In the Holocaust, were the gas chamber doors really made out of wood?
9 Answers
Not the exterior ones. Most of the doors in the facilities were destroyed by either the retreating SS or advancing Russians. The SS and concentration camp guards converted gas chambers into makeshift air raid shelters as the Russians drew nearer, and replaced the doors with ones that could be opened from the inside. Few of the original doors in these structures survive-- but here's one.
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2005 photo of what is officially believed to be the original entrance door.(source)
In investigating this issue, I suspected and confirmed that the supposed wooden doors in question were probably interior doors between the washroom and the room that was the gas chamber proper. The door which actually sealed in the victims into the structure was metal, as shown in the picture. The washroom was where the victims were told to take off their clothes and prepare for the "showers". The capos (camp prisoners forced to collaborate in the process) would shut the wooden door on the victims inside the chamber room, and then slip out of the building through the metal door before the gas was released. See below for one such man's story.
I was wondering why this question was important to anyone, and as I researched, it turned out that it is an issue from the periphery of the Holocaust denial/revisionism debate. Ugh.
Thanks for the A2A, but I gave up on engaging Holocaust Deniers a long time ago and after this answer I don't want to start it back up. I'll take this one, but no more, please.
Holocaust Denial: The Gas Chamber Debate
The deniers' argument seems to rely on the obvious inefficacy of wood as a material for gas chamber doors, and a handful of photos apparently showing wooden doors to the chambers. They believe that, if they can prove the doors were wooden, it would prove these structures were not intended for gassing people to death. This disregards the mountains of other evidence to the contrary-- containers of xyklon granules, abandoned clothing and footwear, adjacent incineration chambers, and Nazi and survivor eyewitness testimonies-- and showcases Deniers' belief that a single missed detail could unravel the entire story. At some point, they'll point out some little detail we can't prove anything about, and they'll celebrate it as a major victory. Fortunately, for now, there is evidence the doors were metal.
One survivor testimony: Door into the Krema I gas chamber at Auschwitz
Keep in mind, we questioned the Nazis afterwards, and not a single one of them denied that the Holocaust happened. They pled not guilty, because they had nothing to do with it; not guilty because they were "just following orders." Not one said it never happened.
And nobody at the time thought to ask each of them banal questions like whether the doors were originally made of wood or metal. We're lucky this detail was recorded-- although, unfortunately, by a Jewish man who "must have been part of the conspiracy."
Nobody could have foreseen that someone so desperate to make a contrarian argument would stoop to such flimsy evidence-- and soon the people who could have provided these details will be too dead to continue the Sisyphian task of proving that the Holocaust happened.
In investigating this issue, I suspected and confirmed that the supposed wooden doors in question were probably interior doors between the washroom and the room that was the gas chamber proper. The door which actually sealed in the victims into the structure was metal, as shown in the picture. The washroom was where the victims were told to take off their clothes and prepare for the "showers". The capos (camp prisoners forced to collaborate in the process) would shut the wooden door on the victims inside the chamber room, and then slip out of the building through the metal door before the gas was released. See below for one such man's story.
I was wondering why this question was important to anyone, and as I researched, it turned out that it is an issue from the periphery of the Holocaust denial/revisionism debate. Ugh.
Thanks for the A2A, but I gave up on engaging Holocaust Deniers a long time ago and after this answer I don't want to start it back up. I'll take this one, but no more, please.
Holocaust Denial: The Gas Chamber Debate
The deniers' argument seems to rely on the obvious inefficacy of wood as a material for gas chamber doors, and a handful of photos apparently showing wooden doors to the chambers. They believe that, if they can prove the doors were wooden, it would prove these structures were not intended for gassing people to death. This disregards the mountains of other evidence to the contrary-- containers of xyklon granules, abandoned clothing and footwear, adjacent incineration chambers, and Nazi and survivor eyewitness testimonies-- and showcases Deniers' belief that a single missed detail could unravel the entire story. At some point, they'll point out some little detail we can't prove anything about, and they'll celebrate it as a major victory. Fortunately, for now, there is evidence the doors were metal.
One survivor testimony: Door into the Krema I gas chamber at Auschwitz
Filip Müller, a prisoner who worked in the crematorium in the main Auschwitz camp, testified at the Auschwitz trial conducted by the German government at Frankfurt in 1964. A few years later, he wrote a book about the Auschwitz gas chamber, entitled "Eyewitness Auschwitz, Three Years in the Gas Chambers."
The door shown in the photo above was described by Müller, who wrote that after the victims were herded through this door, "two SS men slammed shut the heavy iron-studded door which was fitted with a rubber seal and bolted it."
Keep in mind, we questioned the Nazis afterwards, and not a single one of them denied that the Holocaust happened. They pled not guilty, because they had nothing to do with it; not guilty because they were "just following orders." Not one said it never happened.
And nobody at the time thought to ask each of them banal questions like whether the doors were originally made of wood or metal. We're lucky this detail was recorded-- although, unfortunately, by a Jewish man who "must have been part of the conspiracy."
Nobody could have foreseen that someone so desperate to make a contrarian argument would stoop to such flimsy evidence-- and soon the people who could have provided these details will be too dead to continue the Sisyphian task of proving that the Holocaust happened.
It's a myth.
Also redirected the duplicate question: In the Holocaust, were the gas chamber doors really made out of wood?
Also redirected the duplicate question: In the Holocaust, were the gas chamber doors really made out of wood?
Your question sounds like a Holocaust denial. It's a false question since it doesn't matter very much if the doors were made out of wood or metal. A metal framed wooden door sealed by rubber will do as good as a metal door. Think of all the deadly carbon monoxyde poisonings that take place every year even if they're involuntary. Most of the victims of these accidents don't shut their houses with metal doors. Read the writings of Jean-Claude Pressac on Auschwitz and the functioning of gas chambers JEAN-CLAUDE PRESSAC
Here are a couple of photos from the Internet. Looks like metal to me.
Dachau (Is there any proof that gas chambers existed in the Nazi camps? )
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Majdanek (Majdanek Death Camp Gas Chamber )
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Dachau (Is there any proof that gas chambers existed in the Nazi camps? )
Majdanek (Majdanek Death Camp Gas Chamber )
They can't have been otherwise the gas would escape and people outside the chamber would have also died. There is no real evidence to show that people have died outside of gas chambers except for accidents.
Wooden doors are prone to expanding and shrinking with the weather and so over time the gap for gas to escape would increase, killing more people and making the holocaust more difficult for the Germans to actually do.
Unfortunately, it was easy for the Germans.
Wooden doors are prone to expanding and shrinking with the weather and so over time the gap for gas to escape would increase, killing more people and making the holocaust more difficult for the Germans to actually do.
Unfortunately, it was easy for the Germans.
