- ...Continued
-
- As I have already said, there were five furnaces in crematorium
2, each with three muffles for cremating the corpses and heated by two
coke-fired hearths. The fire flues of these hearths came out above the
ash boxes of the two side muffles. Thus the flames went first round the
two side muffles then heated the centre one, from where the combustion
gases were led out below the furnace, between the two firing hearths. Thanks
to this arrangement, the incineration process for the corpses in the side
muffles differed from that of the centre muffle. The corpses of "Müselmanns"
or of wasted people with no fat burned rapidly in the side muffles and
slowly in the centre one. Conversely, the corpses of people gassed directly
on arrival, not being wasted, burned better in the centre muffle. During
the incineration of such corpses, we used the coke only to light the fire
of the furnace initially, for fatty corpses burned of their own accord
thanks to the combustion of the body fat. On occasion, when coke was in
short supply, we would put some straw and wood in the ash bins under the
muffles, and once the fat of the corpse began to burn the other corpses
would catch light themselves. There were no iron components inside the
muffle. The bars were of chamotte, 800 for iron would have melted in the
furnace, which reached 1,000 to 1,200° Celsius.
-
- These chamotte bars were arranged crosswise. The dimensions
of the door and the opening of the muffles were smaller than the inside
of the muffle itself, which was 2 meters long, 80 centimeters wide and
about 1 meter high. Generally speaking, we burned 4 or 5 corpses at a time
in one muffle, but sometimes we charged a greater number of corpses. It
was possible to charge up to 8 "Müselmanns." Such big charges
were incinerated without the knowledge of the head of the crematorium during
air raid warnings in order to attract the attention of airmen by having
a bigger fire emerging from the chimney. We imagined that in that way it
might be possible to change our fate. The iron components, in particular
fire bars, still to be found in the camp, were from the fireboxes. Crematorium
2 had fire bars of heavy angle iron. Crematoria 4 and 5 were fitted with
fire bars in the form of a lance, or rather were like swords with handles.
801
-
- After the description of the installation, Tauber recalled
how on the first day, 4 March, they operated the ovens in the presence
of observers from the Political Section, representatives of the Berlin
headquarters, and engineers of Topf. For this occasion, the Political department
had taken care to provide 45 bodies of well-fed victims recently killed
in Bunker 2.
-
- Via the lift and the door leading to the furnace room,
we took out the bodies and placed them two or three at a time on trolleys
of the type I described for crematorium 1 and charged them into the different
muffles. As soon as all the muffles of the five furnaces had been charged,
the members of the commission began to observe the operation, watch in
hand. They opened the muffle doors, looked at their watches, expressed
surprise at the slowness of the cremation process. In view of the fact
that the furnaces were not yet hot enough, even though we had been firing
them since the morning, and because they were brand new, the incineration
of this charge took about 40 minutes. 802
-
- Tauber went on to explain that later on incineration
became more efficient, and they could incinerate two loads per hour. In
fact, the Sonderkommando tried to overload the muffles, because this would
allow them some free time.
-
- According to the regulations, we were supposed to charge
the muffles every half hour. Ober Capo August explained to us that,according
to the calculations and plans for this crematorium, 5 to 7 minutes was
allowed to burn one corpse in a muffle. In principle, he did not let us
put more than three corpses in one muffle. Because with that quantity we
were obliged to work without interruption, for as soon as the last muffle
was charged, the contents of the first had been consumed. In order to be
able to take a pause during the work, we would charge 4 or 5 corpses in
each muffle. The incineration of such a charge took longer, and after charging
the last muffle, we had a few minutes' break until the first one was again
available. We took advantage of this free time to wash the floor of the
furnace room, as a result of which the air became a little cooler. 803
According to Tauber's testimony, the incinerators of crematorium 2 should
burn, according to the regulations, (15 x 2 x 3 =) 90 bodies per hour.
This would mean that the official daily capacity of 1,440 would be reached
in 16 hours of operation (90 x 16 =1,440).
-
- Kommandant Rudolf Höss confirmed Tauber's account.
In 1946 he wrote in Polish captivity that "the two large crematories
were built in the winter of 1942-43 and brought into service in the spring
of 1943."
-
- Each had five ovens with three doors [retorts] per oven
and could cremate about two thousand bodies in less than twenty-four hours.
Technical difficulties made it impossible to increase the capacity. Attempts
to do this caused severe damage to the installations....
-
- The two smaller crematories [4 and 5] were capable of
burning about 1,500 bodies in twenty-four hours, according to the calculations
made by the construction company called Topf of Erfurt. 804
-
- A few pages later, in a different context, Höss
returned to the issue of concerning the incineration capacity of the crematoria.
-
- Depending on the size of the bodies, up to three corpses
could be put in through one oven door at the same time. The time required
for cremation also depended on the number of bodies in each retort, but
on average it took twenty minutes. As previously stated, Crematories 2
and 3 could cremate two thousand bodies in twenty-four hours, but a higher
number was not possible without causing damage to the installations. Crematories
4 and 5 should have been able to cremate 1,500 bodies in twenty-four hours,
but as far as I know this figure was never reached. 805
-
- >There are two more indications that the Topf ovens
could, indeed, handle numbers far greater than what Leuchter claimed. The
first is a recently discovered note written by Topf engineer Kurt Prüfer
on September 8, 1942. Addressed to the SS, Prüfer calculated the daily
incineration capacity of the three double muffle ovens of crematorium 1
as 250 corpses, the five triple muffle ovens of crematoria 2 and 3 as 800
corpses each, and the eight muffle ovens of crematoria, 4 and 5 as 400
corpses each. In short, according to Prüfer, the daily incineration
capacity was to be 2,650 corpses. 806 While Prüfer's figures are only
55% of those given by Bischoff, they are still 16 times Leuchter's practical
incineration capacity, and 7 1/2 times Leuchter's theoretical incineration
rate. When considering Prüfer's figures, it must be remembered that,
with the contracts signed, it was in his interest to provide very conservative
numbers, as the Topf firm was to be accountable for the functioning of
the ovens.
-
- A final indication that the testimony of Tauber and Höss
may be trusted, and that the Topf ovens had a much larger capacity than
Leuchter claimed, can be found in the patent application T 58240 Kl. 24
for a "Continuous Operation Corpse Incineration Furnace for Intensive
Use," filed by Topf on November 5, 1942. In the first paragraph the
application referred to the situation in the camps in the East.
