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Gassing Operations." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.
The German Nazis began experimenting with ways to efficiently gas people since 1939,
for the purpose of mass murder. They experimented by testing different gasses on mental
patients. There were six gassing installations established as a part of the euthanasia
program. These installations were Bernburg, Brandenburg, Granfeneck, Hadamar,
Hartheim, and Sonnenstein. These places used pure, chemically manufactured carbon
monoxide, as a result of lack of knowledge on more efficient ways to kill a large number
of people. Along with the establishment of these gassing installations, there are five more
that were much more destructive and damaging. These were Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor,
Treblinka, and Aushwitz. Chelmno was opened in 1941 and killed people through the use
of gas vans. The Jews from Lodz, Poland, and Romania were killed there. Belzec,
Sobibor, and Treblinka were established in 1942 and killed their victims in stationary gas
chambers with carbon monoxide produced from diesel engines. These victims, usually
from Poland, were told that they would be going for showers and would enter the
chambers with their arms in the air. The goal was to fit as many people as possible into
these gas chambers since the more compact the space, the quicker it was to kill the
people. Aushwitz was the first camp to experiment with Zyklon B gas, a gas that was
formerly used for fumigation.

"The Holocaust." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

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In the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 mentally ill people to gas to
death. Even though Hitler put an end to this in 1941, handicapped people were still killed
in secret. The final number of handicapped people killed was 275,000 people. During
Hitlers expansion of Europe, Einsatzgruppen were the administrators of mass murders.
These mobile killing squads would gather people, order them to dig a big trench, stand in
front of this trench, and shoot them so that they fell into the trench. They would not
always aim to kill either. Many people ended up being buried alive. They killed a total of
500,000 Soviet Jews. After the Einsatzgruppen started to complain of battle fatigue and
psychological trauma, the Nazis began experimenting with better, more efficient ways of
achieving mass murders. Aushwitz was the first camp to experiment with Zyklon B gas,
and tested it by gassing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 ill prisoners in September of
1941. When the Zyklon B pellets are exposed to oxygen, they are converted into a lethal
green gas. Over 6,000 Jewish people and others were killed each day in this factory of
death. Along with Aushwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Chelmno, Stuttnof,
Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrueck had gas chambers, despite not being
killing centers.

Nazi Gas Vans - Magirus Black Raven Death Van Debate." Nazi Gas Vans - Magirus Black
Raven Death Van Debate. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

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Gas vans were first used in 1940 and were called euthanasia operations. These operations
killed the mentally ill, chronically ill, and criminals. This method was first carried out in
sealed chambers, but later developed into gas vans. The first time these gas vans were
used was in 1940 against mentally ill Polish people. There were two different types of
vans that the Nazis used. Vans that held 50 people and vans that held 70 people. These
vans were disguised to look like ordinary furniture vans as to draw minimal suspicion.
The victims were ordered to hand over personal possessions and to undress before
entering the vans. Inside the vans, there was a removable tube that redirected the exhaust
fumes from the engine to the interior of the van. These gas vans were used mostly by the
Einsatzgruppen in Ukraine and killed around 500,000-600,000 people.

Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.
Night is a memoir of Elie Wiesels experience in the holocaust. He was in various
concentration camps for a year and was one of the only members of his family to survive.
This topic connects back to Night because Elies mother and sister were both killed in gas
chambers. Elie and his father narrowly avoided this same fate as well. During the
selection process, the Jewish people were split between those deemed physically able to
work and those not. Whoever was deemed unfit would go to the gas chambers to be
killed, followed by the crematorium. Some people were sent to the gas chambers simply
for their age. Elie would have been sent to the gas chambers for being too young. His

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father, on the other hand, would have gone to the gas chambers for being too old. Another
inmate had warned Elie and his father to lie about their ages. Had they been truthful
about their ages with the selector, they would have met the same terrible fate as 6 million
other Jews, a terribly painful death in the gas chambers.