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ZYKLON B

Frage:

Zur Shoa - genauer zur Funktion der "Gaskammer" - bewegt mich eine Frage, die Ihnen in der Hoffnung auf wissende Antwort vorlege - und Sie zugleich bitte, sie nicht als Zweifel an der Shoa aufzufassen :

Da seien viele - bis zu 400 - nackte Menschen hineingepeitscht worden - die Tür geschlossen - und dann sei das Gas "Tabun" aus Blechdosen "eingeworfen" worden, das alle Menschen in einem grauenhaften Todeskampf in einer halben Stunde getötet hätte. Aus meinem Chemie-Unterricht weiß ich aber, daß es keinen festen Stoff gibt, der schnell genug vergast (sublimiert), um einen Raum mit tödlicher Gaskonzentration zu füllen.

Ich besuchte einmal das Schloß Grafeneck, in dem Hitlers Ärzte um 1938-40 Kranke - auch einen meiner Freunde, spastisch gelähmt - vergasten. Dort sah ich die Gaskammer und die Spuren der Gas-Leitungen (Kohlen- Monoxyd - aus Gasflaschen ausströmend) noch an der Decke. Und ich weiß auch, daß Juden in LKW-Kastenwagen durch LKW-Auspuffgase ermordet wurden. Aber auf meine Frage nach der Funktion von "Tabun" fand ich noch keine Antwort.

tabun

Antwort:

Sehr geehrter Herr Meyer,
es war nicht Tabun, sondern ZYKLON B, welches in nationalsozialistischen Lagern, vor allem in Auschwitz, zur Ermordung von Menschen verwendet wurde. Selbstverständlich gibt es schnell sublimierende Stoffe und bei extremer Toxizität, lässt sich in einem Raum auch schnell eine tödliche Konzentration erreichen. Die ca. 100 - 200 qm großen Kammern waren eher niedrig und vollgestopft mit Menschen. Die Kristalle wurden durch mehrere Schächte gleichzeitig eingeworfen. Laut "The Merck Index" und "CRC handbook of Chemistry and Physics" liegt die für Menschen tödliche Konzentration für HCN bei 300 ppm (parts per million).

Angefügt einige weitergehende Erläuterungen, z.T. in Englisch.

Zyklon B = Handelsname von Blausäure bzw. Cyanwasserstoff (CNH), eines hochgiftigen Cyangases. Die Herkunft des Namen läßt sich nicht eindeutig feststellen. Auf der einen Seite stand er als Abkürzung für Zyklon-Blausäure, auf der anderen Seite gab es um 1920 auch ein Zyklon A, welches aus flüssigem Cyankohlensäureester bestand. Im nicht-deutschsprachigen Raum trifft man auch häufig auf die Bezeichnung Cyklon oder Cyklon B.
Zyklon B war ein gängiges Insektenvertilgungsmittel.

Die Herstellung von Zyklon B und seine Lieferung an die Lager lagen in der Hand der Degesch (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH) in Frankfurt am Main, die von den I.G. Farben und der Firma Tesch und Stabenow in Hamburg kontrolliert wurde. Aufgrund der erhöhten Nachfrage nach Zyklon B lagen die Gewinne der I.G. Farben aus ihrer Degesch-Beteiligung in den Jahren 1942 bis 1944 um 100 Prozent über denen der Jahre 1940 und 1941.

Der Firmenleitung von Degesch kann die Verwendung ihres Produkts Zyklon B nicht verborgen geblieben sein. Die SS beauftragte die Gesellschaft, den als Warnsignal gesetzlich vorgeschriebenen, besonderen Geruch des Gases, der vor der Gefährlichkeit der Substanz warnen sollte, zu beseitigen.

Geliefert wurde das Gas in Form kleiner Kristalle in luftdicht verschlossenen Behältern. In Verbindung mit Luft verwandelten sich die Kristalle in tödliches Gas. Ein Sanitätsdienstgrad mit Gasmaske schüttete die Kaliumcyanid-Kristalle durch eine mit einem Deckel versehene schmale Öffnung in die luftdicht verschlossene Gaskammer, in der sich die Opfer befanden.

ZYKLON B - Commercial name of hydrogen cyanide, a highly poisonous cyanic gas. As soon as the pellets were exposed to air, they turned into lethal gas, killing within minutes.