-
- In the gathering camps in the occupied territories in
the East with their high mortality rate, as they are affected by the war
and its consequences, it has become impossible to bury the great number
of deceased inmates. This is the result of both the lack of space and personnel
and the immediate and longterm danger to that immediate and farther surroundings
that is caused by the burial of the dead who often succumbed to infectious
diseases.
-
- Therefore there is a need to quickly, safely and hygienically
dispose of the constantly great number of corpses. In that process it will,
of course, be impossible, to operate according to the legal stipulations
that are valid in the territory of the Reich. Thus it will be impossible
to reduce to ashes only one corpse at a time, and the process cannot be
done without extra heating. Instead it will be necessary to incinerate
continuously and simultaneously many corpses, and during the duration of
the incineration the flames and the gasses of the fire will have to engage
the corpses to be incinerated directly. It will be impossible to separate
the ashes of the simultaneously incinerated, and the ashes can only be
handled together. Therefore one should not really talk in the depicted
disposition of corpses of "incineration," but it really concerned
here corpse burning.
-
- To realize such corpse burning--following the principles
sketched above--a number of multi-muffle ovens were installed in some of
those camps, which according to their design are loaded and operated periodically.
Because of this these ovens do not fully satisfy, because the burning does
not proceed quickly enough to dispose off in the shortest possible time
the great number of corpses that are constantly presented. 807
-
- It is clear that the ovens referred to in the last paragraphs
are the multi-muffle ovens supplied by Topf to Auschwitz.
-
- The patent application describes the continuous cremation
furnace as a structure in which the corpses are inserted at the top, and
as they slowly slide down a system of inclined grids they are quickly reduced
to ashes. It does not provide data as to the capacity of the furnace, but
in 1985 the consulting engineers Klaus and Christel Kunz made, in consultation
with Rolf Decker, manager of incinerator production at the Ruppmann company
in Stuttgart, an engineering assessment of Topf's continuous cremation
furnace. They assumed that the furnace could be initially loaded with 50
corpses, and in the upper part of the furnace the bodies would dry out
through evaporation; having allowed to fall into the second part these
corpses would be burned, while the first part would be reloaded. Having
been allowed to fall into the third part of the furnace, the remains would
be completely reduced to ashes.
-
- On the basis of the plan one may only theoretically calculate
the capacity and duration, because exact data can only be determined through
practical trials. Nevertheless it is quite conceivable to introduce, when
the object is appropriately dimensioned, some 50 corpses on the shelve,
assuming it has a length of 25 meters. The process of evaporation in position
a should take some 15 minutes, so that at a continuous operation one could
arrive at an incineration capacity of around 4,800 corpses per 24 hours.
-
- Pre-heating of such an oven should take at least two
days. After this preheating the oven will not need any more fuel due to
the heat produced by the corpses. It will be able to maintain its necessary
high temperature through self-heating. But to allow it to maintain a constant
temperature, it would have become necessary to introduce at the same time
so-called well-fed and so-called emaciated corpses, because one can only
guarantee continuous high temperatures through the emission of human fat.
When only emaciated corpses are incinerated, it will be necessary to add
heat continuously. The results of this would be that the installation could
be damaged because of the thus created temperatures and one would expect
shorter or longer breakdowns. 808
-
- The report ended with the assertion that it should be
possible to increase, after some initial experience, the initial load from
50 to 100 corpses. This would increase the loading rhythm from every 15
to every 20 minutes, and as a result the daily capacity would increase
from (50 x 60/15 x 24 =) 4,800 corpses to, at least theoretically, (100
x 60/20 x 24 =) 7,200 corpses. It is unclear if the incinerator would have
ever worked. What is important, however, is that both the text of the patent
application and the design of the incinerator makes the incineration process
described in Tauber's testimony not merely plausible, but indeed probable.
-
- With both a war-time German document stating that the
daily incineration capacity of the crematoria came close to 4,500 corpses
per day, two independent testimonies corroborating this range of cremation
capacity, and a war-time patent application by the makers of the ovens
which corroberate the incineration procedure described in these testimonies,
there is little reason to dwell much longer with Leuchter's assertion that
the theoretical incineration rate was a whole order of magnitude smaller,
and that the practical incineration rate was with 156 corpses per day a
little over 3 per cent of the official German rate.
-
- Finally I turn to the issue of the samples. As we have
seen, Leuchter did not find them too important, but because their alleged
evidentiary value impressed Irving, Faurisson, and so many others, it is
necessary to consider then in some detail.
-
- First of all it is necessary to point out some of the
assumptions that led Leuchter to assume that their would be residual cyanide,
in the form of ferro-ferri-cyanide, in the walls of the Auschwitz gas chambers.
In the second Zündel trial, Leuchter admitted that one should not
expect any residual cyanide in the walls of American gas chambers.
-
- [Pearson]: "You'd agree with me that the purpose
of a ventilation fan is to remove the gas from the--the place where the
gas is at.
-
- [Leuchter]: "That is true."
-
- Q.: "And it will have a bearing on what traces are
present at some later date. Isn't that right?"
-
- A.: "That's very true."
-
- Q.: "Very True."
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "Now, with respect to the delousing chamber,
if there was no ventilation at all, we could expect high levels of cyanide
traces, couldn't we?"
-
- A.: "It depends upon how--the system we used. That's
partially true, yes.
-
- Q.: "Well, if there's not ventilation at all and
there's no way for the gas to get out, then we would expect high levels
of cyanide traces, wouldn't we?"
-
- A.: "Again, counsellor, it depends upon the ventilation
system."
-
- Q.: "I'm saying no ventilation system."
-
- A.: "Probably."
-
- Q.: "All right. Now, if, on the other hand, the
location is extremely well ventilated to get all the gas out, I suppose
that's the optimum, if the ventilation system works perfectly, and would
you agree with me that it's very difficult to reach perfection with respect
to ventilation?"
-
- A.: "I do."
-
- Q.: "Although that's basically one of your engineering
tasks with these modern gas chambers you produce, isn't it?"
-
- A.: "Yes, it is."
-
- Q.: "Do you expect that forty-five years from now,
people will be able to find cyanide traces in your gas chambers?"
-
- A.: "No, I do not." 809
-
- He continued to explain, good ventilation, heating the
room so that the hydrogen cyanide would not condensate on the walls, and
walls coated with epoxy or some other sealant prevented the formation of
residual cyanide such as ferro-ferri-cyanide in the walls of modern gas
chambers.
