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It is a fact that an early Soviet estimate placed the victims of
Auschwitz-Birkenau at
4 million
and that the communist regime in Poland
adhered to this number long after it was known to be untrue. It is a
favorite tactic of deniers to claim that the untruth of this number
should somehow affect estimates of the total number of Jews killed in
the Final Solution. This claim is invalid.
6
With a few notable exceptions
7,
historians did not take the 4 million
number seriously.
Additionally, estimates for the number of dead were generally made by
the overall European demographics and therefore would not depend on an
error in a single camp even if it were made. Both of these points are
demonstrated by the conservative estimates of Raul Hilberg who
estimates that 1 million Jews were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau and
that 5.1 million Jews were killed in all. Hilberg first made his
estimate in 1961 and reaffirmed it in 1985 with the "revised and
definitive" edition of his seminal work, The Destruction of the
European Jews.
8
Murder by poison gas took place at several installations in Auschwitz-Birkenau:
On 3 September 1941 a trial gassing was conducted in block 11 [of
Auschwitz I]. Later, one room of the base-camp crematorium was
equipped as a gas chamber [Krema I in Auschwitz I]. After these
trials, in 1942, two abandoned thatch-roofed cottages in a wood at
Birkenau were transformed into gas chambers; they were known as
"the bunkers." In the spring of 1943 construction of four modern
crematoria [Kremas II-V] was completed on the site of Birkenau
itself. Each was divided into three parts: a section for the
crematory ovens, a place for prospective victims to undress, and a
gas chamber. The bunkers were no longer used except in
emergencies. 9
III. Zyklon B: A Pesticide and an Agent of Homicide
Raul Hilberg states:
TESTA sold Zyklon in different concentrations. Invoices presented
to municipal or industrial clients for fumigation of buildings
were printed with columns headed C, D, E, and F, each denoting a
category of potency and price. As explained in a letter to
Osland, strength E was required for the eradication of specially
resistant vermin, such as cockroaches, or for gassings in wooden
barracks. The "normal" preparation D was used to exterminate
lice, mice, or rats in large, well-built structures containing
furniture. Human organisms in gas chambers were killed with
Zyklon B.
Hilberg notes in a footnote that the same preparation was used for the
delousing of clothes. 10
The agent of mass gassing at Auschwitz-Birkenau was Zyklon-B, hydrogen
cyanide (HCN), and a warning agent impregnated into a solid support.
According to Kogon the solid support was diatomite and the appearance
of Zyklon-B was of gray-blue pellets.
11
In the instructions for
the use of Zyklon B, published by its manufacturer, Degesch, three
possible solid supports are mentioned: "Wood fibre discs, a reddish
brown granular mass (diagriess -- Dia gravel) or small blue cubes (Erco)
are used as carriers."
12
There are also patents for a porous support, a felt support, a
Diagriess support, and an ERCO support.
13 Irmscher identifies ERCO as
a porous gypsum product.14
Such a description sounds like what is now called drierite.
Hydrogen cyanide (HCN), also known as hydrocyanic acid, prussic acid or
Blausäure was the toxic agent in Zyklon B. Strictly speaking, the
term hydrogen cyanide should be used for the pure compound and the term
hydrocyanic acid reserved for its aqueous solutions, but this
convention has been ignored so much that it is pointless to insist upon
it. HCN is a high vapor pressure liquid; the Merck index lists its
boiling point as 25.6 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit),
significantly less than human body temperature. 15 At room
temperature (25 d C, 77 d F) the equilibrium vapor pressure of HCN is
750 Torr (760 Torr= 1 atmosphere), corresponding to 987,000 ppm. At 0
C (32 F) it is 260 Torr corresponding to 342,000 ppm. 16 The Merck
index warns, "Exposure to 150 ppm for 1/2 to 1 hr may endanger life.
Death may result from a few min exposure to 300 ppm" 17 Clearly, it
is not necessary to reach equilibrium vapor pressure in order for the
fumes of the liquid to be quite deadly.
HCN is explosive at 6% (60,000 ppm.); 18 it is not necessary
to reach such concentrations in order to murder. In its pure state,
HCN is very dangerous to transport or to store; the Material Safety
Data Sheet (MSDS) states:
Polymerization: Can occur violently in the presence of heat, alkaline
materials, or moisture. Once initiated, polymerization becomes
uncontrollable since the reaction is autocatalytic, produce heat and
alkalinity (NH3). Confined polymerization can cause a violent
explosion. HCN is stabilized with small amounts of acid to prevent
polymerization. HCN should not be stored for extended periods unless
routine testing confirms product quality.
