Is there any proof that gas chambers existed in the Nazi camps?

Today I was doing some searching on the Internet when I came across this website.  The webmaster has apparently been searching for years for proof that gas chambers existed in Europe during Word War II and that they were used by the Nazis.  Here is a quote from this page of the website:

Therefore, it is of no use to talk about “eyewitnesses,” chemical properties of the insecticide supposedly used in the mass exterminations, or anything else. First, we must locate and/or define a Nazi gas chamber. Everything else comes second.

The above quote was written about six years ago, and I don’t know whether anyone ever came forward and revealed the location of a Nazi gas chamber, so I am going to do so now.

The photo below shows a real Gaskammer (German word for gas chamber) in the Dachau concentration camp.  Note the word “Gaszeit” (German for Gas time) on the door into the Gaskammer.  What more proof do you want that this was a gas chamber?

American soldier poses in front of a Gaskammer door at Dachau

The photograph above was taken by T/4 Sidney Blau on April 30, 1945; it shows a US soldier standing in front of one of the Gaskammern (plural) doors at Dachau.  Yes, there were multiple gas chambers at Dachau which the American soldiers saw when they liberated the camp. The political prisoners in the camp led the Americans to the gas chambers minutes after they had arrived.

The caption which the US Army put on the photo above was as follows:

Gas chambers, conveniently located to the crematory, are examined by a soldier of the U.S. Seventh Army. These chambers were used by Nazi guards for killing prisoners of the infamous Dachau concentration camp.

The photo below, which I took in May 2003, shows the same door which is now bolted to another door so that it remains open at all times.  Note that the words on the door have been painted over.

Door into gas chamber has been bolted so that it stays open

Sign above gas chamber door at Dachau, May 2003

The photo above shows a black sign with white letters near the ceiling which says “Fumigation cubicles” in English. Although the sign says in five languages that these were disinfection chambers, some of the Dachau tour guides tell visitors that these cubicles were used for homicidal gassing. Just after I finished taking this photograph in May 2003, a tour group entered the corridor and an English-speaking guide told the students: “When a transport of Jews was brought to Dachau, they had to remove their clothes, and then they entered these chambers where they were gassed.”

Maybe I misunderstood the tour guide.  Maybe he said that when a transport of prisoners arrived at Dachau, they had to remove their clothes and then the clothes were put into the gas chamber to be fumigated.  It doesn’t matter:  This was a Gaskammer which used Zyklon-B gas for killing.  Whether it was lice or Jews that were killed, this cubicle was a Gaskammer, and it was the Nazis themselves that called it a Gaskammer.  So there is your proof that there were Nazi gas chambers, and don’t you deny it.

But what about Auschwitz-Birkenau where mass gassing took place? Yes, there were gas chambers at Birkenau.  The term used on the blueprints for the gas chamber buildings at Birkenau was Gaskammer.  The photo below shows one of the Gaskammer buildings at Birkenau.

Building at Auschwitz-Birkeanau where a Gaskammer was located

Door into Gaskammer building at Birkenau has blue stains caused by the use of Zyklon-B

Fortunately, the stains caused by Zyklon-B have not been painted over, so anyone can see that the building at Auschwitz-Birkenau, shown in the photos above, used Zyklon-B.

There are two buildings at Birkenau, where Zyklon-B was used; they are located on the south side of the main road through the Birkenau camp.  Tour guides do not take visitors to these buildings.  The two gas chamber buildings are shaped like the letter T and are mirror images of each other. The photos above shows building BW5b which is located in the B1b section of Birkenau on the left side of the camp as you are standing at the entrance gate into the camp. The east wing of the building above was used for delousing.

The second delousing building is BW5a in the B1a section, which is on the other side of the fence on the right in the photo above. The west wing of the BW5a building was used for delousing. Both of these brick buildings also had shower rooms for the prisoners.

But were gas chambers, designed for disinfecting the clothing of the prisoners,  ever used for gassing the Jews?  Yes, according to Rudolf Hoess, the first Commandant of Auschwitz.

In December 1942, there were 19 fumigation chambers, which were designed to use Zyklon-B, installed in the Administration building in the main Auschwitz camp, which is now the Visitor’s Center. According to Rudolf Hoess, the disinfection chambers at the Auschwitz main camp were also used for gassing the Jews on one occasion in 1944. In his autobiography entitled Death Dealer, Hoes wrote the following on page 364:

After the destruction of the Hungarian Jews and the Jews from the Lodz ghetto, it was decided that the sonderkommando who had worked burning the bodies in the ovens of the crematory and during the open-pit cremations should themselves be killed in order to destroy the only witnesses who were in a position to tell what happened. About two hundred of the Sonderkommando were transferred to the main camp at Auschwitz, where they were gassed in the chamber used to disinfect clothing.

Why would the Sonderkommando prisoners have been gassed in disinfection gas chambers?  The Sonderkommando men at Auschwitz were the Jewish prisoners who had to carry the bodies out of the homicidal gas chambers, so they knew a gas chamber when they saw one.  They had to be fooled into entering a gas chamber, so that is why they were put into disinfection chambers.

