What was cremation like during the holocaust?

Answer 1

During World War 2 the Germans arrested nearly all the Jews (and Gypsies, Communists and others) in the many countries they occupied.

The arrested people were taken to camps in Poland and East Germany and systematically worked or starved to death. Some 6 million people died in this way.

The dead, and or alive,bodies were burnt in crematoria, which were special buildings containing gas fired ovens designed for the pupose, and the ashes spread over adjacent land.

[just a minor point; the ovens were generally coal-fired and occasionally wood. The ashes were generally scattered into rivers.]

Answer 2

The bodies of millions of Jews were burned in the crematoriums at the death camps. Most of the Jews were dead before they went in. Some Jews were forced to work there. Many had to burn their own friends and family members.

Answer 3

Crematoriums are special furnaces designed to incinerate human bodies. The Nazis used crematoriums to dispose of the large number of dead bodies they created by executing political prisoners (mostly Jews) in their concentration camps. This was labeled as the "Final Solution" by Nazi leaders of the extermination program, as it solved the problem of mass graves taking too long to dig and fill. The crematoria at Auschwitz were made by J. A. Topf und Soehne, of Erfurt.

Answer 4

As for murderers more generally, one of the Nazis' self-inflicted problems was disposing of the corpses. Cremation (burning) using low-grade coal turned out to be most efficient method at extermination camps. The main crematoria at Auschwitz were custom-built by J A Topf und Soehne, of Erfurt, a firm that had a longstanding reputation for manufacturing very efficient and cheaply run crematoria ...

The Holocaust crematoria were basically large furnaces in which Jews were burned in after being murdered. The ashes were the disposed of on adjacent lands.

In Auschwitz, a Nazi controlled concentration camp, about 1 million Jews were burnt in the crematoria (crematories).

Answer 5

The Jews did not actually die in the crematories, they were killed by toxic gas before being carried in to the crematories. They had wood burning crematories which would take on average 4 to 5 hours to burn 150 lbs of human remains leaving 7 to 9 lbs of bone fragment left.

Answer 6

In Gusen camp, which was a sub-camp of the Mauthausenconcentration camp, 2 Topf cremation muffles sufficed to cremate 94 corpses in 20 working hours. According to the official estimate of the SS, the 52 Auschwitz-Birkenau muffles could cremate 4,756 corpses in 24 working hours, with a cremation rate higher than Gusen, as so many of the victims were infants and children. These huge crematoriums were fully manned in day and night shifts.

source: http://www.holocaust-history.org/~dkeren/cremation/

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The crematoria burned low grade coal and were made by J A Topf und Soehne of Erfurt, which had a long standing reputation for making very efficient crematoria. They were purpose built for large numbers ... with appropriate ventilation and were installed on site by the company.

Answer 7

The crematoria (ovens) at Auschwitz were made by J.A. Topf und Soehne, of Erfurt in Germany. The firm had a well established reputation for producing furnaces that could reach high temperatures on low grade coal.

Answer 8

Most of them were destroyed by the Nazi Germans as they retreated. They were trying to cover their tracks and hide the fact that they had been killing Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals.