- ... Continued
-
- He was embraced by the loathsome British historian David
Irving -- described by Ron Rosenbaum, in his book "Explaining Hitler,"
as the Führer's "chief postwar defender" -- who extolled
the "gruesomely expert author" of "The Leuchter Report"
and labelled its results "shattering" and "truly astounding."[6]
-
- Unavoidably, Leuchter became a target of Jewish activists,
and it was only a matter of time before prison wardens stopped hiring him.
In Massachusetts, he was prosecuted and threatened with jail for practicing
engineering without a license.[7] In 1992, he went to Germany, again to
testify on Zündel's behalf (Zündel had been charged with violating
Germany's Holocaust-denial stature after organizing an International Leuchter-Kongress
in Munich); while there, he, too, made what the authorities deemed a Holocaust-denial
speech. The next year, Leuchter was again lured to Germany, ostensibly
to appear on television to talk about electrocution, but he was arrested
the day he arrived and charged with "slander of the murdered Jews."
He spent six and a half weeks in prison before he was finally bailed out
by Zündel, and a trial was scheduled for 1994, He has never returned
to Germany. Also, in 1994 his marriage came unravelled, whereupon he moved
to California and, for a long while, as far as Morris was concerned, simply
vanished. [...]
-
- Morris's schedule called for two full weeks of shooting
[at Auschwitz-Birkenau]. He planned to photograph blueprints and other
documents in the Auschwitz museum archives -- to introduce explicit references
to the existence of the gas chambers (and to the inadequacy of Leuchter's
argument).[8] And he would interview a Dutch-born historian, Robert Jan
van Pelt, an authority on the camp's genealogy and evolution into a death
factory and the co-author of a book entitled "Auschwitz: 1270 to the
Present," published in 1996.
-
- That first afternoon, van Pelt and I walked along a path
parallel to railroad tracks that entered the main gate of Birkenau and
terminated half a mite later. On our right was a perimeter of barbed wire,
and, beyond that, twenty wooden barracks, which gave way to an endless
gridwork of brick chimneys -- a ghostscape that remained wherever the barracks
had come down. On our left was another border of barbed wire, then brick
barracks, and in the distance, the Carpathian Mountains. At last, we reached
a crossroads, the spot at which trains dispatched from all over Europe
by Adolf Eichmann had been halted and new arrivals were lined up -- mothers,
children, and the elderly here, able-bodied men and women there. This was
where the infamous "selections" had taken place, where the S.S.
literally expropriated the divine prerogative: deciding who shall live
and who shall die. From this nexus, at the height of the gassings, in 1943
and 1944, the doomed would be consigned to the crematoria and, typically
would be dead within a couple of hours.
-
- "If I had to create a geography of evil, this would
certainly be my center point," van Pelt said. "Many people consider
this the most important place in their life. I'm not a Catholic, but I
wouldn't go into a Catholic Church and piss on the altar.[9] There are
standards of human decency. Fred Leuchter came here for two or three days
and took samples. I don't want to deny people the right to doubt. But I
want them to do it after they've done their homework; I hate Holocaust
deniers not just for their moral atrociousness but because they're sloppy
craftsmen.[10] I walk around here and I still find things that I don't
understand -- why they're here. This is an enormous place. This is a city:
Originally, there were a hundred and twenty-five architects and draftsmen
working here. Why would one or two people think they can come here and
in two or three days understand this place?"
-
- THE next morning, Morris shot footage inside one of the
three remaining delousing buildings, including a disquisition by van Pelt,
who posed in front of what he sardonically called "the Wailing Wall
of Holocaust deniers" - -- the spot from, which Leuchter had chiselled
material turned out to possess a relatively high cyanide content; this
became the control against which other samples from the "alleged gas
chambers" were measured. [...]
-
- DURING the making of "Mr. Death," Morris augmented
his usual complement of anxieties with a sense of dread at what might happen
when he showed Leuchter the completed film.
-
- In addition to van Pelt, Morris had enlisted Jim Roth
-- the chemist who had analyzed Leuchter's forensic evidence -- as a rebuttal
witness. Only after he testified or Zündel's trial, Roth told Morris,
did he realize where the material he analyzed had originated.[11] He acknowledged
the limitation of his analysis: cyanide, by its molecular nature, would
have bonded with the iron in the brick of the gas chambers only on the
surface -- ten microns deep, just one-tenth the diameter of a human hair.
-
- Thus, when a chunk of brick was crushed in the lab, the
material beneath the surface would have diluted the specimen, rendering
the test pointless. Looking into Morris's camera. Roth summarized, "I
don't think the Leuchter results have any meaning."[12] [...]
-
- Notes by this Website:
-
- 1: The innuendo is that Fred Leuchter was bribed to produce
the desired result. In fact before accepting the Zündel team's commission,
Leuchter warned that if he found the opposite result in Auschwitz, he would
not hesitate both to report to that effect and to publicize his findings
widely. This was a risk which Zündel and his defence team had to accept.
No-one was sure of the outcome until Mr Roth delivered his lab tests.
-
- 2: The throwaway adjective "weathered" echoes
the complacent belief of Germany's cowardly historians that "of course"
no cyanide residue could be expect to persist in those ruins after being
exposed "to fifty years of wind and rain." When chemist Germar
Rudolf of the prestigious Max-Planck Gesellschaft determined that precisely
the opposite was true -- cyanide forms a chemical compound with iron that
is so permanent that it is used as a dyestuff, Prussian Blue -- his scientific
colleagues unwittingly applauded and endorsed his paper; Rudolf was then
prosecuted by the German government, dismissed from the institute at the
request of the country's Jewish community, sentenced to jail, and forced
into exile.
-
- 3: Noteworthy that over recent years, the historical
argument has seamlessly shifted from the objective chemical-analysis basis
to the somewhat safer sacrilege/blasphemy/religious-outrage leg: never
mind the laboratory findings, it was utterly outrageous for Mr Leuchter
to have "stolen" the samples (a few grams of brick dust) from
the historic site. Has the same argument been used to condemn the forensic
scientists who questioned the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, a relic
precious to the Catholic church?
-
- 4: It says very little for the ethical qualities of this
forensic chemist Mr Roth that he is quoted as hinting that, had he known
where the samples came from, his analytical results might have been different.
How else to interpret this passage of Mr Singer's article? If we were Mr
Roth, we would sue for professional defamation.
-
- 5: Auschwitz was liberated not by the Allied armies,
but by the Red Army. Told of this new setback (it meant the loss of the
huge I.G Farben plant so painfully built by slave-labour from the camp)
on the following day by Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Adolf Hitler merely
said, according to the stenographic record: "Oh." (Not, for example:
My God, did we manage to blow up every trace of our factories of death
first, Herr Guderian?) All extermination camps were in the eastern zones
liberated by the Russians; none was found in those zones liberated by the
Allies. It would of course be wrong to draw any conclusions from this.
-
- 6: Before writing these words, Mr Singer or the magazine's
fact-checkers could usefully have consulted The New Yorker's library and
taken on board Naomi Bliven's glowing review of Mr Irving's biography Hitler's
War (New York, 1977): "It is wonderful how Mr Irving, without any
confusion or any dull stretches, ranges over the entire German war effort.
He shows us the precise importance of each problem, from the squabbles
between Rumania and Hungary to the decay of the Luftwaffe, from the sources
of raw materials to the roles that individual generals played. The book
is a brilliant study of war which makes military problems fascinating,
and -- possibly because the loosing side becomes so vivid -- war loathsome."
There's that word again, Loathsome; so perhaps Singer did read it after
all.
-
- 7: The Massachusetts prosecution was instigated by Beate
and Serge Klarsfeld and their stooges, who also sent private circular letters
to prison governors in the United States suggesting that they cease hiring
Mr Leuchter. This is how they operate.
-
- 8: We are eager to see, when the film is released, what
blueprints and explicit references to "gas chambers" Mr Morris
was shown at Auschwitz.
-
- 9: This imagery clearly establishes that Professor van
Pelt is not, as he agrees, a Catholic.
-
- 10: Is Van Pelt himself not a sloppy craftsman? See the
unanswered letter written to him to by Mr Irving suggesting that the professor
ought to have read the verbatim interrogations of Rudolf Höss and
Kurt Aumeier, or studied the British decodes of the SS and police cypher
messages from Auschwitz, or the countless other original source documents
on Auschwitz before completing his otherwise commendable book.
-
- 11: see 4 above.
-
- 12: Then how to explain the saturation of the brickwork
of the delousing chamber, with the cyanide-blue stain permeating right
through the bricks to the outside wall (see the photographs in the Rudolf
Report)? That is more than "a few microns." If Mr Roth is not
to become the laughing stock of his profession, he must have been misquoted.
==
-
- (9) The Van Pelt Report on the Leuchter Report - Irving/Lipstadt
trial transcript
-
- http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/trial/defense/van/ix
-
- [The Van Pelt Report]: Electronic Edition, by Robert
Jan van Pelt
-
- IX The Leuchter Report
-
- "I see nobody on the road," said Alice.
-
- "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked
in a fretful tone. "To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance
too."Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass. 748
-
- According to his own account, Fred Leuchter had never
heard of Ernst Zündel, Robert Faurisson, or Holocaust denial until
one morning in early 1988.
-
- Like all American children born during and after World
War II, I was taught about the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis on the
Jews. By the time I had reached college, I had no reason to disbelieve
any of my education, except that I had some problems swallowing the numbers
of decedents, said to total better than six million persons. But there
it stopped. I believed in the Nazi genocide. I had no reason to disbelieve.
-
- Some twenty-four years later, a very believing engineer
sat at his desk working one snowy January afternoon in 1988, when the telephone
rang. This very believing engineer was about to receive a very shocking
history lesson which would cause him to question that fifty-year-old Holocaust
lie and the application of that lie to generations of children. "Hello,
this is Robert Faurisson"--and that very believing engineer would
believe no more. 749
-
- The idea to engage an engineer to "prove" the
Auschwitz gas chambers to be a hoax was not new. As we have seen, Arthur
R. Butz had done his best more than ten years earlier by studying the material
then available to him in Evanston, and Robert Faurisson had made a big
issue of it in his writings from 1978 onwards, when he had become convinced
that a comparison between the "alleged" gas chambers of Auschwitz
and gas chambers used for the execution of those condemned to death in
various American states would yield great results. When he began to prepare
for the Second Zündel Trial, Faurisson suggested that Zündel
approach Bill Armontraut, Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary in
Jefferson City, Missouri. Armontraut's prison included a gas chamber operated
by cyanide gas. Constructed in 1939, it had been used 39 times. Zündel's
legal aide Barbara Kulaszka wrote Armontrout, and the latter responded
in a letter of January 13, 1988.
-
- I received your letter regarding Queen vs. Zündel
and the testimony of an expert witness dealing with execution by "gas
chambers". I have considerable knowledge in that area, however,I suggest
you contact Mr. Fred Leuchter, 108 Bunker Hill Street, Boston, MA 02192,
home telephone number 617-322-0104. Mr. Leuchter is an engineer specializing
in gas chambers and executions. He is well versed in all areas and is the
only consultant in the United States that I know of. 750
-
- Faurisson had found the man he had been looking for.
After a few initial telephone conversations, and two trips of Faurisson
to Boston, Leuchter left with Carolyn, his wife of two weeks, to Toronto
to meet Zündel and his defence team.
-
- Two days of lengthy meetings followed, during which I
was shown photos of the alleged German gas chambers in Poland, German documents
and Allied aerial photographs. My examination of this material led me to
question whether these alleged gas chambers were, in fact, execution facilities.
I was asked if I would go to Poland and undertake a physical inspection
and forensic analysis resulting in a written evaluation of these alleged
execution gas chambers, some at places I had never even heard of. 751
-
- Leuchter agreed, and left for Poland on February 25,
accompanied by his wife, a draughtsman, a video-cameraman, an interpreter,
and, "in spirit," Zündel and Faurisson, "who for obvious
reasons could not accompany us in person, but who nevertheless were with
us every step of the way." 752 The party returned on March 3, having
spent three days in Auschwitz and half a day in Majdenek. In those camps
Leuchter studied the lay-out of the crematoria--or better of what remained
of them--and illegally took various samples of the brickwork and plaster,
which he brought back to the United States to be analyzed by the Alpha
Analytical Laboratories in Ashsland, Massachusetts on residual cyanide
content.