The concentration of HCN necessary to cause death is nearly 200 times lower than that which causes explosion. Although the SS used a concentration higher than the lethal one, it was far below that causing explosion. As a reference, one can look at "The Merck Index" and the "CRC handbook of Chemistry and Physics", or consult any manual dealing with toxicity and flammability of chemicals. For HCN, a concentration of 300 ppm (parts per million) kills humans within a few minutes, while the minimal concentration that can result in an explosion is 56,000 ppm.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF THE HOLOCAUST:
Cyanide, Zyklon-B, and Mass Murder

Brian Harmon

I. Introduction

Because many holocaust deniers find themselves unable to
dismiss the many volumes of historical information documenting
the Holocaust, they often turn to other methods. A very
common tactic is to claim that the Holocaust was "technically
impossible", improperly citing chemical and physical data as
"proof". The most well known example is the "Leuchter Report"
where Fred Leuchter, a self-proclaimed engineer, claimed that
"no one was gassed at Auschwitz", using a combination of poor
chemical analysis and technical difficulties as "proof".
Another example, "The Luftl Report", written by the Austrian
Walter Luftl, erroneously claims that not enough people could
be crammed into the chambers, and that Zyklon was too
dangerous to use for extermination. Many of these documents
are shrouded in pseudo-scholarly terminology and methodology,
and use confusing statements to make their lies seem more
tenable. The deniers hope to play on the common individual's
lack of knowledge in chemistry and physiology to confuse and
obfuscate the issue.

I will not deal directly with the claims of Leuchter and
Luftl here, rather I hope to provide the knowledge necessary
to take on Holocaust denier's claims directly, so they can
easily be discredited by anyone. As I hope to show, a little
knowledge of physiology and chemistry is all that is required
to see through their fabrications.

In this paper, I will discuss how cells make and use
energy via aerobic metabolism. Then, I will show exactly how
cyanide kills by shutting down aerobic (oxygen-using)
metabolism in organisms, including how much cyanide can kill,
and why warm blooded mammals are the most susceptible to
cyanide poisoning. The supporting biochemical and
toxicological data will set the context for the next section,
which discusses how the gassing of people could be carried
out. I will extrapolate from the Degesch manual on Zyklon B
to show that Zyklon cloud be used quite easily in a number of
situations, even at very low temperatures. I will then present
a "hypothetical gassing", where I will run some basic
calculations showing how easily a large number of people
(about 1.8 million) could be killed in one and one half years
with only one gassing a day. Comparing this with documents on
how the camps actually were run, It should be self-evident
that gassings with cyanide were quite easy for the Nazis to
carry out.

This document may be of a somewhat technical and
detailed nature. It is also exceptionally long, much longer
than I had anticipated. To remedy this, I also will write a
shorter "reference sheet" that takes the major conclusions
and points of this paper without all of the laborious
calculations and explanations. I intended this document
primarily as a reference resource rather than a document to be
completely absorbed at one sitting.

II. Structure of the Paper

Part one: Physiological Basis of Cyanide Poisoning
A. Cells and energy
-- How cells use energy
-- How the electron transport system works
-- How oxidative phosphorylation provides energy
B. Cytochromes in the Electron Transport System
-- Different cytochromes, and hemoglobin
B. How Cyanide Kills
-- Poisoning the ETS
-- Hemoglobin
D. Data on Cyanide
Part Two: Use of Zyklon B
A. Extrapolate from Nuremburg doc N1-9912
B. A Hypothetical Gassing
C. Compare to Existing Documents
Conclusion

A Brief Aside: What is Cyanide?

Cyanide refers to a large number of compounds that
contain the negatively charged cyanide ion: CN-. This ion
consists of one carbon atom triple-bonded to one nitrogen
atom. The negative charge primarily rests on the carbon atom.
Cyanide can be found both as a gas and as a salt. When bound
to hydrogen, it's referred to as hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and
is a gas at room temperature. When bound to ions like sodium
(Na+) or Potassium (K+), it's a salt and is a water soluble
solid. Its name varies depending on the ion it binds. KCN is
potassium cyanide, for example.

More information is presented in the "Data on Cyanide"
section (see below).

Part One: The Physiological Basis of Cyanide Poisoning

A. Cells and Energy {1}.

Cells need energy to grow and maintain their function.
In cells, energy is carried in the form of a transport
molecule, namely Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). The metabolism
of molecules such as glucose (sugar), lipids (fats), etc.
release energy that is used to make more ATP. ATP is
essentially an "energy carrier" that allows cells to utilize
energy derived from food. Without ATP, a cell will die, as
will the organism itself. If a chemical interrupts a cell's
ATP producing machinery, that cell will die once it runs out
of ATP. Cyanide eliminates a cell's ability to produce ATP.
Before we can discuss how this happens, we must first deal
with how cells produce ATP under normal conditions.