19
HCN kills by binding cytochromes, enzymes important in respiration at
the cellular level, and preventing them from functioning properly. 20
HCN has a slight odor that has been described as being like almonds.
The odor, however, is very difficult to detect and requires training.
Zyklon B, accordingly, contained irritants to warn of the presence of
HCN. The irritants were designed so that one irritant would be present
sooner than the HCN and that another would linger around later. 21
Zyklon B at Auschwitz-Birkenau was used mainly for two purposes,
delousing and murder. The eyewitness testimony to murder by poison is
overwhelming. 22 Pressac reconstructs a gassing that took place March 13, 1943:
That same night, 1,492 women, children, and old people,
selected from a convoy of 2,000 Jews from the Krakow ghetto, were
killed in the new crematorium. Six kilos of Zyklon B were poured
into the stacks that opened into the four grillework columns implanted
between the pillars that supported the ceiling. Within five minutes,
all the victims had succumbed. The aeration (8,000 cu m an hour) and
deaeration system (same strength) were then started up and, after 15 to
20 minutes, the atmosphere, which had been practically renewed every
three to four minutes, was sufficiently pure so that members of the
Sonderkommando could enter the stiflingly hot gas chamber. During this
first gassing [in the new Krema II gas chamber], the Sonderkommandos
wore gas masks as a precaution. The bodies were untangled and dragged
to the goods elevator. Hair was clipped, gold teeth pulled out, wedding
rings and jewels removed. 23
IV. History of Forensic Reports
From shortly after the war to the present there have been a number of
forensic analyses conducted on facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau
including legitimate investigations as well as those conducted by
Holocaust deniers. This section will give a brief history of those
reports. Section V. will address in more detail the chemistry
involved. In 1945 the Cracow Forensic Institute did a forensic
analysis of the criminal traces left by the murderers. Pressac
summarizes some of their findings:
Toxicological analysis were carried out in 1945 by the Cracow Forensic
Institute (7 Copernicus street) on 4 complete plates and 2 damaged
ventilation orifices found in the ruins of Krematorium II. After
scraping the white substance that covered these objects back to the
metal, 7.2 grammes of scrapings were collected and subjected to two
qualitative analysis, which established the presence of cyanide
compounds. The report, signed by Dr. Jan Z. Robel, was written on 15th
December, 1945 and transmitted to the Examining Judge, Jan Sehn. 24
Strzelecki describes other early forensic examinations including the
following:
In 1945, an examination by the Institute of Judicial Expertise in
Krakow of a sample of hair found in Auschwitz revealed the presence of
compounds of prussic acid, the basic component of Zyklon B gas used in
the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Traces of the acid were also found in
metal objects found in the hair, such as pins, clasps, and gold-plated
spectacle holders. 25
In 1988, Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, was preparing for his defense
in Toronto. With the help of Holocaust denier Faurisson and soon-to-be
Holocaust denier David Irving he procured the services of a self-styled
"engineer," Fred A. Leuchter for the price of $35,000. 26 Lipstadt states:
The group spent three days in Auschwitz-Birkenau and one in Majdanek
surreptitiously and illegally collecting bricks and cement fragments-
Leuchter called them "forensic samples" -from a number of buildings,
including those associated with the killing process. On returning to
Massachusetts, Leuchter had the samples chemically analyzed. (He told
the laboratory that the samples had to do with a worker's compensation
case.) He summarized his findings in The Leuchter Report: An
Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Chambers at Auschwitz,
Birkenau, and Majdanek Poland, which was published by Zündel's
Samisdat Publications and David Irving's publishing house, Focal Point
Publications in London. 27
Lipstadt adds a footnote that states in part:
The London edition was entitled Auschwitz:The End of the Line: The
Leuchter Report - The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz 28.
The title itself is, of course, an untruth; the first forensic
examinations were done in 1945 as mentioned above. For the purposes of
this article I will refer to Leuchter's report as the Leuchter Report.
As the Leuchter Report is one of the founding documents for the
pseudoscientific claims of Holocaust deniers, it is worth checking on
whether Leuchter represented his expertise as an engineer correctly.
In fact, in 1991, Leuchter, whose only degree is a BA in History, admitted
falsely representing himself:
Leuchter, 48, of suburban Malden, was to face trial later this month on
charges of practicing engineering without a license, a violation of
Massachusetts law. But on June 11, he signed a consent agreement with
the board that licenses engineers.