Why not just shoot the the Sonderkommano men?  That would have been a foolish thing to do because it would have destroyed the whole gas chamber story.  The Holocaust is based on the belief that Jews were gassed in gas chambers. Those mean ole Nazis were gassing lice as fast as they could, trying to prevent the spread of typhus, but in spite of that, thousands of prisoners died of typhus in the Nazi camps.

The photo below shows a Degesh machine that was used to input the Zyklon-B gas into the disinfection chambers.  The Degesh machine was used at Dachau and these machines were also used at the main Auschwitz camp to disinfect the clothing.

Degesh machine used to input Zyklon-B gas into a disinfection chamber

A unopened can of Zyklon-B pellets was inserted into the Degesh machine, which automatically opened the can and poured the pellets into a basket, from which they could be retrieved.  The machine then blew hot air over the pellets so that the gas could be released.

There is ample proof that killing was done, using Zyklon-B in a room called a Gaskammer (gas chamber).  Killing lice counts, so don’t go denying that the Nazis used gas chambers.

Holocaust Educational Trust is “re-humanising” the Nazis for today’s students

In today’s news, I read an article here about how British teachers are planning to “convey the Holocaust to teens.”  This quote is from the article:

Fresh from a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, teachers from Furness College, Barrow, Sandside School, Ulverston, and The Lakes School, Troutbeck Bridge contemplated how to bring the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust into the classroom.

With the haunting horrors of the former Nazi concentration and death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau still at the forefront of their minds, teachers gathered together to discuss how they will present the complexes of the Holocaust and its modern day messages to young people.

It was this quote, from the middle of the article, which caught my attention:

The educational body says a challenging element for teachers and students will be re-humanising the Nazis, as they were humans and not monsters.

The introduction of gas chambers was a method which made killing more humane for the perpetrators.

If the British teachers try to re-humanise the Nazis by telling the students that it was more humane to gas the prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they will be making a big mistake.  Gassing could be more humane than other methods of killing — if it is done the right way, so as to give the prisoners a quick and easy death without suffering.  But that is not the way it was done at Birkenau.

In 1988, Fred Leuchter, an American gas chamber expert, climbed down into the ruins of Krema II at Auschwitz-Birkenau and observed that there was no way to heat the Zyklon-B gas pellets to 78.3 degrees Fahrenheit, which is necessary to release the poison gas. Leuchter pointed out in his Report that it is necessary to heat the pellets before the poison gas will be released.  With no quick way to heat the pellets, the prisoners were crowded together in the dark while they waited for hours for their body heat to release the gas and put an end to their suffering. After the prisoners were packed into the gas chamber like sardines, the babies were thrown in on top of their heads. We know this because when the Sonderkommando Jews came into the gas chamber minutes later to remove the bodies, the babies were always at the top of the pile.

It would have taken 10 hours to ventilate a room after Zyklon-B was used. Krema I, the location of the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp, did not have a fan to air out the room, so it would have taken even longer until the Sonderkommando Jews could have safely entered the gas chamber to remove the bodies.

No way could this be called a humane way to murder the Jews.  This was not even humane for the perpetrators who probably had nightmares about killing babies in such an ignominious way.

On this web site, you can read this quote about the lack of a heating device in the Krema II gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau:

Temperature (too low)
[Krema 1 & II] There was no heating capability in any of the facilities which would have been required, firstly, to drive the gas from the Zyklon B and mix with the air, and secondly, to avoid condensation of the gas on the walls, floor and ceiling. When the hydrogen cyanide condensed into a liquid, it was absorbed by brick and by mortar. Condensation would have made the area very dangerous for anyone who came into the facility to remove corpses. (32-9088)…….During the time he had inspected the facility in February, 1988, the temperature in the room was 10 or 12 degrees Fahrenheit. In Leuchter’s opinion, if Zyklon B pellets had been dropped into the chamber in such circumstances, with no heating capabilities, it would have taken more than several hours for the gas to leave the pellets and permeate the room. Holocaust literature alleged that gassings took place in winter.

If the Nazis had wanted to be humane, they would have built the Auschwitz gas chambers the proper way, using a machine to heat the pellets.  The photo below shows a machine that was provided by the Degesch Company, which manufactured and sold the Zyklon-B pellets, along with their machine which was designed to heat the pellets to the proper temperature.  This machine automatically opened a can of Zyklon-B and dumped the pellets into a wire basket, so that they could be retrieved and sent back to the manufacturer to be filled with Zyklon-B and used again.

Degesch machine used to heat Zyklon-B pellets

Oh sure, the British teachers can show their students photos from the famous Auschwitz Album, which might suggest that the SS men at Auschwitz were human, but you can’t get around the fact that the Nazis were not humane because they allowed the Jews to suffer for hours in the Krema I and Krema II gas chambers which definitely did not have a way to heat the Zyklon-B pellets. It would have been more humane to just shoot the Jews.

The photo below is from the Auschwitz Album.

SS men and women auxiliaries having fun at Solahutte, near Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944