- ... Continued
-
- He was embraced by the loathsome British historian David
Irving -- described by Ron Rosenbaum, in his book "Explaining Hitler,"
as the Führer's "chief postwar defender" -- who extolled
the "gruesomely expert author" of "The Leuchter Report"
and labelled its results "shattering" and "truly astounding."[6]
-
- Unavoidably, Leuchter became a target of Jewish activists,
and it was only a matter of time before prison wardens stopped hiring him.
In Massachusetts, he was prosecuted and threatened with jail for practicing
engineering without a license.[7] In 1992, he went to Germany, again to
testify on Zündel's behalf (Zündel had been charged with violating
Germany's Holocaust-denial stature after organizing an International Leuchter-Kongress
in Munich); while there, he, too, made what the authorities deemed a Holocaust-denial
speech. The next year, Leuchter was again lured to Germany, ostensibly
to appear on television to talk about electrocution, but he was arrested
the day he arrived and charged with "slander of the murdered Jews."
He spent six and a half weeks in prison before he was finally bailed out
by Zündel, and a trial was scheduled for 1994, He has never returned
to Germany. Also, in 1994 his marriage came unravelled, whereupon he moved
to California and, for a long while, as far as Morris was concerned, simply
vanished. [...]
-
- Morris's schedule called for two full weeks of shooting
[at Auschwitz-Birkenau]. He planned to photograph blueprints and other
documents in the Auschwitz museum archives -- to introduce explicit references
to the existence of the gas chambers (and to the inadequacy of Leuchter's
argument).[8] And he would interview a Dutch-born historian, Robert Jan
van Pelt, an authority on the camp's genealogy and evolution into a death
factory and the co-author of a book entitled "Auschwitz: 1270 to the
Present," published in 1996.
-
- That first afternoon, van Pelt and I walked along a path
parallel to railroad tracks that entered the main gate of Birkenau and
terminated half a mite later. On our right was a perimeter of barbed wire,
and, beyond that, twenty wooden barracks, which gave way to an endless
gridwork of brick chimneys -- a ghostscape that remained wherever the barracks
had come down. On our left was another border of barbed wire, then brick
barracks, and in the distance, the Carpathian Mountains. At last, we reached
a crossroads, the spot at which trains dispatched from all over Europe
by Adolf Eichmann had been halted and new arrivals were lined up -- mothers,
children, and the elderly here, able-bodied men and women there. This was
where the infamous "selections" had taken place, where the S.S.
literally expropriated the divine prerogative: deciding who shall live
and who shall die. From this nexus, at the height of the gassings, in 1943
and 1944, the doomed would be consigned to the crematoria and, typically
would be dead within a couple of hours.
-
- "If I had to create a geography of evil, this would
certainly be my center point," van Pelt said. "Many people consider
this the most important place in their life. I'm not a Catholic, but I
wouldn't go into a Catholic Church and piss on the altar.[9] There are
standards of human decency. Fred Leuchter came here for two or three days
and took samples. I don't want to deny people the right to doubt. But I
want them to do it after they've done their homework; I hate Holocaust
deniers not just for their moral atrociousness but because they're sloppy
craftsmen.[10] I walk around here and I still find things that I don't
understand -- why they're here. This is an enormous place. This is a city:
Originally, there were a hundred and twenty-five architects and draftsmen
working here. Why would one or two people think they can come here and
in two or three days understand this place?"
-
- THE next morning, Morris shot footage inside one of the
three remaining delousing buildings, including a disquisition by van Pelt,
who posed in front of what he sardonically called "the Wailing Wall
of Holocaust deniers" - -- the spot from, which Leuchter had chiselled
material turned out to possess a relatively high cyanide content; this
became the control against which other samples from the "alleged gas
chambers" were measured. [...]
-
- DURING the making of "Mr. Death," Morris augmented
his usual complement of anxieties with a sense of dread at what might happen
when he showed Leuchter the completed film.
-
- In addition to van Pelt, Morris had enlisted Jim Roth
-- the chemist who had analyzed Leuchter's forensic evidence -- as a rebuttal
witness. Only after he testified or Zündel's trial, Roth told Morris,
did he realize where the material he analyzed had originated.[11] He acknowledged
the limitation of his analysis: cyanide, by its molecular nature, would
have bonded with the iron in the brick of the gas chambers only on the
surface -- ten microns deep, just one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.
-
- Thus, when a chunk of brick was crushed in the lab, the
material beneath the surface would have diluted the specimen, rendering
the test pointless. Looking into Morris's camera. Roth summarized, "I
don't think the Leuchter results have any meaning."[12] [...]
-
- Notes by this Website:
-
- 1: The innuendo is that Fred Leuchter was bribed to produce
the desired result. In fact before accepting the Zündel team's commission,
Leuchter warned that if he found the opposite result in Auschwitz, he would
not hesitate both to report to that effect and to publicize his findings
widely. This was a risk which Zündel and his defence team had to accept.
No-one was sure of the outcome until Mr Roth delivered his lab tests.
-
- 2: The throwaway adjective "weathered" echoes
the complacent belief of Germany's cowardly historians that "of course"
no cyanide residue could be expect to persist in those ruins after being
exposed "to fifty years of wind and rain." When chemist Germar
Rudolf of the prestigious Max-Planck Gesellschaft determined that precisely
the opposite was true -- cyanide forms a chemical compound with iron that
is so permanent that it is used as a dyestuff, Prussian Blue -- his scientific
colleagues unwittingly applauded and endorsed his paper; Rudolf was then
prosecuted by the German government, dismissed from the institute at the
request of the country's Jewish community, sentenced to jail, and forced
into exile.
-
- 3: Noteworthy that over recent years, the historical
argument has seamlessly shifted from the objective chemical-analysis basis
to the somewhat safer sacrilege/blasphemy/religious-outrage leg: never
mind the laboratory findings, it was utterly outrageous for Mr Leuchter
to have "stolen" the samples (a few grams of brick dust) from
the historic site. Has the same argument been used to condemn the forensic
scientists who questioned the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, a relic
precious to the Catholic church?
-
- 4: It says very little for the ethical qualities of this
forensic chemist Mr Roth that he is quoted as hinting that, had he known
where the samples came from, his analytical results might have been different.
How else to interpret this passage of Mr Singer's article? If we were Mr
Roth, we would sue for professional defamation.
-
- 5: Auschwitz was liberated not by the Allied armies,
but by the Red Army. Told of this new setback (it meant the loss of the
huge I.G Farben plant so painfully built by slave-labour from the camp)
on the following day by Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Adolf Hitler merely
said, according to the stenographic record: "Oh." (Not, for example:
My God, did we manage to blow up every trace of our factories of death
first, Herr Guderian?) All extermination camps were in the eastern zones
liberated by the Russians; none was found in those zones liberated by the
Allies. It would of course be wrong to draw any conclusions from this.
-
- 6: Before writing these words, Mr Singer or the magazine's
fact-checkers could usefully have consulted The New Yorker's library and
taken on board Naomi Bliven's glowing review of Mr Irving's biography Hitler's
War (New York, 1977): "It is wonderful how Mr Irving, without any
confusion or any dull stretches, ranges over the entire German war effort.
He shows us the precise importance of each problem, from the squabbles
between Rumania and Hungary to the decay of the Luftwaffe, from the sources
of raw materials to the roles that individual generals played. The book
is a brilliant study of war which makes military problems fascinating,
and -- possibly because the loosing side becomes so vivid -- war loathsome."
There's that word again, Loathsome; so perhaps Singer did read it after
all.
-
- 7: The Massachusetts prosecution was instigated by Beate
and Serge Klarsfeld and their stooges, who also sent private circular letters
to prison governors in the United States suggesting that they cease hiring
Mr Leuchter. This is how they operate.
-
- 8: We are eager to see, when the film is released, what
blueprints and explicit references to "gas chambers" Mr Morris
was shown at Auschwitz.
-
- 9: This imagery clearly establishes that Professor van
Pelt is not, as he agrees, a Catholic.
-
- 10: Is Van Pelt himself not a sloppy craftsman? See the
unanswered letter written to him to by Mr Irving suggesting that the professor
ought to have read the verbatim interrogations of Rudolf Höss and
Kurt Aumeier, or studied the British decodes of the SS and police cypher
messages from Auschwitz, or the countless other original source documents
on Auschwitz before completing his otherwise commendable book.
-
- 11: see 4 above.