-
- Leuchter wrongly assumed that Auschwitz gas chambers
were not ventilated. Furthermore, he wrongly hypothesized that the gas
chambers operated at very low temperatures, and that therefore there would
have been "a considerable amount of condensation of liquid hydrogen
cyanide on the walls, floor and ceiling of these facilities." 810
Furthermore he wrongly inferred from the ruins of crematoria 2 to 5 that
the walls of the gas chambers had not been coated, and that therefore the
liquid hydrogen cyanide could have reacted with the iron in the bricks
and mortar to form ferro-ferri-cyanide. Then he wrongly reasoned that,
in accordance with American practice, the Germans had used a high concentration
of 3,600 parts of hydrogen cyanide per million parts of air--the concentration
used in United States gas chambers to ensure that the condemned will die
a quick death--while in fact the Germans used a concentration of 300 parts
per million to kill their victims. 811 Neither did he consider the amount
of hydrogen cyanide that would be absorbed by the bodies of the victims.
Finally he did not take into account the effects of changes in the situation
of the gas chambers in the last 45 years. For example, the gas chamber
of crematorium 1 had been abandoned in 1943, and had been transformed into
an air-raid shelter in 1944, undergoing substantial modifications in the
process. Then, after the war, it was once more changed, to provide a museological
reconstruction of the original gas chamber. Leuchter assumed that the layer
of plaster from which he took his samples was the same that had coated
in the walls in 1942. There is little to no evidence to support that premise.
Then he took no account of the fact that the gas chambers of crematoria
2 and 3 had been purposefully demolished in 1944 and that their remains
had been exposed to the elements for 45 years, and that the walls had been
washed with acid rain--a fact of some importance because, contrary to Leuchter's
belief, ferro-ferri-cyanide is not stable under all conditions, but tends
to slowly dissolve in an acidic environment. Finally, he did not know that
the low brick walls that mark the plan of crematoria 4 and 5 were rebuilt
after the war using bricks from the original buildings, but not necessarily
in the right position. In other words, the walls that now define the outlines
of the gas chamber could have been rebuilt using bricks originally used
for the construction of the incineration rooms, or the coke storage rooms.
-
- On the basis of wrong assumptions, Leuchter expected
that one would find relatively high residual cyanide in the walls of the
gas chambers if they had been indeed used for genocidal purposes. When
he did not, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that these spaces had
not been used as gas chambers. He was strengthened in his conviction by
a few "control samples" he had taken from rooms that had been
used as hydrogen cyanide delousing chambers. These samples showed a very
high degree of ferro-ferri-cyanide--something that did not surprise anyone
as the walls of these delousing rooms showed large Prussian blue stains.
Leuchter wrongly assumed that the delousing rooms had been exposed to much
lower quantities of gas than the homicidal gas chambers--in fact the opposite
is true, and while the delousing chambers operated more or less non-stop,
the homicidal gas chamber operated only for very short times--and drew
his "shattering" conclusion.
-
- One would have expected higher cyanide detection in the
samples taken from the alleged gas chambers (because of the greater amount
of gas allegedly utilized there) than that found in the control sample.
Since the contrary is true, one must conclude that these facilities were
not execution gas chambers, when coupled with all the other evidence gained
on inspection. 812
-
- As we have seen, also "all the other evidence gained
on inspection" was less than it purported it to be.
-
- Perhaps the most damning aspect of Leuchter's investigation
is the way he took the samples. I have studied carefully the videotapes
which were made of his trip to Poland, and which clearly show that Leuchter
took what were for the analysis of cyanide content incorrect samples. When
the Alpha laboratories analyzed the cyanide content of the samples, they
provided the measurements of the total cyanide concentration in each of
the samples. It did not provide the concentration of cyanide on the outer
surface of the samples. As Dr. Jim Roth, who analyzed the samples in 1988,
explained recently to the American film maker Errol Morris, "hindsight
being 20/20, the test was not the correct one to have used for the analysis."
813 Roth explained that cyanide will react on the surface of brick or plaster,
penetrating the material not more than 10 microns, or 0.01 mm, or one tenth
the thickness of a human hair (one micron equals 1/1,000,000 of a meter,
or 0.000039 inch). In other words, if one wants to analyze the cyanide
concentration in a brick sample, one should take a representative sample
of the surface, 10 microns thick, and no more. Yet, as Roth remembered,
"[Leuchter] presented us with rock samples anywhere from the size
of your thumb up to half the size of your fist. We broke them up with a
hammer so that we could get a sub-sample; we placed it in a flask, add
concentrated sulfuric acid. It undergoes a reaction that produces a red-colored
solution. It is the intensity of this red color that we can relate with
cyanide concentration." 814 Roth explained that his laboratory analysis
could not make up for faulty sampling technique. If the sample was not
representative, the results would be meaningless. Because the cyanide cannot
penetrate into the brick for more than 10 microns, it is unavoidable that
the cyanide concentration will be diluted 10 times when the sample is 100
microns or 0.1 mm or 0.0039 inch thick, it will be diluted 1,000 times
when the sample is 10 mm or 0.39 inch thick. Leuchter did not carefully
slice the surface of the materials he was sampling. In fact, as the video
tapes clearly show, he hacked happily into the walls, and took samples
that counted at least a thousand of layers of material that could not have
reacted with the cyanide. As Roth remarked, "I might have had the
back side of the brick, not the front side of the brick, but I didn't know
which side was up and which was down. That's the point: Which was the exposed
surface? I didn't even have any idea. That is like analyzing paint on a
wall by analyzing the timber that's behind it." In conclusion Roth
stated that "I don't think the Leuchter results have any meaning."
815
-
- Indeed: the only conclusion one may legitimally draw
from Leuchter's sampling is that the very fact that the Alpha laboratories
found any residual cyanide at all is extremely significant. In fact, Leuchter's
samples most likely proved the use of morgue 1 of crematorium 2 and 3 as
a gas chamber.
-
- As we have seen before, Leuchter's track record as a
forensic scientist was not very impressive, and it is not very useful to
waste more energy on his samples. At this point it is more useful to consider
the legitimate forensic studies which were undertaken at the Auschwitz
crematoria by Polish scientists in the early 1990s. When the first news
about the Zündel Trial and Leuchter's testimony reached the Auschwitz
Museum, its director Kazimierz Smolen wrote to the highly experienced and
respected Polish forensic scientist Professor Jan Markiewicz, Director
of the Institute of Forensic Research in Cracow with the request to take
samples from the wall plaster of the gas chambers and analyze them for
the presence of hydrogen cyanide. Smolen did not inform Markiewicz about
the existence of the Leuchter Report. Markiewicz responded that he thought
"the chances of detecting hydrogen cyanide in such samples as nearly
none." 816 Nevertheless, he dispatched two of his employees to the
camp, who took on 20 February 1990 22 samples: ten from rooms in Block
3 of the Auschwitz Stammlager that had served as delousing rooms, five
from the ruins of the gas chamber of crematorium 2 and 3, and one sample
each from crematorium 5 and crematorium 1. No samples were taken from crematorium
4--the latter building was left alone since all the walls had been reconstructed
after the war. The results showed traces of hydrocyanic compounds in seven
samples taken from Block 3, and in one sample taken from a remaining pillar
of the gas chamber of crematorium 2.