In it, Leuchter acknowledged that, "I am not and have never been
registered as a professional engineer" and that he nevertheless had
represented himself as an engineer in dealings with various states that
use the death penalty and to which he supplied equipment or advice. 29
More evidence
of Leuchter's lack of expertise is collected in one place
at the Nizkor web site.
30 In a document available on the Zündel website, Leuchter summarizes his findings on the gas chambers:
The results published in the Leuchter Report are the important thing.
Categorically, none of the facilities examined at Auschwitz, Birkenau
or Lublin could have supported, or in fact did support, multiple
executions utilizing hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide or any other
allegedly or factually lethal gas. Based upon very generous maximum
usage rates for all the alleged gas chambers, totalling 1,693 persons
per week, and assuming these facilities could support gas executions,
it would have required sixty-eight (68) years to execute the alleged
number of six millions of persons. This must mean the Third Reich was
in existence for some seventy-five (75) years. Promoting these
facilities as being capable of effecting mass, multiple or even
singular executions is both ludicrous and insulting to every individual
on this planet. Further, those who do promote this mistruth are
negligent and irresponsible for not investigating these facilities
earlier and ascertaining the truth before indoctrinating the world with
what may have become the greatest propaganda ploy in history. 31
The obviously specious reasoning here is typical of Leuchter's style.
No one has claimed that six million people were killed at
Auschwitz-Birkenau. The number is closer to one million. His rate of
"1,693 persons per week" is arbitrary. Notice how accurately he states
the precision of that number. As far as Leuchter's estimate of the
killing rate goes, one need only refer to the passage from Pressac
quoted above in which almost 1,500 were killed in half an hour.
Ironically enough, it is by estimating the throughput of the gas
chambers that the Soviets arrived at the erroneous figure of 4 million
killed. 32 Leuchter's estimate is discussed in more detail below.
Leuchter also summarizes the results of his forensic tests:
Forensic samples were taken from the visited sites. A control sample
was removed from delousing facility 1 at Birkenau. It was postulated
that because of the high iron content of the building materials at
these camps the presence of hydrogen cyanide gas would result in a
ferric-ferro-cyanide compound being formed, as evidenced by the
Prussian Blue staining on the walls in the delousing facilities.
A detailed analysis of the thirty-two samples taken at the
Auschwitz-Birkenau complexes showed 1,050 mg/kg of cyanide and 6,170
mg/kg of iron. Higher iron results were found at all of the alleged gas
chambers but no significant cyanide traces. This would be impossible if
these sites were exposed to hydrogen cyanide gas, because the alleged
gas chambers supposedly were exposed to much greater quantities of gas
than the delousing facility. Thus, chemical analysis supports the fact
that these facilities were never utilized as gas execution
facilities. 33
Leuchter's primary mistake is his initial assumption that exposure to
HCN must result in the formation of Prussian blue. 34 Another error is
his claim that the delousing facilities were exposed to less HCN
than the homicidal chambers. It turns out that it is more difficult to
kill lice than it is to kill humans. Leuchter's sensitivity is not good
and it is doubtful that his samples were chosen carefully in regard to
being sheltered from the elements. Concentration of cyanide in the gas
chambers (at least cyanide not complexed to iron) is at levels less than 1 mg/kg. 35 Additionally, Leuchter
should have taken as his control an ordinary building at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
such as a barracks. Do the homicidal gas chambers contain more cyanide
compounds than an ordinary barracks? The answer is yes as discussed below.
