Auschwitz/Birkenau delousing facilities in 1943

[Sergey Romanov]

Holocaust deniers have been cornered with their different explanations of what Vergasungskeller in the famous Bischoff's letter meant. It could be neither an air-raid shelter, nor a carburetion room, nor simply a morgue, nor a permanent disinfestation chamber.
Thus, they argue, that was a provisional disinfestation chamber. Of course, when it is convenient for them, they forget about their claim that HCN always produces Prussian blue on the walls. They argued that Vergasungskeller couldn't be a homicidal gas chamber since there was no blue staining on the walls, but now they argue that it was a delousing gas chamber. Hmm..
Anyway, was there a need for a provisional delousing chamber at the end of 1942/beginning of 1943? How many delousing chambers were there, how many were functioning, how big were they?

[David Thompson]

Sergey -- Some of the details you asked about are covered in a post at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 988#461988

I'll see what else I can find.

[Sergey Romanov]

Thanks, David.

[David Thompson]

Here are the non-homicidal gas delousing chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, according to Pressac (additional research on your questions is in boldface italic):

(1) The Stammlager (Main camp) Delousing installations

(a) The two delousing rooms in Block 26 -- finished in late 1940 or early 1941 (Pressac p. 24). Pressac (p. 24) says that

"The disinfestation agent is not known. The plans on the inventory drawing (Bauleiting drawing 1046) suggest a complex installation using steam, the situation dating from February 1942 and, it would appear, definitive since the installation was designed almost a year and a half earlier. It could be initially it functioned in a primitive manner as gas chambers using ZyklonB, made gas-tight by using strips of paper, and ventilated by two air extraction fans."

Bauleitung drawing 1046 is drawn to a stated scale (1:200), but there is no scale emblem on the drawing itself, which in Pressac's book has been reduced from the original size of the blueprint.

(b) The two delousing rooms on the first floor of Block 3, operated in 1941-1942 (Pressac p. 25). Of these, Pressac says (at p. 25),

"Two big rooms were converted into gas chambers by simply putting an extractor fan in each room. Neither the access doors (two for each room), nor the double windows were made gas-tight. Gas-tightness was achieved by sticking strips of paper over the gaps."

Pressac includes extracts from the deposition of a witness, Andrezeje Rabi, made 2 February 1961, on the disinfestation process. Rabi says (at p. 25) that it sometimes took as long as two days to fill the gas chamber with clothes. Pressac provides seven photographs of the interior (at pp. 26-27) and exterior of the rooms, and a diagram, which bears no scale. Pressac notes (at p. 31 ) that the delousing process took 24-48 hours here.

(c) The delousing room in Block 1, the plans for which were completed in mid-Aug 1942 during the typhus epidemic (Pressac p. 27). Pressac (p. 27) says this room had its windows bricked up at an unknown date, and was fitted with a gas-tight door. He also says (p. 27) that later the hydrocyanic delousing process was abandoned in favor of hot air, supplied by a boiler installed in the yard between blocks one and 2, and goes on to note that

"This modification would explain the juxtaposition of the terms <<Gaskammer>> and <<Entwesungskammer>> for the same room."

Pressac provides six photographs of the exterior of the building (at pp. 28-29), but no blueprint.

(2) Prussic acid delousing facility in the Stammlager reception area, consisting of 19 gas delousing chambers, the plans for which were approved in Jun 1942 (Pressac p. 31). Pressac says (p. 31) that these chambers were each 10 cubic meters in size. To speed up the delousing of the incoming prisoners' clothes, the SS used 5g/cubic meter concentrations of Zyklon-B, which cut the delousing time to 2 hours. a kilogram of Zyklon-B would suffice for four of the chambers at that concentration. These rooms, on two floors, had both natural and forced-draft ventilation. The technical documents of the Boos firm used to prepare the facility have never been found (p. 31). Pressac provides (pp. 32-39) six blueprints and eight photographs of the installation.

(3) Kanada I and its clothing delousing installation, which operated between 1942 and 1944 (Pressac p. 41). Pressac's essay on this facility is accompanied (p. 41) by extracts from the 1963 deposition of Joseph Odi, a member of the "entwesungskommando" who served there in 1944. Odi refers to gas chambers in the plural. Pressac notes (p. 41)

"Photos taken after the war [photos 19 to 27] and before the remains of the Kanada I delousing installation were demolished make it possible to see that the two types of gas chamber were equipped in exactly the same way. The only difference is in the gas-tight doors; there is a hemispheric grid protecting the peephole on the interior of the doors of homicidal gas chambers, a protection not fitted on the doors of delousing chambers."

Pressac includes a map with no scale and 29 photographs. The photographs show a large, one-story brick building with people sorting clothes outside it. Pressac notes (p. 45) that there are no photographs of the interior and that the dimensions of the gas chamber(s) are unknown.

(4) The two delousing and disinfestation facilities in KGL Birkenau Buildings 5a and 5b, the plans for which were approved in Aug 1941 (Pressac p. 53). Pressac says (p. 53) that these two gas chambers (one per building) used Zyklon-B and each chamber was ventilated by two extractor fans. In April 1943 the facility was designated for conversion to steam disinfestation. BW 5a still has its gas chamber, BW 5a was converted into a sauna. It is not clear from reading Pressac whether the sauna was part of the disinfestation process. The two gas chambers had a floor area of 108 square meters each. Each had 2 extractor fans and two ventilation outlets in the roof ridge. There was a stove (later increased to three stoves) used to heat the clothes in the gas chambers to 26 degrees Celsius so the hydrocyanic acid would evaporate. These chambers were also made airtight with paper strips at first. (p. 53).

(5) The disinfestation facility in the Gypsy camp, with 8 chambers in operation from the end of 1943 or early 1944 (Pressac p. 63). Since this is past your period of interest 1942/1943, I have not included anything more on the facility. It is would be useful, I'll copy and post it.

[Sergey Romanov]

And thanks again.