in undressing.[48]
To further persuade the prisoners that nothing harmful was happening,
the Sonderkommando deceived them with small talk about friends or relations who had arrived in
earlier transports. Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that the

delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Hss reported that the "men of the
Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take
their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the Sonderkommando comforted older children who
might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion". [49]
Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such psychological tactics; Commandant Hss spoke of
Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless ... [they] found the courage to
joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some
women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream
like maniacs"; theSonderkommando immediately took them away for execution by shooting. [50] In
such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed
the identities and "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding". [51]
Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through
special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the
preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses.
Commandant Hss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion"; the Auschwitz
camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon-B gas, which
killed before the victim began suffering convulsions.[52]

The remnants of "Crematorium II" used in Auschwitz-Birkenau between March 1943 and its complete
destruction by theSchutzstaffel on 20 January 1945

Fifty two crematorium ovens, including these, were used to burn the bodies of up to 6,000 people every 24
hours during the operation of Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers. [53]

As a matter of political training, some high-ranked Nazi Party leaders and SS officers were sent to
AuschwitzBirkenau to witness the gassings; Hss reported that "all were deeply impressed by what
they saw ... [yet some] ... who had previously spoken most loudly, about the necessity for this

extermination, fell silent once they had actually seen the 'final solution of the Jewish problem'." As
the Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Hss justified the extermination by explaining the need for
"the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders"; yet saw that even "[Adolf]
Eichmann, who certainly [was] tough enough, had no wish to change places with me." [54]

Corpse disposal
After the gassings, the Sonderkommando removed the corpses from the gas chambers, then
extracted any gold teeth. Initially, the victims were buried in mass graves, but were
later cremated during Sonderaktion 1005 in all camps of Operation Reinhard.
The Sonderkommando were responsible for burning the corpses in the pits,[55] stoking the fires,
draining surplus body fat and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses... so that the draught
might fan the flames" wrote Commandant Hss in his memoir while in the Polish custody.[55] He was
impressed by the diligence of prisoners from the so-called Special Detachment who carried out their
duties despite their being well aware that they, too, would meet exactly the same fate in the end. [55] At
the Lazaret killing station they held the sick so they would never see the gun while being shot. They
did it "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might, themselves, have been the exterminators"
wrote Hss.[55] He further said that the men ate and smoked "even when engaged in the grisly job of
burning corpses which had been lying for some time in mass graves."[55] They occasionally
encountered the corpse of a relative, or saw them entering the gas chambers. According to Hss
they were obviously shaken by this but "it never led to any incident." He mentioned the case of
a Sonderkommando who found the body of his wife, yet continued to drag corpses along "as though
nothing had happened."[55]
At Auschwitz, the corpses were incinerated in crematoria and the ashes either buried, scattered, or
dumped in the river. At Sobibr, Treblinka, Belzec, and Chemno, the corpses were incinerated on
pyres. The efficiency of industrialised killing at Auschwitz-Birkenau led to the construction of three
buildings with crematoria designed by specialists from Topf und Shne. They handled the body
disposal around the clock, day and night, and yet the speed of gassing required that some corpses
burn in an open air pit also.[56]

Ustae camps[edit]

Jasenovac victims' bodies left without burial on the river Sava near Sisak, May 1945

Main articles: Jadovno concentration camp and Jasenovac concentration camp

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington, DC, presently estimates
that the Ustaa regime in Croatia murdered between 77,000 and 99,000 people at their
own Jasenovac concentration campbetween 1941 and 1945. The Jasenovac Memorial Site quotes a
similar figure of between 80,000 and 100,000 victims. [57] The television documentary, "Nazi
Collaborators" on Dinko Sakic stated that over 300,000 people were killed at Jasenovac.[39] The
Jasenovac mechanical means of mass killing included the use initially of gas vans and later Zyklon B
in stationary gas chambers. The Jasenovac guards have also been reported to have cremated living
inmates in the crematorium. A notable difference of the Ustae camps as compared to the
German SS camps was the widespread use of manual methods in the mass killings. These involved
instruments such as mallets and agricultural knives which evolved to often to be done in a manner
where still alive victims were thrown off the end of a ramp into the River Sava.
The estimates for the Jadovno concentration camp generally offer a range of 10,000 72,000
deaths at the camp over a period of 122 days (May to August 1941). [58] Most commonly Jadovno
victims were bound together in a line and the first few victims were murdered with rifle butts or other
objects. Afterwards, an entire row of inmates were pushed into the ravine. Hand grenades were
hurled inside in order to finish off the victims. Dogs would also be thrown in to feed on the wounded
and the dead. Inmates were also killed by machine gunfire, as well as with knives and blunt objects.
[59][60]