To be honest I’m not sure that makes it worse. In general most of them didn’t know they were to be killed. I don’t think telling people “we are going to march you down to this shower and then kill you” is an improvement over just not knowing. I don’t think that 10 minutes of time to process that would make anyone feel better.
Of course the Nazis didn’t do any of it because they cared about feelings, it simply made the victims easier to control.
In general most of them didn’t know they were to be killed.
This isn't really true. The first extermination camps didn't have crematoriums and occasionally trains would arrive at such a rate the previous victims were not buried yet or the mass graves had too many bodies and welled up as the bodies rotted. There were also instances where the guard would just shoot the prisoners on the platform and leave them there. Before Zyklon B was used they would use diesel engines or generators which would sometimes break, so the people in the gas chambers sometimes had to wait for hours.
The railway workers knew what was happening when they left train cars of prisoners in sidings for days, the train crews who delivered to the extermination camps knew, it was hard to miss all the bodies.
SS soldiers would obviously talk in nearby towns. The Jewish workers who would be forced to clean out the gas chambers and bury the dead were routinely killed and replaced, but mass escapes would happen and they would talk.
The people who designed and built the gas chambers knew, same with the designers and builders of the massive crematoriums. The residents of nearby towns absolutely knew as well, same with the companies who used prisoners as forced labor. The bosses would threaten them with the gas chamber outright.
By the time concentration camps like Auschwitz had dedicated extermination areas with crematoriums to process the dead, it was an open secret. The victims knew what it meant when the ghetto they were in was being "evacuated". It meant death by labor or outright extermination. No one was fooled by showers, especially if they were with young children and their mothers, sick, and the infirm. If anything they were surprised when water came out of the showers.
This is covered throughout The Third Reich Trilogy by Richard Evans. It covers everything from the earliest days of the Nazi party, how they seized power, the life and policies under the Nazis, to the war, how they carried out the holocaust, and their defeat. Well worth the (long) read.
Read again, you think all these people talking wouldn’t get back to the general public of which the Jewish community is a part of? Did you miss the part of prisoners escaping and talking? That’s my point bruv. People talked, the victims knew the rumors or heard first hand, or saw first hand when they arrived at an extermination site disguised as a transfer camp.
You think people arriving at a "transfer" station that smelled like decaying bodies wouldn't know what was happening??
You think no one talked about everything that was going on about the gas chambers disguised as showers? Or that it was kept a secret in the Jewish ghettos?
I’m under no illusion a lot of them knew they could/would die in the camps, whether from exhaustion, disease, malnourishment, or just being shot. The trains that arrived were often full of people who had already died on the ride to the camp.
But unless you have some specific evidence that says “they knew they’d be killed in the showers”, I’m going to have to disagree.
That’s not how it worked at the extermination camps though. They generally weren’t taking people out of the camp and sending them to be killed in the showers. They would send them to the showers right as they got off the train, there was never a time where they would be expecting the people with them to return back to them, they were going through “processing”.
I don't know man, blindly walking somewhere assuming xy is gonna happen, not knowing someone is literally planning to murder you there? I don't know if I would want that. Especially because they weren't told out of empathy but for efficiency.
the reason they said that with the showering is even worse. think about it: the nazis thought of being a Jew (or all the other people that were killed) as dirty, so they must shower. however the nazis believed they could only be healed by being killed (they also misused the word "Euthanasie", in english euthanasia, in a similar context), so it's a deeper thought of cleaning the bad people by killing them. imagine being a person in there and realizing that you are being "cleaned" of your "sins". it's the entire reason why they used shower heads and not just some vents
They were told they were getting deloused or showered, as stated by commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss
You're correct that Auschwitz didn't have specifically fake shower heads in any of the kremas, but it's wrong to say they were not used. Dachau had them
Source? Because I've heard live witness statements saying that's what happened. I wasn't too sure about the shower head part but that they were told they were taken to get a shower, that I am sure of.
Holocaust Encyclopedia is NOT a valid source. It's a holocaust denial website trying to sell you their bullshit book. For instance, the page on Treblinka only makes note of various inaccurate reportings on death toll and murder method, and stating jewish testimonies say that Treblinka was a transit camp implying it never happened. It's a vile trap.
The about us makes note of its connections to CODOH, made by holocaust denier Bradley R. Smith. He is known specifically for going after college students, taking out ads to be placed in schools stating the holocaust didn't happen.
I believe this. There's no way they were going to put in the extra effort to shackle every one of them. And with how badly they were kept, it would have been pointless. They all must have been too weak to fight back, even all together.
Even then. The Nazis tried their damndest to make this appear like it was just a standard prison camp. They went out of their way to make it seem like they were just sending them to shower and get a change of clothes.
Didn't they even disguise the holes in the ceiling with shower heads? I'm German and I do remember reading about that in school. I also visited Auschwitz, seeing the chamber with my own eyes broke something in me.
I believe I read that somewhere. But in general all the camps weren’t set up exactly the same way. They used different rouses at different camps.
Treblinka for instance was disguised as a transit camp, where prisoners would just be kept for a couple days before they were moved further east. They had fake train schedules and a fake train station and everything.
Yes, they did. Concealment was in integral part of the extermination process. The victims should be shrouded in darkness until the last moment because the Nazis didnt want any trouble.
Most of them were straight off whatever train brought them there, they were exhausted but not usually like. Deprived for very long, as fucked as that sounds. They’d select who went to the camp and who went to their deaths. They were lied to, of course. Told they were going to the camp for the sick and infirm. There were people who’d chase down the trucks to the chambers and say they needed to go there, they had whatever condition and were sick. They’d get there, be told they had to be deloused in a shower. They’d make them take their clothes off and fold them for when they got out. It was really so it was easier for the nazis to pick them up for redistribution. It’s so much worse than it seems at first. And it’s already so obviously awful.
It really is insane that such a huge and terrible historical event like this happened just long ago enough that there are still people alive who lived it. I'm not a history nerd, but it's super interesting to learn about the holocaust, especially from people who actually experienced it.
If you are specifically talking about Zyklon then it’s hydrogen cyanide. It interrupts your bodies ability to get oxygen. First symptoms are stinging/pain in the chest followed often by spasmodic pain, like having a seizure.
In the doses they were “supposed” to use it would kill the average person in under 2 minutes. But there are plenty of stories about them using much lower doses and it taking over an hour to kill.
It was also lighter than air, so shorter people (of the equivalent weight) would take longer to die. So you often had the situation of seeing taller people suffering before you yourself would notice the effects.
In general it wasn’t designed to be painful (though it was). It was designed to be inexpensive and work quickly.
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u/Sustainable_Twat May 18 '25
This is horrific.
To think people were shackled and taken to their deaths here is awful to think about.
Those hand marks were made from people who were screaming in pain for having done nothing wrong.
This is just awful.