Difference between revisions of "Gas chamber" - New World Encyclopedia
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A '''gas chamber''' is an apparatus for killing consisting of a sealed chamber into which a [[poison]]ous or [[asphyxiant gas]] is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is [[hydrogen cyanide]]; [[carbon dioxide]] and [[carbon monoxide]] have also been used. | A '''gas chamber''' is an apparatus for killing consisting of a sealed chamber into which a [[poison]]ous or [[asphyxiant gas]] is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is [[hydrogen cyanide]]; [[carbon dioxide]] and [[carbon monoxide]] have also been used. | ||
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Gas chambers were used as a method of executing [[capital punishment]] for condemned prisoners in the [[United States]] beginning in the 1920s. | Gas chambers were used as a method of executing [[capital punishment]] for condemned prisoners in the [[United States]] beginning in the 1920s. | ||
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During the [[Holocaust]], large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing in their [[concentration camp]]s by [[Nazi]] [[Germany]] as part of their [[genocide]] program<ref>Many sources including http://www.yadvashem.org</ref>. As a result, it is now associated with brutality and is seen as an inhumane method of execution, generally replaced by the [[electric chair]] or [[lethal injection]]. | During the [[Holocaust]], large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing in their [[concentration camp]]s by [[Nazi]] [[Germany]] as part of their [[genocide]] program<ref>Many sources including http://www.yadvashem.org</ref>. As a result, it is now associated with brutality and is seen as an inhumane method of execution, generally replaced by the [[electric chair]] or [[lethal injection]]. | ||
==History== | ==History== | ||
=== Napoleonic France === | === Napoleonic France === | ||
| − | In his book, ''Le Crime de Napoléon'', French historian [[Claude Ribbe]] has claimed that in the early | + | In his book, ''Le Crime de Napoléon'', French historian [[Claude Ribbe]] has claimed that in the early nineteenth century, [[Napoleon]] used poison gas to put down slave rebellions in [[Haiti]] and [[Guadeloupe]]. Based on accounts left by French officers, he alleges that enclosed spaces including the [[hold (ship)|holds]] of ships were used as makeshift gas chambers where [[sulphur dioxide]] gas (probably generated by burning [[sulphur]]) was used to execute up to 100,000 rebellious [[slavery|slaves]]. These claims remain controversial.<ref>Colin Randall, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/26/wfra26.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/26/ixworld.html "Napoleon's genocide 'on a par with Hitler,'"] Daily Telegraph. Retrieved July 29, 2007.</ref> |
=== United States === | === United States === | ||
Revision as of 05:21, 11 August 2007
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of executing capital punishment for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing in their concentration camps by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program[1]. As a result, it is now associated with brutality and is seen as an inhumane method of execution, generally replaced by the electric chair or lethal injection.
History
Napoleonic France
In his book, Le Crime de Napoléon, French historian Claude Ribbe has claimed that in the early nineteenth century, Napoleon used poison gas to put down slave rebellions in Haiti and Guadeloupe. Based on accounts left by French officers, he alleges that enclosed spaces including the holds of ships were used as makeshift gas chambers where sulphur dioxide gas (probably generated by burning sulphur) was used to execute up to 100,000 rebellious slaves. These claims remain controversial.[2]
United States
Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. Gas chambers have been used for capital punishment in the United States in the past to execute criminals, especially convicted murderers. Five states (Wyoming, California, Maryland, Missouri, and Arizona) technically retain this method, but all allow lethal injection as an alternative. Following the videotaped execution of Robert Alton Harris in 1992, a federal court in California declared this method of execution as "cruel and unusual punishment." In fact, it is highly unlikely that any of these states will ever again utilize the gas chamber, unless an inmate specifically requests to die by this method. In Arizona and Maryland, there are some inmates who were convicted before the gas chamber was replaced by lethal injection. In those states, it is possible for a gas chamber execution, but when those inmates are "removed" from death row (one way or another), the Gas Chamber will no longer have the realistic possibility of being used again. The use of the gas chamber was also controversial because of the use of large chambers to kill millions in Nazi concentration camps. Most states have now switched to methods considered less inhumane by officials, such as lethal injection.
The first person to be executed in the United States via gas chamber was Gee Jon, on February 8, 1924 in Nevada. As of 2006, the last person to be executed in the gas chamber was German national Walter LaGrand, whom Arizona executed on March 4, 1999.
As with all judicially mandated executions in the United States, witnesses are present during the procedure. These include members of the media, citizen witnesses, prison/legal/spiritual staff, and certain family members.
The gas chamber that San Quentin State Prison in California used for capital punishment, has since been converted to an execution chamber for execution by lethal injection. There were two chairs where the restraining table is now.
Method
Generally speaking, in the United States the execution protocol is as follows: First, the execution technician will place a quantity of potassium cyanide (KCN) pellets into a compartment directly below the chair in the chamber. The condemned person is then brought into the chamber and strapped into the chair, and the airtight chamber is sealed. At this point the execution technician will pour a quantity of concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4) down a tube that leads to a small holding tank directly below the compartment containing the cyanide pellets. The curtain is then opened, allowing the witnesses to observe the inside of the chamber. The prison warden will then ask the condemned individual if he or she wishes to make a final statement. Following this, the executioner(s) will throw a switch/lever to cause the cyanide pellets to drop into the sulfuric acid, initiating a chemical reaction that generates hydrogen cyanide (HCN) gas.
