The human race has seen many things throughout history. People have seen wars that have destroyed whole countries or have severely crippled one's country. In the 1900’s the human race saw two of the most devastating wars fought. These wars were not just between two countries, but the entire world. World War I and II are infamous for the amount of devastation the wars caused. In World War II the people of the world learned about the Holocaust. The Holocaust brought a lot of pain to the world. The killing methods that were used during the Holocaust are beyond belief. The methods used in the Holocaust include gassing vans, gassing chambers, and firing squads. These killing methods amount to millions of deaths. These killing methods have also inspired and have been modified for today’s use. The Holocaust cruel and unusual killing methods that share and or are the same with killing methods of today's modern society.
The Holocaust was a tragedy and the human population was thought to have learned from this experience, but the events are repeating themselves in today's time. In Syria the events of the Holocaust may be repeating. The gas has been used against the civilians of Syria and has caused damage to the country. The gas was first thought to be used against a village in Syria called Khan al-Assal. “Reports that nerve gas was used at Khan al-Assal, a village near Aleppo, on March 19, 2013” (Chemical Weapons in Syria). The gas is producing the same effects as the Zyklon B gas. The two gases have murdered many people.
In Germany 1939-1945 there was a dark time in the human race. This time period was known as WWII or as the Holocaust. As the human race people should have learned from this dark time. History is repeating itself with the Syrian gas. The county is gassing its own people like in the Holocaust. The human race learns history so that events like the Holocaust don't repeat. Both events share a lot of similarity. They both massacre their own people and are both truly horrifying . The Syrian gas is a modern day Holocaust killing method.
Generally speaking the Holocaust had many killing methods that were considered inhuman. One of the most known killing methods were firing squads. The Nazis first use firing squads as their main way of killing people. The method was cruel and not as proficient as the Nazis wanted it to be. The method was used because of how easy it was. The Nazis would commit mass murder in front of people and not have a care for the bodies. The horrific way of killing people was just one of the killing methods used in the Holocaust.
The firing squads were not as proficient but the horror that came from the firing squads was nortrious. An example of the firing squads would be The Bialystok Massacre. The firing squads had massacred over a thousand jews. A survivor remarks that “the shooting lasted an entire day . The gutters were piled up with dead bodies” (Gottfried). The firing squads did their job of killing people but the killing method was not efficient nor fast enough. The firing would take an entire day to complete and there would also be survivors from the shootings. The Nazis noticed this and so would than come with with a faster way of killing people which would be the Zyklon-B gas.
Firing squads are one of the most dangerous and horrific ways of dying. Being in front of a firing squad is truly a terrible way of dying. In the Holocaust being in front of a firing squad could be blessing because most times the squads would not kill the victim. There were alot of survivors from firing squads. The killing method was so inefficient that the Nazis just got rid of it. In today's time firing squads have disappeared. The only time you would ever see them would be in prison executions. There have only ever been 3 executions by firing squad in the United States. The firing squads were dropped for lethal injection. “It will be the third by firing squad in the U.S. (and Utah) in more than 40 years. And it will have been Gardner's choice. Since lethal injection was first introduced in the late 1970s, it has become the primary execution method”(Mendleson).
Humans can be one of the most advanced species in the world, but they can often show beastly traits. As humans we have advanced in many things in this world. The population has came up new advancements and new ways of doing things, but not all advancements are for the greater good. In the Holocaust we saw many new advancements and inventions that were not for the greater good. One of those inventions were the gassing vans. The gassing vans were an invention created by the Nazis to kill their prisoners and people who did not support them. The vans worked in vile and horrific ways. “ The larger vans could hold between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty victims. The smaller ones held eighty to hundred. Carbon monoxide was pumped into the compartments by a tube leading from the exhaust pipe. The killing process took between fifteen and thirty minutes” (Gottfried). The vans were nicknamed “ Killing Vans.”
Modern society knows of the past and the destruction that the Holocaust had brought upon the world. The world has become a better place to live in because the human race learns from it mistakes, but in Syria people are making the same mistakes as in the Holocaust. The gassing vans in the Holocaust were a truly horrific thing done. The gassing vans had the poison gas of Zyklon B and in Syria they are using many nerve gases. Two being chlorine and sarin. “Opposition groups uploded videos of people choking and convlusing after a substance rebels say is chlorine” (Arrouas). The same method of killing is still be used to day by people. The gases share a similar trait, which is that they both kill someone in a short amount of time. “The killing process took between fifteen and thirty minutes”(Gottfried). “Sarin is colorless, tasteless, and odorless, and can kill in minutes” (Gardiner). The gases share devastating trait of both killing in a short amount of time.
In theory the events of the Holocaust should not repeat. As the human population learns from history the events should be avoid and be known to cause damage to society. In Syria the events are repeating themselves with the gas that is used. The gas has the comparison effects on people and cause the same damage to the people who are not involved. It cause the devastation across the world like the Holocaust. Death is a common subject all killing methods share. In the holocaust the killing methods that the Nazis used caused millions of deaths. In total the amount of Jewish people that were killed were six million. “Six million Jewish civilians--men, women, children and old people-- were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators” (Gottfried). The total amount of deaths that had come from the killing methods that the Nazis had come up with are repeating themselves with modern day killing methods being used today. In Syria there have been 1206 deaths from the nerve gas. “As of April 10, 2017, a total of 1206 direct deaths meeting inclusion criteria were recorded in the dataset from all chemical weapons attacks regardless of size” (Rodriguez-Llanes et al.). The amount of death that has come from all of the killing methods is inhumane and cruel.
In conclusion modern day killing methods share similar traits with the Holocaust cruel and unusual killing methods. Today's society we know about the Holocaust and the destruction that it has caused. The effects of the Holocaust still impacted people of today's society. The human race learned about eh killing methods used in the Holocaust. The killing methods include gassing chambers, firing squads, and gassing vans. All the Holocaust killing methods share similar traits with today's killing methods. The modern day killing methods include Syrian gas attacks, and modern day execution by firing squads in prison. The killing methods of the Holocaust and modern day society are truly horrific.
Cite
1.Arrouas, Michelle. “Syrian Government Accused of New Deadly Gas Attacks on Opposition.” Time.Com, Apr. 2014, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
2.“Chemical Weapons in Syria.” Background Information Summaries, Nov. 2018, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
3.Gardiner, Bryan. “The Chemical Weapons DETECTIVES.” Popular Science, vol. 290, no. 5, Winter 2018, pp. 84–91. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
4.Gottfried, Ted. “The Final Solution.” Nazi Germany, Lerner Publishing Group, 2000, p. 86. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
5.Gottfried, Ted. “What Is The HOLOCAUST?” Deniers of the Holocaust, Lerner Publishing Group, 2001, p. 9. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
6.“HOLOCAUST.” Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine, Oxford University Press, 2001, 2001, p. 385. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
7.Mendleson, Rachel. “‘I Would like the Firing Squad Please. There Are No Mistakes.’ A Condemned Man Has Chosen Death by Bullets Rather than 8.Lethal Injection--and He’s Not Alone.” Maclean’s, no. 23, 2010, p. 32. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
9.Rodriguez-Llanes, Jose M., et al. “Epidemiological Findings of Major Chemical Attacks in the Syrian War Are Consistent with Civilian Targeting: A Short Report.” Conflict and Health, no. 1, 2018. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s13031-018-0150-4.