-
- 12: Then how to explain the saturation of the brickwork
of the delousing chamber, with the cyanide-blue stain permeating right
through the bricks to the outside wall (see the photographs in the Rudolf
Report)? That is more than "a few microns." If Mr Roth is not
to become the laughing stock of his profession, he must have been misquoted.
==
-
- (9) The Van Pelt Report on the Leuchter Report - Irving/Lipstadt
trial transcript
-
- http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/trial/defense/van/ix
-
- [The Van Pelt Report]: Electronic Edition, by Robert
Jan van Pelt
-
- IX The Leuchter Report
-
- "I see nobody on the road," said Alice.
-
- "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked
in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance
too."Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass. 748
-
- According to his own account, Fred Leuchter had never
heard of Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson, or Holocaust denial until
one morning in early 1988.
-
- Like all American children born during and after World
War II, I was taught about the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis on the
Jews. By the time I had reached college, I had no reason to disbelieve
any of my education, except that I had some problems swallowing the numbers
of decedents, said to total better than six million persons. But there
it stopped. I believed in the Nazi genocide. I had no reason to disbelieve.
-
- Some twenty-four years later, a very believing engineer
sat at his desk working one snowy January afternoon in 1988, when the telephone
rang. This very believing engineer was about to receive a very shocking
history lesson which would cause him to question that fifty-year-old Holocaust
lie and the application of that lie to generations of children. "Hello,
this is Robert Faurisson"--and that very believing engineer would
believe no more. 749
-
- The idea to engage an engineer to "prove" the
Auschwitz gas chambers to be a hoax was not new. As we have seen, Arthur
R. Butz had done his best more than ten years earlier by studying the material
then available to him in Evanston, and Robert Faurisson had made a big
issue of it in his writings from 1978 onwards, when he had become convinced
that a comparison between the "alleged" gas chambers of Auschwitz
and gas chambers used for the execution of those condemned to death in
various American states would yield great results. When he began to prepare
for the Second Zündel Trial, Faurisson suggested that Zündel
approach Bill Armontraut, Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary in
Jefferson City, Missouri. Armontraut's prison included a gas chamber operated
by cyanide gas. Constructed in 1939, it had been used 39 times. Zündel's
legal aide Barbara Kulaszka wrote Armontrout, and the latter responded
in a letter of January 13, 1988.
-
- I received your letter regarding Queen vs. Zündel
and the testimony of an expert witness dealing with execution by "gas
chambers". I have considerable knowledge in that area, however,I suggest
you contact Mr. Fred Leuchter, 108 Bunker Hill Street, Boston, MA 02192,
home telephone number 617-322-0104. Mr. Leuchter is an engineer specializing
in gas chambers and executions. He is well versed in all areas and is the
only consultant in the United States that I know of. 750
-
- Faurisson had found the man he had been looking for.
After a few initial telephone conversations, and two trips of Faurisson
to Boston, Leuchter left with Carolyn, his wife of two weeks, to Toronto
to meet Zündel and his defence team.
-
- Two days of lengthy meetings followed, during which I
was shown photos of the alleged German gas chambers in Poland, German documents
and Allied aerial photographs. My examination of this material led me to
question whether these alleged gas chambers were, in fact, execution facilities.
I was asked if I would go to Poland and undertake a physical inspection
and forensic analysis resulting in a written evaluation of these alleged
execution gas chambers, some at places I had never even heard of. 751
-
- Leuchter agreed, and left for Poland on February 25,
accompanied by his wife, a draughtsman, a video-cameraman, an interpreter,
and, "in spirit," Zündel and Faurisson, "who for obvious
reasons could not accompany us in person, but who nevertheless were with
us every step of the way." 752 The party returned on March 3, having
spent three days in Auschwitz and half a day in Majdenek. In those camps
Leuchter studied the lay-out of the crematoria--or better of what remained
of them--and illegally took various samples of the brickwork and plaster,
which he brought back to the United States to be analyzed by the Alpha
Analytical Laboratories in Ashsland, Massachusetts on residual cyanide
content.
-
- Back home, Leuchter wrote a report entitled An Engineering
Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and
Majdanek Poland, which Christie submitted to the court. The crown successfully
challenged, however, Leuchter's credentials. Leuchter admitted that his
formal education was in the humanities, that he had no engineering license,
and that he had no expertise regarding chemistry, toxology or incineration.
As a result, Judge Thomas ruled that the Leuchter report could not be admitted
as evidence. Leuchter, however, was allowed to testify on a very narrow
range of issues: his observations of the camps, his taking of the samples,
and the issue of the gas chambers. Yet while the jury never saw the report,
Irving did, and as he testified, it led to his conversion to negationism.
In fact, he was so enthusiastic that he became its English publisher. And
so we will consider it in some detail.
-
- Let us first of all allow Leuchter to present his methodology
and conclusion. He used, as he wrote, a seven-step approach:
-
- 1. A general background study of the available material.
-
- 2. An on-site inspection and forensic examination of
the facilities in question which included the taking of physical data (measurements
and construction information) and a considered removal of physical sample
material (brick and mortar) which was returned to the United States for
chemical analysis.
-
- 3. A consideration of recorded and visual (on-site) logistic
data.
-
- 4. A compilation of the acquired data.
-
- 5. An analysis of the acquired information and comparison
of this information with known and proven design, procedural and logistic
information and requirements for the design, fabrication and operation
of actual gas chambers and crematories.
-
- 6. A consideration of the chemical analysis of the materials
acquired on site.
-
- 7. Conclusions based on the acquired evidence. 753
-
- In a section entitled "Synopsis and Findings,"
Leuchter summarized the results of his seven--stepped approach as follows:
-
- After a study of the available literature, examination
and evaluation of the existing facilities at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek,
with expert knowledge of the design criteria for gas chamber operation,
an investigation of crematory technology and an inspection of modern crematories,
the author finds no evidence that any of the facilities normally alleged
to be execution gas chambers were ever used as such, and finds, further,
that because of the design and fabrication of these facilities, they could
not have been utilized for execution gas chambers.
-
- Additionally, an evaluation of the crematory facilities
produced conclusive evidence that contradicts the alleged volume of corpses
cremated in the generally alleged time frame. It is, therefore, the best
engineering opinion of the author that none of the facilities examined
were ever utilized for the execution of human beings and that the crematories
could not have supported the alleged work load attributed to them. 754
-
- Before we go into a detailed discussion, it is good to
note two things. The first is the very limited research he did before he
left for Poland. During his testimony during the trial, he told the court
that he reviewed some parts of Hilberg's Destruction of the European Jews,
a Degesch document on how to handle Zyklon-B which had been submitted as
evidence in the Nuremberg Trials (NT-9912), a Dupont flyer on safety when
handling its own brand of hydrocyanide, and some negationist literature,
among which was the article by Lindsey on the Trial of Bruno Tesch, an
article by a certain Friedrich Paul Berg on German Delousing Chambers,
and Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. 755
-
- The second issue is that Leuchter did not attach too
much significance to his samples. When Pearson asked him "what percentage
of your conclusions is based on these conclusions you draw from the cyanide
traces?," Leuchter answered: "Ten per cent."
-
- [Pearson]: "What other--what are the other foundations
for your conclusion?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "The other foundations are that the
facilities that I looked at were physically not designed and could not
have been operations as gas chambers."
-
- Q.: "And what do you rely on for that conclusion?"
-
- A.: "I rely on my knowledge of gas chamber construction
and design."
-
- Q.: "So you rely on your knowledge and experience
as somebody constructing gas chambers in the United States for the purposes
of executing one person as humanly as possible with as less danger to other
people as possible."
-
- A.: "Partially."
-
- Q.: "Well, that's your only experience, isn't it?"
-
- A.: "It's my only experience at constructing gas
chambers. I don't believe anyone has had any experience constructing larger
gas chambers that took more than two people. But, the--"
-
- Q.: "Did you read the testimony of the commandant
of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss?"
-
- A.: "I did."
-
- Q.: "Okay. So, you've told us about your experience
and you said that the hydrogen traces account for ten percent of your conclusion.
What per cent of your conclusion is your experience in the construction
of modern gas chambers?"
-
- A.: "Twenty, maybe thirty percent."
-
- Q.: "Okay. What else is there then, please?"
-
- A.: "Good engineering design in terms of building
structure, air moving equipment, plumbing equipment that would be utilized
to handle the air and mechanical equipment that would be utilized to introduce
gas and gas carriers into a structure."
-
- Q.: "And what percentage of your opinion is based
on that?"
-
- A.: "Fifty or sixty percent."
