Talk:Gas chamber
"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
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