Debunking Holocaust deniers: Wooden door
How one stupid photo was turned into thriving modern Nazi propoganda
Here is the TLDR
The wooden door in the photographs is not even a door to a gas chamber
Airtight “gastur” (gasdoors) were used at Auschwitz
This is the perfect example of Holocaust denial. They can’t dispute all the witnesses, confessions, and documents so they point out “facts” like this. So in great detail, I am going to debunk it again. This time I will do a better job of it though.
I am going to show you all the blueprints, the details, and the evidence. I am going to show why this is a claim, why it is wrong, and put this to bed. Then I plan to save the link and never talk about this point again.
Sadly today people run into posts like from this guy below. My hope is that when someone tries to research it a bit deeper they run into a post like mine here. That is why I can’t thank you all enough for reading, upvoting, and just learning. It helps stop the spread of misinformation
First, let’s talk about Auschwitz because this is all centered around Auschwitz anyway.
Auschwitz was originally a barracks and transit camp dating back to WW1. When the Germans annexed Poland they took the site over the converted it into a prison in 1940. The first inmates arrived in May of 1940. This first camp is what we now call Auschwitz I.
The Deputy of Auschwitz I was originally Karl Fritzsch. He gained Auschwitz's terrible reputation by starving prisoners to death for escape attempts, killing men in the standing cells, and using Zyklon-b. In June of 1940, he addressed over 700 new prisoners and stated (according to Hoss)….
"You came here not to a hospital but to a German concentration camp, from which there is no other way out but through the chimney. If someone doesn't like it, they can walk straight to the wires. If there are Jews in the transport, they have the right to live no longer than two weeks, priests a month, the rest three months."
By 1941 Germany had launched the Holocaust in earnest and they wanted to try to use gas to kill prisoners en masse. The first experimental gassings happened in August 1941 when Karl Fritzsch used Zyklon-B on 600 prisoners in the basement of cell block 11.
By the end of 1941, the morgue had been turned into the first gas chamber at Auschwitz. It could kill around 700 people at once and was attached to a crematorium which had 3 furnace installations each with 2 ovens. Below is the blueprint of this facility from very early on (it was altered more). Keep it in mind I will be referring back to it
While visiting Auschwitz in March of 1941 Himmler ordered that the camp be expanded massively. It was in a perfect location for the Third Reich. It was far enough away from population centers to be somewhat discrete but close enough to be easy to supply.
Thus in October of 1941, work began on what the Germans called the “Kriegsgefangenenlager” which would be Auschwitz II-Birkenau. By the time the camp was being finished, the Nazis had settled on their “final solution to the Jewish question” and added 4 major cremation facilities attached to 4 massive gas chambers.
By March of 1942, the first of these new gas chambers was operational. A year later all 4 were up and working. In July of 1943, the original gas chamber stopped being used. All genocide efforts were focused on Auschwitz II rather than the smaller Auschwitz I.
Ok so on to the wooden door.
In 1944 the Germans converted the now unused original gas chamber (Crema I) into an air raid shelter for the SS Hospital. Refer to that map of Auschwitz I up above. See how it is centrally located for the SS hospital and administration buildings? To make it an effective bomb shelter they removed the gas-tight doors, patched the holes in the ceiling, and added walls to create 4 smaller rooms out of the original gas chamber.
Here are the blueprints for this conversion. The writing at the top says
“Ausbau des alten Krematorium (conversion of the old crematorium)
Luftschutzbunker für SS Revier mit einem Operationsraum (air raid shelter for the SS hospital with an operating theater.)
Bestandplan für wasserversorgung und Kanalisation (inventory plan for water supply and drainage)”
When the Nazis left Auschwitz they demolished all of the gas chambers except Crema I in Auschwitz I which was now an air raid shelter. After the camp is liberated the crimes of Auschwitz are investigated and it is realized that the air raid shelter at Auschwitz I is the only remaining gas chamber.
So an effort was launched to turn the air raid shelter back into its original gas chamber form given that the larger gas chambers were just rubble at this point. Now remember that Crema I had been converted into a bomb shelter and the large gas chamber had been divided into 4 smaller rooms.
In the reconstruction effort, the builders were working with blueprints from 1940 (conversion into gas chambers), 1942, and 1944. Put simply, they knocked down 4 walls when they only needed to knock down 3 walls. By doing this they knocked down the wall that separated the gas chamber from the washing room preceding the gas chamber.
Thus the famous wooden door in the photos was not a door to the gas chambers even when the building was still a gas chamber. It was the wall that separated the washroom and storage room. The door was not the door to the gas chamber, it was the door between the washroom and storage.
DO YOU SEE HOW STUPID THIS IS? Yet still it is cited thousands and THOUSANDS of times ALL OVER the internet as undeniable proof that the Holocaust never happened.
Gas-tight doors WERE put onto all of the gas chambers to Auscwhtiz. Below are pictures of 3 of the gas-tight doors used for the delousing chambers.
Delousing chambers were used to disinfect clothes and other goods from lice using Zyklon-B. Since Zyklon-B was a cyanide poison greater effort was put into ensuring the doors were as close to airtight as possible to prevent leaks which could endanger the guards. At other camps like Treblinka exhaust fumes from an engine were used to kill victims, similar to how people leave their car running in the garage. This did not require the doors to be airtight, just sturdy.
Moving on we even have an order from Karl Bischoff for “Gastur” or “gasdoor.” Karl was a German architect and engineer for the SS. While at Auschwitz he was the Chief of the Central Construction Office overseeing the construction of Auschwitz II. Here is a picture of the original authentic telegram he sent.
On this occasion we remind you of another order of March 6, 1943, for delivery of a gasdoor [Gastür] 100/192 for morgue 1 of crematorium 3, Bw 30 a, which must be equipped exactly in the form and size of the basement door of crematorium 2, located opposite, to be made with a spy-hole of double 8 mm glass with a rubber seal and metal fitting. This order must be considered as very urgent.
Guess what we found at Auschwitz? Likely the exact door he requested due to it having the exact “spy hold” he asked for.
And here is a 2nd letter from him in 1943 outlining progress in Crema III and referencing the “gassing cellar”
“The concrete ceiling of the corpse cellar [Leichenkeller] has not yet been able to be used due to the presence of the frost. This is, however, of no importance since the gassing cellar [Vergasungskeller] can be used for this purpose.
I searched this on YouTube just to see if any deniers were there being deniers. A short came up from a historian. Check out the comments
That is the issue friends. I know I keep shouting that this horrible shit is spreading but it is. I won’t be able to convince a Holocaust denier they are wrong because the argument with them isn’t about the Holocaust- it's about Jews having the right to live. You just cannot “debate” racism or sexism. Hatred is not factual or academic, it's emotional and irrational.
However, if we can promote good information we have a chance of combating bad information. That has to be the goal as it is the only way to fight. This is not an attempt to debate anyone- there is no debate. This is just the truth without an insidious and racist ideology coloring it.