-
- Q.: "And that is all based on the assumption that
the physical plant presently at that location in Poland is what was there
in 1942, '43, '44 and '45. Is that right?"
-
- A.: "That is correct." 756
-
- Given the fact that Leuchter himself based ninety percent
of his conclusion on considerations of engineering, we do well to follow
his cue, and concentrate on his observations as an engineer. I will provide
first of all the full passage that contains his main observations on the
gas chambers, and then analyze the various statements it contains separately.
-
- Bunkers 1 and 2 are described in Auschwitz State Museum
literature as converted farm houses with several chambers and windows sealed.
These do not exist in their original condition and were not inspected.
Kremas 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection were
verified to have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and housed
in the same facility as crematories. The on-site inspection of these structures
indicated extremely poor and dangerous design for these facilities if they
were to have served as execution gas chambers. There is no provision for
gasketed doors, windows or vents; the structures are not coated with tar
or other sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of gas. The adjacent
crematories are a potential danger of explosion. The exposed porous brick
and mortar would accumulate the HCN and make these facilities dangerous
to humans for several years. Krema I is adjacent to the S.S. Hospital at
Auschwitz and has floor drains connected to the main sewer of the camp--which
would allow gas into every building at the facility. There were no exhaust
systems to vent the gas after usage and no heaters or dispersal mechanism
for the Zyklon B gas to be introduced or evaporated. The Zyklon B was supposedly
dropped through roof vents and put in through windows--not allowing for
the even distribution of gas or pellets. The facilities are always damp
and not heated. As stated earlier, dampness and Zyklon B are not compatible.
The chambers are too small to physically contain the occupants claimed
and the doors all open inward, a situation which would inhibit removal
of the bodies. With the gas chambers fully packed with occupants, there
would be no circulation of the HCN within the room. Additionally, if the
gas eventually did fill the chamber over a lengthy time period, those throwing
Zyklon B in the roof vents and verifying the death of the occupants would
die themselves from exposure to HCN. None of the alleged gas chambers were
constructed in accordance with the design for delousing chambers which
were effectively operating for years in a safe manner. None of these chambers
were constructed in accordance with the known and proven designs of facilities
operational in the United States at that time. It seems unusual that the
presumed designers of these alleged gas chambers never consulted or considered
the United States technology, the only country then executing prisoners
with gas. 757
-
- Let us consider this central statement sentence by sentence.
"Kremas 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection
were verified to have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and
housed in the same facility as crematories."
-
- The sentence does not make any sense. I presume that
Leuchter meant to write "[The alleged gas chambers of] Kremas 1, 2,
3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection were verified to
have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and housed in the same
facility as crematories." If this is what he meant, and I cannot imagine
any other possible explanation for why he wrote what he wrote, we must
ask how he had determined "on inspection" that all these alleged
gas chambers had been morgues. While he could have done so safely in crematorium
1, where the space is still available for inspection, and while he could
have inferred from the underground position of the alleged gas chambers
of crematoria 2 and 3 that these most likely would have been designed as
morgues, and while he would have found evidence in the blueprints provided
by Faurisson that these places had indeed been designated as morgues (Leichenkeller),
he could not have come to that conclusion studying the remains of crematoria
4 and 5. First of all virtually nothing is left of these structures except
concrete slabs and some low walls reconstructed after the war, and the
blueprints of these buildings do not show any designation of gas chambers
as morgues. So it is unclear on the basis of what evidence he was able
to come to a verification in the case of crematoria 4 and 5.
-
- "The on-site inspection of these structures indicated
extremely poor and dangerous design for these facilities if they were to
have served as execution gas chambers," Leuchter claimed. "There
is no provision for gasketed doors, windows or vents; the structures are
not coated with tar or other sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of
gas." It is a mystery how Leuchter, on the basis of the remains of
the crematoria, could have come to this statement. With the exception of
crematorium 1, the other four crematoria are merely rubble, a fact which
Leuchter admitted in cross-examination, and which he also observed in the
paper he presented at the Ninth International Revisionist Conference in
1989. 758 Simply stated, there is simply not enough evidence remaining
to establish if there were, or not, the gasketed doors, windows or vents.
There is, however enough left to see that the walls had been plastered:
in 1990 the forensic scientists of the Institute of Forensic Research in
Cracow used plaster samples from the gas chambers of crematoria 2 and 3
as the basis for their analysis of residual cyanide. Yet, undeterred by
all of this, Leuchter had no hesitation to determine on the basis of the
few remains of the gas chamber of crematorium 2 that the walls of that
room had been rough, unsealed brick and mortar, and that those walls that
had never been painted. 759 This was important because, if the wall had
been coated with tar or painted, the bricks that remained would have been
protected from the hydrogen cyanide, and it would have been impossible
for a chemical reaction to occur between the hydrogen cyanide and the brick
and mortar. 760 But because he, or at least Faurisson, had aimed to establish
that the absence of residual cyanide in the bricks pointed to the fact
that no hydrogen cyanide had been used in those rooms, he had to postulate
a priori that the walls had not been coated or painted. However, as we
have seen, the remains of the rooms do not support such an assumption.
-
- "The adjacent crematories are a potential danger
of explosion," Leuchter observed. His reasoning was based on the fact
that hydrogen cyanide is combustible, and that because the gas chambers
were located not too far from the incineration ovens, there ought to have
been a danger for explosion. Yet during cross-examination Leuchter had
to admit that hydrogen cyanide became combustible at 60,000 parts per million,
and that it was lethal at 300 parts per million, that is at 0.5 percent
of the combustion point.
-
- Q.: "And I want to ask you about your answer to
me. I said it takes a higher concentration of hydrogen cyanide to exterminate
insects than it does to kill human beings. You said no. We go to the Degesch
manual and it says that it requires twenty times as much to kill beetles
as to kill rats and it takes three times as much to kill rats [than] it
does to kill humans."
-
- A.: "Maybe it depends upon the insects. Most of
the work that I've been looking at, they've been killing lice and ticks.
And their recommendation for general fumigation purposes is three thousand
per million."
-
- Q.: "What is twenty times 833 parts per million?"
-
- A.: "What is twenty times 833 parts per million?"
-
- Q.: "Right."
-
- A.: "16,600."
-
- Q.: "16,600. So what Degesch are saying, the people
who make the product, is that if you want to kill beetles, you should have
a concentration of--of what, sir?"
-
- A.: "16,600, apparently."
-
- Q.: "Right, And it takes three hundred parts per
million to kill a human being in a matters of minutes?"
-
- A.: "Or more."
-
- Q.: "In a matter of minutes."
-
- A.: "Twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, yes."
-
- Q.: "Right. And here they're talking about a time
of exposure from 2 to 72 hours, right?"
-
- A.: "Right."
-
- Q,: "Now, you gave us as a conclusion about the
danger of explosion, didn't you?"
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "This was a big factor in your mind, this possibility
of explosion. Did you look at the Degesch manual when it talked about inflammability?"
-
- A.: "I'm looking at it now, counsellor."
-
- Q.: "Page five?"
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "'Liquid HCN,' that is hydrocyanic acid, right?"
-
- A.: "Correct."
-
- Q.: "'... Burns like alcohol. Aaseous [H]CN forms
an explosive mixture with air under certain conditions. The lower explosion
limit, however, lies far above the concentration used in practical fumigation
work.' So, they tell us that if we're going to exterminate beetles, we
have to have a concentration of 16,600 and they tell us if we have a concentration
of 16,600, the lower explosion limit lies far above that concentration."
-
- A.: "The lower explosion limit is six per cent."
-
- Q.: "And what's six percent?"
-
- A,: "Six thousand."
-
- Q,: "Isn't it sixty thousand, sir?"
-
- A.: "Correct. Sixty thousand."
-
- Q.: "Sixty thousand parts per million of air. Right?"
-
- A.: "Correct, but you must understand that at the
Zyklon-B material, when the gas is being given off, you have a percentage
per volume of air of ninety to one hundred per cent. That means you have
almost pure hydrogen cyanide at the carrier."
-
- Q.: "At the point where the Zyklon-B is vapourizing,
I agree, you have a ninety-nine per cent concentration level. But how far
did you tell us these ovens were from the chamber we are talking about?"
-
- A.: "150, 160 feet."
-
- Q.: "And doesn't gas diffuse, sir?"
-
- A.: "It may or it may not."
-
- Q.: "And what would its concentration be 150 or
160 feet away?"
-
- A.: "I have no idea and no one could answer that
question for you."
