Zyklon-B & blue colour

bonzen · Post by **bonzen** » 05 Mar 2004 05:06

The problem with the floor to ceiling blue stain is that isn't the way a stain would present itself if delousing. It would be concentrated 3 to 4 feet off the floor. Not evenly from floor to ceiling. Anyone that has killed bugs knows that the killing agent only rises a few feet off the floor...any bugs that haven't left a warm host and are stupid enough to stay with cold clothing jump off. no matter where they are in the room, they will soon fall to the 3-4 feet of concentrated killing agent and die. Same with humans. they'd pass out and fall to the floor.

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 05 Mar 2004 05:25

bonzen -- Are you saying that the blue stains in the disinfestation chambers are a hoax?

bonzen · Post by **bonzen** » 05 Mar 2004 16:35

No, not a hoax. All I have to go on are two pictures. It appears the delousing room is plaster over brick while the second, larger room is concrete. Plaster over brick is highly succeptable to water damage and dampness from high humidity. The plaster will crack and crumble off the walls. The blue color stops at the ceiling and the ceiling appears to be white. So, I'm guessing what we are seeing is a terrible job of restoration/preservation.

alf · Post by **alf** » 07 Mar 2004 01:27

In David Irving's second Appeal againt his loss of his libel case (Irving vs Lipstadt) he lodged two affadavits to support his grounds of Appealing the Apeal he lost after losing the his court case ie his third attempt .

Prior to the oral argument, which began on June 20,2001, Irving filed two affidavits with the court to support Irving's contention that he could demonstrate that Judge Gray's decision was contrary to the weight of the evidence. The first of these was an affidavit from Mrs. Zoe Polanksa-Palmer, a prisoner at Auschwitz, who claimed to have been a prisoner in the Birkenau camp at Auschwitz and had never seen any gas chambers. The second was a long document from Germar Rudolf, a German national trained as a chemist. Setting forth an argument that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Rudolf had previously volunteered as an expert witness at the trial of this case; David Irving had declined Rudolf's offer. Rudolf's statement can be divided into three main sections. The first was an extended recapitulation and summary of the arguments used by deniers of the Holocaust to challenge the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The document also included summaries of testimony concerning the gas chambers at Auschwitz adduced in other litigation and Rudolf's comments on it and an extended history of Rudolf's "persecution" as a result of his denial of the Holocaust. It was, in summary, a comprehensive statement of the arguments made by those who deny that mass murder took place in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Ignoring the first part the affidavt from Mrs. Zoe Polanksa-Palmer , her affadivat was withdrawn by Irving without reason

In February 2001, Mrs. Zoe Polanska Palmer swore an affidavit meant to support claims made by Mr. David Irving in his libel suit against Prof. Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, Ltd. Her affidavit was presented to the Court of Appeal in London, but was subsequently withdrawn without explanation by Mr. Irving's barrister on the second day of the Hearing. No reasons were ever given either by Mr. Adrian Davies, Barrister for the Claimant (Irving) nor by Mr. Irving himself.

The Lord Justices were sufficiently annoyed by the withdrawal of the affidavit that they included the following paragraph in their Judgement:

25. We also mention at this point that there were before the Court two applications to call fresh evidence in support of the application. The first, made well before the hearing, was to call evidence from Mr Germar Scheerer (born Rudolf), who holds a diploma in chemistry, and Mrs Zoe Polanska-Palmer, who was detained in Birkenau Camp. The respondents had prepared voluminous evidence in reply. In the event, that application to call fresh evidence was not pursued. We express our dismay at this combination of events; the preparation of very detailed evidence (exposing the respondents to great expense in preparing a reply and the members of the Court to considerable pre hearing reading) and the withdrawal of the application.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving-david/polanska/

Thats off topic but it sets the stage for the main topic for the Irving believers bible about Auschwitz, the Rudolf report, He withdraw this affadivat also, thereby stopping his "evidence" to be challenged openly in a public forum.

