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

[RemyMartin81D]

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.

Oh bore off. Deleting history is almost as bad as the actual history happening.

The stuka dive bomber at the Chicago science museum probably killed alot of allies, yet it was one of the most amazing things I've seen. Apart from admiring the engineering of the thing it's just an awesome plane, it must have been utterly terrifying seeing one dive with the Jericho horn blaring.
The German U boat is bloody amazing too.

What's next stop people visiting Auschwitz? People need to see this stuff and reflect.

Showing stuff in a musuem is like living history. Not making it glamorous.

[mac96]

motco said:

832ark said:

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.

I have often pondered just how the idea of mass murder was floated at the Nazi party weekly progress meetings. It's not like a snot-nosed little intern will have stuck his chewed fingernailed hand up and said "Please, Sir! We could just gas them all, couldn't we?" It had to have been a series of infinitesimal steps from evacuation, through forced deportation, and onwards to death camps. The film 'Conspiracy' comes closest in my experience to showing how it could have come about even though it is chronologically late in the proceedings. Nevertheless it shows how the unthinkable can be made almost acceptable. Very well worth a watch along with the two Churchill stories: 'The Gathering Storm', and 'Into the Storm' In Conspiracy Stanley Tucci as Adolph Eichmann is particularly chilling.

I think 'Conspiracy' should be compulsory viewing. It uses the actual transcript of the Wannsee conference and is as near to a documentary of the conference as you can have.

The chilling thing is how normal all seems; these are 'civilised' and educated men discussing how to implement the Final Solution.They talk as if they we discussing running BMW, or a hospital group.

I think anyone who has attended board meetings or similar in large organisations will see scary parallels with normality, both in detail, and in the overall purpose of the meeting (which is to get various power bases to buy in to a decision already made by the SS). So many normal meetings are for the same purpose-to get people to buy into a decision by deceiving them into thinking they have helped make it, largely in order to spread the blame if it goes wrong.

We need to remember that ordinary people can do evil things and that is just what this film shows. People like us. Frightening.

[motco]

mac96 said:

motco said:

832ark said:

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.

I have often pondered just how the idea of mass murder was floated at the Nazi party weekly progress meetings. It's not like a snot-nosed little intern will have stuck his chewed fingernailed hand up and said "Please, Sir! We could just gas them all, couldn't we?" It had to have been a series of infinitesimal steps from evacuation, through forced deportation, and onwards to death camps. The film 'Conspiracy' comes closest in my experience to showing how it could have come about even though it is chronologically late in the proceedings. Nevertheless it shows how the unthinkable can be made almost acceptable. Very well worth a watch along with the two Churchill stories: 'The Gathering Storm', and 'Into the Storm' In Conspiracy Stanley Tucci as Adolph Eichmann is particularly chilling.

I think 'Conspiracy' should be compulsory viewing. It uses the actual transcript of the Wannsee conference and is as near to a documentary of the conference as you can have.

The chilling thing is how normal all seems; these are 'civilised' and educated men discussing how to implement the Final Solution.They talk as if they we discussing running BMW, or a hospital group.

I think anyone who has attended board meetings or similar in large organisations will see scary parallels with normality, both in detail, and in the overall purpose of the meeting (which is to get various power bases to buy in to a decision already made by the SS). So many normal meetings are for the same purpose-to get people to buy into a decision by deceiving them into thinking they have helped make it, largely in order to spread the blame if it goes wrong.

We need to remember that ordinary people can do evil things and that is just what this film shows. People like us. Frightening.

I agree. The way weaker members become swept along with the tide of the group is just like committees and board meetings with one or more strong and dominant members. Also compulsory should be 'All Quiet on the Western Front' - the original version. Quite different but shows how patriotic fervour is whipped up among the young men only for it to end in tears.

[DonkeyApple]

RDMcG said:

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

Yup. Don't underestimate just how willing the majority on the mainland were to help their neighbour's into the camps. And it's an undercurrent that has never left frankly.

[Vocal Minority]

Vichy France and Italy both did.

I seem to remember Mussolini offering some resistance at first - though I may be mistaken.

Though I am certain his motive would be not wanting to be pushed around by Hitler - Il Duce had been in power in 1923 and in the early 30s had very much been the godfather of the fascist political movement - so basically being demoted to the junior partner in the Axis took some adjusting to.

Don't go thinking it was altruistic.

Anyway - what I would like to see taught more is not the horrific denouement of it all - but the drip drip drip of casual prejudice from the 20s and 30s that slowly gathered momentum and grew into something that the Nazi's ruthlessly exploited.

The run up is equally important to the main event. Because frankly I can see the parallels in modern society - but I also think a lot of people will find that too uncomfortable to confront.

Edited by Vocal Minority on Tuesday 17th January 12:01

[tomjol]

Vocal Minority said:

Vichy France and Italy both did.

I seem to remember Mussolini offering some resistance at first - though I may be mistaken.

Though I am certain his motive would be not wanting to be pushed around by Hitler - Il Duce had been in power in 1923 and in the early 30s had very much been the godfather of the fascist political movement - so basically being demoted to the junior partner in the Axis took some adjusting to.

Don't go thinking it was altruistic.

Anyway - what I would like to see taught more is not the horrific denouement of it all - but the drip drip drip of casual prejudice from the 20s and 30s that slowly gathered momentum and grew into something that the Nazi's ruthlessly exploited.

The run up is equally important to the main event. Because frankly I can see the parallels in modern society - but I also think a lot of people will find that too uncomfortable to confront.

