Berlin, Germany, November 10th 2025 – Today Tiergarten4Association e.V., in association with the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in Berlin, releases 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. 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 twenty gas vans of exactly the same design as the van assigned to SS-Sonderkommando VIIa, murdered more than 300,000 Jews, Sinti and Roma, mentally and physically disabled, partisans and others, in Nazi occupied Austria, Belarus, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine between December 1941 and the end of the war. The locations of mass killing operations using gas vans included Chełmno nad Nerem/Kulmhof in Nazi occupied Poland, the first Nazi extermination camp.
Uwe Neumärker, Director of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, »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.«
The film and lecture of the 3D-reconstruction of the gas van assigned to SS-Sonderkommando VIIa can be viewed at: YOUTUBE – Tiergarten 4 Association e.V.
Cameron A. Munro is available for interview and the book can be ordered from the Tiergarten4Association e.V. website at www.tiergartenstrasse4.org.
Contact:
Tiergarten4Association e.V.
Wiesenstrasse 16
13357 Berlin/ Germany
Telephone: +49 (0)30 36427994
Email: info@tiergartenstrasse4.org
Website: www.tiergartenstrasse4.org