-
- Back home, Leuchter wrote a report entitled An Engineering
Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and
Majdanek Poland, which Christie submitted to the court. The crown successfully
challenged, however, Leuchter's credentials. Leuchter admitted that his
formal education was in the humanities, that he had no engineering license,
and that he had no expertise regarding chemistry, toxology or incineration.
As a result, Judge Thomas ruled that the Leuchter report could not be admitted
as evidence. Leuchter, however, was allowed to testify on a very narrow
range of issues: his observations of the camps, his taking of the samples,
and the issue of the gas chambers. Yet while the jury never saw the report,
Irving did, and as he testified, it led to his conversion to negationism.
In fact, he was so enthusiastic that he became its English publisher. And
so we will consider it in some detail.
-
- Let us first of all allow Leuchter to present his methodology
and conclusion. He used, as he wrote, a seven-step approach:
-
- 1. A general background study of the available material.
-
- 2. An on-site inspection and forensic examination of
the facilities in question which included the taking of physical data (measurements
and construction information) and a considered removal of physical sample
material (brick and mortar) which was returned to the United States for
chemical analysis.
-
- 3. A consideration of recorded and visual (on-site) logistic
data.
-
- 4. A compilation of the acquired data.
-
- 5. An analysis of the acquired information and comparison
of this information with known and proven design, procedural and logistic
information and requirements for the design, fabrication and operation
of actual gas chambers and crematories.
-
- 6. A consideration of the chemical analysis of the materials
acquired on site.
-
- 7. Conclusions based on the acquired evidence. 753
-
- In a section entitled "Synopsis and Findings,"
Leuchter summarized the results of his seven--stepped approach as follows:
-
- After a study of the available literature, examination
and evaluation of the existing facilities at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek,
with expert knowledge of the design criteria for gas chamber operation,
an investigation of crematory technology and an inspection of modern crematories,
the author finds no evidence that any of the facilities normally alleged
to be execution gas chambers were ever used as such, and finds, further,
that because of the design and fabrication of these facilities, they could
not have been utilized for execution gas chambers.
-
- Additionally, an evaluation of the crematory facilities
produced conclusive evidence that contradicts the alleged volume of corpses
cremated in the generally alleged time frame. It is, therefore, the best
engineering opinion of the author that none of the facilities examined
were ever utilized for the execution of human beings and that the crematories
could not have supported the alleged work load attributed to them. 754
-
- Before we go into a detailed discussion, it is good to
note two things. The first is the very limited research he did before he
left for Poland. During his testimony during the trial, he told the court
that he reviewed some parts of Hilberg's Destruction of the European Jews,
a Degesch document on how to handle Zyklon-B which had been submitted as
evidence in the Nuremberg Trials (NT-9912), a Dupont flyer on safety when
handling its own brand of hydrocyanide, and some negationist literature,
among which was the article by Lindsey on the Trial of Bruno Tesch, an
article by a certain Friedrich Paul Berg on German Delousing Chambers,
and Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. 755
-
- The second issue is that Leuchter did not attach too
much significance to his samples. When Pearson asked him "what percentage
of your conclusions is based on these conclusions you draw from the cyanide
traces?," Leuchter answered: "Ten per cent."
-
- [Pearson]: "What other--what are the other foundations
for your conclusion?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "The other foundations are that the
facilities that I looked at were physically not designed and could not
have been operations as gas chambers."
-
- Q.: "And what do you rely on for that conclusion?"
-
- A.: "I rely on my knowledge of gas chamber construction
and design."
-
- Q.: "So you rely on your knowledge and experience
as somebody constructing gas chambers in the United States for the purposes
of executing one person as humanly as possible with as less danger to other
people as possible."
-
- A.: "Partially."
-
- Q.: "Well, that's your only experience, isn't it?"
-
- A.: "It's my only experience at constructing gas
chambers. I don't believe anyone has had any experience constructing larger
gas chambers that took more than two people. But, the--"
-
- Q.: "Did you read the testimony of the commandant
of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss?"
-
- A.: "I did."
-
- Q.: "Okay. So, you've told us about your experience
and you said that the hydrogen traces account for ten percent of your conclusion.
What per cent of your conclusion is your experience in the construction
of modern gas chambers?"