Still it was done anyone interested in genuine research should avail themselves of it

http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving-david/rudolf/ is the forward
http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving ... affweb.pdf is the report forwarded to the Court of Appeal and the reason Irving suddenly withdrew his affdavit.

For a more layman friendly report http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... stry/blue/

ABSTRACT: Leuchter and Rudolf have published pseudoscientific reports purporting to show that chemical residues present in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau are incompatible with homicidal gassings. Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz have shown unequivocally that cyanides are present in Kremas I-V and bunker 11, at levels above background levels measured in other facilities. Many of the delousing chambers exhibit blue-staining that is not obviously present in the homicidal gas chambers. Leuchter and Rudolf found higher levels of cyanide in these installations than they found in the homicidal gas chambers. The blue-staining present in the delousing chambers is most likely one of the iron blues, a class of compound including Prussian blue. Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz discriminated against the presence of this compound, whereas Leuchter and Rudolf did not. The findings of Leuchter and Rudolf do not contain much information beyond what is already obvious to the naked eye. Understanding the formation of Prussian blue is essential to understanding the importance of the findings of Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz. Industrial methods of producing Prussian blue are reviewed briefly. Rudolf's proposed mechanism of Prussian blue formation is examined. It is unlikely that Prussian blue would have formed in the gas chambers under the conditions under which they were operated. Slight variation in conditions could change that probability and that is perhaps the explanation for the presence of Prussian blue in the delousing chambers and the gas chamber at Majdanek. Alich et al. found that the formation of Prussian blue is extremely sensitive to cyanide concentration and pH. Several attempts to make Prussian blue form exposing construction materials to HCN failed. The burden of proof that Prussian blue must have formed under the conditions present in the gas chambers is on the deniers.

I have already posted a link concerning Leuchters "qualifications"
http://www.holocaust-history.org/leucht ... agreement/

,

bonzen · Post by **bonzen** » 07 Mar 2004 03:36

Whoa...hang on, I am in no way denying what happened. I merely gave my observations based on two pictures and having spent the last 25 years in the building industry. I may be wrong as I haven't seen these places. Frankly, I haven't read what the deniers claim because it really doesn't interest me.

TJH · Post by **TJH** » 08 Mar 2004 07:24

The difference in staining between the clothing disinfecting room and the gas chamber itself can be attributed to the obvious. The gas chamber contained humans whose bodies absorbed/reacted more of the Zyclon-B than the clothing itself would. The Germans also found that increasing the humidity in the gas chamber greatly improved the efficiency of the gas adsorption and killed the people faster. Hydrogen Cyanide is very effective partly because it does not necessarily have to be breathed to kill. Simple reaction at skin level can be just as lethal. (HCN is infinitely soluble in water - Source: CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics)

Safety (MSDS) data for hydrogen cyanide

General

Synonyms: prussic acid, hydrocyanic acid, formonitrile
Molecular formula: HCN
CAS No: 74-90-8
EC No: 200-821-6

Toxicology

Very toxic by inhalation, ingestion and through skin contact. Inhalation, ingestion or skin contact may be fatal. Note low LD50s below.

Toxicity data
(The meaning of any abbreviations which appear in this section is given here LC50 lethal concentration 50 percent kill
LCLo lowest published lethal concentration
LD50 lethal dose 50 percent kill
LDlo lowest published lethal dose.)
ORL-MUS LD50 3.7 mg kg-1
IHL-MUS LC50 323 ppm.
IV-MUS LD50 1 mg kg-1
IV-RBT LD50 <1 mg kg-1
ORL-MAN LDLO <1 mg kg-1

Source:
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/HY/hydrogen_cyanide.html