Edited by Vocal Minority on Tuesday 17th January 12:01

Bingo. We are naive to think that "it can't happen again".

[WilkoIW]

Vocal Minority said:

Anyway - what I would like to see taught more is not the horrific denouement of it all - but the drip drip drip of casual prejudice from the 20s and 30s that slowly gathered momentum and grew into something that the Nazi's ruthlessly exploited.

The run up is equally important to the main event. Because frankly I can see the parallels in modern society - but I also think a lot of people will find that too uncomfortable to confront.

Exactly my thoughts. I fear dangerous times are ahead.

[crosseyedlion]

WilkoIW said:

Vocal Minority said:

Anyway - what I would like to see taught more is not the horrific denouement of it all - but the drip drip drip of casual prejudice from the 20s and 30s that slowly gathered momentum and grew into something that the Nazi's ruthlessly exploited.

The run up is equally important to the main event. Because frankly I can see the parallels in modern society - but I also think a lot of people will find that too uncomfortable to confront.

Exactly my thoughts. I fear dangerous times are ahead.

I suggest watching 'Look whos back' - a comedy about Hitler coming back in todays world. Funny but it strikes this point brilliantly.

[ironv8]

If you've got Netflix watch Einsatzgruppen, if you can bear to hear the horrors from survivors. Gas Vans are mentioned along with systematic mass shootings at huge pits. Later in the war when the Nazis realised the game was up they hurriedly exhumed thousands of corpses and burned them in a futile attempt to remove all evidence.
A very sobering watch

[RemyMartin81D]

If history teaches us anything, it's that it likes to repeat itself I.e genocides, wars, recessions.

There will be another 'nazi' style party that governs a major country in the future. You could argue that is USA...But that's a different story

[katz]

As someone who lost 90% of their ancestors to the camps, I would just like to say how appreciative I am that here on PH we are able to hold a reasonable and sensible discussion on issues such as this. It is important that no matter how horrific, terrible or controversial such subjects are, there should always be room for exploration and discussion without the come back of terms such as anti -semite. As to the brands involved in the provision of the Final Solution, there are many that still exist, Hugo Boss, Mercedes, Thyssen- Krupp etc, and while it is important to reflect and learn from the past it is also important that we understand that the current companies have nothing to do with events of 70 years ago, and that we should forgive but not forget. I apologise if this comes across like a lecture.

[Levin]

It's difficult, if not outright impossible, to determine the fate of the gas vans used during the Holocaust. Most of the accounts I have read suggest the vans were built to be almost identical to civilian removal vans. Of the few that may have survived the war, it seems none have survived to the present day.




As manufacturers of the trucks used have already been mentioned in the OP, it's also worth mentioning the pictures of this Magirus-Deutz vehicle recovered in Kolo, a few miles from the Chelmno death camp. There is debate about whether it genuinely was used as a gas van or not; this website is worth a look. Here's a choice extract:

Strange Vehicles Website said:

He had noticed that the exhaust pipe was divided into three parts. First and third were done of metal as in normal cars. But, the central part was done of the elastic, "hydraulic" pipe which could joint both standard tubes or could be screwed to the hole in the van's floor. After the repair of the cooler, when the motor was tested, so much exhaust fumes were produced that the air in the garage (size 30 m x 12 m) started immediately to be blue. The German bosses ordered all windows and doors opened. The workers who had spent a very short time in the polluted air got headaches. The witness heard later their comments that the motor of this car used 75 liters of petrol per 100 km, so twice more than normal motors do. Piaskowski stated that he had seen two military type gas-masks in the driver's cab.

battered said:

Their use was stopped once the gas chambers and Zyklon B were put into use

Not entirely, going by some witnesses. The gas vans seem to have been used in a limited capacity beyond the introduction of purpose-built gassing chambers.

In addition to gas vans, some survivors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp reported a railway carriage built for the same purpose and concealed in the woods near the camp, having been withdrawn from service in Auschwitz. However, of the various testimonies from Ravensbrück survivors, two stand out to me as being of particular interest.

Karolina Lanckoronska mentioned a "motor bus" that arrived at the camp late in March 1945. Her testimony suggests that the bus was green, the windows were painted and the wheels were close to each other. The vehicle must have arrived at the camp very late in March, for she told the International Red Cross that it arrived a few days before April 5th, the day she was released alongside some other Polish prisoners. Another prisoner at the Ravensbrück camp, Hanna Sturm, was ordered to dismantle a gas van but was unable to; she supposed it was captured by the Red Army.

By 1945 there certainly were men at the camp capable of utilising gas vans. Josef Bertl, Albert Sauer and Herbert Lange had all used gassing vans before. Lange pioneered the method to exterminate the mentally ill ( Aktion T4 ), with Bertl having also used the vans in Lublin early in the war.

WJNB said:

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.

Dark though it might be, your analogy is somewhat true. The gas vans did serve a purpose, in that they could be run until the occupants were dead and then ferry the bodies to the crematoria. Again, referring to the Ravensbrück camp, there exists evidence of this being the case.

I'd like to take a moment to recommend "If This is a Woman" by Sarah Helm, where much of the information about the Ravensbrück camp, including the survivors' statements, comes from. It's an enlightening read about one camp in the whole sinister network and, while it doesn't deal solely with gas vans, it does refer to them frequently enough to suggest to me that the vans were used alongside the gas chambers.

Edited by Levin on Tuesday 17th January 21:29