Almost all ATP is produced in the mitochondria, a small
cellular organelle (literally "small organ"). The
mitochondria are, in essence, the "power plants" of a cell. A
mitochondrion has two membranes, an inner one and and outer
one. The outer membrane is highly permeable, and it will
allow just about anything through. The inner membrane, on the
other hand, is very impermeable. Only carbon dioxide (CO2),
water (H2O) and oxygen (O2) can pass through this membrane
without transport proteins to carry them across{2}. The
impermeable nature of the inner mitochondrial membrane (IMM)
will be important later.

Cells produce ATP through a combination of the electron
transport system (ETS) and oxidative phosphorylation (OP),
both in the mitochondrial inner membrane. The electron
transport system can be compared to an electric motor, where
current supplied to the motor allows work to be done. The
current passing through an electric motor is just a stream of
electrons, and the "current" passing through the ETS is no
different. High energy molecules generated by metabolism like
NADH and FADH2 supply the ETS with electrons, just as a
battery would supply a motor with current. This current
allows the ETS to do work. The "work" done is the pumping of
positively charged hydrogen atoms (protons, H+) across the
inner mitochondrial membrane. As I stated earlier, this
membrane will not allow anything back across without help from
a transport protein. At the end of the ETS, electrons have to
"go somewhere" to keep the current flowing -- they must leave
the ETS. In a battery, electrons go to the positive pole. In
the ETS, electrons are dumped onto oxygen, in effect acting
like an electron "sink". This is where oxygen is used in
metabolism, and will be dealt with later.

After a certain time, a significant number of protons
will be pumped out of the inner mitochondria, with many more
protons outside the mitochondria than inside. As the protons
are positively charged, the area outside the mitochondria will
have a relative positive charge, and the inside will have a
relative negative charge. There now exists a net potential
across the membrane, much like a fully charged battery. This
potential can be relieved to do work, namely the synthesis of
ATP.

The positive charges outside the mitochondria will
"want" to flow back in for two reasons: (1) the electrical
potential between the inner mitochondrial membrane and the
outer mitochondria. The positively charged H+ ions (protons)
will flow, if allowed, into the more negatively charged inner
mitochondria. This is much like how a battery works, but in
reverse. (2) The chemical gradient across the membrane.
Simply by random motions, molecules will flow from areas of
high concentration (outside the mitochondria) to those of low
concentration (inside the mitochondria). This is the same
reason a drop of dye in water will spread out over time even
if undisturbed. If molecules are prevented from diffusing by
a barrier (the inner membrane), a net pressure will result
from their impacts on the membrane, called the osmotic
pressure. The combination of electrical potential and osmotic
pressure is what provides the energy to make ATP in a cell
{3}.

Oxidative phosphorylation (making ATP) requires a
membrane-bound protein enzyme called ATP synthetase {4}. ATP
synthetase allows H+ ions back across the membrane, relieving
the pressure like letting air out a balloon. This flow of
protons allows the enzyme to combine Adenosine Diphosphate
(low E) and inorganic phosphate to make ATP (high energy).
This type of ATP synthesis is called oxidative
phosphorylation. It takes about two or three protons moving
through the enzyme to make one ATP molecule. The enzyme
requires a proton gradient across the membrane, with a higher
concentration on the outside than the inside. If anything
prevents the electron transport system from setting up this
proton gradient, ATP synthesis will not occur and the cell
will die.

-- Cyanide Poisoning

At the very end of the ETS, four electrons are added to
an oxygen molecule (see above). These electrons are added to
an oxygen molecule (O2), which combines with protons to make 2
water molecules. The ETS must dump electrons onto oxygen just
to keep the steady flow of electrons going, otherwise
electrons will "back up" and the current will stop.
Metabolism has an absolute requirement for oxygen, and it will
stop without it. If the ETS stops, the proton gradient will
fade away, ATP synthesis will stop, and the cell with die.
This last step, where electrons are given to oxygen to make
water, is where our cells utilize oxygen in metabolism.
Cyanide prevents the transfer of electrons to oxygen from the
last protein in the electron transport system, called a
cytochrome.

Cyanide reaches cells primarily through the blood, and
readily diffuses across the lungs during normal breathing.
Ingestion with food or drink is also lethal, as cyanide will
diffuse across the stomach wall and small intestine. Cyanide
will also very slowly diffuse across the skin, but this can
take over an hour {5}. Therefore cyanide intake through the
lungs and digestive tract is a very significant source of
poisoning, but very little occurs from absorption through the
skin.