A later investigator, Germar Rudolf 36 has made many of these same
mistakes albeit more carefully; these issues are discussed in more depth in
section V. A point for point
refutation
of the arguments in the Leuchter
Report can be found on the
Nizkor
website. 37
Another report that deserves mention is the Lüftl Report even though
it is not strictly speaking a forensic report. The author of the
report, a real engineer, Walter Lüftl, makes arguments concerning the
supposed physical impossibility of using Zyklon B to murder. He
conducts a largely irrelevant simulation concerning the ability of
humans to heat a gas chamber and attempts to deceive the reader with
the claim that the figure of six million Jews murdered should be
lowered to 3.5 million with the recognition that 4 million were not
murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have already discussed the basis of
this fallacy above but further information may be found in an
article
on the
Nizkor site. 38
An English version of the Lüftl Report was published by a journal
specializing in Holocaust denial, The Journal of Historical Review
without the permission of the author, ostensibly to protect him from
prosecution in Austria. 39 Sarah Rembiszewski writes that Lüftl was
president of the Austrian Engineers' and Architects' Association,
which [sic?] conducted a "study," disseminated today through the
Internet, "proving" that the Holocaust could not have happened. Lüftl
conducted his study at the request of a German lawyer and published his
conclusions in the Viennese paper Die Presse under the title
"Holocaust - Belief and Facts." He was forced to resign from his
position in the Engineers' and Architects Association; Süddeutsche
Zeitung, March 15, 1992. 40
I will now turn to discussing the background of a report of someone I
consider to be one of the more clever and therefore more dangerous of
the Holocaust deniers, Germar Rudolf. Rudolf was a graduate student in
chemistry working at the prestigious Max Planck Institute (MPI). Owing
to the fact that he actually has some understanding of chemistry many
of his deceptions are more sophisticated than other Holocaust deniers.
Nonchemists should be somewhat careful in addressing his arguments.
Ultimately, he engages in the same deceptions and specious arguments as
Leuchter and Lüftl, but the case he makes for those deceptions and
arguments involves more difficult chemistry. Below, I will address in
more detail why the chemical arguments of the deniers regarding the use
of Zyklon B in Auschwitz-Birkenau are not valid, but first I will
discuss some of the history of the Rudolf Report as I have done for the
Leuchter and Lüftl Reports.
The story of the Rudolf Report begins with Otto Remer. Remer was a
general during the Nazi regime and put down the attempted coup against
Hitler in 1944. 41 Remer was a Holocaust denier and was on trial in
Germany for inciting race hatred. 42 Remer's lawyer Hajo Hermann
commissioned Rudolf to write the Rudolf Report. 43 Just as Leuchter
had done before him, Rudolf collected samples from gas chambers as well
as delousing facilities:
He traveled to Auschwitz in summer 1991, and took samples from the
walls of one of the gas chambers and one of the delousing chambers.
Using Max Planck stationary, he sent the samples to an analytical
laboratory in Taunusstein, the Fresenius Institute. 44
Rudolf had an understanding with Remer that his report was only to be
used in the court case. The report was never used in that case, but
Remer began distributing the report claiming "it had the support of
the Max Planck Society." 45 Subsequently, Rudolf found his own
publisher. In June 1993, Rudolf was forced to leave MPI for improperly
using its name. 46 In a March 1994 legal settlement Rudolf's
dismissal was reworded as an "ending of the contract through mutual
agreement." 47
A
statement
from MPI on the affair is available on the
Nizkor web site. 48
Rudolf's legal troubles were far from over.
Gerald Fleming writes in the foreword to Sarah Rembiszewski's work:
On June 23, 1995, following a seven months' trial, the Superior-Lomt
(Landgericht) in Stuttgart sentenced Germar Scheerer to fourteen months
imprisonment for spreading premeditated, offensive, mendacious and
racist propaganda. The accused is now reportedly a fugitive from
justice. 49
Rembiszewski explains that Rudolf changed his name to Scheerer after he
got married in 1994. 50 If this name change were the only one that
Rudolf used, it would be understandable. Sheerer is not the only
alternate name Rudolf uses. In many of his reports he cites the
papers of "Dr. Ernst Gauss" as an expert on chemistry. It came to light
during Rudolf's 1994 trial that "Dr. Gauss" was a graduate student
whose Ph.D. thesis was never accepted. That graduate student is named
Germar Rudolf. 51
I do not believe that Rudolf's offense would be criminal in the United
States of America where citizens enjoy the protection of the First
Amendment (a protection that would be lost were people like Rudolf and
his hero Remer ever to come to power here). Not only do I disagree
with such criminal prosecution on principle, but I think that it is
counterproductive in that it gives people like Rudolf the ability to
claim persecution. My task here, however, is to discuss the history of
claims concerning the chemistry of Auschwitz-Birkenau and evaluate
their validity. The fact that I think that people ought to be
permitted to spread untruths does not make untruths into truths.
Next I will turn to what I will refer to as the
IFRC
Report, a paper by
Jan Markiewicz, Wojciech Gubala, and Jerzy Labadz of the Institute of
Forensic Research, Cracow
(IFRC ).
