Benton 1 Shelby Benton Mrs.

Tonya Wertz-Orbaugh ENGL 1103 November 21, 2013

An Inquiry into Death

It is hard to find engineering within the nightmare of the Holocaust. It took some inquiry just to figure out where I would begin my inquiry. After some general research, I kept coming back to the gas chambers. I really did not want to write a paper on the horrors of the death showers, but my options were limited. Thus I began my inquiry into death. To my surprise, I discovered that the Nazis did not start out with the gas chambers but they built up to them over time. The Nazis began experimenting with poison gas for the purpose of mass murder in late 1939 with the killing of mental patients ("euthanasia"). (Gassing Operations). Do not misinterpret what I am about to say, I am against all Hitler did, but gassing people for mass murder was a brilliant plan. I admire the creativity, but not the idea. World War II did not begin until 1939, so this shows that Hitler had planned on rounding up large numbers of people and exterminating them. If the United States had known about the euthanasia she certainly would not have waited until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to get involved in the war. Unfortunately, the world was unaware of the terror that Hitler would bring, otherwise they might have been able to stop him before he even began.

Benton 2 At this point in my research, I went to the Atkins Library to obtain the help of a reference librarian. I had done some research on my own, but I wanted the help and expertise of a trained librarian. The librarian I talked to was very helpful. Her name was Allison. I told her about my inquiry paper, and that I was looking for books about the gas chambers. She used different key words like Holocaust, concentration camps, and gas chambers while searching the librarys website and its infinite selection of books. I found a few solid sources through this process. The last thing she showed me was the online databases that the library had organized for each individual major. These databases were filled with journals, articles, and many other form of academic material that will be extremely useful for future research/inquiry projects. Having discovered that the Nazis experimented on mental patients with poisonous gasses, I wanted to know more about the gasses and if they did anything else with them. One of the books Allison helped me find contained an abundant amount of interesting and relative information; it is called Nazi Mass Murder. The Germans were carrying out Mass murders, but they needed a more effective way to perform the executions. The procedures used in the euthanasia would not work in the Soviet territories. The mass shootings of Jews, Gypsie s, and other Soviet citizens were taking a toll on the morale of the Einsatzgruppens, the German task forces. Something had to change. This is when the Reich Security Main Office decided to experiment with gas vans. In the fall of 1941, they began driving vans that emitted poisonous fumes that were fatal when inhaled around the soviet territories (Kogon et al. 52). This book provided some deep insight into the German slaughter. The first thing I noticed is that the soldiers still had a conscience. Why else would the mass shootings have an

Benton 3 effect on their morale. This did lead me to another question. Why did they continue to follow orders if the executions were bothering so many of them? Since I was not in their shoes I cannot say for sure; only they could tell you. The second thing that I found interesting was the gas vans. It took a sinister mind to develop such a sickening idea. This invention brought the Nazis one step closer to adopting the gas chambers as their ultimate mass murder machine. The last thing that caught my attention from this source was a quote from one of the head Germans, Walter Rauff, Did I think twice about employing the gas vans? I could not say. At the time the most important consideration for me was the psychological stress felt by the men involved in the shootings. (Kogon et al. 53). In this quote, the German is clearly not concerned about the use of the gas vans, but he is worried about his troops. To me, this just runs my point home. The soldiers are feeling guilty, I might go as far to say distraught, about their mass slaughter of the innocent, and their leader is seeing the repercussions of it. Now the Germans had developed a new way to continue killing, and they did it without compromising their mens morale. Before I began diving into the horrors of the gas chambers, I had to investigate one other key factor, the concentration camps. Once again I was caught off guard by what I found. Dachau was established in 1933, and it was the first concentration camp of the Nazis Empire (Dachau). This camp was established six years before the war. I do not know why, but I expected the concentration camps had just kind of popped up during the war. I did not realize they were set up ahead of time. Dachau was a camp for political prisoners, Jehovahs Witnesses, Gypsies, and Homosexuals (Dachau). This shows a whole new side of Hitlers operation. He was not just anti Jew, but anything that went against him or was outside the

Benton 4 norm he persecuted. Before my inquiry, I had never heard of this camp, and knowing what I know now, I feel like I have a better understanding of Hitlers character. Auschwitz. Just hearing the name sends a chill up my spine, and this is where the real terror began. The first mass destruction by gas in Auschwitz took place in the spring of 1942, at the only crematorium then in existence Once the first success had been achieved, work was started at Birkenau on the construction of four large crematoria complete with gas chambers. (Kraus et al. 124) This is where the stories come from that bring tears to the hardest of hearts. I honestly hate reading about this because it leaves an ill feeling in my stomach. Word spread of the effectiveness of the gas chambers and many other concentration camps built their own. My source does not talk about the soldiers morale in this situation, but I have trouble believing it was any easier for them to send the people into the showers rather than just shooting them. I despise every aspect of the execution by the gas chambers, but the part that gets me riled up the most is the fact that the soldiers told the people they were just getting a shower. On occasion, some prisoners knew the truth, but there were still those ignorant of their impending doom. I wonder what thoughts would be going through my head if I were in the shoes of those completely oblivious of the fatal shower I was about to experience. One moment your think you are taking a shower the next you realize you are in chamber filled with poisonous gas, and you are not leaving alive. It is unimaginable. The Boy in Striped Pajamas is a movie that sees the concentration camp through the eyes of the son of one of the German Commandants. Here is a clip from the movie depicting

Benton 5 the gas chamber operation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REhsVkNyUsE (The Boy in Striped Pajamas). This video provides a small taste of the ignorance and terror of those who were lost. Once I knew the origin of the gas chambers I continued my inquiry further into the nightmare. The science behind the gassing operations is very interesting, but their over all purpose is still disturbing. In Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Carbon Monoxide was used in the gas chambers to execute the occupants (Gassing Operations). However, Zyklon B was experimented with in Auschwitz, and it proved to be the quickest method for mass murder (Gassing Operations). The Nazis had mastered the art of mass murder. The Germans were smart and very well organized. From herding the people into the showers, to dragging their remains to the crematoriums and incinerating their bodies, it was quite a process. I find it unfortunate the Germans did not use their brains for something more productive. Hitler could have made a great leader if he had different motives My inquiry was coming to a conclusion, but I still had an unresolved issue. The question I have been asking myself all year, even before I knew about the soldiers morale dilemma, is, Why did all those German soldiers keep going along with Hitlers plan to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth? The answer continues to elude me. I have yet to find a source that can give me a satisfactory solution. At least through this inquiry process into death, I was able to discover that some Hitlers minions had a conscience. The inquiry process to discover the relationship between the Holocaust and engineering has led me from one end of the Holocaust to the other. I do not feel like I ever truly connected the two, but that is okay. My inquiry deviated quite a bit from the engineering aspect, but I

Benton 6 learned many new things by going wherever the wind blew. I discovered that the gas chambers were not the original mechanisms used for the mass murder, and that there was a series of events and experiments that led up to them. I started out with the intentions of studying the gas chambers, but I was quickly blown off course. All I could do was follow this breeze until I had truly discovered the story behind the chambers of death.

Benton 7 References The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Dir. Mark Herman. Perf. Asa Butterfield. N.p., 26 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REhsVkNyUsE>. "Dachau." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.p., 10 June 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. "Gassing Operations." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. N.p., 10 June 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. Kogon, Eugen, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Rckerl. Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. Print. Kraus, Ota, and Erich Kulka. The Death Factory: Document on Auschwitz. Oxford: Pergamon, 1966. Print.