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 09 Mar 2004 05:04

The difference in staining between the clothing disinfecting room and the gas chamber itself can be attributed to the obvious. The gas chamber contained humans whose bodies absorbed/reacted more of the Zyclon-B than the clothing itself would. The Germans also found that increasing the humidity in the gas chamber greatly improved the efficiency of the gas adsorption and killed the people faster. Hydrogen Cyanide is very effective partly because it does not necessarily have to be breathed to kill. Simple reaction at skin level can be just as lethal. (HCN is infinitely soluble in water - Source: CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics)

My understanding of the above is as follows:

If air with a given concentration of HCN is contained in a chamber with clothing, the clothing will not absorb the HCN to any great extent, meaning that the concentration of HCN in the air will remain at a high level for as long as it is contained in the chamber, making it possible for some of the HCN to be absorbed into the surface of the chamber's wall, causing blue staining.

If air with the same concentration of HCN is contained in a chamber with living humans, a considerable part of the HCN will be absorbed by the human bodies, causing the concentration of the HCN in the air to drop to a level where there is not enough of it to be absorbed into the walls to a sufficient extent to cause blue staining.

Please advise if my understanding is incorrect.

alf · Post by **alf** » 09 Mar 2004 07:50

I provided some detailed technical links Michael for everyone to research. They do explain in detail the fallacy of Rudolfs paper and will answer your questions fully.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving-david/rudolf/ is the forward
http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving ... affweb.pdf is the report forwarded to the Court of Appeal and the reason Irving suddenly withdrew his affdavit.

For a more layman friendly report http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... stry/blue/

ABSTRACT: Leuchter and Rudolf have published pseudoscientific reports purporting to show that chemical residues present in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau are incompatible with homicidal gassings. Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz have shown unequivocally that cyanides are present in Kremas I-V and bunker 11, at levels above background levels measured in other facilities. Many of the delousing chambers exhibit blue-staining that is not obviously present in the homicidal gas chambers. Leuchter and Rudolf found higher levels of cyanide in these installations than they found in the homicidal gas chambers. The blue-staining present in the delousing chambers is most likely one of the iron blues, a class of compound including Prussian blue. Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz discriminated against the presence of this compound, whereas Leuchter and Rudolf did not. The findings of Leuchter and Rudolf do not contain much information beyond what is already obvious to the naked eye. Understanding the formation of Prussian blue is essential to understanding the importance of the findings of Markiewicz, Gubala, and Labedz. Industrial methods of producing Prussian blue are reviewed briefly. Rudolf's proposed mechanism of Prussian blue formation is examined. It is unlikely that Prussian blue would have formed in the gas chambers under the conditions under which they were operated. Slight variation in conditions could change that probability and that is perhaps the explanation for the presence of Prussian blue in the delousing chambers and the gas chamber at Majdanek. Alich et al. found that the formation of Prussian blue is extremely sensitive to cyanide concentration and pH. Several attempts to make Prussian blue form exposing construction materials to HCN failed. The burden of proof that Prussian blue must have formed under the conditions present in the gas chambers is on the deniers.

They are the papers that David Irving didnt wish to test in his second appeal, so please enjoy studying them.

TJH · Post by **TJH** » 09 Mar 2004 18:19

To michael mills:

Exactly. The human body has a high concentration water in many forms (I'm uncertain of the exact percentage). This would allow a greater concentration would be reacting at the wall surface in the clothing chamber than the gas chamber, hence the difference in tone of blue staining.

P.S. The layman friendly report below has further explanations going further into the actual formation of the Prussion blue iron oxides and other chemical effects going on in the chambers.

Thank You

Bjørn A. · Post by **Bjørn A.** » 19 Apr 2004 00:11

Here's some additional info on the Zyklon b gas:
http://www.zyklon-b.info/

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 19 Apr 2004 06:42

Bjorn A,

Thanks for posting the link. The material contained on the site is extremely informative.

One criticism that could be made of the site is that its format and title (Zyklon-B, Mahnung und Erinnerung = Warning and Memory) gives the impression that this whole gigantic structure of production and distribution of Zyklon-B was in essence a homicidal enterprise, which of course it was not. Zyklon-B was produced and distributed for the purpose of disinfestation, in particular for delousing, and the commercial structure existed to that end; there was nothing inherently sinister about it.