-
- Q.: "Right, you don't know, do you?"
-
- A.: "Most people would tell you it's very dangerous."
761
-
- And thus Pearson effectively and publically demolished
Leuchter's argument that there would have been a danger of explosion, as
the concentration used in the gas chambers was around 300 parts per million.,
that is at 0.5 per cent. Irving, who was to testify the following day,
was in the audience and watched it all. It obviously did not leave an impression.
-
- "The exposed porous brick and mortal would accumulate
the HCN," Leuchter wrote in his report, "and make these facilities
dangerous to humans for several years." Yet in the trial he admitted
that hydrogen cyanide had only a very short life--a few days at best, and
that the only way it would remain in the walls was if the cyanide would
combine with iron present in brick or mortar to make the harmless pigment
ferro-ferri cyanide,also known as Prussian blue. 762
-
- "Krema I is adjacent to the S.S. Hospital at Auschwitz,"
Leuchter observed, and he continued to assert that it "has floor drains
connected to the main sewer of the camp--which would allow gas into every
building at the facility." He is right in observing a floor drain
in the former gas chamber of crematorium 1. Yet there is no way in which
he could positively determine if first of all this drain was "connected"
to the main sewer of the camp, and second of all if the war-time camp possessed
a "main sewer" at all: the main survey of the Polish military
base that was to become the Stammlager, drawn up in December 1939, indicates
that the water supply was by means of outside pumps while outside latrines
had to serve the soldiers' needs. 763 Projecting expectations about the
usual infrastructure of American military installations to Polish military
barracks in the 1930s does not show much historic sense. But even if the
drain was connected to a main sewer, it would have been very unlikely that
the hydrogen cyanide would have been able to travel from the gas chamber
to other buildings. Hydrogen cyanide is very soluble in water. The water
would dilute the hydrogen cyanide to such a degree that it would become
a harmless solution to be dumped in the Sola river. Once dissolved in the
water, the hydrogen cyanide would not evaporate again to (possibly) penetrate
into other buildings. 764
-
- "There were no exhaust systems to vent the gas after
usage," Leuchter observed. Prompted by Christie, Leuchter repeated
this, according to him, crucial piece of evidence at various points during
his testimony. Discussing crematorium 2, he stated that he did not find
any capability to ventilate the alleged gas chamber.
-
- [Christie]: "In this on-site inspection, did you
find any roof vent capabilities as indicated on the various drawings that
were given?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "there was no ventilation capability
for this facility at all. The door to the facility, the one door, as you
can see, goes into the main area of the building, and it should be remembered
that morgue 2 and morgue 1 and morgue 3 were all [under]ground. They were
in actuality a basement for the building. They were floor level and they
were ground level and with no structure above them. To the right of the
building where it says 'Crematory', that was a structure that was ground
up and was one and a half storeys with a stack for the furnaces. Now, these--
both facilities, as I said, were underground. This was Underground. There
was only one door going to the morgue at that time and absolutely no way
of getting air into the facility. There was a second door down at this
end with a stairway, and in my opinion there will be no way of adequately
ventilating this building and it would take a very long time since the
only way you could allow the gas to come out would be through the stairway.
Since there were no other apertures, it wouldn't even make sense to put
an exhaust fan in because there would be no way of getting air into the
building, because there was no air intake at any point in the facility."
765
-
- Without a proper ventilation system, the basement of
crematorium II could not have been used as a homicidal gas chamber.
-
- [Christie]: "And can you tell us why you hold that
opinion?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "Yes, essentially for the same reasons
that I felt that the mortuary at Krema I was not an execution gas chamber.
The building was not sealed with tar or pitch in any manner. There was
no ventilation system. There was no means at all for introducing the Zyklon
B gas. There was a story in something I read in some of the available literature
that there was a hollow column that the materials would drop through. All
of the columns was solid reinforced concrete." 766
-
- When, during cross-examination, Pearson confronted Leuchter
with a letter written by the leader of the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung,
Karl Bischoff, which mentioned that Topf would proceed with "the installation
in time for aeration [Belüftung] and ventilation [Entlüftung]"
immediately when transport became available, Leuchter wrongly concluded
that "this ventilation system was, in fact, the blower for the furnace.
It had nothing to do with ventilating the alleged gas chamber area. Since
Topf made it, we know they manufactured furnace equipment, crematory equipment."
767 Yet the plans of the crematoria show that built in the walls of the
gas chamber were ducts indicated in the drawings as "Belüftung"
and "Entlüftungskanal." The remains of this system can still
be seen in the ruined east wall of the gas chamber of crematorium 3. Ignoring
important evidence, and refusing to examine the blueprints in relation
to the correspondence and the remains of the crematoria Leuchter had jumped
to the wrong conclusion. There was a ventilation system.
-
- If he had spent a little bit more time in Auschwitz,
and consulted the archive of the camp, Leuchter would have been able to
find independent confirmation in the testimony of Henryk Tauber, who had
been a Sonderkommando in crematorium 2, and who had given testimony immediately
after the war.
-
- Besides that, in the gas chamber there were electric
wires running along the two sides of the main beam supported by the central
concrete pillars. The ventilation was installed in the walls of the gas
chamber. Communication between the room and the ventilation installation
proper was through small holes along the top and bottom of the side walls.
The lower openings were protected by a kind of muzzle, the upper ones by
whitewashed perforated metal plates.
-
- The ventilation system of the gas chamber was coupled
to the ventilation ducts installed in the undressing room. This ventilation
system, which also served the dissection room, was driven by electric motors
in the roof space of the crematorium. 768
-
- But Leuchter never even thought about cross-referencing
his own observations, the German blueprints, and the testimonies of eye-witnesses.
He could, for example, have found some use for the statements of the well-known
Israeli artist Yehuda Bakon during the Eichmann trial. In 1943 the then
fourteen-year-old Bakon had been imprisoned in the Czech family Camp in
Birkenau, and there he had joined a squad of inmates who had to bring papers
to be burned in the crematoria. As a result, he had been able to enter
the buildings, and seen the gas chambers from within. In the summer of
1945, after his liberation, Bakon who was already a talented draughtsman
at the time drew various views of Auschwitz from memory. He showed them
during his testimony.
-
- Attorney general: "What are you holding in your
hand now?"
-
- Witness Bakon: "This is a view of the gas chambers
and also Nos. 1 and 2 which were underground, and what one saw above. They
looked like water sprinklers; I was curious and examined them closely.
I saw there were no holes in them, this was just a sham; at first sight
it seemed to be an actual shower-head.
-
- Above there were lights covered with wire, and in each
gas chamber there were two pipes leading from the ceiling to the floor,
and around them were four iron columns surrounded by strong wire. When
the operation was over and the people were forced inside, the SS opened
some device above, like a drainage pipe, and through it introduced Zyklon
B."
-
- Presiding Judge: "Did the gas remain in the middle
of the chamber and spread from there?"
-
- Witness Bakon: "Yes."
-
- Judge Raveh: "Is that what we see in the centre
of the picture."
-
- Witness Bakon: "Yes, there were two of these in
each gas chamber in crematoria Nos. 1 and 2--that is to say, there were
four; their dimensions were 40 x 40 centimetres; below were the ventilators
and also holes for cleaning with water. Afterwards, when they dismantled
the crematoria, we saw the ventilators separately."
-
- Presiding Judge: "Were these air vents?"
-
- Witness Bakon: "Yes. There were several openings.
One opening was for the purpose of ventilation and one for washing the
floor."
-
- Presiding Judge: "This drawing of the gas chamber
will be marked T/1320."
-
- Attorney general: "In order to make it quite clear,
Mr. Bakon, what purpose did this ventilation serve?"
-
- Witness Bakon: "The ventilation made it possible
for other people to enter at once."
-
- Q.: "To ventilate the chamber after the killing?"
-
- A.: "Yes. The bodies were removed from the chamber,
there was a lift there--actually it consisted only of boards 2 1/2 x 1
1/2 metres. I saw the lift on which they transferred the bodies to the
top floor of that crematorium, from where there were rails of small trains
with waggons, and they conveyed the bodies to the incinerators. I also
saw the incinerators, and I remember that members of the Sonderkommando
also showed me the crate in which they collected the gold teeth, which
were melted down into gold bars."
-
- Q.: "What do you have before you now, in this picture?"
[Hands a picture to the witness.]
-
- A.: "Crematoria 3 and 4--they were built in a different
style--they were older."
-
- Q.: "Are these the ones you mentioned in your earlier
testimony?"