-
- A.: "Twenty, maybe thirty percent."
-
- Q.: "Okay. What else is there then, please?"
-
- A.: "Good engineering design in terms of building
structure, air moving equipment, plumbing equipment that would be utilized
to handle the air and mechanical equipment that would be utilized to introduce
gas and gas carriers into a structure."
-
- Q.: "And what percentage of your opinion is based
on that?"
-
- A.: "Fifty or sixty percent."
-
- Q.: "And that is all based on the assumption that
the physical plant presently at that location in Poland is what was there
in 1942, '43, '44 and '45. Is that right?"
-
- A.: "That is correct." 756
-
- Given the fact that Leuchter himself based ninety percent
of his conclusion on considerations of engineering, we do well to follow
his cue, and concentrate on his observations as an engineer. I will provide
first of all the full passage that contains his main observations on the
gas chambers, and then analyze the various statements it contains separately.
-
- Bunkers 1 and 2 are described in Auschwitz State Museum
literature as converted farm houses with several chambers and windows sealed.
These do not exist in their original condition and were not inspected.
Kremas 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection were
verified to have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and housed
in the same facility as crematories. The on-site inspection of these structures
indicated extremely poor and dangerous design for these facilities if they
were to have served as execution gas chambers. There is no provision for
gasketed doors, windows or vents; the structures are not coated with tar
or other sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of gas. The adjacent
crematories are a potential danger of explosion. The exposed porous brick
and mortar would accumulate the HCN and make these facilities dangerous
to humans for several years. Krema I is adjacent to the S.S. Hospital at
Auschwitz and has floor drains connected to the main sewer of the camp--which
would allow gas into every building at the facility. There were no exhaust
systems to vent the gas after usage and no heaters or dispersal mechanism
for the Zyklon B gas to be introduced or evaporated. The Zyklon B was supposedly
dropped through roof vents and put in through windows--not allowing for
the even distribution of gas or pellets. The facilities are always damp
and not heated. As stated earlier, dampness and Zyklon B are not compatible.
The chambers are too small to physically contain the occupants claimed
and the doors all open inward, a situation which would inhibit removal
of the bodies. With the gas chambers fully packed with occupants, there
would be no circulation of the HCN within the room. Additionally, if the
gas eventually did fill the chamber over a lengthy time period, those throwing
Zyklon B in the roof vents and verifying the death of the occupants would
die themselves from exposure to HCN. None of the alleged gas chambers were
constructed in accordance with the design for delousing chambers which
were effectively operating for years in a safe manner. None of these chambers
were constructed in accordance with the known and proven designs of facilities
operational in the United States at that time. It seems unusual that the
presumed designers of these alleged gas chambers never consulted or considered
the United States technology, the only country then executing prisoners
with gas. 757
-
- Let us consider this central statement sentence by sentence.
"Kremas 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection
were verified to have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and
housed in the same facility as crematories."
-
- The sentence does not make any sense. I presume that
Leuchter meant to write "[The alleged gas chambers of] Kremas 1, 2,
3, 4 and 5 are described historically and on inspection were verified to
have been converted mortuaries or morgues connected and housed in the same
facility as crematories." If this is what he meant, and I cannot imagine
any other possible explanation for why he wrote what he wrote, we must
ask how he had determined "on inspection" that all these alleged
gas chambers had been morgues. While he could have done so safely in crematorium
1, where the space is still available for inspection, and while he could
have inferred from the underground position of the alleged gas chambers
of crematoria 2 and 3 that these most likely would have been designed as
morgues, and while he would have found evidence in the blueprints provided
by Faurisson that these places had indeed been designated as morgues (Leichenkeller),
he could not have come to that conclusion studying the remains of crematoria
4 and 5. First of all virtually nothing is left of these structures except
concrete slabs and some low walls reconstructed after the war, and the
blueprints of these buildings do not show any designation of gas chambers
as morgues. So it is unclear on the basis of what evidence he was able
to come to a verification in the case of crematoria 4 and 5.
