Nazi 'death factories' ...fact or fiction? (general, facts, Europeans, events)
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Who cares? The fact that they gassed people en masse is grisly and disgusting enough. Your question almost sounds as if we should be outraged only if the dead were used in the production of consumables. What about the horrific medical experiments they did on live people?
I am not convinced that products from the executed victims were produced in "factory amounts" but I have seen photos of items made from human skin. I believe I remember the uses were for lamp shades and the like as well as for writing material. Hair was also used as well as the metal from dental work.
It appears that this was the product of Nazi propaganda aimed at the inmates of the concentration camps.
However;
Oct. 6, Gdańsk (PAP-Polish Press Agency) – An inquiry by the Gdańsk Branch of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation has concluded that soap was made from human fat and used for general cleaning purposes at the Anatomy Institute of the Gdańsk Medical Academy, under the direction of Professor Rudolf Spanner, during the Second World War.
Witold Kulesza, the director of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation, said during a Friday press conference that the finding represented confirmation of facts presented in Zofia Nałkowska's book The Medallions.
It appears that this was the product of Nazi propaganda aimed at the inmates of the concentration camps.
However;
Oct. 6, Gdańsk (PAP-Polish Press Agency) – An inquiry by the Gdańsk Branch of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation has concluded that soap was made from human fat and used for general cleaning purposes at the Anatomy Institute of the Gdańsk Medical Academy, under the direction of Professor Rudolf Spanner, during the Second World War.
Witold Kulesza, the director of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation, said during a Friday press conference that the finding represented confirmation of facts presented in Zofia Nałkowska's book The Medallions.
So, your question was answered and now we can move on to other topics.
I recently read an article in a Polish history magazine (can't remember which, I read several) that confirms this, from what I understand though it was done in a very limited quantity, nowhere near as bad as the propaganda claimed.
So to answer the original question: yes and no
Yac.
Did they really make soap from dead prisoners and stuff? Using the dead as a source for commodities?
Or, was this British propaganda?
Yes, the Nazis did those things.
Your thread title includes the phrase "death factories". While soap and lampshades may not have been made in mass quantities they certainly were made, perhaps as "prototypes". The primary product of the Nazi "death factories" was in fact, death itself. 12 million people perished in the camps, about half of whom were Jews, but also Gypsies and other ethnic minorities, communists, homosexuals, and other perceived enemies of the Reich.
I would also modify your term "dead prisoners and stuff" to "murdered prisoners and stuff".
Last edited by jtab4994; 12-04-2013 at 07:08 AM..
Reason: typo; and one additional comment
What the Nazis did with the corpses of their murder victims would seem to me to be the least objectionable aspect of their treatment of people. Once you are dead, you have no awareness of how your former host body is being handled. Whether they turn you into a pair of gloves or send you off like Don Corleone, it is all the same to the deceased at that point.
That the Brits would seize upon this particular aspect to make propaganda hay is revealing about people and their superstitions. The real outrage was that the Nazis were rounding up, enslaving, and slaughtering innocents. Getting people worked up over things that the Nazis did after their victims were dead seems akin to learning that someone is guilty of murder, rape, treason and jaywalking, and demanding that this person be brought to justice for the jaywalking.
It is still this way for most people, not something that was ever exclusive to Brits or Germans or Europeans for that matter. We still have all sorts of superstitious style rituals associated with the disposal of the dead. We still cling to concepts such as "ghouls" for those who would disturb corpses in any manner. Cannibalism is still regarded as especially revolting.
We had a thread on the Atheist/Agnostic board about the subject of funerals and post corporal disposal in general. There the majority seemed to think more in line with my attitude, that once you are gone it is silly to make a fuss over the remains and a cheap, efficient method for bodily disposal would be welcome. Let the grieving loved ones stage whatever memorials they find suitable, but such events really do not require the corpse being present.
So, whether the Nazis did or did not exploit the remains of their victims isn't important at all to me, only that there were such victims to exploit.
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