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "At the end there is a small structure. What
is that?"
-
- A.: "Here, there were two gas chambers, on the extreme
right-hand side."
-
- Attorney general: "I submit this to the Court."
-
- Presiding Judge; "What does the arrow signify?"
-
- Witness Bakon: "The arrow points to the gas chambers,
to the small structure containing the gas chambers." 769
-
- Leuchter did not consult the records of the Eichmann
Trial, nor for that matter testimony given at othet trials. During the
cross-examination Pearson asked Leuchter why he did not consult any witnesses
when he did his investigation.
-
- [Leuchter]: "I don't know who I would speak to,
sir, because I would submit that the person that I should speak to have
would have to be someone who was operating the chamber. If I am to believe
the literature, these people all died in the operation of the chamber."
-
- Q.: "How about some of the people that cleared the
bodies out of the chambers?"
-
- A.: "Well, from what I've been able to determine
from most of the literature, these people are expendable and probably all
deceased and were deceased shortly after the operation of the facility."
770
-
- The SS men who had been involved in the gassings had
not been expandable, and Leuchter could have found some interesting testimony
about the operation of the gas chambers from, for example, a well-known
witness like Pery Broad, or a more obscure SS man like Hans Stark. Like
Broad, Stark had been employed in the Auschwitz Political Department, better
known as the "Camp Gestapo." Stark provided during the Frankfurt
Auschwitz Trial useful evidence about the procedures in the Political Department,
and the various ways of execution. One of these was gassing in crematorium
1.
-
- As early as autumn 1941 gassings were carried out in
a room in the small crematorium which had been prepared for this purpose.
The room held 200-250 people, had a higher-than-average ceiling, no windows
and only a specially insulated door, with bolts like those of an airtight
door. There were no pipes or the like which would lead the prisoners to
believe that it was perhaps a shower room. In the ceiling there were openings
of about 35 cm in diameter at some distance from each other. The room had
a flat roof which allowed daylight in through the openings. It was through
these openings that Zyklon B in granular form would be poured. 771
-
- Stark participated in various of those gassings. Sometimes
his business was to check the numbers.
-
- About 200-250 Jewish men, women and children of all ages
were standing at the crematorium. There may also have been babies there.
There were a great many SS members present, though I could not say what
their names were, plus the camp commandant, the Schutzhaftlagerführer,
several Blockführer, Grabner and also other members of the Political
Department. Nothing was said to the Jews. They were merely ordered to enter
the gas-chamber, the door of which was open. While the Jews were going
into the room, medical orderlies prepared for the gassing. Earth had been
piled up against one of the external walls of the gassing room to ceiling
height so that the medical orderlies could get on the roof of the room.
After all the Jews were in the chamber the door was bolted and the medical
orderlies poured Zyklon B through the openings. 772
-
- One time Stark was ordered to pour Zyklon B into the
room because only one medical orderly had shown up. It was essential, he
claimed, that Zyklon B was poured simultaneously through both openings.
-
- This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews, once
again men, women and children. As the Zyklon B--as already mentioned--was
in granular form, it trickled down over the people as it was being poured
in. They then started to cry out terribly for they now knew what was happening
to them. I did not look through the opening because it had to be closed
as soon as the Zyklon B had been poured in. After a few minutes there was
silence. After some time had passed, it may have been ten or fifteen minutes,
the gas-chamber was opened. The dead lay higgledy-piggledy all over the
place. It was a dreadful sight. 773
-
- Stark described the procedure at crematorium 1. In order
to understand the slighlty different arrangement at crematorium 2, Leuchter
could have profited from Tauber's testimony.
-
- Crematorium 2 had a basement where there was an undressing
room and a bunker, or in other words a gas chamber (Leichenkeller/corpse
cellar)....The roof of the gas chamber was supported by concrete pillars
running down the middle of its length. On either side of these pillars
there were four others, two on each side. The sides of these pillars, which
went up through the roof, were of heavy wire mesh. Inside this grid, there
was another finer mesh and inside that a third of very fine mesh. Inside
this last mesh cage there was a removable can that was pulled out with
a wire to recover the pellets from which the gas had evaporated. 774
-
- These wire-mesh columns had been made in the camp metal
workshop. One of the inmates employed there, the Pole Michael Kula, testified
immediately after the war that he had made various metal parts for the
Birkenau crematoria, including the four wire-mesh columns in the large
gas chambers of crematoria 2 and 3. As we have seen, Tauber had described
the three structures of ever finer mesh. Within the innermost column there
was a removable can to pull after the gassing the Zyklon "crystals,"
that is the porous silica pellets that had absorbed the hydrocyanide. Kula,
who had made these columns, provided some technical specifications.
-
- Among other things the metal workshop made the false
showers intended for the gas chambers, as well as the wire-mesh columns
for the introduction of the contents of the tins with Zyklon into the gas
chambers. These columns were around 3 metres high, and they were 70 centimetres
square in plan. Such a column consisted of 6 wire screens which were built
the one within the other. The inner screen was made from 3 millimetre thick
wire, fastened to iron corner posts of 50 by 10 millimeters. Such iron
corner posts were on each corner of the column and connected on the top
in the same manner. The openings of the wire mesh were 45 millimeters square.
The second screen was made in the same manner, and constructed within the
column at 150 millimeters distance from the first. The openings of the
second were around 25 millimeters square. In the corners these screens
were connected to each other by iron posts. The third part of this column
could be moved. It was an empty column with a square footprint of around
150 millimeters made of sheet zinc. At the top it was closed by a metal
sheet, and at the bottom with a square base. At a distance of 25 millimetres
from the sides of this columns were soldered tin corners supported by tin
brackets. On these corners were mounted a thin mesh with openings of about
one millimeter square. This mesh ended at the bottom of the column and
from here ran in the [Verlaenderung] of the screen a tin frame until the
top of the column. The contents of a Zyklon tin were thrown from the top
on the distributor, which allowed for a equal distribution of the Zyklon
to all four sides of the column. After the evaporation of the gas the whole
middle column was taken out. The ventilation system of the gas chamber
was in installed in the side walls of the gas chambers. The ventilation
openings were hidden by zinc covers, provided with round openings. 775
-
- These wire mesh columns do not appear in the blueprints
of the crematoria. The reason for this is easily explained: first of all
they only became part of the building's equipment relatively late in the
construction process. Originally crematorium 2 had not been designed to
be a site of mass murder, and the space labelled as "Leichenkeller
I" had indeed been designed to serve as a morgue and not as a gas
chamber. The "mother" set of blueprints of the building were
drawn up in that first phase, and they remained the basis of the documentation
after the building's purpose had been expanded to include gassing. Furthermore
the wire-mesh columns had no structural function in the building. They
were, in fact, more like pieces of equipment attached to four of the seven
structural columns that supported the roof (most likely columns 1, 3, 5,
and 7), and therefore there was no need to draw up a new set of blueprints
after the decision had been made to insert them into the morgue. As pieces
of equipment it was relatively easy to dismantle these columns after the
cessation of gassings and before the demolition of the crematoria, which
explains why Leuchter did not find any remains.
-
- These columns were connected to small holes that penetrated
the concrete ceiling of the gas chamber, which opened to four small "chimneys"
for lack of a better word. These are visible on one of the photos of crematorium
2 taken by the SS during construction, the aerial photos taken by the Americans
in 1944, and have been described by, amongst others, Henryk Tauber.
-
- The undressing room and the gas chamber were covered
first with a concrete slab then with a layer of soil sown with grass. There
were four small chimneys, the openings through which the gas was thrown
in, that rose above the gas chamber. These openings were closed by concrete
covers with two handles. 776
-
- Tauber also witnessed the way the Germans inserted the
Zyklon through these small chimneys.
-
- Through the window of the incineration room, I observed
how the Zyklon was poured into the gas chamber. Each transport was followed
by a vehicle with Red Cross markings which entered the yard of the crematorium,
carrying the camp doctor, Mengele, accompanied by Rottenführer Scheimetz.
They took the cans of Zyklon from the car and put them beside the small
chimneys used to introduce the Zyklon into the gas chamber. There, Scheimetz
opened them with a special cold chisel and a hammer, then poured the contents
into the gas chamber. Then he closed the orifice with a concrete cover.
As there were four similar chimneys, Scheimetz poured into each the contents
of one of the smallest cans of Zyklon, which had yellow labels pasted right
round them. Before opening the cans, Scheimetz put on a gasmask which he
wore while opening the cans and pouring in the product. There were also
other SS who performed this operation, but I have forgotten their names.