The fact that a very small proportion of the Zyklon-B delivered to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex (only 10% according to Pressac) was siphoned off for a homicidal purpose does not detract from the normality and legality of the product itself, and the concept that in Dessau there should be a warning memorial (Mahnmal) at the place where Zyklon-B was produced is about as absurd as the suggestion that similar memorials should be built at places where strychnine was produced, considering the large number of people murdered with that product over the years.

The first page, at http://www.zyklon-b.info/start.htm contains the following highly misleading statement:

Mit dem Schädlingsbekämpfungsmittel Zyklon B ermordeten die deutschen National-sozialisten in den Konzentrationslagern Auschwitz, Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Stutthof, Mauthausen und Neuengamme in den Jahren von 1941 bis 1945 Millionen Menschen aus ganz Europa.

The claim that millions of people were killed with Zyklon-B is a gross exaggeration and absolute nonsense. Auschwitz-Birkenau was the only place where Zyklon-B was definitely used on a large scale for homicidal purposes, and the number killed with it there was only a proportion of total number of persons who perished after being brought to that place, ie at most some hundreds of thousands, certainly below one million.

The homicidal use of Zyklon-B at other camps is subject to some doubt, but if it was so used, the number of victims was very low, in the thousands.

As the site itself confirms, at this page http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/ungeziefer.htm , the reason why Zyklon-B was ordered in large quantities by the Wehrmacht and the SS, and was delivered to all concentration camps, was for the fight against the clothing louse, the carrier of typhus.

The page http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/menschen.htm on the use of Zyklon-B for homicidal purposes is good. It confirms that it was introduced at Auschwitz as the result of an initiative by the camp staff, not in response to a central extermination plan, and that the purpose of its introduction was to kill selected Soviet POWs.

The evidence for the use of ZYklon-B for homicidal purposes at other camps is inconclusive.

Majdanek: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/majdanek.htm

It is claimed that a number of homicidal gas-chambers using Zyklon-B were in operation there, and can still be seen today. The structures certainly exist undamaged, but their homicidal use is questionable; it is more likely that they were facilities for disinfesting clothing.

Sachsenhausen: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/sachsenhausen.htm

The claim that Zyklon-B was used homicidally at Sachsenhausen rests on a statement by the former camp commandant before a Soviet military court, and is therefore unreliable.

Ravensbrück: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/sachsenhausen.htm

The claim that in the final phase of the existence of the camp some 3,000 women prisoners were killed with Zyklon-B as an ad-hoc action is quite possible.

Stutthof: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/stutthof.htm

It is claimed that the first homicidal gassing with Zyklon-B took place on 22 June 1944, when a group of about 100 Poles and Belorussians condemned to death by the RSHA was executed. Given the late date, that seems credible (as in the case of Ravensbrück).

Mauthausen: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/mauthausen.htm

It is claimed that work began on a gas-chamber using Zyklon-B in the autumn of 1941. That is not credible since at that time the experiments in the use of Zyklon-B for homicidal purposes had barely begun. Furthermore, prisoners unable to work and selected for "euthanasia" ciould be sent to the nearby euthanasia centre at Hartheim.

Whatever the case may have been, the claimed number of victims between March 1942 and April 1945 (2692) does not indicate a mass extermination program using Zyklon-B, but rather some sort of experimentation. The date March 1942 seems rather early, since homicidal gassing at Auschwitz had scarcely begun in earnest by then; it may be a mistake for March 1943 or 1944.

Neuengamme: http://www.zyklon-b.info/anwendung/neuengamme.htm

It is claimed that there were two homicidal gassings in Septemebr and November 1942, of two small groups of Soviet POWs, 193 and 251 persons respectively, sent to the camp for execution. These were apparently ad hoc actions that did not lead to a killing program using Zyklon-B.