B. Cytochromes in the ETS

Electrons passing through ETS are carried by three types
of molecules: iron-sulfur proteins, ubiquinone, and
cytochromes {6}. When talking about cyanide poisoning, the
cytochromes are the most important. Cytochromes contain a
very important structure called a porphyrin ring, which is an
aromatic, planar carbon-based ring with an iron atom
conjugated in the middle. A similar porphyrin ring structure
is also the oxygen binding structure in hemoglobin, a
vertebrate oxygen carrier protein in the blood. The iron has
two oxidation, or "charge" states, +2 (when it holds and
electron) and +3 (when it doesn't). The iron atom holds one
electron at a time, and passes it on the next molecule in the
ETS.

The iron atom, in addition to being bound by the
porphyrin ring, is often conjugated by the amino acids
histidine or cysteine. As the ring structure is planar, there
are two faces that can be conjugated by amino acids:

His
|
---- Fe(+3)-- Porphyrin molecule (side view)
|
His

Some cytochromes, however, are open on one of their two
faces:

--- Fe(+3)---
|
His

This open face is where hemoglobin in the blood cells
and a specific cytochrome in the ETS (Cytochrome a3, to be
exact) bind oxygen. Cytochrome a3 is the terminal cytochrome
that passes on electrons to oxygen to make water:

O2 + (2)H2 + 4 electrons ----> (2)H20

Cyt a3 binds oxygen at its open face {7}:

02
|
---- Fe(+2)--
|
His

When all works well, cytochrome a3 passes electrons to
oxygen, producing water. Dumping electrons onto oxygen acts as
a "sink" which allows electrons to flow continuously through
the ETS. The only problem is, certain poisons bind to this
cytochrome more strongly than oxygen, specifically cyanide and
carbon monoxide {8}.

C. How Cyanide Kills

-- Poisoning the ETS

Cyanide binds cytochromes much in the same way that
oxygen does, by conjugating at its open site. Unlike oxygen,
cyanide cannot receive electrons from cytochrome a3.

-:C=N: (note - actually a triple bond between C and N)
|
---Fe(+2)--
|
His

With the ETS deprived of its electron "sink", the whole
system backs up. Without the ETS, oxidative phosphorylation
will dissipate the H+ gradient, ATP synthesis will stop, and
the cell will die. Cyanide binds cytochromes more tightly
than oxygen, and as a result is lethal at very low
concentrations, at about 300 ppm. The effect also occurs at
hemoglobin, as cyanide will bind to that too, preventing
oxygen from reaching cells. In essence, this is how cyanide
kills cells and whole organisms.

-- Hemoglobin

Cyanide is most effective on warmblooded animals such as
mammals, but is less effective on insects. While insect
mitochondria and vertebrate mitochondria are not radically
different, one thing is: Hemoglobin. Vertebrates carry oxygen
in their blood via hemoglobin, while insects do not carry
oxygen in their blood at all. Instead, insects have air
tubules that carry oxygen directly to all cells in their body.
Because cyanide poisons hemoglobin too, animals that use it
are all the more susceptible. Also (while I am not sure of
this) insects may be more tolerant of anaerobic metabolism
than vertebrates.

Since cyanide binds to hemoglobin much in the same fashion
as it binds cytochrome a3, cyanide takes hemoglobin out of
commission as well {9}. With their oxygen carrying molecules
bound by cyanide, vertebrates die all the faster from
asphyxiation. Mammals are also very dependent on oxygen-
utilizing metabolism, and will die in minutes if it is shut
off. Insects, lacking hemoglobin, die more slowly as their
cells must be starved of ATP. Insects may also be able to
survive longer on anaerobic (non-O2 utilizing) metabolism.

Cyanide kills by binding to cytochrome a3 in the electron
transport system. As this site is usually bound by oxygen,
the passage of electrons from the ETS to oxygen is prevented,
backing up the system. Unable to maintain a proton gradient
without a properly functioning ETS, ATP synthesis stops and
the cell dies. In vertebrate organisms, cyanide also binds to
the porphyrin ring in hemoglobin, exacerbating cyanide's toxic
effects.

D. Data on Hydrogen Cyanide:

Here's what the 10th edition (1983) of the Merck Index had
to say on Hydrogen Cyanide:

HYDROGEN CYANIDE: Hydrocyanic acid, Blauseare, prussic acid.
[preparation info deleted] Colorless gas or liquid;
characteristic odor; very weakly acidic; burns in air with a
blue flame. INTENSELY POISONOUS EVEN MIXED WITH AIR.
Gas density: 0.941 (air = 1)
Liquid density: 0.687 [g/cm^3, I assume]
melting point: -13.4 deg Celsius
Boiling Point: 25.6 deg Celsius

The LC50 (lethal dose for 50% of animals) in rats -- 544
ppm (5min), mice 169 ppm (30 min), dogs 300 ppm (3 min).
HUMAN TOXICITY: [..] exposure to 150 ppm for 1/2 to 1 hour
may endanger life. Death may result from a few min. exposure
to 300 ppm. Average fatal dose: 50 to 60 milligrams.
USE: The compressed gas is used for exterminating rodents
and insects in ships and for killing insects on trees, etc.
MUST BE HANDLED BY SPECIALLY TRAINED EXPERTS.