They were specially designated for it and belonged to the "Gesundheitswesen."
A camp doctor was present at each gassing. If I have mentioned Mengele,
that is because I met him very often during my work. In addition to him,
there were other doctors present during the gassings, like König,
Thilo and a young, tall, slight doctor whose name I do not recall. 777
-
- Today, these four small holes that connected the wire-mesh
columns and the chimneys cannot be observed in the ruined remains of the
concrete slab. Yet does this mean they were never there? We know that after
the cessation of the gassings in the Fall of 1944 all the gassing equipment
was removed, which implies both the wire-mesh columns and the chimneys.
What would have remained would have been the four narrow holes in the slab.
While there is not certainty in this particular matter, it would have been
logical to attach at the location where the columns had been some formwork
at the bottom of the gas chamber ceiling, and pour some concrete in the
holes, and thus restore the slab.
-
- "The Zyklon B was supposedly dropped through roof
vents and put in through windows," Leuchter observed, "not allowing
for the even distribution of gas or pellets." Leuchter attached great
importance to the even distribution of the gas, and this could not be obtained
by inserting the Zyklon at some points. In cross-examination he was challenged
on this assumption, which also had led Leuchter to conclude elsewhere in
the report that, on the basis of his calculation of the ideal airflow requirement,
a gas chamber of 2,500 square feet could only hold 278 people.
- [Pearson]: "Some of the calculations that you made
were based on the executed person occupying nine square feet?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "That's correct."
-
- Q.: "How do you calculate that measurement?"
-
- A.: "The space required is determined by what's
necessary for air circulation and those figures are normally used by all
air moving engineers throughout the world."
-
- Q.: "So once again, we're talking about figures
that you would use in the United States in 1988 to conduct the execution
of a condemned person. Is that right?"
-
- A.: "Yeah, or in 1810. It doesn't matter when it
is, the requirements for moving air have stayed the same."
-
- Q.: "But would you agree with me that if you want
the person to die quickly, if you put a premium on executing the person
quickly, you want to have as much flow of air as possible. If you're not
really concerned about how long it takes, the amount of time it takes for
the air to flow, it isn't as important. Would you agree?"
-
- A.: "Within reason." 778
-
- Unlike the State of Missouri, which stipulates in one
of its statutes that an execution by gas should take occur as quickly as
possible, the SS were not bound by any statute or protocol to ease the
suffering of their victims.
-
- "The facilities are always damp and not heated."
Essential for Leuchter's argument was that the gas chambers had been operated
on low temperature. "We know that the facilities in question were
operated at low temperatures," he testified in court. "We know
that there would have been a considerable amount of condensation of liquid
hydrogen cyanide on the walls, floor and ceiling of these facilities."
779 Leuchter was even prepared to testify that "these facilities were
operated at zero degrees fahrenheit or near zero temperatures and perhaps
below that." 780 It is not clear on the basis of what evidence Leuchter
came to this conclusion. There is, in fact, ample evidence that the gas
chambers were heated. One piece of anecdotal evidence was given by Yehuda
Bakon during the Eichmann trial. In 1943 he had joined a group of youngsters
who had to pull a cart, the so-called Rollwagenkommando.
-
- Q. "Who gave you orders where the cart should go?"
-
- A. "The Blockälteste (block elder) always went
with us and he knew what we had to do. Our tasks were quite varied: Sometimes
we had to collect papers, sometimes we had to transfer blankets, sometimes
we had to go to the women's camp to which other people did not have access.
With the Rollwagenkommando we went through all the camps of Birkenau, A,
B, C, D, E and F,as well as the crematorium."
-
- Q. "You went into the crematorium?"
-
- A. "Yes."
-
- Q. "Did you see the crematorium from the inside?"
-
- A. "Yes. We had to take wooden logs that were in
the vicinity of the crematorium for the fire. Sometimes these had to be
taken for regular heating in the camps. And when we finished our work and
it was cold, the Kapo of the Sonderkommando took pity on us and said: "Well,
children, outside it is cold, warm yourselves in the gas chambers! There
is nobody there."
-
- Q. "And you went to warm yourselves inside the gas
chambers?"
-
- A. "Yes. Sometimes we went to warm ourselves in
the Kleidungskammer, sometimes in the gas chambers. It sometimes happened
that when we came to the crematorium, we were told: "You cannot enter
now--there are people inside." Sometimes, it was in crematorium 3,
after they had been burned, we took the ashes, and in winter the ashes
were to be used for the road."
-
- Q. "Did you use human ashes to spread on the roads?"
-
- A. "Yes."
-
- Q. "For what purpose?"
-
- A. "So that people could walk on the road and not
slip." 781
-
- There are also German documents that attest to the fact
that the gas chamber was heated (a fact which, as I have pointed out above,
strongly suggests that that room was not anymore to be used as a morgue.
The most important is a letter the chief architect of Auschwitz, Karl Bischoff,
sent to Topf on March 6, 1943. In it, Bischoff discussed the heating of
morgue 1 of crematorium 2.
-
- In accordance with your proposal, the department agrees
that morgue 1 will be preheated with the air coming from the rooms with
the 3 installations to generate the forceddraught. The supply and installation
of the necessary ductwork and ventilators most follow as soon as possible.
As you indicate in your letter, the work should begin this week. 782
-
- Both Bakon's testimony and Bischoff's letter demolish
Leuchter's argument that the gas chamber of crematorium 2, and by implication
of crematorium 3, was not heated.
-
- "As stated earlier, dampness and Zyklon B are not
compatible." For once, I have no complaint with Leuchter's assertion,
yet it has become irrelevant.
-
- "The chambers are too small to physically contain
the occupants claimed and the doors all open inward, a situation which
would inhibit removal of the bodies." Surviving Sonderkommandos and
Kommandant Höss claimed that the gas chambers of crematoria 2 and
3, which were 210 m2 each, held up to 2,000 people at a time. This meant
some nine to ten people per square meter. Leuchter categorically refused
the accept the possibility that 2,000 could be crammed in such a space,
but during cross-examination he had to admit that he could not back up
his judgement.
-
- [Pearson]: "Have you ever put 2,000 people into
a room?"
-
- [Leuchter] "No. But I'm sure I couldn't get them
into that room."
-
- Q.: "You've never done it, you have not conducted
any experiments but you're sure. Is that what you're saying?"
-
- A.: "That's what I'm saying. I don't believe anyone
else has either." 783
-
- Perhaps more important is the fact that Leuchter was
simply wrong when he stated that the doors all open inward. There is no
evidence in the rubble of crematoria 2 to 5 to come to any judgement if
the doors opened one way or another. The blueprints that have been preserved
in the archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, however,
directly and convincingly refute Leuchter's assertion. Drawing BW (B) 30/12,
which shows Walther Dejaco's drawing for the modification of the entrance
to the basement of crematoria 2 and 3, shows that the doors to the gas
chamber, indicated here as "L.[eichen] Keller 1"] swing to the
outside; drawing BW (B) 30b, which shows Walther Dejaco's design for crematorium
4, shows that the doors to the gas chambers, located on the left of the
plan but depicted on the right of the elevation, open again to the outside.
-
- "With the gas chambers fully packed with occupants,
there would be no circulation of the HCN within the room." It is undoubtedly
true that packing the gas chamber with people did not aid the rapid circulation
of the hydrogen cyanide. Yet the design of the hollow, perforated columns
did help to allow the gas to reach the higher reaches of the gas chamber,
where the air was not displaced by the bodies, and where the heavy panting
of panicking 2,000 people, or less, would--so one would assume--cause some
circulation.
-
- "Additionally, if the gas eventually did fill the
chamber over a lengthy time period, those throwing Zyklon B in the roof
vents and verifying the death of the occupants would die themselves from
exposure to HCN." This is an odd sentence, as the adverb "eventually"
suggests that even Leuchter assumes that it would take some time before
the gas would reach the roof vents. Nevertheless, during his testimony
Leuchter repeated his assertion that the SS men dropping the Zyklon-B through
the roof vents would face real danger. "The gas would come back up
while they were doing this and probably kill all of the personnel operating
the facility." 784 Pearson did not accept this reasoning, and forced
Leuchter to address this issue once more during cross examination.
-
- [Pearson]: "Now, hydrogen cyanide is slightly lighter
than air?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "that's correct."
-
- Q.: "It means it rises slowly?"
-
- A.: "Very slowly."