All in all, the significance of homicidal gassing using Zyklon-B has been greatly exaggerated. Only a small number of the vicitms of national Socialism, Jews and others, were killed by that method. Far more victims were killed with ordinary military weapons and ammunition.

Bjørn A. · Post by **Bjørn A.** » 19 Apr 2004 09:16

Hello.
Yes the site is very informative but also very controversial. There are a lot of differences betveen the data provided on this site, and what we learned about the concentration camps and the gas chambers when I went to school. I always thought that six million Jews was gassed to death during the war. Period.
But the website is very interesting reading, laid out in a objective and informative way.
It's also interesting to read about the "carrying substance" or the "trägermaterial" of the gas, as this differs a lot from other sources.
Also one of the "eigenschaften" ( http://www.zyklon-b.info/produkt/eigenschaften.htm ) of this substance should be greatly considered:

Gegenmittel: Natriumnitrit und Natriumthiosul-fat,
bildet mit Luft explosive Gemische.

I would be greatly concerned of using electric fans to ventilate a closed room filled with this gas, ( if I have understood this correctly) as the gas is combustable/explosive under the right circumstances.
Anyway, there is a lot of interesting reading there.
Best Regards
Björn A.

alf · Post by **alf** » 19 Apr 2004 11:06

This topic keeps cropping up, which is always good, the whole premise hinges on the valdity of the Leuchter report, which is psuedo science at its worst.

so here are some additonal links that run contary to some of the above

http://www.holocaust-history.org/irving-david/rudolf/ (bottom of page to the link, it is highly technical) it is a detailed report from Richard Greene a PHD on the Leuchter Report and the submission to the British Court of Appeals regarding David Irvings second Appeal.

It is most interesting to know that David Irving in his second Appeal to his lost lawsuit hurriedly withdrew the Leuchter report rather than have it destroyed in Court.

During the hearing Irving's lawyer made an unexpected announcement. He was withdrawing the Rudolf affidavit as evidence. I would like to think that we had something to do with that. Perhaps, Irving's lawyer realized that Rudolf's affidavit would never withstand the evidence in the Expert Reports that had been amassed against its veracity. Certainly, it would be a blow to the denial movement to have the Rudolf affidavit thrown out as worthless on account of its contents. Perhaps, Irving and Rudolf hoped it would be thrown out on a technicality. To have it thrown out because a court found it to be untrue would be a terrible risk, one they could not afford. The Court's judgement described the bizarre turn of events in this manner:

25. We also mention at this point that there were before the Court two applications to call fresh evidence in support of the application. The first, made well before the hearing, was to call evidence from Mr Germar Scheerer (born Rudolf), who holds a diploma in chemistry,

Another link by an independent study

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... stry/iffr/

In 1994, the Institute for Forensic Research Cracow (herein referred to as the IFFR, elsewhere as the IFRC) published a detailed study of the cyanides present in the homicidal gas chambers of Auschwitz and Birkenau. This study showed unequivocally the presence of cyanide in all the facilities tested in which the historical record shows that gassing took place. In contrast, they found no traces of cyanide within their detection limits (3-4 µg/kg) in prisoner barracks in which no homicidal gassing occurred. This introduction to the report will attempt to give some context for the lay reader to better understand the implications of the report.

Holocaust deniers often claim that the so-called forensic reports of Leuchter, Rudolf and others prove the impossibility of homicidal gassings at Auschwitz and Birkenau. A central point of their argument is that their studies apparently show that delousing chambers, in which Zyklon B was used, have much higher concentrations of cyanide compounds present than do the homicidal gas chambers. Of course such presumes that their studies were conducted honestly and with good technique. Zimmerman,1Pressac,2and perhaps others have shown that such a presumption is unwarranted. Even if one takes the reports of Leuchter and others at face value, however, there is a crucial problem with their studies that is addressed in the study of the IFFR. This problem centers around a class of compounds called the iron blues, a representative example of which is Prussian blue.