-
- "The on-site inspection of these structures indicated
extremely poor and dangerous design for these facilities if they were to
have served as execution gas chambers," Leuchter claimed. "There
is no provision for gasketed doors, windows or vents; the structures are
not coated with tar or other sealant to prevent leakage or absorption of
gas." It is a mystery how Leuchter, on the basis of the remains of
the crematoria, could have come to this statement. With the exception of
crematorium 1, the other four crematoria are merely rubble, a fact which
Leuchter admitted in cross-examination, and which he also observed in the
paper he presented at the Ninth International Revisionist Conference in
1989. 758 Simply stated, there is simply not enough evidence remaining
to establish if there were, or not, the gasketed doors, windows or vents.
There is, however enough left to see that the walls had been plastered:
in 1990 the forensic scientists of the Institute of Forensic Research in
Cracow used plaster samples from the gas chambers of crematoria 2 and 3
as the basis for their analysis of residual cyanide. Yet, undeterred by
all of this, Leuchter had no hesitation to determine on the basis of the
few remains of the gas chamber of crematorium 2 that the walls of that
room had been rough, unsealed brick and mortar, and that those walls that
had never been painted. 759 This was important because, if the wall had
been coated with tar or painted, the bricks that remained would have been
protected from the hydrogen cyanide, and it would have been impossible
for a chemical reaction to occur between the hydrogen cyanide and the brick
and mortar. 760 But because he, or at least Faurisson, had aimed to establish
that the absence of residual cyanide in the bricks pointed to the fact
that no hydrogen cyanide had been used in those rooms, he had to postulate
a priori that the walls had not been coated or painted. However, as we
have seen, the remains of the rooms do not support such an assumption.
-
- "The adjacent crematories are a potential danger
of explosion," Leuchter observed. His reasoning was based on the fact
that hydrogen cyanide is combustible, and that because the gas chambers
were located not too far from the incineration ovens, there ought to have
been a danger for explosion. Yet during cross-examination Leuchter had
to admit that hydrogen cyanide became combustible at 60,000 parts per million,
and that it was lethal at 300 parts per million, that is at 0.5 percent
of the combustion point.
-
- Q.: "And I want to ask you about your answer to
me. I said it takes a higher concentration of hydrogen cyanide to exterminate
insects than it does to kill human beings. You said no. We go to the Degesch
manual and it says that it requires twenty times as much to kill beetles
as to kill rats and it takes three times as much to kill rats [than] it
does to kill humans."
-
- A.: "Maybe it depends upon the insects. Most of
the work that I've been looking at, they've been killing lice and ticks.
And their recommendation for general fumigation purposes is three thousand
per million."
-
- Q.: "What is twenty times 833 parts per million?"
-
- A.: "What is twenty times 833 parts per million?"
-
- Q.: "Right."
-
- A.: "16,600."
-
- Q.: "16,600. So what Degesch are saying, the people
who make the product, is that if you want to kill beetles, you should have
a concentration of--of what, sir?"
-
- A.: "16,600, apparently."
-
- Q.: "Right, And it takes three hundred parts per
million to kill a human being in a matters of minutes?"
-
- A.: "Or more."
-
- Q.: "In a matter of minutes."
-
- A.: "Twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, yes."
-
- Q.: "Right. And here they're talking about a time
of exposure from 2 to 72 hours, right?"
-
- A.: "Right."
-
- Q,: "Now, you gave us as a conclusion about the
danger of explosion, didn't you?"
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "This was a big factor in your mind, this possibility
of explosion. Did you look at the Degesch manual when it talked about inflammability?"
-
- A.: "I'm looking at it now, counsellor."
-
- Q.: "Page five?"
-
- A.: "Yes."
-
- Q.: "'Liquid HCN,' that is hydrocyanic acid, right?"
-
- A.: "Correct."
-
- Q.: "'... Burns like alcohol. Aaseous [H]CN forms
an explosive mixture with air under certain conditions. The lower explosion
limit, however, lies far above the concentration used in practical fumigation
work.' So, they tell us that if we're going to exterminate beetles, we
have to have a concentration of 16,600 and they tell us if we have a concentration
of 16,600, the lower explosion limit lies far above that concentration."
-
- A.: "The lower explosion limit is six per cent."
-
- Q.: "And what's six percent?"
-
- A,: "Six thousand."
-
- Q,: "Isn't it sixty thousand, sir?"
-
- A.: "Correct. Sixty thousand."
-
- Q.: "Sixty thousand parts per million of air. Right?"