52 In 1989, these researchers
entered into discussions with the management of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
museum about the possibility of detecting evidence of exposure to
cyanides in the gas chambers; they were skeptical about the
possibilities of such detection, but made the attempt anyway in 1990 in
a preliminary study of 10 samples and 2 control samples. They were
able to confirm the presence of cyanide in Krema II but nowhere else in
this preliminary investigation. The results from their control samples
were negative indicating that their results were meaningful.
53
After learning of the Leuchter Report, these authors decided to make a
more extensive study.
Samples, about 1-2 g in weight, were taken by chipping pieces from
bricks and concrete or scraping off [sic], 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 material
collected was conducted - to ensure full objectivity - by another group
of Institute workers. 54
The samples underwent qualitative analysis by means of a
spectrophotometer. Cyanides were found in many of the samples, but
this method was not suitable for quantitative analysis. 55
A significant concern in choosing a method for quantitative analysis is
the presence of blue-staining in the delousing chambers, that is not
obviously present in the homicidal gas chambers. I have written a
brief article available on the world-wide web that discusses the
chemistry of this staining and its relevance to forensic analysis. 56
The important points of this chemistry are discussed in section V. of
the current article. For reasons discussed below, the
IFRC workers
chose a method of detecting cyanides that discriminates against the
compounds that form this staining, the iron blues. Additionally, they
used a calibrated method:
The calibration curve was constructed previously and standards were
introduced into each series of determinations to check the curve and
the course of the determination. 57
The IFRC
researchers found significant levels of cyanide in bunker 11,
all five Kremas, as well as a facility used to fumigate prisoners'
clothing. In contrast, no cyanides were found in dwelling facilities
that were "probably fumigated with Zyklon B only once (in connection
with typhoid epidemic in 1942)." They summarize their findings as
follows:
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 accommodations,
which was shown by means of control samples. 58
V. A Critique of the Forensic Reports
This section will examine the validity of claims made by the deniers as
well as further elucidating the significance of the findings of the
IFRC researchers. Some of the claims made in the reports of the
deniers are not directly relevant to the chemistry of Auschwitz-
Birkenau. Nevertheless, a few of these arguments are so pervasive and
so easily exposed as specious that they merit a brief discussion. The
claims that do involve the chemistry of Auschwitz-Birkenau are divided
into two categories: 1) claims of the impossibility of gassing, 2)
claims that chemical analyses of forensic samples prove that no
gassings could have taken place. For the most part, I will not address
claims involving other camps at this time; I will also not address
claims concerning the cremation furnaces and the cremation in ditches.
These issues deserve a more complete treatment on their own.
The deniers like to play the numbers game. They state that it is
impossible for 6 million people to have been killed in gas chambers at
Auschwitz-Birkenau. They are quite right: the death toll at Auschwitz
is closer to 1 million. The others murdered in the Final Solution were
killed in other camps, ghettos, as a result of the
Einsatzgruppen
mobile killing squads, by death marches and other means. 59
Nevertheless, Leuchter underestimates the capacity of
Auschwitz-Birkenau. Leuchter's assumptions about the capacity for
murder of the gas chambers assume
that the people could occupy the gas chambers at a density of maximum 1
person per 9 square feet (!!) and that it would take a week (!!) to
ventilate the gas chambers before they could be used for another mass
execution. These assumptions are absurd. 60
Deniers also like to take credit for debunking the incorrect claims of
the Soviets that 4 million were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Unfortunately for them, it was the respectable historians who provided
the evidence for more accurate numbers. They also make the false claim
that this change in the death toll of Auschwitz-Birkenau should
drastically reduce the death toll of the final solution. This argument
has been thoroughly discredited elsewhere. 61
Another claim is to echo Faurisson's notorious statement, "No vents, no
holocaust." Air photos are supposed to show that vents in Krema II
that were used, according to eyewitness testimony, to introduce Zyklon
B in the gas chamber, were forged by the CIA or other unspecified
conspirators. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine,
writes:
Thanks to Dr. Nevin Bryant, supervisor of cartographic applications and
image processing applications at Caltech/NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, I was able to get the CIA
photographs properly analyzed by people who know what they are looking
at from the air. Nevin and I analyzed the photographs using digital
enhancement techniques not available to the CIA in 1979. We were able
to prove that the photographs had not been tampered with, and we indeed
found evidence of extermination activity. 62
Shermer reproduces a 1944 aerial photo of Krema II (figure 23) and a
1942 picture taken from the ground (figure 24).
The aerial photograph in figure 23 shows the distinctive features of
Krema II. Note the long shadow from the crematorium chimney and, on the
roof of the adjacent gas chamber at right angles to the crematorium
building, note the four staggered shadows. [Holocaust denier, John C.]