Hydrogen cyanide and most of its salts are readily soluble in water and thus extremely susceptible to weathering, Prussian blue on the other hand is extremely insoluble. If Prussian blue were to form in a building exposed to hydrogen cyanide, it would remain present at high concentration while other compounds of cyanide would gradually weather away. It has long been known that some of the delousing chambers exhibit obvious blue staining, whereas the remains of the homicidal chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau do not. Comparing the cyanide content of material from the delousing chambers that exhibits this blue staining and material from homicidal chambers that do not exhibit this staining, may show that the blue staining is indeed a cyanide compound, but it does not show the homicidal gas chambers were not exposed to HCN. This issue is explored in some depth in several articles available at the website of the Holocaust History Project (THHP).3 Here I only summarize those findings and explain their implications for the IFFR study.

It is shown in great detail in the above-mentioned articles that the conditions in the gas chamber would have made the formation of Prussian blue in significant quantities improbable. A building in which Prussian blue formed would have much higher levels of detectable total cyanides than a building in which Prussian blue did not form. Recall the Prussian blue is much less susceptible to weathering than other cyanides; so it is no surprise if buildings with blue staining have more cyanides than those without.

What is the right experiment to do? Detecting total cyanides appears to be a probe for the likelihood of Prussian blue formation and not a probe for exposure to cyanide. The correct procedure is to use a method of detecting cyanides that discriminates against the detection of Prussian blue. If any cyanides other than Prussian blue have survived the weathering process, they will be present in small concentrations. They need to be detected with an extremely sensitive technique.

The IFFR conducted an experiment according to the correct procedure. They write:

J. Bailer [see IFFR ref. 1] writes in the collective work "Amoklauf gegen die Wirklichkeit" that formation of Prussian blue in bricks is simply improbable; however, he takes into consideration the possibility that that the walls of the delousing room were coated with paint. It should be added that this blue coloration does not appear on the walls of all the delousing rooms.

We decided therefore to determine the cyanide ions using a method that does not induce the breakdown of the composed ferrum cyanide complex (this is the blue under discussion) and which fact we had tested before on an appropriate standard sample.

It should be noted that whereas formation of Prussian blue was unlikely in the homicidal gas chambers owing to conditions such as the frequent washing with water, exposure to carbon dioxide, and the short exposure time, the conditions in the delousing chambers were quite different and it is not improbable that exposure to cyanide could be responsible for the blue staining there. These issues are discussed in more detail in the aforementioned articles on the Holocaust History Project web site. The important point is that detection of total cyanides is not a reliable marker for exposure to cyanides owing to the complexities of Prussian blue formation. In other words, by discriminating against the detection of Prussian blue, the IFFR did the correct experiment. Note also the necessity of using a much more sensitive method of detection of cyanides. Leuchter and Rudolf report a detection limit of about 1 mg/kg and in fact dispute the reliability of some of their own measurements showing cyanide concentrations above that. Recall that the bulk of the cyanides that they detected were in a form similar to Prussian blue. The IFFR used a much more sensitive method. Their sensitivity was 3-4µg/kg, i.e., 300 times more sensitive. Even so, beforehand they were not confident that they would detect any cyanides other than the Prussian blue compounds because of the likelihood that these other cyanides would have weathered away.

To insure the reliability of their measurements, the IFFR introduced standards with a known cyanide content into each set of determinations. As well as samples from the homicidal gas chambers they collected control samples from dwelling accomodations "which were probably fumigated with Zyklon B only once (in connection with the typhoid [sic] epidemic in 1942)." The samples were collected and analyzed by two different teams to insure objectivity. The results of the study are definitive:

The results of the 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 control samples.