-
- The letter that Markiewicz sent to the Museum was leaked
to the revisionists, and in the newsletter of the Institute of Historical
Review much was made of it. Mark Weber, Associate Editor of the Journal
of Historical Review then wrote to Markiewicz, and asked him to comment
on the relevance of his own findings for the Leuchter Report. Markiewicz
responded in a letter dated 7 June, 1991, in which he observed that the
initial research had been a little too hasty.
-
- Now, in the light of letters and publications coming
to us from different countries, I have arrived at the conclusion that our
investigations aiming at the confirmation, if possible, of the use of cyanic
preparations in the rooms that survived whole or only in the form of ruins,
were rather preliminary in nature and incomplete. We are bent on widening
and deepening these investigations and have already been preparing for
them. It is only now when suitable materials from literature have become
accessible to us that we see the purpose and sense of such studies. Naturally,
we shall publish their results and make them accessible to you and your
Institute. 817
-
-
- The Institute of Historical Review did not wait, however,
for the new report. Immediately after receiving Markiewicz's letter they
published an article entitled "An Official Polish Report on the Auschwitz
'Gas Chambers': Krakow Forensic Institute Bolsters Leuchter's Findings."
It claimed that Polish scientists had "replicated Leuchter's findings
and implicitly corroborated his conclusions." Wrongly arguing that
the whole of the gas chamber of crematorium 2 was protected from the elements
by the collapsed concrete ceiling," and is otherwise in its original
condition," the author of the article found it worth noting that the
Cracow scientists had not responded to the "compelling reasons given
by Leuchter for doubting the orthodox extermination story." For example,
they had not engaged him on his engineering considerations--a fact which
should not have surprised them because Markiewicz had written in his letter
to Weber that they had not known about the Leuchter Report when they took
their samples or wrote their report. The main text of the article ended
with the following comment.
-
- Auschwitz State Museum officials initiated this investigation
rather obviously hoping that the Institute's report would discredit Leuchter's
findings and corroborate the orthodox extermination account. And just as
obviously, if the Institute's report had, in fact, discredited the American
engineer's conclusions, the Auschwitz State Museum would certainly have
wasted no time in giving it maximum publicity.
-
- Although neither the Auschwitz State Museum nor the Krakow
Institute has (so far) made this September 1990 report public, Revisionists
were nevertheless able to obtain a copy of the original document. Professor
Robert Faurisson in France and Fred Leuchter in the United States were
quick to cite the "Polish Leuchter Report" as corroboration of
the Revisionist view of the Auschwitz extermination story.
-
- Having rudely awakened to the realities of negationism,
Markiewicz and his people decided to move with greater care. In the final
report, which they published in 1994, they discussed Leuchter's investigations,
their own early sampling and its results.
-
- When the dispute on the Leuchter Report arose, we undertook
a closer study of the problem, availing ourselves, among other publications,
of J.C. Pressac's comprehensive work. In consequence, we decided to start
considerably more extensive and conscientiously planned researches. To
carry them out, the Management of the Auschwitz Museum appointed their
competent workers, Dr. F. Piper (custodian) and Mr. W. Smrek (engineer)
to join the commission, in which they co-worked with the authors of the
present paper, representing the Institute of Forensic Research. Under this
collaboration, the Museum workers were providing us on the spot with exhaustive
information concerning the facilities to be examined and--as regards the
ruins--a detailed topography of the gas chambers we were concerned with.
And so they made it possible for us to take proper samples for analysis.
We tried to take samples--if at all possible--from the places best sheltered
and least exposed to rainfall, including--also as far as possible--fragments
from the upper parts of the chambers (hydrogen cyanide is lighter than
air) and also of the concrete floors, with which the gas from the spilled
Zyklon B came into contact at rather high concentrations.
-
- Samples, about 1-2 g in weight, were taken by chipping
pieces from bricks and concrete or scraping off, particularly in the case
of plaster and also mortar. The materials taken were secured in plastic
containers marked with serial numbers. All these activities were recorded
and documented with photographs. Work connected with them took the commission
two days. The laboratory analysis of the material collected was conducted--to
ensure full objectivity--by another group of institute workers. They started
with preliminary work: samples were comminuted by grinding them by hand
in an agate mortar, their pH was determined at 6 to 7 in nearly all samples.
Next the samples were subjected to preliminary spectrophotometric analysis
in the infrared region, using a Digilab FTS-15 spectrophotometer. It was
found that the bands of cyanide groups occurred in the region of 2000-22000
cm-1 in the spectra of a dozen samples or so. However, the method did not
prove to be sensitive enough and was given up in quantitative determinations.
It was determined, using the spectographical method, that the main elements
which made up the samples were: calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium
and iron. Moreover, titanium was found present in many samples. From among
other metals in some samples there were also barium, zinc, sodium, manganese
and from non-metals boron.
-
- The undertaking of chemical analysis had to be preceded
by careful consideration. The revisionists focussed their attention almost
exclusively on Prussian blue, which is of intense dark-blue colour characterized
by exceptional fastness. This dye occurs, especially in the form of stains,
on the outer bricks of the walls of the former bath-delousing house in
the area of the Birkenau camp. It is hard to imagine the chemical reactions
and physicochemical processes that could have led to the formation of Prussian
blue in that place. Brick, unlike other building materials, very feebly
absorbs hydrogen cyanide, it sometimes does not even absorb it at all.
Besides, iron occurring in it is at the third oxidation state, whereas
bivalent iron ions are indispensable for the formation of the [Fe(Cn)6]-4
ion, which is the precursor of Prussian blue. This ion is, besides, sensitive
to the sunlight.
-
- [....]