Ball claims these shadows were drawn in, but four small structures that
match the shadows are visible on the roof of the gas chamber in figure
24, a picture taken by an SS photographer of the back of Krema
II... 63
John Ball, at least, seems to be aware that his claims do not stand
up. He offered on his web page a $100,000 for anyone who could get
three air photo experts to disagree with the accuracy of his claims.
When John Morris inquired about accepting Ball's offer, Ball did not
respond even though Morris made every effort to communicate his
interest. Details
are available on the
Nizkor website. 64
The primary claims made by the deniers concerning the supposed
impossibility of gassing with Zyklon B center on the rate of
evaporation of HCN from Zyklon B. It evaporates too slowly, they
claim, so that either it will not kill as fast as is claimed, or
alternatively it will be too dangerous to the operators of the gas
chambers. Lüftl writes:
Hydrocyanic acid vapors are not released immediately after the cans are
opened. The evaporation of Zyklon B requires as many as 32 hours or as
few as six hours, depending on whether the ambient temperature ranges
from five to 30 degrees Celsius. The evaporation rate is not exactly
proportional to time. 65
Jamie McCarthy has addressed this claim:
[Lüftl] ripped those figures from their context and cited them
dishonestly. The "six to 32 hours" figure comes from the Degesch
manual, but it refers only to the total exposure time required for
lice. Since the metabolism of lice, like all cold-blooded creatures,
is much slower at 5 C than at 30 C, the exposure time is necessarily
longer. 66
In other words, Lüftl is mixing apples and oranges. The times he
quotes have nothing to do with the release time from Zyklon B. They
have to do with the necessary fumigation times to kill lice. In answer
to a criticism of the Leuchter Report that human body heat would be
sufficient to raise the temperature to the "temperature of evaporation"
of HCN Lüftl responds:
Like so many Holocaust writers, Auerbach is mistaken. An experiment
was carried out by this writer to simulate the heating of a chamber
by human beings...
The chamber took an hour to heat using an 1.8 Kw electric convection
heater, after which the room was "ventilated" for 30 minutes...
Even [in a room] with people "tightly packed crushed together," an air
temperature in excess of 30-32 degrees Celsius would not be attained.
In addition, the gassings are supposed to have taken place quickly and
on a quasi- industrial basis. 67
This simulation would be a comedy of errors were it not in the service
of denying a tragedy of barely imaginable proportions. First of all,
1.8 kW is roughly equivalent to the heat output of 18 people, far fewer
than would have been in the 5.43 square meters of floor space in the
simulation. Secondly, and more importantly, it is not at all necessary
to come near (or over!) the boiling point of HCN for it to evaporate
rapidly. The boiling point of a liquid is the temperature at which its
equilibrium vapor pressure is equal to the pressure of the atmosphere.
Below the boiling point the vapor pressure of a liquid can be quite
large. HCN has an extremely high vapor pressure even at very cold
temperatures. Anyone who doubts this fact should obtain some diethyl
ether, open a small amount, and observe it evaporating. Ether boils at
34.6 Celsius; in other words its boiling point is greater than HCN. 68
This discussion is worthwhile because it shows how the deniers play on
the public's relative ignorance on such technical details. The
argument, however, is moot because Gerhard Peters, who was the general
director of Degesch, the company that sold Zyklon B has written a book
on the topic, in which he gives the evaporation times of Zyklon B. 69
Ulrich Roessler translates:
The development of the gas from the Zyklon sets in with great
vehemence immediately following the pouring out of it. The thinner
the layer of the disseminated support material the faster will be
the development of the gas. Depending on the species of the pests
to be controlled, and on the characteristic of the rooms to be
gassed, one may choose to reach the maximum of the gas
concentration to arise very quickly or more slowly by the
thickness of the disseminated layer. Usually, the material will
be disseminated in a layer of 1/2 to 1cm thickness, then the
greatest part [der gröste Teil] of the HCN will have
developed already after half an hour at normal temperature. [i.e.
20 degree C]. 70
Roessler comments further:
Now, der gröste Teil der Blausäure is by no means only 50% - it
means rather nearly all of the HCN. 71
Even at -10 C Peters states that the evaporation is essentially
complete in 1 hour with an upper bound for complete evaporation of 2
hours. 72
These facts should not be taken to mean that gassing with Zyklon B was
100% safe. Kremas II and III were equipped with ventilation systems;
the gas chambers in Kremas IV and V were built above ground to allow
natural ventilation. Pressac in the quote near the beginning of this
article states:
the Sonderkommandos wore gas masks as a precaution.
