Cyanide Chemistry at Auschwitz
The 1988 ‘Leuchter Report’ published a list of cyanide measurements taken from several Auschwitz labour-camp walls [1]. Its text did not comment upon them however and they were merely summarised in a graph. Cyanide was measurable in 14 out of 35 of these samples (by Alpha laboratories), the rest being below the threshold of detection, one part per million (i.e., 1 mg cyanide per kilogram of wall). Then, in 1997, a Mr Desjardins retraced Leuchter’s steps, and he ascertained, or claimed, that ten of these samples had come from sheltered, unexposed locations [2]. Of these, seven had measurable levels of cyanide. Comparing the two mean values of Leuchter’s data, grouped according to Desjardin’s information, including only those of measurable value, gives us:
Indoor, sheltered walls: 2.7 ppm (n=7) Leuchter’s Data
Exposed, unsheltered walls 2.8 ppm (n=7)
showing no significant difference. This throws light on the question as to whether decades of weathering have removed cyanide from the walls, as was alleged in certain quarters. Clearly, it hasn’t. This is totally crucial.
When Germar Rudolf published the data, he specified the location of Leuchter’s samples. [3] This indicated that 15 of them in total had come from the alleged homicidal gas chambers, AHGCs, of Kremas I and II. (The ‘allegation’ here, is that, as Pressac decribed [4], what were the morgues of these crematoria came to be utilised as human gas chambers). Six of these were measurable and had come from Krema II. Taking only those samples whose cyanide levels were measurable, we obtain these mean values:
AHGC walls: 2.9 ± 2.4 ppm (n=6) Leuchter’s Data
Others: 2.6 ± 1.8 ppm (n=8)
Again, little difference is evident, suggesting that the AHGCs never functioned as gas chambers. Mr Desjardins, however, concluded from his inspection that only two of the Leuchter samples ‘were actually removed from locations currently designated as ‘gas chambers,’’ namely Leuchter’s samples 20 and 24. All the others, Desjardins viewed as taken from other, ordinary rooms. One is puzzled as to how his and Rudolf’s judgements could so diverge, concerning the sources of Leuchter’s data.
Germar Rudolf in 1991 took some comparable samples, analysed by the Fresenius Institute using a comparable procedure. [5] The samples were boiled with hydrochloric acid to drive out the cyanide gas, forming ferric chloride. The method measured cyanide down to 0.1 – 0.2 ppm in the mortar and obtained measurable values for all of his samples, a great improvement [6]. He found significantly higher levels in the AHGCs:
AHGC walls 4.8 ± 3 ppm (n=3) Rudolf’s Data
Others: 0.7± 0.9 ppm (n=6)
It is a testimony to Rudolf’s integrity (if perchance anyone were disposed to doubt it) that he has here reported a result which he might have preferred not to have found, whereby the alleged gas-chamber wall has higher cyanide than his controls.
The beauty of Rudolf’s investigation lay in his de-lousing chamber measurements, which can be divided into those from the outside wall and those from inside:
De-lousing room, inside: 5670 ± 3900 ppm (n=9) Rudolf’s Data
outside: 3750 ± 3600 ppm (n=4) [7]
This indicates that weathering has not greatly removed the large quantities of iron cyanide, bonded firmly within the wall – right through the wall! This data is so important, because Leuchter had only managed to take one single sample of de-lousing chamber wall [8] If Rudolf’s measuring both inside and outside walls of the de-lousing chamber is the strong point of his investigation, its weakness lay in his having taken only three samples from the AHGC: these are so different (7.2, 0.6 and 6.7 ppm) that they give little idea of this key parameter [9].
The Polish survey (Markiewicz et. al.) obtained much lower cyanide measurements because it used a different method. The samples were put in 10% sulphuric acid for 24 hours, thereby driving off the cyanide as before. But cyanide bonded to iron was not liberated by the Polish method: it ‘excludes the possibility of the decomposition of the relatively permanent Prussian blue, whose origin is unclear in many parts of the structures under investigation,’ and therefore ‘The real level of total cyanide compounds could therefore be higher than shown by our analysis’ [10] – the point of this has not been clear to a lot of people. Comparing three of their results:
AHGC walls, Krema I: 0.07 ± 0.1 ppm (n=7) Markiewicz et al data
Krema II: 0.16 ± 0.2 ppm (n=7) [11]
Krema III: 0.03 ± 0.02 ppm (n=7)
(A different colour is here used because this data is not measuring the same cyanide as the earlier investigations: it is not comparable to them). Krema II is said to be more intact than the other two [12] and thereby more protected from the elements, so its higher value here could suggest that the non iron-bonded cyanide has tended to be washed out by acid rain over the decades. That may be, I suggest, the only conclusion that can be drawn from their data. The Polish group claimed that their method could measure down to 2-3 parts per billion [13]. For their ‘control’ they took eight samples from three different residential blocks, and thereby obtained (or at least published) consistently zero values. This strains credulity, and prevents any real conclusions from being drawn from their work [14].
