3D-RECONSTRUCTION
OF A GAS VAN
Tiergarten4Association e.V.
The 3D-reconstruction was created during the research for the recently published book, Engineered for Mass Murder – The Nazi Gas Vans: 1939-1945, which includes, for the first time, fifteen verifiable photographs of a Nazi gas van.
Cameron A. Munro author of the book, “Building the 3D-reconstruction allowed us to better understand the technical features and functioning of the Nazi gas vans but probably more importantly now allows us to bring into the public domain an accurate depiction of the gas vans, enabling the general public for the first time to envisage the gas van in all of its engineering and scientific barbarity.”
Since the Nuremberg trials in 1945/1946, the Nazis use of gas vans has been shrouded in uncertainty, mystery and distortion, primarily due to
a lack of verifiable photographs but also the absence of a book by a reputable historian; the gas vans became a cause célèbre for Holocaust deniers.
With the publication of the book, Engineered for Mass Murder – The Nazi Gas Vans: 1939-1945, Cameron A. Munro for the first time records the history of the origins, design, construction and operation of the Nazi gas vans. The Nazis, using about twenty gas vans of the same design as the vehicle assigned to SS-Sonderkommando VIIa, murdered more than 300,000 Jews, Sinti and Roma, people with mental and physical disabilities, partisans and other victims in territories under German control — including annexed Austria, and occupied Poland, Baltic States, Serbia, and some territories of the Soviet Union (today Belarus, Ukraine and parts of Russia) — between December 1941 and the end of the war. Major sites of mass killing using gas vans included Kulmhof extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Uwe Neumärker, Director of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe said: “Cameron Munro’s years of research have helped the Foundation to develop an exhibition about the virtually unknown Kulmhof extermination camp. We hope that this book will encourage further research, but above all, that it will help to commemorate the 152,000 victims of the Kulmhof extermination camp in a fitting manner.”
Today Tiergarten4Association e.V., in association with the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin, released a short film and lecture using its 3D-reconstruction of the Nazi gas van assigned to SS-Sonderkommando VIIa in the occupied Soviet Union in April 1942.
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