73
If the Nazis and their accomplices were smart enough to handle the
hazards of Zyklon B for delousing purposes, it is reasonable to suppose
that they were smart enough to handle those hazards when committing
murder. In
Nizkor's Leuchter FAQ,
another spurious objection is answered swiftly and accurately:
2.09 If the gas chambers were ventilated, the gas would kill people
outside.
Nonsense; it is all a question of concentration. Once the gas is
released into the atmosphere, its concentration drops and it is no
longer dangerous. Also, HCN dissipates quickly. The execution gas
chambers in US prisons are also ventilated directly into the
atmosphere. Furthermore, if this argument would hold for the
extermination chambers, it would hold for the delousing chambers as
well, and one would have to conclude that no delousing chambers existed
either. 74
Another claim is refuted merely by reference to the Merck Index. In
order to be explosive HCN requires a concentration of 6% (60,000
ppm). 75 There is simply no reason to add enough Zyklon B to allow
such a concentration to build up.
In considering the forensic measurements, I will make the not
necessarily warranted assumptions that Rudolf and Leuchter can be
trusted to have handled their samples carefully and honestly. What
they claim to measure is a large discrepancy between the levels of
cyanide in the blue-stained delousing chambers compared to the
homicidal gas chambers that do not have obvious staining in
Auschwitz-Birkenau (the Majdanek chamber is an interesting exception
that deserves some comment below).
These measurements are essentially meaningless. The information
content is not more than the fact that some of the delousing chambers
have blue-staining and the homicidal chambers do not.
There are three conceivable explanations for this difference.
- The presence of Prussian-blue staining is a necessary consequence of
exposure to HCN and the fact that it is not present in the homicidal
chambers proves they were not used for homicidal gassing.
- The Prussian-blue staining is present for reasons having nothing to
do with the exposure to HCN. For example Bailer has suggested it may be a
pigment from paint. 76
- The Prussian-blue staining indeed owes its presence to exposure to HCN,
but the conditions under which it formed were not universally present in all
facilities exposed to HCN. The rate of Prussian-blue formation may
be very different under the conditions used in homicidal chamber
versus the conditions in delousing chambers.
Answer number one is, of course, untenable. We know that homicidal
gassings occurred from historical evidence independently of the
chemistry involved. Nevertheless, I will suspend my disbelief for a
moment. If the lack of Prussian blue is supposed to prove that no
gassing took place, possibilities 2 and 3 must be disproven. If it is
not possible to do so, then the impossibility of gassings at the Kremas
has not been shown.
My article on Prussian blue discusses some of the issues involved in
its possible formation. 77 The iron in Prussian blue exists in two
oxidation states Fe(II) and Fe(III) (the Roman numeral in parenthesis
denotes the formal positive charge on iron). The significant question
is how the Fe(III) present in construction materials forms Fe(II).
Such a process is called reduction and requires a reducing agent, viz.,
something that gets oxidized when Fe(III) gets reduced. (Oxidation
means the formal loss of electrons, i.e., negative charge, whereas
reduction means the gain of electrons.)
Bailer could not think of a possible reducing agent and looked
elsewhere for a reason for the Prussian blue stains. 78 I consider
his explanation unlikely but not disproven.
Rudolf has suggested HCN acts as the reducing agent, 79 and
that suggestion is possible. I have shown that if Rudolf's explanation for the presence
of Prussian blue in the delousing chambers is correct that its formation in the gas chambers would have been unlikely at best. 80 Alich et al. have shown that this method of Prussian blue formation is extremely sensitive to concentrations, pH, presence of water, and the presence of Fe (III) that is already complexed with cyanide.81 It should be
mentioned that Rudolf tried and failed to produce Prussian blue. 82
The difficult part comes into play in understanding the kinetics of how
Prussian blue forms. How fast does it form and under what conditions?
The exposure conditions of the delousing chambers and the homicidal gas
chambers were quite different, if the Degesch directions for delousing
were followed. The walls in the delousing chambers may have been
exposed to HCN for over 20 hours at a time at levels up to 16,000 ppm.