Thus the chemical claims of the Leuchter Report are utterly refuted. The IFFR did some additional studies to understand why some construction materials kept their (non-Prussian blue) cyanides whereas other materials did not. They found that mortar and/or wet materials tended to accumulate cyanides, whereas brick was less likely to do so. Perhaps, the important point to realize here is that the IFFR had legal access to collect samples and could scrape their samples from areas likely to have been sheltered from weathering.

Before concluding it is worth mentioning a couple of minor issues. First, the IFFR referred to a typhoid epidemic when they doubtlessly meant a typhus epidemic. Second, the support for Zyklon B is referred to unambiguously as diatomaceous earth. Zyklon was manufactured with many different solid supports. 4, of note was the use of "Erco" a gypsum material. 5

The conclusion is obvious. Leuchter and other Holocaust deniers performed a "forensic analysis" that even had it been conducted straightforwardly and honestly was based upon incorrect premises. When real scientists approached the problem using appropriate methods and reasoning they were able to detect unambiguously, what we already knew to be the case from the historical record, viz., the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Birkenau were indeed exposed to cyanide.

The Leuchter Report has been descreidited by a number of far higher qualifed people and Leuchter has admitted himself he was a fraud in a Court, strange how that fact is always left out.

http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/leu ... aq-22.html

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... o-columns/

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/

The first use of Zyklon B as a homicadal agent was not 1944 as Michael has posted, it was Septmeber 1941 when tested on several hundred Russian POW's. 3 years earlier. Strangely, he has already posted before on the murdered Russian POW's in September 1941.

September 3, 1941 Utility of Zyklon-B gas as an agent of mass killing tried out on Soviet POWs

Höss wrote about a secret order (29;155) given in the Fall of 1941 to kill all Soviet commissars and political functionaries in the camps. Such individuals were consistently arriving at Auschwitz. Höss then recounts (30) how the first gassing of Soviet POWs took place in the cellar of Block 11, an execution block where prisoners were usually shot or hanged, but not gassed. However, this appears to be either the first gassing that took place in Block 11 or one of two gassings. 16 Block 11 was unsuitable for gassing because it took two days to air out the cellar. Höss then states that the gassing of Soviet POWs was moved to Crematorium I. Jews (31) were gassed elsewhere.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... s-memoirs/

January 1942 Killing of Jews at Auschwitz Birkenau using Zyklon-B

.

http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/destrtim.htm

So Zyklon B was first tested in 1941 and then implemented from early 1942.

The Leuchter Report composed by someone with a Diploma in Chemistry (Rudolf) and a confessed fraud (Leuchter)has been discredited and the opportunity to have it tested in a public domain, it was hurriedly withdrawn ( Irving).

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 19 Apr 2004 12:46

Well, I fail to see any conflict between the site linked by Bjorn A and what Alf is saying.

Did Alf actually read the Zyklon-B site? It is in German, so perhaps not.

Bjorn A is making a point about the extreme combustibility of a mixture of HCN gas and air. Indeed, the mixture is extremely dangerous because of its combustibility, but only if it comes into contact with a heat source at a temperature equal to its combustion point, which according to the site linked by Bjorn A is 538 C.

Provided that the HCN-air mixture is contained within a sealed space such as a gas-chamber, and then vented into the open air, it should not pose a hazard of explosion. If such a chamber is located in a building also containing a heat source such as an incinerator, it would need to be some distance away.

Bjørn A. · Post by **Bjørn A.** » 19 Apr 2004 21:27

Hi. I could be wrong, but I think that the 538c mark is where the gas self-ignites when heated up. I suspect that a small spark would be enough to ignite the gas- for instance a spark from an electric fan engine..(?)
I could be all wrong though, but the mixture of HCN and oxygen is undoubtebly combustable, and perhaps dangerously unstable. If you look closer on the etikette of the Zyklon-B box, ( http://www.zyklon-b.info/produkt/warnstoff.htm ) you'll see that the can is to be kept cool and away from exposure to the sun. also there is a warning to keep it away from open fire.
Best Regards
Björn A.