-
- A.: "Correct, but you must understand that at the
Zyklon-B material, when the gas is being given off, you have a percentage
per volume of air of ninety to one hundred per cent. That means you have
almost pure hydrogen cyanide at the carrier."
-
- Q.: "At the point where the Zyklon-B is vapourizing,
I agree, you have a ninety-nine per cent concentration level. But how far
did you tell us these ovens were from the chamber we are talking about?"
-
- A.: "150, 160 feet."
-
- Q.: "And doesn't gas diffuse, sir?"
-
- A.: "It may or it may not."
-
- Q.: "And what would its concentration be 150 or
160 feet away?"
-
- A.: "I have no idea and no one could answer that
question for you."
-
- Q.: "Right, you don't know, do you?"
-
- A.: "Most people would tell you it's very dangerous."
761
-
- And thus Pearson effectively and publically demolished
Leuchter's argument that there would have been a danger of explosion, as
the concentration used in the gas chambers was around 300 parts per million.,
that is at 0.5 per cent. Irving, who was to testify the following day,
was in the audience and watched it all. It obviously did not leave an impression.
-
- "The exposed porous brick and mortal would accumulate
the HCN," Leuchter wrote in his report, "and make these facilities
dangerous to humans for several years." Yet in the trial he admitted
that hydrogen cyanide had only a very short life--a few days at best, and
that the only way it would remain in the walls was if the cyanide would
combine with iron present in brick or mortar to make the harmless pigment
ferro-ferri cyanide,also known as Prussian blue. 762
-
- "Krema I is adjacent to the S.S. Hospital at Auschwitz,"
Leuchter observed, and he continued to assert that it "has floor drains
connected to the main sewer of the camp--which would allow gas into every
building at the facility." He is right in observing a floor drain
in the former gas chamber of crematorium 1. Yet there is no way in which
he could positively determine if first of all this drain was "connected"
to the main sewer of the camp, and second of all if the war-time camp possessed
a "main sewer" at all: the main survey of the Polish military
base that was to become the Stammlager, drawn up in December 1939, indicates
that the water supply was by means of outside pumps while outside latrines
had to serve the soldiers' needs. 763 Projecting expectations about the
usual infrastructure of American military installations to Polish military
barracks in the 1930s does not show much historic sense. But even if the
drain was connected to a main sewer, it would have been very unlikely that
the hydrogen cyanide would have been able to travel from the gas chamber
to other buildings. Hydrogen cyanide is very soluble in water. The water
would dilute the hydrogen cyanide to such a degree that it would become
a harmless solution to be dumped in the Sola river. Once dissolved in the
water, the hydrogen cyanide would not evaporate again to (possibly) penetrate
into other buildings. 764
-
- "There were no exhaust systems to vent the gas after
usage," Leuchter observed. Prompted by Christie, Leuchter repeated
this, according to him, crucial piece of evidence at various points during
his testimony. Discussing crematorium 2, he stated that he did not find
any capability to ventilate the alleged gas chamber.
-
- [Christie]: "In this on-site inspection, did you
find any roof vent capabilities as indicated on the various drawings that
were given?"
-
- [Leuchter]: "there was no ventilation capability
for this facility at all. The door to the facility, the one door, as you
can see, goes into the main area of the building, and it should be remembered
that morgue 2 and morgue 1 and morgue 3 were all [under]ground. They were
in actuality a basement for the building. They were floor level and they
were ground level and with no structure above them. To the right of the
building where it says 'Crematory', that was a structure that was ground
up and was one and a half storeys with a stack for the furnaces. Now, these--
both facilities, as I said, were underground. This was Underground. There
was only one door going to the morgue at that time and absolutely no way
of getting air into the facility. There was a second door down at this
end with a stairway, and in my opinion there will be no way of adequately
ventilating this building and it would take a very long time since the
only way you could allow the gas to come out would be through the stairway.
Since there were no other apertures, it wouldn't even make sense to put
an exhaust fan in because there would be no way of getting air into the
building, because there was no air intake at any point in the facility."
765
-
- Without a proper ventilation system, the basement of
crematorium II could not have been used as a homicidal gas chamber.
-
- [Christie]: "And can you tell us why you hold that
opinion?"
-
|