Talk:Gas van

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 July 2025

The beginning of the article should start by addressing that it was a 1930’s Russian invention, instead of associating it with nazi’s in the 1940’s to purposefully obscure its origins. 98.244.46.131 (talk) 21:34, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Dahawk04 (talk) 02:21, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Origin of the word in Russian: please correct

The opening sentence contains the phrase "Russian: душегубка, romanized: dushegubka, lit. 'soul killer';". Although it superficially resembles the Russian word for soul (душа), mutually intellegible in other Slavic languages (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%88%D0%B0), the much more plausible etimology is the word for choking or suffocating: душить (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%88%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%8C). Therefore, the appropriate literal meaning would be the "suffocating killer (or killing device)", the second part of the word coming from the root губить (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D1%82%D1%8C#Russian), meaning to kill or destroy. As the article is locked, I would ask the editors with sufficient access rights to make the change. Being a native speaker of a Slavic language (Croatian), with rudimentary knowledge of Russian, this mistake in etimology is immediately and intuitively apparent to me. X-alex79 (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

In such context, it means "душа" (possibly a soul, but rather just a person - compare to the usage in Dead Souls), not "душить" (suffocate). I do not think this can be properly translated as "soul killer" or whatever, this is a unique term/wording by itself playing on the multiple meanings of words in Russian. My very best wishes (talk) 21:24, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Books by Albats and Grigorenko

Speaking on this removal , I think we must include the quotation from the reliably published book by the Harvard graduate Yevgenia Albats. Not only this is important to establish (or additionally support) the usage of such vans in the USSR, but it provides proper context: "Owing to the shortage of executioners, Chekists used trucks that were camouflaged as bread vans as mobile death chambers. Yes, the very same machinery made notorious by the Nazis - yes, these trucks were originally a Soviet invention, in use years before the ovens of the Auschwitz were built". As about the memoir book by Petro Grigorenko, not only he was one of the most famous Soviet dissidents, but this was the first mentioning of this subject (i.e. the gas vans in the USSR) in the literature. Hence, he must be mentioned as someone who first discovered the phenomenon, as customary in scientific reviews, for example. My very best wishes (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

We do not need to overload the section with quotes. As it is, the section on the Soviet Union is still way too large in comparison to the actual usage - three paragraphs for a very slight usage of them is WP:UNDUE. Ealdgyth (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps we should not increase the size of this section. Actually, this book was used as a reference on this page already; I missed it. I will look more carefully and think how this can be improved. My very best wishes (talk) 22:00, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Someone should (formally) propose a merger...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van ~2025-39100-86 (talk) 12:47, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Why? Slatersteven (talk) 12:48, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

change non formal subheading to formal one

Change the inventor of the gas van section from "Inventor of the Gas van?" to "Inventor of the gas van" or "Dispute of the inventor of the gas van" or something similar, so that its more formal Mr tiny details (talk) 07:39, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Is it disputed? Slatersteven (talk) 11:30, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

 Done Removed the question mark. Day Creature (talk) 16:03, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

"Tambucho" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Tambucho has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 March 3 § Tambucho until a consensus is reached. 1234qwer1234qwer4 10:03, 3 March 2026 (UTC)