What happened to all the Gas Vans used in the Holocaust?

[anonymous-user]

Am I right to think, that gas vans were phased out and replaced by gas chambers after the Final Solution, introduced by Heinrich Himmler? Or was the gas van part of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question?

[justleanitupabit]

liner33 said:

I visited a museum in France and there was a guillotine there that has been used for dozens if not hundreds of executions

I couldn't see something like that in a UK museum but not all cultures feel the same

Plenty of gruesome exhibits in the the Tower of London for example.

[Willy Nilly]

in light of recent events, I would think VW bought them all for inspection.

[RDMcG]

sleepera6 said:

Am I right to think, that gas vans were phased out and replaced by gas chambers after the Final Solution, introduced by Heinrich Himmler? Or was the gas van part of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question?

I believe that is the case. People tend to underestimate the number of camps drastically. The general thought is about 1.200. I have been to a number of them, and they are grim places. France was a very willing participant in the Holocaust, exporting basically its entire Jewish population to the camps.

I was in a smaller one, (Struthof in France) that is very well preserved, and the commandant's home . complete with a swimming pool, sat near an attractive country house. It was not a residence. It was a gas chamber.

Edited by RDMcG on Sunday 15th January 16:03

[heebeegeetee]

justleanitupabit said:

liner33 said:

I visited a museum in France and there was a guillotine there that has been used for dozens if not hundreds of executions

I couldn't see something like that in a UK museum but not all cultures feel the same

Plenty of gruesome exhibits in the the Tower of London for example.

Warwick castle also show some horrific methods of torture and execution.

[DamienB]

williamp said:

If they survive, no museum would want to show one. THink about it: to show somehting like this is a very fine line between glamarising/ celebrating what happened.

What makes you think that? Does the preservation and display of B-29 Enola Gay glamourise or celebrate the incineration of 80,000 people?

I'm sure no war museum would say that it's exhibits glamourise war. They ensure the horror is not forgotten. And hopefully play a part in it not being repeated.

[RDMcG]

It is illuminating to understand just how devastating the War was, I found this American video very compelling as to how 70 million were killed, including the Holocaust....

https://vimeo.com/128373915

[xRIEx]

sleepera6 said:

Around 7,000 Jews, Romas, Jehovah's Witnesses and others died in a gas van, out of the 6,000,000+ who died between 1941-1945 under the German Reich.

As a side note, as far as I have read, 6,000,000 is the approximate number of Jews who were killed; the total tally (covering the other groups you mentioned, and homosexuals and the mentally and physically disabled, and yet other groups) is estimated at around 11,000,000.

[hora]

On the French guillotines- France turned on the ruling set. It's been a Republic ever since.

The protagonists and immediate families are all long dead.

Hence why the Holocaust can't be compared in any way.

Enola Gay- sorry to say but if Japan hadn't yielded the country would have been wiped out. The same would have happened to Germany.

You can't compare the systematic persecution of the vulnerable, the unarmed and the young of all parts of society in the Holocaust with either the Atomic bomb or the Revolution.

[RDMcG]

hora said:

On the French guillotines- France turned on the ruling set. It's been a Republic ever since.

The protagonists and immediate families are all long dead.

Hence why the Holocaust can't be compared in any way.

Enola Gay- sorry to say but if Japan hadn't yielded the country would have been wiped out. The same would have happened to Germany.

You can't compare the systematic persecution of the vulnerable, the unarmed and the young of all parts of society in the Holocaust with either the Atomic bomb or the Revolution.

It was clear the Japan culturally would never have surrendered in the event of a land invasion by the US. The strong belief was that the land was sacred and that it would be defined at all costs. I have no doubt that the A bomb saved a lot more than it killed, which was a small amount compared to the conventional firebombings of places like Tokyo.

[liner33]

Pothole said:

liner33 said:

sleepera6 said:

Surely one would be at a museum? Although it would of had a dark past.

Nothing wrong with taking an interest in researching WW1 and 2.

I visited a museum in France and there was a guillotine there that has been used for dozens if not hundreds of executions

I couldn't see something like that in a UK museum but not all cultures feel the same

You could:

http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/visit-us/top...