-
- We decided therefore to determine the cyanide ions using
a method that does not indice the breakdown of the composed ferrum cyanide
complex (this is the blue under discussion) and which we had tested before
on an appropriate standard sample. To isolate cyanide compounds from the
materials examined in the form of hydrogen cyanide we used the techniques
of microdiffusion in special Conway-type chambers. The sample under examination
was placed in the internal part of the chamber and next acidified with
10% sulfuric acid solution and allowed to remain at open room temperature
(about 20°C) for 24 hrs. The separated hydrogen cyanide underwent a
quantitative absorption by the lye solution present in the outer part of
the chamber. When the diffusion was brought to an end, a sample of lye
solution was taken and the pyridine-pyrazolone reaction carried out by
Epstein's method. 818 The intensity of the polymethene dye obtained was
measured spectrophotometrically at a wavelength equal to 630 nm. The calibration
curve was constructed previously and standards with a known CN? content
were introduced into each series of determinations to check the curve and
the course of determination. Each sample of materials examined was analysed
three times. If the result obtained was positive, it was verified by repeating
the analysis. Having applied this method for many years, we have opportunities
to find its high sensitivity, specificity and precision. Under present
circumstances we established the lower limit of determinability of cyanide
ions at a level of 3-4 µg CN? in 1 kg of the sample.
-
- The results of analyses are presented in Tables I-IV.
They unequivocally show that the cyanide compounds occur in all the facilities
that, according to the source data, were in contact with them. On the other
hand, they do not occur in dwelling accomodations, which was shown by means
of the control samples. The concentrations of cyanide compounds in the
samples collected from one and the same room or building shows great differences.
This indicates that the conditions that favour the formation of stable
compounds as a result of the reaction of hydrogen cyanide with the components
of the walls, occur locally. In this connection it takes quite a larger
number of samples from a given facility to give us a chance to come upon
this sort of local accumulation of cyanide compounds. 819
-
- Samples 1 to 8 were taken from fumigation chambers in
Blocks 1 and 3 in the Stammlager and showed concentrations of CN? that
went in one instance (sample 6) as high as 900 µg/kg. Samples 9 to
12 were taken from dwelling spaces in Block 3 and 8, and all showed a total
absence of CN?. These rooms were known to have been fumigated with hydrogen
cyanide only once. Samples 13 to 52 were taken from places which served
as homicidal gas chambers. Samples 13 to 22 were taken in Auschwitz 1.
It is a pity that the report does not mention the thickness of the samples,
again the knowledge that cyanide only reacts on the surface of brick remains
an important fact of consideration. Therefore I would not like to assign
more than relative significance to the Polish measurements. Yet, even so,
they are important in their own right, as they clearly show the presence
of cyanide in the walls of the gas chambers, confirming the "alleged"
use of these spaces as killing installations.
-
- A--Sample No. B--Concentration of CN? (µg/kg)
-
- Cellars of Block 11 used as experimental Gas Chambers
in 1941
-
- A 13 14 15 - - - -
-
- B 28 20 0 - - - -
-
- 24 16 0 - - - -
-
- 24 16 0 - - - -
-
- Crematorium 1
-
- A 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
-
- B 28 76 0 0 288 0 80
-
- 28 80 0 0 292 0 80
-
- 28 80 0 0 288 0 80
-
- Crematorium 2
-
- A 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
-
- B 640 28 0 8 20 168 296
-
- 592 28 0 8 16 156 288
-
- 620 28 0 8 16 168 292
-
- Crematorium 3
-
- A 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
-
- B 68 12 12 16 12 16 56
-
- 68 8 12 12 8 16 52
-
- 68 8 8 16 8 16 56
-
- Crematorium 4
-
- A 39 40 41 42 43 - -
-
- B 40 36 500 trace 16 - -
-
- 44 32 496 0 12 - -
-
- 44 36 496 0 12 - -
-
- Crematorium 5
-
- A 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
-
- B 244 36 92 12 116 56 0
-
- 248 28 96 12 120 60 0
-
- 232 32 96 12 116 60 0
-
- Finally samples 53 to 59 were taken from the same delousing
building BW5a from which Leuchter had obtained his control samples. Samples
53 to 55 were taken from the dark- blue stains on the outer side of the
building wall, sample 56 was mortar taken from the outer side of the building
wall, samples 57 and 58 were plaster taken from dark blue stains on the
inner side of the building wall, and sample 59 was plaster taken from white
walls inside the building.
-
- Delousing Buildings BW5a
-
- A 53 53a 54 55 56 57 58 59
-
- B 24 224 36 736 4 840 348 28
-
- 20 248 28 740 0 792 324 28
-
- 24 228 32 640 0 840 348 28
-
- The forensic team also conducted various other tests
to study the absorptive behaviour of various materials. In the first test
the scientists exposed fresh plaster, fresh mortar, new brick, and old
brick, both in dry and wet forms, to a high concentration of hydrogen cyanide
(2%) for 48 hours. The results of this test, which simulated the conditions
that existed in a fumigation room, showed that the various materials absorbed
the hydrogen cyanide with very different rates.
-
- material Fresh plaster Fresh mortar New brick Old brick
-
- condition dry wetted dry wetted dry wetted dry wetted
-
- CN? mg/kg 24 480 176 2700 4 52 20 0
-
- In a second test, the team added carbon dioxide to the
hydrogen cyanide, introducing the two gasses in a rate of 5 parts of CO2
to one part of HCN. This test simulated the conditions that existed in
homicidal gas chambers.
-
- [I]n their reasoning the revisionists did not take into
consideration certain circumstances, namely, the simultaneous action of
cyanides and carbon dioxide on the chamber walls. In the air exhaled by
man carbon dioxide constitutes 3.5% by volume. Breathing for 1 minute,
he takes in and next exhales 15-20 dm3 of air, comprising on the average
950 cm3 CO2; consequently, 1000 people breathe out about 950 dm3 of carbon
dioxide. And so it can be estimated that, if the victims stayed in the
chamber for 5 minutes before they die, they exhaled 4.75 m3 of carbon dioxide
during that period. This is at least 1% of the capacity, e.g. of the gas
chamber of Crematorium 2 at Birkenau, the capacity of which was about 500
m3, whereas the concentration of hydrogen cyanide virtually did not exceed
0.1% by volume (death occurs soon at as low HCN concentrations as 0.03%
by volume). 820
-
- After having been exposed to the CO2 and HCN mixture,
the samples were aired for 48 hours in the open air at a temperature of
about 10-15°C, and then subjected to analysis.
-
- material Fresh plaster Old mortar Fresh mortar New brick
Old brick
-
- condition dry wet dry wet dry wet dry wet dry wet
-
- CN? µg/kg 5920 12800 1000 244 492 388 52 36 24
60While in the tests that simulated the situation in the fumigation rooms
the CN? content was higher in the wetted materials, in the tests that simulated
the condition in the homicidal gas chambers the results were reversed,
that is that the CN? content was lower in the wetted content. "It
seems that here a tendency is revealed towards the competitive action of
carbon dioxide, which dissolved in water," Markiewicz's report explained.
