Carson 1

Leann Carson

Mr. Larry Neuburger

ENG-101-121

Research Paper

Extermination Methods of the Holocaust

The Holocaust marked a tragic time in history that began in 1941 and extended into 1945.

During these four years over six million Jews and 200,000 gypsies fell victim to the Nazi

terrorism, but they were not the only ones. Russians, Slavs, Jehovah‟s Witness, homosexuals,

anti-social groups, and criminals were also persecuted. Only a fraction of those who entered the

camps survived, but the Jews that did not survive suffered a terrible death.

The Holocaust was not an epidemic that happened over night. There was a long history of

racism towards Jews for a very long time. This racism is described by David Graham:

Suffice it to say that from the beginning, the Jewish claim as "the chosen people"

and their insistence on being "separate" with special religious laws and customs has

usually always aroused negative feelings among the cultures they have lived alongside of.

Since their origins in the ancient times, Judaism was looked at with suspicion due to

being one of the first religions that was monotheistic - when the worship of many gods

was the rule.

The Jewish predisposition towards finance and mercantilism caused even more

negativity within the "host" cultures. In these early times, Jews were additionally blamed

for the death of Christ. In 1391, thousands of Jews in Spain were massacred and the name

"Marranos" (swine) emerged there to describe those Jews who converted to Christianity
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to save their lives. During the Middle Ages, Jews were segregated into walled-off

"ghettos" to limit their contact with Christians and to control Jewish economic activity.

Although anti- Semitism was prevalent world wide, it was in central and western

modern Europe where it began to fester. Many neo-scientific ideologies in the 19th

century coming out of Germany held that certain races, namely, the Nordic (Germanic)

race was superior and that certain other races were inferior. Jews, in this ideology, where

cast at the bottom as being in league with the devil and akin to his minions. In Germany,

this ideology took hold and began to grow. After the humiliating defeat of WWI,

Germany was racked with socio-economic upheaval. Jews received much of the brunt of

the German people's frustration resulting from the Treaty of Versailles which was further

exacerbated by the world economic depression of the 1930's.

Adolf Hitler fanned anti-Semitism by blaming Germany's socio-economic

condition on several factors that always involved the Jews of Europe and especially of

Germany (Graham).

The Germans and other European cultures tried in many ways to oppress and extinguish the

Jewish race. Some methods that were planned were voluntary immigration, forced immigration,

and even deportation. These plans were soon dropped due to the war between the Germans and

Soviet Union which began in 1941. The Nazis‟ patience soon ran out and they began the „final

battle against Judeo-Bolshevism‟ (Graham). The results of the frustrations ended with “The Final

Solution to the Jewish Question.” Over six million Jews and thousands of others were killed by

gassing, firing squads, ovens, starvation, disease, and „medical experimentation‟.

The first method of extermination was the firing squads. The S.S. officers would force

prisoners to dig their own graves and were shot while doing so, so that they would fall into the
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graves (Vogelsang and Larsen). The bodies were either buried or burned. This method did not

come off efficient enough for the Nazis, yet 1.5 million Jews were killed. This method was

minimized due the psychological effect it had on the personnel implementing it.

The Nazis then started gassing their victims. First, the officers would load the prisoners

into a cargo van or truck. Once they were all in, the door was sealed shut and exhaust fumes

were pumped into the chambers. The dying prisoners were driven to the crematorium or burning

site. The small capacity of the vehicles did not satisfy the Nazis (Vogelsang and Larsen).

The first time in history, an industrial, mechanical extermination method was

implemented. The most popular and effective method of extermination was the gassing

chambers. In these chambers victims were either suffocated by diesel truck fumes or poisoned by

Zyklon B. Prisoners were stripped of their clothing and personal belongs, then up to 2,000

prisoners were crammed into what was referred to as “showers”.

Once the victims were all in, the large door was sealed shut and the terror began. Exhaust

fumes or Zyklon B were pumped in from the top. Zyklon B reacts with iron and some materials

in concrete creating Hydrocyanic compounds. These compounds are deadly and killed the

victims with in fifteen minutes of exposure (Zyklon B). Dead bodies were then moved to the

crematoriums to be disposed of. This method of extermination was preferred because of the

buffer it provided between the killers and victims. Over three million prisoners were killed at the

six extermination camps.

Prisoners were not only gassed but they were also burned alive in the crematoriums.

Prisoners would be forced to divide bodies into combustibility categories to reduce fuel

consumption. “Well nourished corpses burned with emaciated ones in order to determine the

most efficient combination. Three to four bodies were burned at a time, and different kinds of
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coke were used.”As many as 24,000 bodies could be burned in a single day (Crematoria). Once

the bodies were burned to ash, their remains were spread in near by fields for fertilizers and in

the swamps.Their belongings were pillaged, gold was melted and deposited into S.S. accounts,

and their hair was bought and used to make bedding and ship ropes (Holocaust Killing Centers).

There were a few individuals who were selected for medical experimentation. Twins,

handicapped, and crippled prisoners were experimented on to “maintain the „Pureness of the

German Race‟” (Medical Experiments). Prisoners were also bought by outside pharma-firms to

perform medicinal experiments. Most of them died. 115 inmates were also dissected to complete

anatomic collections and sent to the Anatomic institute in Strasburg (Medical Experiments).

Other inmates were worked to death, starved, or died from diseases such as Tuberculosis.

The following puts into perspective the amount of people killed during the 4 years of the

Holocaust (Vogelsang and Larsen) :

Extermin. camp Period Jewish victims (est.)

Chelmno/Kulmhof 8 December 1941 until 152,000

March 1943
and the summer of 1944

Auschwitz-Birkenau March 1942 until Over 1 million

November 1944

Belzec March 1942 until Over 600,000

December 1943

Sobibor May-June 1942 , October- 250,000

December 1942,
March-August 1943

Treblinka July 1942 until October 900,000

1943

Majdanek(-Lublin) October 1942 until October 60,000 - 80,000

1943
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The Holocaust claimed over six million Jews‟ lives and 200,000 gypsies‟. When broken

down, that is approximately 2,877 victims a day. This was the most extreme killing spree in

history. Only a fraction of the prisoners survived but still lived to tell the story today.
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Works Cited

"Auschwitz: Crematoria." Holocaust Educational Resource. The Nizkor Project. Web. 11 May

2011.

"Auschwitz: Zyklon B." Holocaust Educational Resource. The Nizkor Project. Web. 11 May

2011.

"Extermination Methods: Gas Chambers." Institut Fuer Sozial- Und Wirtschaftsgeschichte - Uni

Linz. Web. 11 May 2011.

Graham, David. "Holocaust." I-55 Internet Services, Inc. Merging with Xfone USA. Web. 27

Apr. 2011.

Hirsch, Gabor. "Holocaust Killing Centers." DSU Computer Services. Web. 27 Apr. 2011.

"Holocaust Killing Centers." DSU Computer Services. Web. 11 May 2011.

"Medical Experiments." Institut Fuer Sozial- Und Wirtschaftsgeschichte - Uni Linz. Web. 11

May 2011.

"Methods of Killing." Institut Fuer Sozial- Und Wirtschaftsgeschichte - Uni Linz. Web. 27 Apr.

2011.

Vogelsang, Peter, and Brian B.M. Larsen. "The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide

Studies." The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 2002. Web. 29 Apr.

2011.