Nazis and how the final solution came to be Research Paper

Nazis and how the final solution came to be - Research Paper Example The following paper will discuss this process of refinement.   Gas vans employed the usage of poisonous cases to implement the ideology of mass murder of the Jews by the Germans. The initial slaughter of the Soviet Jews was carried out by shooting them individually. This method of slaughter or killing turned out to be inefficient and had certain negative outcomes. It not only proved as inefficient in murdering a large number of the Jews, but it also had devastating after-effects on the perpetrators. Problems such as alcoholism and psychological issues became common and widespread due to this method of murder. Himmler Heinrich, second in power to Adolf Hitler who led the breakthrough methods of employing â€Å"medicine† in the mass murder techniques and was also involved in the set up of the extermination camps, was himself a victim of the psychological after-effects caused by the shootings. He almost fainted at the sight of the 100 Jews being executed through shootings on th e Russian front in 1941 (Nicholls 80, 117-118). These reasons urged and motivated them to experiment with other methods which were more effectual and could be performed in a more â€Å"humane† way causing lesser effects on the perpetrators. ... The journey of the Jews was initiated from the train cars where they were crammed and transported first to Kolo and then to Powiercie. Trucks from the junction took the prisoners to Schlosslager. Prisoners took a bathe there and any valuable objects under their possession were taken by the Germans. Stripped groups of fifty to seventy men, women, and children were forcefully directed towards a ramp which led to deceptive signs â€Å"To the Washrooms.† From there, the prisoners were cramped into gas vans and even during or after the killings the vans drove to Waldlager. The dead bodies were buried in massive graves and the vans were then cleaned by Jewish prisoners specially appointed for this job. In spite of the effectual exhaust fumes that were used for the mass murders, the gas vans eventually reflected some short-comings. The vans were not spacious and the requirement for deaths in the East was increasing tremendously. Moreover, the burial pits used after the gas vans execu tion procedures did not fulfill the requirements for secrecy of the government. Better methods of getting rid of the corpses had to be formulated to carry out the mass execution of the Jews (Rubenstein and Roth 196-197). More than 150,000 Jews were executed using the carbon monoxide gas vans at Chelmno in 1942. After Chelmno, four other extermination camps were put up in 1942 at Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec and by the end of 1942, Majdanek. The first three camps were successful in the mass murder of 600,000 Jews by using carbon monoxide gas as the killing agent (Nicholls 80). Operation Reinhard, which was the code-word for the secretive execution of the Polish Jews, was named after Reinhard Heydrich, one of the main