Venice Architecture Biennale 2016: a team of architects and academics has created a room of architectural evidence from Auschwitz that shows how the Nazi concentration camp was purposefully designed as a killing facility (+ slideshow).
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After my first visit to Aushwitz in 1998, I wrote about the main camp on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/Tour/Auschwitz1/Auschwitz01.html
I wrote about the buildings in the main camp on this page of my website: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/Tour/Auschwitz1/Auschwitz12.html
How could I have been so wrong about Auschwitz? I tried my best, but my best wasn’t good enough.
The following quote is also from the news article:
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“This is evidence of the worst crime ever committed by an architect, [Hitler]” explained University of Waterloo professor Robert Jan van Pelt, who curated the exhibition with fellow professors Donald McKay and Anne Bordeleau, and arts producer Sascha Hastings.
“This is the worst thing an architect has ever done – it is the baseline of evil in architecture,” he told Dezeen.
The photo above is included in the article. I seriously question whether this photo shows the peephole in the alleged Auschwitz gas chamber. I don’t recall that the peephole in the door looked like this.
Outside door into the alleged Auschwitz homicidal gas chamber
When I visited Auschwitz for the first time in 1998, my tour guide and I entered through the door shown in the photo above. Now this door is closed and locked; tourists now enter the gas chamber through the oven room where the bodies were burned.
Maybe one of my readers would like to photoshop the photo above to show the peephole in this door. I am too old, and too lazy, to do this myself. Besides that, I don’t think that the photo of the door, that is shown in the news article, was taken at the alleged Auschwitz gas chamber.
Tourists now enter through this door into the oven room
The current story of the Auschwitz gas chamber is that the victims stood outside the oven room door, which is shown in the photo above, and the Commandant of the camp told them that they were going inside to take a shower, after which they would be served hot soup. They were told to take their hand luggage inside with them. Allegedly, some of the victims took a block of cheese out of their luggage and ate it while they were waiting for the poison gas to kill them.
Here’s two more articles about it, one of them shows the wire mesh peephole from a photo taken by an “unknown” Russian and both show the wire-mesh column allegedly used to drop the Zyklon from the ceiling.
I’m gathering information on the Zyklon gas distribution system used in the disinfestation chambers to edit a Wikipedia article on it. (Need a copyright-free diagram of the distribution apparatus, also a link to the full report where the diagram came from.)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/evidence-room-holocaust-auschwitz-1.3455784
http://waaaat.welovead.com/en/top/detail/df0wknsBn.html
Comment by Raquel Baranow — May 28, 2016 @ 5:14 pm
Thanks for the links, Raquel Baranow. I noted that one of the articles states;- ” These include a gas column and gas-tight hatch, both used to pump deadly Zyklon B into the gas chambers, and a door that was used to lock the prisoners in. ”
The word “pump” must be a new term that has been added to the holocaust lexicon, because I’ve never heard that word used before. “Poured”, “dropped”, “thrown in” or “lowered” – yes – but never “pumped”. It certainly makes the introduction of the Zyklon B pellets into the chamber sound more technical, even if we are left bereft of what they actually mean by “pumped”.
The “gas-tight hatch” alongside the ladder is certainly a compelling piece of artwork – but is it based on reality. I find it difficult to imagine an SS man clad in a gas mask trying to keep his balance on the rungs, while at the same time opening, closing and sealing the hatch with one hand, and carefully opening a can of poisonous chemical pellets with the other. I don’t think that its even physically possible without the guy falling off the ladder.
But finally, I see that the unfortunate Italian city of Bologna is going to be the recipient of one these “holocaust memorials”. And just like all the others, it is suitably bleak, meaningless and devoid or architectural merit.
Comment by Talbot — May 28, 2016 @ 9:35 pm
What I find puzzling is why anyone would build a door for a homicidal gas chamber with a peephole in it.
Now, my understanding of the physical universe and the atmospheric environment would suggest that as soon as the door was closed with a vast crowd of naked human beings packed within the chamber, then the inside glass of the peephole would instantly mist over with condensation. In other words, the peephole would be absolutely useless during the entire gassing process.
Do our holocaust friends have an answer as to how the fiendish Nazis dealt with this problem. How about the esteemed architect – Professor Robert Jan Van Pelt – who is one of the curators of the above exhibition in Venice. With all his technical knowledge, wouldn’t he be able to enlighten us.
Comment by Talbot — May 28, 2016 @ 1:46 pm
You wrote: “my understanding of the physical universe and the atmospheric environment would suggest that as soon as the door was closed with a vast crowd of naked human beings packed within the chamber, then the inside glass of the peephole would instantly mist over with condensation. In other words, the peephole would be absolutely useless during the entire gassing process.”
You have made an excellent point. I have never considered that. However, the peephole in the Auschwitz main camp gas chamber was for the SS men to look out to see if the danger that sent them into the gas chamber was now over and they could come out now.
Comment by furtherglory — May 28, 2016 @ 4:30 pm
Here is a quick tour by Jim and Joe Rizoli.
JR
Comment by jrizoli — May 28, 2016 @ 11:30 am
GAS CHAMBERS AND CREMATORIUMS.
Up to summer 1941, Zyklon-B gas experiments conducted in the main camp so far have had been for delousing purposes and not for the killing of people. The poison pellets were delivered by the Hamburg-based company “Tesch and Stabenow” on a regular basis only as a pesticide to Auschwitz. [To what I understand the safety level is at 25 degree Celsius sic]. The first homicidal experiments took place in the basement of Block 11 (formerly Block 13) were Soviet prisoners of war were used as human guinea pigs. Probably the most extensive killings carried out with poison gas in this test phase, and the hitherto initially the largest perpetrated mass murder in Auschwitz took place in early September 1941. (The exact dates are not accurate,sic) 250 inmates including selected ill prisoners, about 600 Soviet prisoners of war, and some prisoners from the penal company were put into the basement whose cell windows had been previously filled in with earth were put to death with Zyklon-B (Refr.: Piper,Vernichtungsmethoden, page 141,sic) A large number of prisoners were employed at the crematorium for the removal and evacuation of victims from the basements, which led to a rapid announcement of the events of what had taken place, within the prison community. The basement of Block 11 did not function long enough as an extermination facility using gas, soon it became clear and the first gas chamber was installed in a room at Crematorium l -Auschwitz.
[Translated from German].
.
Comment by Herbert Stolpmann von Waldeck — May 28, 2016 @ 10:29 pm
In October 1998, I took a tour of Auschwitz, after which I wrote on my website about the alleged gassing of Jews in Block 11: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/Tour/Auschwitz1/Auschwitz06B.html
I no longer believe that human beings were gassed in Block 11.
Comment by furtherglory — May 29, 2016 @ 7:25 am