Additionally, the amount of water present, the amount of carbon dioxide
present (from humans exhaling) and the temperature are crucial to
understanding the differences. I suspect that the kinetics are too
difficult to model without resort to experiment. In order to prove his
thesis, Rudolf must demonstrate that it is necessary for Prussian blue
to form under the conditions employed in the homicidal gas chambers.
The control used in the measurements of Leuchter and Rudolf is
biased. They contain Prussian blue as the major form of cyanide and
the kinetics of Prussian blue formation are far from obvious. Cyanide
residues, not in the form of Prussian blue are far more susceptible to
weathering away. The
IFRC
researchers experimented with exposing
building materials to HCN and found that the cyanides were easily
removed with exposure to water. 83 The samples that they found
containing cyanides from the Kremas were carefully taken from places
in the chambers that were as sheltered from the elements as
possible. 84 Leuchter and Rudolf, collecting their samples illegally
could not afford that luxury.
The IFRC
being aware of the problems using a biased control containing
Prussian blue used a method that discriminated against such compounds
that only measure other cyanides present. The IFRC
found traces of
cyanide at levels significantly above background in all 5 Kremas as
well as bunker 11. They also measure concentrations in bath-house B1-A
in Birkenau, which was used for delousing prisoners' clothing. Samples
from the bath house did indeed have higher concentrations of cyanides,
but it is not the case that every sample from the bath-house had higher
concentrations than every sample in the Kremas. For example, sample
number 25 from Krema II had measurements of 640,592, and 620 ug/kg.
Sample 46 from Krema V had measurements of 244, 248, and 232 ug/kg.
In contrast sample 53 from the bath-house camp B1-A in Birkenau had
measurements of 24, 20, and 24 ug/kg. Overall concentrations for the
fumigation chambers ranged from 0-900 ug/kg. In the Kremas they ranged
from 0-640 ug/kg. So it is true that the highest measurements were
higher in fumigation chambers (discriminating against iron blues), but
not by much. There is another important fact. Concentrations in
control samples from dwelling accommodations were 0 +/- 1 ug/kg. In
other words, there is no doubt that the Kremas were exposed to a
source of HCN. If the intent is to prove that the Kremas could not
have been homicidal gas chambers, it has failed. 85
Before concluding it is worth mentioning the case of the gas chamber at
Majdanek. This chamber has Prussian blue staining. Pressac has
interpreted this fact to mean that delousing must have taken place in
this chamber.
The red-ochre bricks stained with dark blue were for him [Maître
Jouanneau] material and visible proof of the existence of homicidal
gas chambers. The problem , for there is one, is that the gas chamber
presented all the characteristics of a DELOUSING installation. I am not
saying that it was never used to kill people, for that is still
possible, but the traces of Prussian blue are an absolutely certain
indication of use for delousing purposes.... 86
Pressac believes that the presence of Prussian blue proves that the
chamber was used for delousing. Whereas he does not view Prussian
blue as proof that the chamber was not used for homicidal purposes, he
implies that homicidal purposes alone would not produce Prussian blue.
Happy to be logically inconsistent as long as they can spread a bit of
confusion to obfuscate the truth, at least one denier has claimed on the
basis of Pressac's statement that the chamber in question was only a
delousing chamber.
I am not yet convinced of Pressac's reasoning. I do not think it is
obvious that homicidal gassing can never produce Prussian blue stains,
and I would suggest that a counterassertion demands the same kinetic
arguments that the deniers are unable to produce.
VI. Conclusion
In this article I have discussed some of the history as well as the
chemistry of mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have shown that the
arguments of the deniers do not hold up when shown the light of day.
It is much easier to tell a lie than to expose one. Perhaps, that is
one of the unspoken reasons that motivates people to advocate censoring
hate-speech. Whereas I am opposed to censorship and hate speech laws, I
am not embarrassed to call Holocaust-denial hate speech. That is what
it is. People who are smart enough to obfuscate using pseudoscientific
arguments are also smart enough to know what they are doing:
propagating a lie. Although some people may be attracted to Holocaust
denial because of gullibility and/or mental illness, these people are
not the same people who write these clever but mendacious
pseudoscientific reports. The people who write these reports are
motivated by a desire to rehabilitate Nazism, an ideology of hate.
Hate-speech is what it is, and in calling it that I am merely exercising
my right of free speech.
The arguments made by the deniers are, of course, repulsive, but they
can only have an effect if the public is not educated enough to see the
poor scholarship disguised with footnotes. It is because of this
restriction on the possibility of the deniers to have an effect that I
believe that accurate information is the best possible response.
Further Reading
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