And it added that "in this series of tests fresh plaster showed an
exceptionally high affinity to hydrogen cyanide." 821
-
- The samples of both tests were analysed again one month
later. In the samples that had been exposed to hydrogen cyanide only, the
average decrease was 56%, while in the samples that had been exposed to
the combination of carbon dioxide and hydrogen cyanide, the loss was 73%.
"In as many as four samples that loss ranged from 97% to 100%."
822 This was an important result, as the negationists had claimed that
conditions for the preservation of HCN in homicidal gas chambers should
have been better than in fumigation gas chambers. In fact, it was opposite.
-
- Finally Markiewicz's team tested the way water elutes
cyanide ions. Taking two plaster samples of 0.5 grams each that had been
fumigated with hydrogen cyanide, they flushed them with one litre of clean
deionized water. The first sample showed a loss in concentration of HCN
in µg/kg of 82.5% (160 vs. 28), the second of 90.7% (1200 vs. 112).
This test is important as the remains of the gas chambers of crematoria
2 to 5 have been exposed to the elements since the end of the war, and
"it can be estimated, on the basis of climatological records, that
in these last 45 years or so they have been rinsed rather thoroughly by
a column of water at least 35 m in height (!)." 823
-
- The conclusion of what one should call the Markiewicz
Report was straightforward and, as far as the Leuchter Report was concerned,
shattering.
-
- The present study shows that in spite of the passage
of a considerable period of time (over 45 years) in the walls of the facilities
which once were in contact with hydrogen cyanide the vestigal amounts of
the combinations of this constituent of Zyklon B had been preserved. This
is also true of the ruins of the former gas chambers. The cyanide compounds
occur in the building materials only locally, in the places where the conditions
arose for their formation and persistence for such a long time.
-
- In his reasoning Leuchter claims that the vestigal amounts
of cyanide combinations detected by him in the materials from the chamber
ruins are residues left after fumigations carried out in the Camp, "once,
long ago" (Item 14.004 of the Report). This is refuted by the negative
results of the examination of the control samples from living quarters,
which are said to have been subjected to a single gassing, and the fact
that in the period of fumigation of the Camp in connection with a typhoid
epidemic in mid-1942 there were still no crematoria in the Birkenau camp.
The first crematorium (Crematorium 2) was put to use as late as 15 March
1943 and the others several months later. 824
-
- Of course, at the time of the second Zündel trial
the Markiewicz report did not exist. Yet at that time it was clear to the
court, at least, that Leuchter's methodology and data simply did not meet
the judicial demands of admissable evidence. While this impressed the jury
and the judge, it did not impress hard-core Holocaust deniers and their
allies, who hailed (and continue to hail 825 ) the Leuchter Report as an
important breakthrough. A large part of the credit of having rescued the
Leuchter Report from deserved oblivion must go to David Irving who, convinced
by Leuchter's findings, publically converted to hard-core Holocaust denial
in April 1988, and became the publisher of the English edition of the Leuchter
Report a year later.
-
- Notes
-
- 748. Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass,"
in The Annotated Alice, Marting Gardner ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970),
279.
-
- 749. Fred A. Leuchter, "The Leuchter Report: The
How and the Why," The Journal of Historical Review. vol. 9 (1989),
133.
-
- 750. Letter Bill Armontrout to Barbara Kulaszka, January
13, 1988, Irving's Furtther Discovery.
-
- 751. Leuchter, "The Leuchter Report: The How and
the Why," 134.
-
- 752. Ibid., 135.
-
- 753. [Fred Leuchter], The Leuchter Report: The End of
a Myth. An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at
Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek, Poland, foreword by Dr. Robert Faurisson
(Decatur Alabama: David Clark, n.d.), 7.
-
- 754. Ibid., 7.
-
- 755. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8955ff.
-
- 756. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9015ff.
-
- 757. [Leuchter], The Leuchter Report, 11.
-
- 758. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9230; Leuchter, "The Leuchter Report: The How and the Why,"
136.
-
- 759. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9020.
-
- 760. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9021.
-
- 761. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9249f.
-
- 762. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8988f.
-
- 763. German army survey of Zasole, December 1939. Archive
of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, ms. BW 2/, file 2/1.
See also plate 1 in Van Pelt and Dwork, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present,
between 320 and 321.
-
- 764. In an anonymous critique of the Leuchter Report,
which Irving received in late fall or early winter of 1989, and which will
be discussed in Chapter Ten, the author pointed out that Leuchter's point
about the sewer was nonsensical. For the record, here is his argument.
"A key point in the Leuchter analysis of the facility design is the
presence in the chambers of a direct outlet to the sewer system. This,
it is claimed, would permit the gas to access every part of the camp connected
to the sewers leading to massive and indiscriminate death. This criticism
is only valid for the 3200 ppm regime [Leuchter's erroneous assumption
that, like the American gas chambers, the Auschwitz gas chambers had been
operated with a very high concentration of hydrogen cyanide]. Leuchter's
use of the 3200 ppm level makes him miss the point of that sewer access
completely. Leuchter gives no indication as to whether there is flowing
water down there. This is a factor of such key importance that its omission
is a crushing blow against the validity of the whole report. / If it is
a wet sewer (and rudimentary evidence available would suggest this is the
case), the presence of constantly flowing water under a small aperture
entrains air and causes suction from the area above the aperture down into
the sewer. This technique is frequently used in laboratories to create
vacuums for filtration and TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF NOXIOUS VAPOURS. The
effect is to create a negative pressure gradient by which air is drawn
from outside into the body of the chamber then down into the sewer. Gas
cannot escape against this gradient. The airflow into the chamber prevents
gas escaping from the chamber, eliminates the need for seals on doors and
windows and to [...] reduce the exposure to toxic gas of anybody outside
the chamber. [...] The effect of the sewer would also be to circulate air,
ensuring the gas is well spread and also to continually draw fresh air
in from outside, maintaining the gas concentration by evaporation from
the Zyklon-B pellets. [...] On the basis of a 100 ppm gas concentration,
that sewer outlet becomes a major feature in the design, rather than a
fundamental weakness. Its presence removes the need for gaskets on doors
and windows, the need for exhaust systems to remove the gas and the need
to artificially circulate the air." Anonymous, "Critique of Forensic
Examinations of Auschwitz by Leuchter, unpublished manuscript, 2f. Irving's
further discovery. The final suggestion seems, somehow, far-fetched, yet
the critique does make clear that Leuchter's interpretation of the sewer
as a key piece of evidence that the morgue of crematorium 1 could not have
operated as a gas chamber is without merit.
