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Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2002 16(2):189-216; doi:10.1093/hgs/16.2.189
© 2002 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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The Devil in the Details: The Gas Chambers of Birkenau, October 1941

Michael Thad Allen1

1 Georgia Institute of Technology

What were the models for the gas chambers, and when were they first implemented? Examining technical details of the ventilation systems of the Birkenau morgues, this article argues that from the beginning of October 1941 the SS planned Morgue 1 of Crematoria II and III as a gas chamber for the extermination of human beings. The precedents were Zyklon-B chambers for delousing clothing, a technology widely known throughout a network of specialized firms. Far from pursuing the halting and somewhat inconscient development of gas chambers in Birkenau heretofore presented in the historical literature, the SS first took an interest in Zyklon-B chambers in the summer of 1941, and by early October the Central Building Directorate of Auschwitz intentionally and systematically had adapted such equipment to the gassing of human beings.


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