Those are replicas though , this was an actual guillotine used for executions right up the the 1960's a significant amount just after the war

[liner33]

hora said:

On the French guillotines- France turned on the ruling set. It's been a Republic ever since.

The protagonists and immediate families are all long dead.

Hence why the Holocaust can't be compared in any way.

Enola Gay- sorry to say but if Japan hadn't yielded the country would have been wiped out. The same would have happened to Germany.

You can't compare the systematic persecution of the vulnerable, the unarmed and the young of all parts of society in the Holocaust with either the Atomic bomb or the Revolution.

The French executed the last person by guillotine in 1977 it didnt all stop at the Revolution

[hora]

liner33 said:

The French executed the last person by guillotine in 1977 it didnt all stop at the Revolution

Hands up. I didn't know that.

[Yipper]

hora said:

On the French guillotines- France turned on the ruling set. It's been a Republic ever since.

The protagonists and immediate families are all long dead.

Hence why the Holocaust can't be compared in any way.

Enola Gay- sorry to say but if Japan hadn't yielded the country would have been wiped out. The same would have happened to Germany.

You can't compare the systematic persecution of the vulnerable, the unarmed and the young of all parts of society in the Holocaust with either the Atomic bomb or the Revolution.

A death is a death. You can't rank it.

Innocents always get it bad in war. Whether it is a French kid slaughtered in 1790, a Jewish kid in 1943, a Japanese kid in 1945, a Rwandan kid in 1994, or an Iraqi kid in 2003, they are all equally grim.

[Riley Blue]

hora said:

liner33 said:

The French executed the last person by guillotine in 1977 it didnt all stop at the Revolution

Hands up. I didn't know that.

I heard it on the radio only yesterday, it astounded me too.

[hora]

Bbc1 now. Try to get it full on catch up. I'm not a fan of Antique Roadshow but this is more emotional value.

The emotional value is worth billions.

[832ark]

I'll tell you what I do find 'unbelievable' (and I mean incredible, not that I don't believe) is that they systematically killed 11 million people over a 5 year period. The sheer scale of evil is just incomprehensible, how could the people on the ground actually doing this work do these things to other human beings? How did the logistics work? I know we joke about German efficiency but they must have done huge quantities of work on the most efficient ways to kill people and dispose of bodies. Very sobering indeed.

[WJNB]

Soldiers tasked with the role of shooting prisoners in the back of the head via a hole in the wall eventually suffered trauma & often got drunk to help them cope. With the increasing need to dispose of what were eventually referred to as 'log's gas vans were tried but could not kill at a quick enough rate. Both these methods left the problem of what to do the dead bodies. At about this time the term 'final solution' was used (discreetly of course) & it became urgently necessary to accelerate the killing process. Thus the crematorium system was developed to great effect, killing 2 birds with one stone if you'll excuse the appalling analogy.
Am unaware of any gas vans left, my guess is that they were returned to their original role.
As a relevant aside there are examples in museums of actual cattle trucks used to transport prisoners.

[MarshPhantom]

liner33 said:

I visited a museum in France and there was a guillotine there that has been used for dozens if not hundreds of executions

I couldn't see something like that in a UK museum but not all cultures feel the same

Not trying to be controversial, but why is the Holocaust remebered as the worst thing Hitler did. More than 20 million Russians died during WW2, and they pretty much defeated Hitler and the Nazis on our behalf.

[williamp]

DamienB said:

williamp said:

If they survive, no museum would want to show one. THink about it: to show somehting like this is a very fine line between glamarising/ celebrating what happened.

What makes you think that? Does the preservation and display of B-29 Enola Gay glamourise or celebrate the incineration of 80,000 people?

I'm sure no war museum would say that it's exhibits glamourise war. They ensure the horror is not forgotten. And hopefully play a part in it not being repeated.

I say that as I work in museums, I knmow how they work. Also, have a read of this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/the-...

Then read the comments underneath. A lot of people will agree with the comments and feel its wrong, regardless of how the objects are shown. And museums will not want to be associated with it. I dont agree with it, but thats how it is.