The large standard deviations here, comparable to the means, indicate the wide scatter in these results, which is why at least six or seven samples were required per site. It suggests that the cyanide remains are quite localised, depending perhaps on iron in the brickwork? It seems to be mainly the mortar rather then the brick where it is stored. In Rudolf’s data from the delousing chamber we likewise see a comparably large scatter.
None of these samplings are at a standard publishable in a science journal [15]. For scientists to believe a chemical result, it does need to be published in a science journal, which means that it will have been peer-reviewed. A strong if not fairly conclusive argument might well exist from these cyanide-in-wall measurements, so it should be worth making the effort. Measurements made to one part per million are here inadequate, this being too near the ‘control’ values. There are roughly three different kinds of data which need to be compared, and each requires its own ‘control,’ i.e. sample of nearby brickwork. (1) A building where HCN fumigation has been performed to kill bugs, some decades ago, eg a church or farmhouse; [16] (2) walls of de-lousing chambers at Auschwitz (those at Kremas I and II are generally alluded to as BW 5a and 5b); (3) the AHGCs, preferably near to where Rudolf and Leuchter have sampled. This last group could subdivide into the two ‘Krema’ buildings I and II where, respectively, Leuchter and Rudolf sampled, as they found slightly differing results. [17]
Iron-bonded cyanide in the walls appears as being the best memory which the human race now has concerning where cyanide gas was or was not once used at Auschwitz, whether lethally or not. It may be the essential guide to the achieving of a collective agreement upon the Big Question. The response of just putting the chemist in jail cannot be adequate. One needs a re-analysis that measures both CN- bonded to iron (Leuchter, Rudolf and Ball [18]) and that not so bonded (Marciewicz et al), as well as, preferably, both ferrous and ferric iron and the Ph level (acid-alkali) of the samples. Whether or not the Prussian blue colouration appears in walls may not have a very central significance. The Polish survey only took one or two gram samples: let’s be clear that modern microanalytical techniques are not invasive and are hardly going to damage any property. A replication should focus upon the two morgues (i.e., alleged gas chambers) and the disinfestations chambers of Kremas I and II to compare with the earlier data.
For a summary by David Cole of cyanide, and the blue colouration of iron cyanide in the various walls, see: http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=599
References
1. Leuchter’s Table: www.zundelsite.org/english/leuchter/rep ... ppend1.jpg
2. Desjardins: www.codoh.info/newrevoices/nddd/ndddstern.html
3. The Rudolf Report, 2003, 8.3.1 Table 17: www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/8.html#8.3.1
4. J.Pressac, Auschwitz, Technique and operation of the Gas Chambers 1989: Krema I, p.151.
5. G. Rudolf, Das Rudolf Gutachten, Cromwell, Press London 1993 (I haven’t seen this). The analytic method is cited as ‘DIN 38 405, section D13,’ I don’t know what this is.
6. The Rudolf Report, 8.3.3, Table 19.
7. Dissecting the Holocaust 2003 http://vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndgcger.html Table 3 of Rudolf Ch.
8. For his difficulties here, see: www.ihr.org/leaflets/inside.shtml
9. These came from Krema II morgue: Leuchter’s measured samples were all from Krema I.
10. Ref. 9: ‘Correspondence with the Jan Sehn Institute.’
11. Paul Grubach summarised: Krema II ruins measured 0.06 milligrams of cyanide per kilogram of material, i.e. 0.06 ppm www.codoh.info/gcgv/gc426v12.html, a lower figure than here given.
12. “…fortunately it is precisely the one ‘gas chamber’ in which the largest number of people was allegedly killed by poison gas during the Third Reich which has remained almost entirely intact: morgue 1 of crematorium II.” The Rudolf Report 5.5, p146.
13. Challenged by Rudolf over whether their method could really measure down to 3-4 μg/kg (ie, parts per billion) of cyanide, Markiewicz et. al. insisted that it could: as ‘developed by J.Epstein,’ it was ‘at once a very sensitive and a very specific method:’ www.vho.org/GB/Books/cq/leuchter.html
14. www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/che ... port.shtml
15. The Polish report was published in Zagadnien Nauk Sadowych but I don’t know what this is.
16. The Rudolf Report, Ch. 1: www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/1.html#1.3
17. All 7 of Leuchter’s samples from the Krema II morgue were below 1 ppm, whereas Rudolf’s samples taken from there were considerably higher.
18. J. Ball, The Ball Report Canada 1993. I haven’t seen a copy. The Rudolf Report, 8.3.4.

