Editing Extermination camp (section)

== Extermination procedure ==
[[File:May 1944 - Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau.jpg|thumb|Carpathian Ruthenian Jews arrive at Auschwitz–Birkenau, May 1944. Without being registered to the camp system, most were killed in gas chambers hours after arriving. (Photograph from the [[Auschwitz Album]])]]

Heinrich Himmler visited the outskirts of Minsk in 1941 to witness a mass shooting. He was told by the commanding officer there that the shootings were proving psychologically damaging to those being asked to pull the triggers. Thus, Himmler concluded that another method of mass killing was required.<ref name = "warning">"Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution", ''Yesterday'' television channel, 18:00, 18 November 2013</ref>{{better source needed|reason=Surely there's something more easily verifiable, e.g. a book|date=May 2022}} Auschwitz Commandant [[Rudolf Höss]] claimed in his memoir that many {{lang|de|[[Einsatzkommando]]s}} were "unable to endure wading through blood any longer" and went mad or killed themselves, but he gives no specific numbers to support this claim.<ref>{{cite book|first=Rudolf|last=Hess|author-link=Rudolf Hess|date=2005|chapter=I, the Commandant of Auschwitz|editor-first=Jon E.|editor-last=Lewis|title=True War Stories|page=[https://archive.org/details/mammothbookoftru00jone/page/321 321]|publisher=[[Carroll & Graf Publishers]]|location=New York City|isbn=978-0-7867-1533-6|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothbookoftru00jone/page/321}}</ref>

The Nazis had first used gassing with carbon monoxide cylinders to murder 70,000 disabled people in Germany in what they called a 'euthanasia programme' to disguise that mass murder was taking place. Despite the lethal effects of carbon monoxide, this was seen as unsuitable for use in the East due to the cost of transporting the carbon monoxide in cylinders.<ref name = "warning"/>

Each extermination camp operated differently, yet each had designs for quick and efficient industrialized killing. While Höss was away on an official journey in late August 1941 his deputy, [[Karl Fritzsch]], tested out an idea. At Auschwitz clothes infested with lice were treated with crystallised [[prussic acid]]. The crystals were made to order by the [[IG Farben]] chemicals company for which the brand name was Zyklon B. Once released from their container, Zyklon B crystals in the air released a lethal cyanide gas. Fritzsch tried out the effect of [[Zyklon B]] on Soviet POWs, who were locked up in cells in the basement of the bunker for this experiment. Höss on his return was briefed and impressed with the results and this became the camp strategy for extermination as it was also to be at Majdanek. Besides gassing, the camp guards continued killing prisoners via mass shooting, starvation, torture, etc.<ref>{{cite book|first=Joseph|last=Borkin|title=The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben|url=https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmento0000bork|url-access=registration|location=New York City|publisher=Free Press|year=1978|isbn=978-0-02-904630-2}}</ref>

=== Gassings ===
{{See also|The Holocaust#Gas chambers|Gas chamber#Nazi Germany|Criticism of Holocaust denial#Use of gas chambers}}
SS {{lang|de|[[Obersturmführer]]}} [[Kurt Gerstein]] of the Institute for Hygiene of the {{lang|de|[[Waffen-SS]]}}, told a Swedish diplomat during the war, about life in a death camp. He recounted that on 19 August 1942, he arrived at [[Bełżec extermination camp]] (which was equipped with [[carbon monoxide]] gas chambers) and was shown the unloading of 45 train cars filled with 6,700 Jews, many already dead. The rest were marched naked to the [[gas chamber]]s, where:

{{Blockquote|{{lang|de|Unterscharführer}} [[Lorenz Hackenholt|Hackenholt]] was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn't go. [[Christian Wirth|Captain Wirth]] comes up. I can see he is afraid, because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel [engine] did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, "like in the synagogue", says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian ([[Trawnikis|Trawniki]]) assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes&nbsp;– the stopwatch recorded it all&nbsp;– the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons, in four times 45 cubic meters. Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window, because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead&nbsp;... Dentists [then] hammered out gold teeth, bridges, and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and, showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: "See, for yourself, the weight of that gold! It's only from yesterday, and the day before. You can't imagine what we find every day&nbsp;– dollars, diamonds, gold. You'll see for yourself!"|Kurt Gerstein<ref>{{cite book |first1=Roderick |last1=Stackelberg |first2=Sally Anne |last2=Winkle |title=The Nazi Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts |publisher=Routledge|year=2002 |page=354|isbn=978-0-415-22213-6}}</ref>}}

[[File:Birkenau a group of Jews walking towards the gas chambers and crematoria.jpg|thumb|March of new arrivals along the SS barracks at Birkenau toward the gas chambers near crematoria II and III, 27 May 1944 (Photograph from the [[Auschwitz Album]])]]

Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss reported that the first time [[Zyklon B]] pellets were used on the Jews, many suspected they were to be killed{{snd}}despite having been deceived into believing they were to be deloused and then returned to the camp.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |url=https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007714 |title=At the Killing Centers |work=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |language=en |access-date=2 March 2018}}</ref> As a result, the Nazis identified and isolated "difficult individuals" who might alert the prisoners, and removed them from the mass{{snd}}lest they incite revolt among the deceived majority of prisoners en route to the gas chambers. The "difficult" prisoners were led to a site out of view to be killed off discreetly.