-
- Q.: "very slowly. So this stuff you told us about
people on the roof who dropped the gas down and how they would be committing
suicide, it would take a matter of minutes before the gas got to them,
wouldn't it?"
-
- A.: "Unquestionably."
-
- Q.: "So, if they closed the vent and got off the
roof, there would be nothing to concern them, would there?"
-
- A.: "If they got off the roof. But at some point
they have to do an inspection to determine whether the parties are deceased."
-
- Q.: "They send in the Sonderkommandos to do that,
sir, and they don't care what happens to them."
-
- A.: "Right, all right." 785
-
- In fact, for this purpose the doors of the gas chambers
were equipped with spyholes. Again, Tauber's testimony is rather specific
on this point.
-
- Crematorium 2 had a basement where there was an undressing
room and a bunker, or in other words a gas chamber (Leichenkeller/corpse
cellar)....From the undressing room people went into the corridor through
a door above which was hung a sign marked "Zum Bade", repeated
in several languages. I remember the [Russian] word "banya" was
there too. From the corridor they went through the door on the right into
the gas chamber. It was a wooden door, made of two layers of short pieces
of wood arranged like parquet. Between these layers there was a single
sheet of material sealing the edges of the door and the rabbets of the
frame were also fitted with sealing strips of felt. At about head height
for an average man this door had a round glass peephole. On the other side
of the door, i.e. on the gas chamber side, this opening was protected by
a hemispherical grid. This grid was fitted because the people in the gas
chamber, feeling they were going to die, used to break the glass of the
peep-hole. But the grid still did not provide sufficient protection and
similar incidents recurred. 786
-
- Also experience helped in guessing when it was time to
turn on the ventilators. After a few gassings the men operating the gas
chambers knew how long it took how many people to die as the result of
how much hydrogen cyanide.
-
- "None of the alleged gas chambers were constructed
in accordance with the design for delousing chambers which were effectively
operating for years in a safe manner." One wonders why the Germans
would have bothered to use the design of delousing chambers for their gas
chambers. First of all, the delousing chambers were designed to operate
with very high concentrations of hydrogen cyanide--between 40 and 70 times
the concentration the Germans used to kill humans in Birkenau--and these
concentrations were applied for a couple of hours. Secondly, the delousing
chambers were, as Leuchter observed, designed in such a way that it guaranteed
the highest possible safety for its users whilst allowing for the greatest
possible efficiency in the quick loading and unloading of the chamber.
The issue of safety was of lesser importance in the gas chambers, as the
Sonderkommando who entered the room were expendable. Furthermore efficiency
in the filling of the room with living people and retrieving their bodies
afterwards was less important in the case of the gas chamber. While in
the case of the delousing chambers the rate-delimiting factor was the technology
of the room itself, in the case of the gas chambers it was in the cremation
process which, invariably went considerably slower than the gassing. In
other words, the delousing rooms were designed to operate more or less
continuously with high doses of hydrogen cyanide, with relatively short
periods of down-time in between, while the gas chambers were designed to
operate for very short times with low doses of hydrogen cyanide, while
remaining idle for extended periods of time.
-
- "None of these chambers were constructed in accordance
with the known and proven designs of facilities operational in the United
States at that time. It seems unusual that the presumed designers of these
alleged gas chambers never consulted or considered the United States technology,
the only country then executing prisoners with gas." It is obvious
that, in late 1941 or early 1942, a letter from Kommandant Höss to
the Warden of, let's say, the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson
City, Missouri, which had been equipped with an state-of-the-art hydrogen
cyanide gas chamber in 1939, would not have elicited a steady stream of
collegial advice as to the design and operation of gas chambers. Furthermore,
it is not clear why Höss would have bothered, as became clear in Leuchter's
cross examination.
-
- [Pearson]: "Would you agree with me that the gassing
process itself is not a very difficult or complex process? The difficulty
arises in constructing chambers which meet the requirements of safety and
humane execution."
-
- [Leuchter]: "That's probably true, yes." 787
-
- The fallacy of Leuchter's reasoning, which went back
to Faurisson, was the assumption that American gas chambers would be comparable
with German gas chambers. First of all, in the case of the American types,
all was designed to provide for a quick and, given the circumstances, "humane"
execution that not only satisfies the sense of decency of the witnesses
who, seated in an adjacent room equipped with air-sickness bags, can see
all through a glass window, but also preempts a possible constitutional
challenge on the grounds of "cruel and unusual" punishment. This
means, in the case of gas chambers, that everything is designed to introduce
the gas immediately after the execution command is given, and to ensure
that the concentration of gas in the room reaches quickly such a level
that death follows immediately. Related to the necessary "constitutionality"
of the American gas chambers and the irrelevance of this notion in the
case of the Auschwitz killing installations is the fact that the former
are, in a sense, only the last station in a long, ritualized path that
takes the condemned a week to travel, and that provides both a sense of
legality while dissolving at the same time any possibility of individual
accountability. Michael Lesy wrote in his The forbidden Zone that, "[s]ince
there's no holy law to protect them, prison officials rely on a system
of divided responsibilities."
-
- Procedures are so fragmented that no single person remains
responsible. All actions are mediated by others or shared with other. Everything
is done by administrative decree and court order, conveyed from person
to person, down a chain of command and obedience: "I-did-what-I-did-because-he-did-what-he-did."
By the time a death sentence is carried out, it's impossible to accuse
any particular person of anything. In Georgia, murderers die, but no one
man ever kills them. 788
-
- The whole ritual develops on the understanding that it
may be stopped, even a second before the final command, because of a last-minute
stay of execution. The situation in Auschwitz could not have been more
different.
-
- We have now considered every word of the paragraph devoted
to the Auschwitz gas chambers in the section entitled "Design and
Procedures at the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers." It is clear that
almost all his engineering opinion concerning the crematoria at Auschwitz
must be defined as uninformed rubbish. It is important here to remember
that Leuchter attached great significance to his observations as an engineer:
in fact, as he claimed in the Toronto court, 90% of his conclusion that
no homicidal gassings could have taken place in the Auschwitz gas chambers
were based on these observations.
-
- Despite the fact that Leuchter adamantly asserted that
the Auschwitz "facilities" could not have worked as gas chambers,
he was in the end prepared to calculate how many people could have been
killed in these spaces (I presume if they would have worked). "The
alleged gas chamber in each of Kremas 2 and 3 had an area of 2500 sq. ft.
This would accommodate 278 people based on the 9 square foot theory."
789 Leuchter assumed that it would take a week to ventilate the room as
he had not found evidence of a ventilation system, and so, with a sleight
of hand, the daily extermination capacity became a weekly one. Crematoria
2 and 3 had been in operation for a total of 84 and 72 weeks respectively,
and thus Leuchter came to a maximum extermination capacity of 23,352 persons
for crematorium 2 and 20,016 persons for crematorium 3. Using a similar
approach, he concluded that the gas chambers of crematorium 4 could kill
209 people daily/weekly, and those of crematorium 5 could kill 570 on a
daily thus weekly basis. As each of these had been in operation for 80
weeks, the maximum extermination capacity for crematorium 4 had been 16,720
people and crematorium 5 had been able to gas a total of 45,600 people.
790 This gave a total of 105,688--a number that did not include the 6,768
people who could have been killed in crematorium I, or the people killed
in Bunkers I and II--gassing installations for which Leuchter did not provide
any data.
-
- It is clear that Leuchter's numbers are wrong. First
of all if one refuses to assume that the gas chambers could be used only
once a week, we come to a total of 7 x 105,688 =739,816. If then one assumes
instead of a density of one person per nine square feet a more realistic
figure of one person per two square feet, then one comes to a killing capacity
of above 3.3 million victims for the four crematoria of Birkenau as they
operated between the Spring of 1943 to the fall of 1944. If one adds to
this the killing capacity of crematorium I and Bunkers I and II, the figure
becomes even higher, rising to at least 3.5 million people. 791
-
- Leuchter did not only study the technology of the gas
chambers. He also was prepared to act as an expert witness for the construction
of incinerators. He wrote in his unique style that "a consideration
of crematories, both old and new, must be made to determine the functionability
of the German Kremas at accomplishing their attributed tasks." 792
It is important to note that, during cross-examination, Leuchter had to
admit that he had no expert knowledge of crematories.
-
- [Pearson]: "Now, you devote in your report, one,
two, three, four, five, six--seven paragraphs to gas chambers and you devote
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen--seventeen sections or
paragraphs to crematoriums."