-
- 765. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9083.
-
- 766. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9085.
-
- 767. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9241f.
-
- 768. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Jean Claude
Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschambers (New York:
The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), 483f.
-
- 769. Ibid., 1251.
-
- 770. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8981.
-
- 771. As quoted in Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen and Volker
Riess, "Those Were the Days": The Holocaust As Seen by the Perpetrators
and Bystanders, transl. Deborah Burnstone (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993),
252f.
-
- 772. Ibid., 255.
-
- 773. Ibid..
-
- 774. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Jean Claude
Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschambers (New York:
The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), 483f.
-
- 775. Protocol testimony Michael Kula, 11 June 1945, added
as Appendix 16 to: Cracow District Commission for the Investigation of
German War Crimes, "Protocol on the Machinery of Mass Extermination
of Humans in Birkenau," 26 November 1946, transl. Roman Sas-Zalaziocky,
in Republic of Austria, Ministry of Justice, Case 20 Vr 3806/64 (Ertl/Dejaco),
Landesgericht für Strafsachen, Vienna, file ON 264, 393v (r &
v)
-
- 776. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Pressac,
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschamber, 483f.
-
- 777. Ibid., 494.
-
- 778. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9205f.
-
- 779. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8998.
-
- 780. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8999.
-
- 781. State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial
of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem,
5 vols. (Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial,
1992), vol. 3, 1247.
-
- 782. Letter Bischoff to Topf, March 6, 1943, Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum in Oswiecim, BW 30/ 25, 7.
-
- 783. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9255.
-
- 784. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9077.
-
- 785. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9253f.
-
- 786. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Pressac,
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschambers, 483f.
-
- 787. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8973f.
-
- 788. Michael Lesy, The Forbidden Zone (New York: Anchor,
1989), 140.
-
- 789. [Leuchter], The Leuchter Report: The End of a Myth,
15.
-
- 790. Ibid., 15ff; tables V, VI and VIII.
-
- 791. Bunker 1 some 500 square feet, which leads a killing
capacity of at least 250 people per day; Bunker 2 had some 650 square feet
usable space, which leads to a capacity of 320 people per day. Bunker 1
was at least 6 months in operation, and Bunker 2 at least 14 months, which
adds another 180,000 to the total killing capacity of the camp. If also
the gas chamber of crematorium 1 is added, we come to a conservative estimate
of a killing capacity in Auschwitz of 3.5 million people over the time
period the crematoria and bunkers were in operation.
-
- 792. [Leuchter], The Leuchter Report, 12f.
-
- 793. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8975ff.
-
- 794. [Leuchter], The Leuchter Report, 12f.
-
- 795. Ibid., Table VIII.
-
- 796. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,
revised and definitive edition, 3 vols. (New York and London: Holmes &
Meier, 1985), vol. 3, 978.
-
- 797. Letter Jahrling to Kammler, 28 June 1943, Osobyi
Moscow, ms 502/1--314; USHRI Washington, microfilm RG 11.001M.03--41. The
original German of the main text of the letter reads as follows: "Melde
die Ferigstellung des Krematoriums III mit dem 26.6.1943. Mithin sind samtliche
befohlenen Krematorien fertiggestellt. / Leistung der nunmehr vorhandenen
Krematorien bei einer 24 Stündigen Arbeitszeit: / 1.) altes Krematorium
I--3 x 3 Muffelöfen--340 Personen / 2.) neues Krematorium i.K.G.L.II--5
x 3 Muffelöfen--1440 Personen / 3.) neues Krematorium III--5 x 3 Muffelöfen--1440
Personen / 4.) neues Krematorium IV--8 Muffelöfen--768 Personen /
5.) neues Krematorium V--8 Muffelöfen--768 Personen / Inges. bei 24
ständiger Arbeitszeit 4756 Personen."
-
- 798. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9010.
-
- 799. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Pressac,
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschamber, 483.
-
- 800. Chamotte is fireclay or firebrick.
-
- 801. Deposition of Henry Tauber, as quoted in Pressac,
Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gaschamber, 489.
-
- 802. Ibid.
-
- 803. Ibid.
-
- 804. Höss, "The Final Solution of the Jewish
Question in Concentration Camp Auschwitz," in Höss, Death Dealer,
36.
-
- 805. Ibid., 45.
-
- 806. Jean-Claude Pressac discovered the note in 1995
in dossier 241 of the Topf company archive located in the EMS (Erfurter
Malzerei und Speicherbau) factory at 7-9 Sorbenweg in Erfurt.. While much
lower than the official daily capacity of 4,756 corpses per day, the crematoria
would still have been able to easily incinerate the corpses of the 1.1
million people who were killed in Auschwitz. Crematorium I, which was in
operation for 24 months (not all of that time with three ovens, however),
could have incinerated smore than 100,000 corpses. Crematoria 2 and 3,
operating for 19 and 18 months, could have incinerated 456,000 and 432,000
corpses, and crematoria 4 and 5, operating for 17 and 18 months, could
have incinerated 204,000 and 216,000 corpses. Thus if Prüfer's conservative
estimate was right, and if we disregard the use of incineration pyres,
the total incineration capacity of the crematoria over the period of their
existence was more than 1.4 million corpses.
-
- 807. J.A. Topf & Söhne Erfurt, Patent Application,
"Kontinuierliche arbeitender LeichenVerbrennungsofen für Massenbetrieb,"
Archive Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, BW 30/44, 1f.
-
- 808. Report Klaus and Christel Kunz, 25 April 1985, on
patent application T 58240 Kl. 24 for a "Kontinuierliche arbeitender
Leichen-Verbrennungsofen für Massenbetrieb," Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum in Oswiecim, ms. BW 30/44.
-
- 809. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9005f.
-
- 810. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 8998.
-
- 811. Leuchter Testimony, 2nd Zündel Trial, Transcript
of Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst Zündel, District Court of Ontario,
1988, 9203f.
-
- 812. [Leuchter], The Leuchter Report, 14; See also Leuchter,
"The Leuchter Report: The How and the Why," 139.
-
- 813. Statement by Dr. Jim Roth, the chemist who analyzed
Leuchter's samples in 1988, in Errol Morris's film "Dr. Death: The
Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr."
-
- 814. Ibid.
-
- 815. Ibid.
-
- 816. Letter Jan Markiewicz to Mark Weber, June 7, 1991,
as printed in "An Official Polish Report on the Auschwitz 'Gas Chambers':
Krakow Forensic Institute Bolsters Leuchter's Findings," The Journal
of Historical Review, vol 11 (Summer 1991), 215.