According to Höss, enslaved prisoners, euphemistically called {{lang|de|[[Sonderkommando]]}} (Special Detachment), assisted in the process of extermination; they encouraged the Jews to undress and accompanied them into the gas chambers which were outfitted to appear as shower rooms (with nonworking water nozzles, and tile walls); and remained with the victims until just before the chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the "calming effect" of the delousing deception, an SS man stood at the door until the end. The {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} talked to the victims about life in the camp to pacify the suspicious ones, and hurried them inside; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing.{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=164–165, 321–322 }} Many young mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes fearing that the delousing "disinfectant" might harm them. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the "men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this", and encouraged the women to take their children into the "shower room". Likewise, the {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} comforted older children who might cry "because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion".{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=164–165, 322–323 }}

Yet, not every prisoner was deceived by such tactics; Commandant Höss spoke of Jews "who either guessed, or knew, what awaited them, nevertheless&nbsp;... [they] found the courage to joke with the children, to encourage them, despite the mortal terror visible in their own eyes". Some women would suddenly "give the most terrible shrieks while undressing, or tear their hair, or scream like maniacs"; these prisoners were taken away for execution by shooting.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=323 }} In such circumstances, others, meaning to save themselves at the gas chamber's threshold, betrayed the identities and "revealed the addresses of those members of their race still in hiding".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=324 }}

Once the door of the filled gas chamber was sealed, pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through special holes in the roof. Regulations required that the Camp Commandant supervise the preparations, the gassing (through a peephole), and the aftermath looting of the corpses. Commandant Höss reported that the gassed victims "showed no signs of convulsion"; the Auschwitz camp physicians attributed that to the "paralyzing effect on the lungs" of the Zyklon B gas, which killed ''before'' the victim began suffering convulsions.{{sfn|Höss|1959|pages=320, 328 }} The corpses were additionally found half-squatting, their skin discolored pink with red and green spots, with some foaming at the mouth or bleeding from their ears, exacerbated by the crowding in gas chambers.{{sfn|Piper|1994|p=170}}

{{multiple image |align=right |direction=vertical 
|image1  = Remains of Crematorium II Birkenau.jpg
| width1  = 210
| caption1 = The remnants of "Crematorium II" used in Auschwitz-Birkenau between March 1943 and its destruction by the [[Schutzstaffel]] on 20 January 1945
| image2  = Crematorium at Auschwitz I 2012.jpg
| width2  = 230
| caption2 = Fifty-two crematorium ovens, including these, were used to burn the bodies of up to 6,000 people every 24 hours during the operation of Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers.<ref name="USHMM/Gassing">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005220 | title=The means of mass murder at Auschwitz: Gassing Operations |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia |date=20 June 2014 | access-date=12 July 2015 }}</ref>}}

As a matter of political training, some high-ranked [[Nazi Party]] leaders and SS officers were sent to Auschwitz–Birkenau to witness the gassings. As the Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss justified the extermination by explaining the need for "the iron determination with which we must carry out Hitler's orders".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=328}}

=== Corpse disposal ===
After the gassings, the {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} removed the corpses from the gas chambers, then extracted any gold teeth. Initially, the victims were buried in mass graves, but were later [[Cremation#World War II|cremated]] during {{lang|de|[[Sonderaktion 1005]]}} in all camps of [[Operation Reinhard]].

The {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} was responsible for burning the corpses in the pits,{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} stoking the fires, draining surplus body fat and turning over the "mountain of burning corpses&nbsp;... so that the draft might fan the flames", wrote Commandant Höss in his memoir while in the Polish custody.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} He was impressed by the diligence of prisoners from the so-called Special Detachment who carried out their duties despite their being well aware that they, too, would meet exactly the same fate in the end.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} At the Lazaret killing station they held the sick so they would never see the gun while being shot. They did it "in such a matter-of-course manner that they might, themselves, have been the exterminators", wrote Höss.{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} He further said that the men ate and smoked "even when engaged in the grisly job of burning corpses which had been lying for some time in mass graves."{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}} They occasionally encountered the corpse of a relative, or saw them entering the gas chambers. According to Höss, they were obviously shaken by this but "it never led to any incident". He mentioned the case of a {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} who found the body of his wife, yet continued to drag corpses along "as though nothing had happened".{{sfn|Höss|1959|p=168}}

At Auschwitz, the corpses were incinerated in [[crematorium|crematoria]] and the ashes either buried, scattered, or dumped in the river. At [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], and [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]], the corpses were incinerated on pyres. The efficiency of industrialised murder at [[Auschwitz-Birkenau]] led to the construction of three buildings with crematoria designed by specialists from the firm [[J. A. Topf & Söhne]]. They burned bodies 24 hours a day, and yet the death rate was at times so high that corpses also needed to be burned in open-air pits.<ref name="B/G-199">{{cite book |title=Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp |last1=Berenbaum |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Berenbaum |first2=Yisrael |last2=Gutman |year=1998 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20884-2|page=199|url =https://books.google.com/books?id=ZrU2oS8fP3cC&pg=PA199 }}</ref>