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A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History.
gas chamber, method of executing condemned prisoners by lethal gas. The gas chamber was first adopted in the U.S. state of Nevada in 1921 in an effort to provide a more humane form of capital punishment.
Auschwitz I, Crematorium I and the first gas chamber. This object is preserved in its original state to a large degree. Crematorium I operated from August 1940 in a prewar army barracks storage building adapted for its new function.
The Crematorium II building, which contained a gas chamber and furnaces for burning corpses. Several hundred thousand Jewish men, women and children were murdered here with poison gas, and their bodies burned.
After they were killed, Sonderkommando prisoners dragged the corpses out of the gas chambers. They cut off the women’s hair and removed all metal dental work and jewelry. Then they burned the corpses in pits, on pyres, or in the crematorium furnaces.
While the Operation Reinhard camps (Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor and Chelmno) used carbon monoxide as developed in the Euthanasia program. Auschwitz and Majdanek used Zyklon B, a commercially available pesticide, after experiments on Soviet POWs and Polish prisoners had proved its efficiency.
Sam Itzkowitz describes the gas chambers in Auschwitz. The Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. When Makow was occupied, Sam fled to Soviet territory. He returned to Makow for provisions, but was forced to remain in the ghetto. In 1942, he was deported to Auschwitz.