The condemned individual can see the visible gas, and is advised to take several deep breaths to speed unconsciousness in order to prevent unnecessary suffering. Most prisoners, however, try to hold their breath.[3] Death from hydrogen cyanide is usually painful and unpleasant, although theoretically the condemned individual should lose consciousness before dying. The chamber is then purged of the gas through special scrubbers, and must be neutralized with anhydrous ammonia (NH3) before it can be opened. Guards wearing oxygen masks remove the body from the chamber. Finally, the prison doctor examines the individual in order to officially declare that he or she is dead and release the body to the next of kin.
One of the problems with the gas chamber is the inherent danger of dealing with such a toxic gas. Additionally, both the ammonia and the contaminated acid that must be drained and disposed of are very poisonous.
Nazi Germany
Gas chambers were used in the German Third Reich during the 1930s and 1940s as part of the so-called "public euthanasia program" aimed at eliminating physically and intellectually disabled people (strategically claiming the Jews were one of these in the 1930s-40s), and later the mentally ill. At that time, the preferred gas was carbon monoxide, often provided by the exhaust gas of cars or trucks or army tanks.
Later, during the Holocaust, gas chambers were modified and enhanced to accept even larger groups as part of the German policy of genocide against Jews, and others. In January or February, 1940, 250 Roma children from Brno in the Buchenwald concentration camp were used for testing the Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide absorbed into various solid substrates).[4] On September 3, 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp I.
Carbon monoxide was also used in large purpose-built gas chambers. The gas was provided by petrol engines (detailed in the Gerstein Report).[5] Nazi gas chambers in mobile vans and at least eight concentration camps (see also extermination camp) were used to kill several million people between 1941 and 1945. Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,500 people at once. Numerous sources record the use of gas chambers in the Holocaust, including the direct testimony of Rudolf Höß, Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp.[6]
The gas chambers were dismantled when Soviet troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek. The gas chamber at Auschwitz I was reconstructed after the war as a memorial, but without a door in its doorway and without the wall that originally separated the gas chamber from a washroom.
Modern Usage
The gas chamber has fallen out of favor in most of the modern world. Reports of terribly painful deaths during executions in which those being executed violently gasped for air, convulsed, and suffered spasms throughout the proceedings. One witness to such an execution said, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans."[7] A witness of another gas chamber execution said,
I watched Harding go into violent spasms for 57 seconds. ... Then he began to convulse less frequently. His back muscles rippled. The spasms grew less violent. I timed them as ending 6 minutes and 37 seconds after they began. His head went down in little jerking motions. Obviously the gentleman was suffering. This was a violent death, make no mistake about it. [...] It was an ugly event. We put animals to death more humanely. This was not a clean and simple death.[8]
Reports in the early twenty-first century indicated that gas chambers were used by North Korea both as punishment and for testing of lethal agents on humans: [9] They claimed that North Korea has used gas chambers to execute political prisoners at a concentration camp known as Camp 22 near the Chinese and Russian borders.[10][11] However, questions have been raised about the truthfulness of these reports, since the witnesses were North Korean refugees, telling their stories of gas chambers to the Japanese and South Korean press. Some have dismissed these reports as mere propaganda, with the refugees being paid money for telling horrific stories that seem to equate the North Korean regime with the Nazi regime of Germany.
Notes
- ↑ Many sources including http://www.yadvashem.org
- ↑ Colin Randall, "Napoleon's genocide 'on a par with Hitler,'" Daily Telegraph. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ↑ "Methods of Execution - Gas Chamber" Retrieved July 29, 2007
- ↑ Emil Proester, Vraždeni čs. cikanu v Buchenwaldu (The murder of Czech Gypsies in Buchenwald). Document No. UV CSPB K-135 on deposit in the Archives of the Museum of the Fighters Against Nazism, Prague. 1940. (Quoted in: Miriam Novitch, Le génocide des Tziganes sous le régime nazi (Genocide of Gypsies by the Nazi Regime), Paris, AMIF, 1968)
- ↑ Kurt Gerstein, Der Gerstein-Bericht (The Gerstein Report) Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ↑ Modern History Sourcebook: Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz: Testimony at Nuremburg, 1946 Fordham University. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ↑ Botched Executions Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Retrieved August 10, 2007.
- ↑ Botched Executions Project Hope. Retrieved August 10, 2007.
- ↑ from Guardian newspaper (UK): "Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag" (Feb. 1, 2004)
- ↑ Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag The Guardian. Retrieved August 8, 2007.
- ↑ Within Prison Walls BBC. Retrieved August 8, 2007.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Fost, Dan. "Death watch: should TV cover the gas chamber?" Columbia Journalism Review March 1, 1991 Volume: v29 Issue: n6 Page: p15(2) Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
- McMurry, Kelly. 1996. "Ninth Circuit shuts down California's gas chamber" Trial May 1, 1996 Volume: 32 Issue: n5 Page: 17(2) Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
- Muller, Filip. 1999. Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers. Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 1566632714
- Neumann, A. Lin. "Death watch: a night at the gas chamber. (media coverage of Robert Alton Harris's execution)" Columbia Journalism Review July 1, 1992 Volume: v31 Issue: n2 Page: p17(2) Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism.
External links
- Rotten Library Article on Gas Chamber
- Gas chamber in US
- Report on the Mississippi gas chamber (by Fred Leuchter)
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