-
- [Leuchter]: "I'm not sure that is entirely true,
counsellor, because there's information interspersed throughout this as
necessary. You're simply going by the section headings and I would submit
if you would read each section in each paragraph, you would see that the
two are intertwined and there is information contained on gas chambers
throughout."
-
- Q.: "Well, unfortunately I haven't been given an
opportunity to read it so you'll have to bear with me. I'm just going by
the headings. What expertise do you have with designing crematoriums?"
-
- A.: "Nothing in design, sir."
-
- Q.: "All right. Do you operate a crematorium?"
-
- A.: "No."
-
- Q.: "What experience do you have with crematoriums?"
-
- A.: "I made a determination before and after I began
this project to apprise myself of crematorium design and operation. I consulted
with a number of the crematorium manufacturers, I received data from these
manufacturers on instruments that are used for cremation, and likewise,
I visited two crematories and I watched the entire operation several times
and the cremation of a number of corpses from the start of putting the
corpses into the retort, until the bones were crushed and the ashes were
put into the urn."
-
- Q.: "You said both before and after you were retained.
What made you look into this before you were retained?"
-
- A.: "There's a misunderstanding there, counsellor.
What I said before and after I went to Poland."
-
- Q.: "All right. Sorry. So once again, we're talking
about knowledge that you picked up since February when you were retained,
I will suggest on a part-time basis or while you were working on one of
a number of projects that your company was engaged in. Is that right?"
-
- A.: "Most likely, yes."
-
- Q.: "And I suggest, sir, that that really doesn't
give you the expertise required to give opinions and extrapolate with respect
to crematoriums."
-
- A.: "Only to the extent, sir, that it is common
and expected of an engineer that's dealing with any given problem to investigate
the problem and then to investigate procedures relative to that problem."
-
- Q.: "Sir, you went to school in Massachusetts?"
-
- A.: "I did."
-
- Q.: "Do they give degrees of engineering in Massachusetts?"
-
- A.: Some schools do."
-
- Q. For instance, does MIT give out degrees in engineering?"
-
- A.: "It does."
-
- Q.: "You don't have a degree in engineering, do
you?"
-
- A.: "No, I do not." 793
-
- Consequently, the court rejected Leuchter's qualifications
as an expert witness of the design and construction of crematories.
-
- Leuchter's lack of expertise did not prevent either Zündel
nor Irving including Leuchter's observations on the Auschwitz crematoria
and his conclusions regarding the total incineration capacity of these
installations for the period that they were in operation. After a short
historical introduction, in which he observed that Orthodox Judaism forbade
cremation, he reviewed modern practices.
-
- Earlier retorts were simply a drying or baking kiln and
simply dried the human remains. Modern retorts of brick-lined steel actually
blow fire from a nozzle onto the remains setting them afire, causing combustion
and rapid burning....
-
- These modern retorts or crematories burn at a temperature
of 2000+°F, with an afterburner temperature of 1600°F. This high
temperature causes the body to combust and consume itself, allowing for
the burner to be shut down....At 2000°F or more with a 2500 cfm blowered
air supply from the outside, modern retorts will cremate one corpse in
1.25 hours. Theoretically, this is 19.2 in a 24 hour period. Factory recommendations
for normal operation and sustained use allow for three (3) or less cremations
per day. Older oil, coal and coke furnaces with forced air (but no direct
flame application) normally took 3.5 to 4 hours for each corpse. Theoretically,
this could allow for 6.8 corpses in a 24 hour time period at a maximum.
Normal operation permits a maximum of three (3) cremations in a 24 hour
time period. These computations are based on 1 corpse per retort per cremation.
794
-
- This led Leuchter to the conclusion that, with 3 furnaces
with 2 muffles each, crematorium 1 would have had a theoretical incineration
rate of (6 x 6.8 = ) 40.8 corpses per day, and a "real-time"
rate of (6 x 3 =) 18 corpses per day. Crematoria 2 and 3 could have incinerated
then "theoretically" (15 x 6.8 =) 102 and practically (15 x 3
=)45 corpses per day, and crematoria 4 and 5 respectively (8 x 6.8 =) 54.4
and (8 x 3 =) 24. This resulted in a combined daily incineration capacity
in Auschwitz of 353.6 (theoretical) or 156 (practical). These numbers led
Leuchter to infer that, over the history of the crematoria which operated
over a minimum of 72 weeks (crematoria 1 and 3) and a maximum of 84 weeks
(crematorium 2), the total number of cremations would have been 193,576
(theoretical) and 85,092 (practical). 795
-
- As with his calculations for the gas chambers, Leuchter
operated in a make-believe universe, in which he consulted neither German
documents nor the testimony of witnesses. Leuchter claimed that, before
his journey to Poland, he had studied Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of
the European Jews. Hilberg mentioned in note 110 in Chapter Nine, "Killing
Center Operations," a letter written by the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung.
796 Dated June 28, 1943, the letter reads as follows:
-
- 28 June, 1943.
-
- Concerns: the completion of crematorium 3.
-
- Reference: none
-
- To the SS-Administrative and Economic Head Office,
-
- department C,
-
- SS-Brigadeführer and General Major Dr. Ing. Kammler
-
- Berlin--Lichterfelde--West
-
- Unter den Eichen 120-135.
-
- Report the completion of crematorium 3 at 26 June 1943.
Therewith all the crematoria ordered have been completed.
-
- Capacity of the now available crematoria per 24 hours:
-
- 1. old crematorim 1
-
- 3 x 2 muffle ovens 340 persons
-
- 2. new crematorium 2 in KGL
-
- 5 x 3 muffle ovens 1,440 persons
-
- 3. new crematorium 3
-
- 5 x 3 muffle ovens 1,440 persons
-
- 4. new crematorium 4
-
- 8 muffle oven 768 persons
-
- 5. new crematorium 5
-
- 8 muffle oven 768 persons
-
- Total per 24 hours 4,756 persons
-
- The leader of the Central Building Administration
-
- of the Waffen SS and Police Auschwitz,
-
- Signed: Jahrling
-
- SS-Sturmbannführer.
-
- Cc: dossier--Janisch
-
- dossier--Kirschnek
-
- file KGL BW 30. 797
-
- In short, according to a war-time German document, the
daily incineration capacity of the five Auschwitz crematoria was 4,756
corpses per day. In his cross-examination, Pearson confronted Leuchter
with Hilberg's reference.
-
- [Pearson]: "Now, that document suggests that there
is a capacity on a twenty-four hour period of 4,756 persons in the crematoriums?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "That's quite different from your report, isn't
it?"
-
- A.: "It is."
-
- Q.: "Have you looked at that document before?"
-
- A.: "I have never seen that document before."
798
-
- Each of the ovens of crematoria 2 to 5 were calculated
to have a capacity of 96 corpses per day (15 x 96 =1,440; 8 x 96 =768),
or an average of four corpses per muffle per hour. Is this German statistic
possible? If one followed normal civilian practice, in which it is absolutely
essential to preserve the identity of the remains from the beginning of
incineration to the final gathering of the ashes, the German figures are
absurd. It would be impossible to insert a body in the muffle, cremate
it, and remove the remaining bones and ashes within fifteen minutes. But
the situation changes radically when the identity of the remains ceases
to be important. First of all, if the size of the muffle permits, it becomes
possible to insert more than one corpse at the same time, and furthermore
it becomes feasible to create something of a continuous process, in which,
after initial heating of the incinerators, the burner can be turned off,
thus making full use of the phenomenon that at the right temperature the
body will combust and consume itself without any further application of
an external source of energy.
-
- Henryk Tauber, who worked the incinerators of both crematorium
1 and 2, gave in his testimony an extensive description of the incineration
procedures, and implicitly confirmed the validity of the German figures.
-
- In crematorium 1, there were three, two-muffle furnaces,
as I have already mentioned. Each muffle could incinerate five human bodies.
Thirty corpses could be incinerated at the same time in this crematorium.
At the time when I was working there, the incineration of such a charge
took up to an hour and a half, because they were the bodies of very thin
people, real skeletons, which burned very slowly. I know from the experience
gained by observing cremation in Krematorien 2 and 3 that the bodies of
fat people burn very much faster. The process of incineration is accelerated
by the combustion of human fat which thus produces additional heat. 799
-
- If we take Tauber's figures, it would take 17 hours to
incinerate the 340 corpses mentioned in the letter of June 28, 1943.
-
- Tauber provided a very detailed account of the incineration
procedure in crematorium 2.
-
- Continued Here....
|