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Page 430 AUSCHWITZ:
                        Technique and Operation
                            of the Gas Chambers ©
 
 
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However, drawing 2197 from the October Revolution archives indicates that Leichenkeller 1 had 16 lamps and 3 taps and Leichenkeller 2, 10 lamps and 5 taps. There has been inversion of the lines on the inventory as from the number of lamps. The document should read: 
 
1st line:  Room 1 — Leichenkeller [1]: 16 lamps. 3 taps. 4 introduction devices, 4 covers. 
   
2nd line:  Room 2 — Leichenkeller [2]: 10 lamps, 5 taps. 
 
The aerial photograph of 24th August 1944 taken by the Americans shows that the 4 introduction devices were indeed installed in Leichenkeller 1 / gas chamber 1 of Krematorium II, and not in Leichenkeller 2 / undressing room.

Thus, Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium II, named in fact in a letter of 29th January 1943 as “Vergasungskeller / gassing cellar” and fitted with a  “Gasdichtetür / gas-tight door” [PMO, BW 30/43, page 34], has 4 wire mesh introduction devices, closed by wooden covers [or flaps]. It would be too much to expect the SS to have formally written that Zyklon-B was poured into these introduction devices. As this product was composed of small pellets of silica*, an absorbant substrate for prussic acid, it is obvious that a wire mesh column with a cover COULD SERVE ONLY for pouring the pellets into the interior. The mesh retained the solid pellets and allowed the gas to diffuse. The fundamental, complementary, and supplementary proofs described above establish beyond any shadow of a doubt that in Krematorien II and III. their Leichenkeller 1: 
 
1. Were no longer “typical morgues”:
   
2. Were fitted with gas-tight doors (Leichenkeller of Krematorium I I also being designated as a “Vergasungskeller”):  
   
3. Had dummy showers (14 in Krematorium III and something over twenty in Krematorium II): 
   
4. Included four devices for introducing Zyklon-B (with supporting concrete evidence of this in the case of Krematorium II). that have been perfectly described by former prisoners who were employed in the DAW metalworking shop because it was they who made them. 
   
DOCUMENT PMO BW 30/43, PAGE 24 IS DEFINITIVE PROOFOF THE PRESENCE OF A HOMICIDAL GAS CHAMBER IN LEICIIENKELLER 1 OF KREMATORIUM III.   
 
[* Note by the transcriber: A subsequent analysis of Zyklon-B pellets supplied by the Firector of the Auschwitz State Museum has revealed that the absorbant substrate was not silica as stated by Pressac, but of calcium sulphate, an inexpensive industrial absorbant. Copies of the images produced with a scanning electron microscope and elemental analysis undertaken with an energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer are available on request from: hmazal@mazal.org ]

Document A Document A

Document B  Document B
Document B' Document B - Enlargement

  Translation of the inscriptions
on the enlargement of the last three lines of the second document 
   
  (4)  Drahtnetzeinschiebvorrichtung / 4 wire mesh introduction devices 
  (4) Holzblenden / 4 wooden covers. 
 
AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and operation
of the gas chambers

Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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