-
- 817. Ibid., 216.
-
- 818. J. Epstein, "Estimation of Microquantities
of Cyanide," Analytical Chemistry, vol. 19 (1947), 272.
-
- 819. Jan Markiewicz, Wojciech Gubala, Jerzy Labedz, "A
Study of the Cyanide Compounds Content in the Walls of the Gas Chambers
in the Former Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps," Z Zagadnien
Nauk Sadowych / Problems of Forensic Science, vol. 30 (1994), 19ff.
-
- 820. Ibid., 25f.
-
- 821. Ibid., 25.
-
- 822. Ibid.
-
- 823. Ibid., 18.
-
- 824. Ibid., 27.
-
- 825. As recently as May 3, 1999, the Palestinian newspaper
Al-manar published an article entitled "The Legend and the Truth:
An American Expert Discusses the Details." For the record some excerpts.
"Nobody in the West dares to stand up, when the subject is the fictitious
Nazi Holocaust against the Jews of Europe. Since the end of WWII, the victors
have imposed their hegemony over history, and forged the legend of the
Holocaust to extort the entire world, using the face of the ugly Nazi.
They planted a thorn in the side of defeated Germany to extort it forever.
Whenever the truth reached the tongues of western intellectuals, the democratic
regimes abandoned their liberalism and treated these scientists of History
the same way the Catholic Church treated the Italian scientist Galileo
when he tried to prove the world is round. His fate was to be executed.
[In fact, he was not condemned to death. Galileo was placed under house-arrest.]
Because history does not acknowledge legends, no matter what lies they
include. the Holocaust legend faced the mighty winds of truth that tore
it up by its feeble roots. Dozens of intellectuals and politicians in the
West. refuted the false claims of this legend. ending with the renown French
intellectual Roger Garaudi. who exposed the legends that served as the
foundations of the state of Israel, and first and foremost, the legend
of the Holocaust. Despite the importance of all these. efforts, the knockout.
came from an American expert, a specialist in building gas chambers in
American jails. This expert, Fred Leuchter, prepared a scientific field
report about the Nazi execution camps. [proving] that even if all of the
Nazi camps had been operating at full capacity, the total number of victims
would not have exceeded a hundred thousand, and certainly could not have
reached the one million mark. Leuchter's report was prepared in 1988 to
save an American intellectual from imprisonment for challenging this mendacious
legend. French intellectual Roger Garaudi. referred to this report in his
book that enraged international Zionism and revealed the ugly face of western
democracies.
-
-
- The Al-Ahram Al-Arabi newspaper [an Egyptian weekly]
published this scientific report which serves as an unprecedented historical
document and a death sentence to the bogus execution legends. Leutcher's
report. uses forensic evidence to refute the superstition of gas chambers
for Jews in the Nazi era. The story of this report begins in January 1988,
when internationally renowned lawyer [sic!] Dr. Robert Faurisson, was in
Toronto, Canada, assisting in the defense of Ernst Zuendel. A Canadian
citizen of German origin, Mr. Zuendel was accused of distributing fake
information after publishing a book titled Were Six Million Really Killed?
Zuendel discussed the widespread claim that the Nazis killed six million
Jews during WWII, in gas chambers with, Hydrogen Cyanide the "Zyklon
B Gas." Faurisson says, "I started talking to Fred Leutcher,
an expert in the design of execution devices... He amazed me with the proficiency
of his answers and his skill in explaining all the details of the process
of executing by gas. He explained the extreme danger of using Hydrogen
Cyanide in executions. This gas was first used in executions in the US
in 1942, but there were still many problems in designing gas chambers.
in 1988, including problems of gas leakage. I noticed Leutcher did not
doubt the traditional claim regarding the Jewish Holocaust." Faurisson
added: "Zuendel decided to ask Leutcher to prepare a scientific perspective
regarding the claims of gas chambers in Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek."
Leuchter accepted the assignment. On February 25, 1988, Fred Leuchter and
his wife Caroline, along with the draftsman Howard Miller, cinematographer
Jurgen Neumann, and Polish interpreter Theodor Rudolph flew to Poland and
returned eight days later.
-
-
- On his return, Leuchter began writing a report that consisted
of 192 pages, including appendices. His conclusions were clear: there is
strong evidence that there were no gas chambers for executions in Auschwitz,
Birkenau or Majdanek. The places that were claimed to be execution chambers
could not have been used back then, cannot be used in the present, and
cannot even conceivably be used as chambers for executions by gas."
Faurisson says that on April 20-21, 1988, Fred Leuchter took the witness
stand at the Toronto court and began by answering the questions of the
defense....Afterwards, the prosecutor John Pearson, questioned Leuchter.
Another prosecutor assisted him and the two of them consulted constantly
with Jewish advisors sitting behind them....All present, regardless of
their personal view on the subject, knew [that] they were participating
in a historic event--the end of the legend of gas chambers. Faurisson says:
"I think I was the first to point out that any research of the German
gas chambers using Zyklon B, should start with the study of American gas
chambers. The theory of executions can only be proven true or false by
investigating the claim that Auschwitz was a death-factory. The investigations
held by the 'Correction Movement' proved those places claimed to have been
gas chambers, could not have been used for that purpose....Those rooms.
claimed to be gas chambers, were in reality, warehouses for corpses....
It was imperative to find an expert of American gas chambers. Fred Leuchter
was that expert. He. conducted the investigation, wrote the report, and
signed it in Canadian court. When I asked him if he was afraid of dangerous
consequences, he answered: "the truth is the truth." After reading
his report, the British historian David Irving, said that this document
would become an obligatory source for any historian writing about WWII."
Made available in English translation by the Washington-based Middle East
Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) on its website <http://www.memri.org>www.memri.org.
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- Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia
ph +61 7 41262296
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- http://mailstar.net/index.html
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- I use the old Mac OS; being incompatible, it cannot run
Windows viruses or transmit them to you.
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- Never respond to emails offering pornography or sex;
never click on links they provide. Intelligence agencies may be using them
to lure and trap dissidents (e.g. on charges of "sex with a minor"
or "being in possession of child pornography"). Mordecai Vanunu
was lured by a "honey trap", after which he was jailed solitary
for 18 years; and he never even got the honey. Don't try to fight the government
with guns - that just gives them an excuse for getting rid of you. Your
most potent weapon is information - that's what Big Brother is really scared
of.
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used to censor this newsletter - check your Spam, Junk & Trash folders,
and ask your Internet Provider if they block emails. If my mail does not
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1 day.
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- oldickeastman@q.com
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