Here's what _Chemistry of Industrial Toxicology_ had to say
about it (p94) [added emphasis is mine]:

"Hydrogen cyanide, or hydrocyanic or prussic acid, owes
its toxicity not to its acidity but to the cyanide ion (CN-).
Thus the soluble cyanides-- sodium, potassium,etc. -- are
equally toxic in the same molar concentrations. Unlike carbon
monoxide, hydrogen cyanide is a protoplasmic poison, killing
insects and other lower [sic] forms of animal life. _It does
not kill bacteria, however_. ^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hydrogen cyanide acts by inhibiting tissue oxidation, that is,
by preventing useful employment of oxygen carried by the
blood.

Cyanides are very rapid in their effects, killing
instantly if present in sufficient amounts. It is this speed
of action, rather than the minuteness of the fatal dose, which
accounts for the reputation of cyanide as the most powerful
common poison [..]

Hydrogen cyanide is used as a fumigant in dwellings,
warehouses, and ships. _Although such fumigations are
potentially very dangerous, accidents can be avoided by proper
precautions._

In high concentrations, hydrogen cyanide is absorbed through
the skin; therefore complete reliance cannot be placed on a
gas mask. After 1 hour exposure, 100 to 250 ppm of HCN are
dangerous."
[assumed the 100-250 ppm value is for absorption through skin]

Some things I'd like to point out:

Cyanide will not kill bacteria, and is completely useless
for disinfecting a morgue or hospital. Its only medical use
is to kill vermin (rats, mice, lice) that may harbor
pathogens. Some Holocaust deniers claim that cyanide was used
to disinfect "morgues" in Auschwitz. This is clearly a
ludicrous notion.

The sources I listed make specific references to HCN's
widespread use as a fumigant, and that it can be done easily
with the right precautions.

Major Modes of Poisoning

HCN will pass through the skin, and poisoning can result.
Absorption through the skin is a much slower process than
through lungs, so a short exposure to skin is not very
dangerous. It also takes a higher concentration of the gas
{10}. Absorption of cyanide through the skin is not
significant unless the concentration is high over a long
exposure.

According to July 1993 issue of _American Family
Physician_, cyanide poisoning through the skin is very rare:

" Cyanide is absorbed through the lungs, gastrointestinal
tract, and skin. Symptoms can occur within seconds of HCN
[cyanide gas] inhalation; ....Cyanide is readily absorbed
through the mucous membranes and the eyes. Clinical cases of
cyanide poisoning after dermal exposure are rare and most
often have involved burns with molten cyanide salts or
immersion in cyanide solutions."

Cyanide poisoning through the skin is therefore not a
significant mode of poisoning unless you have very high
concentrations over a very long period of time.

PART TWO: The Use of Zyklon B

A) Nuremburg Document #NI-9912: The Degesch Manual

As mentioned above in the technical data section, hydrogen
cyanide is often used as a fumigant for ships, warehouses, and
dwellings. Cyanide can be used to kill vermin and insects,
but it will not kill bacteria {11}. It is therefore useless
for disinfecting anything, but it will eliminate vermin that
harbor pathogens.

For fumigation purposes, a German firm called Degesch made
a product called Zyklon B. Zyklon B consisted of liquid HCN
adsorbed onto a carrier -- "wood fiber disks, dia gravel, or
small blue cubes [sic]" {12}. Although toxic, cyanide was
hard to detect alone, so an irritant was added to the Zyklon
to warn people of exposure.

A "typical" can of Zyklon contained 200 grams of HCN
adsorbed onto the carrier, and was stored in metal tins marked
with a death's head and warning that read: "Giftgas!" (Deathly
poisonous gas!) {13}. Zyklon-B shipments to Nazi Death camps
had the warning indicator removed, which would prevent people
from detecting the gas's presence before it was too late {14}.

The original Degesch set of instructions on using Zyklon-B
for fumigation discuss the various precautions that must be
taken, and under what conditions could Zyklon B be used. The
primary means of protection was a gas mask, and many different
structures and temperatures pose no problem for fumigation.
The Degesch manual is also known as Nuremburg document NI-
9912. Information is taken from the English translation, but
I have checked most of the quotes and information with the
original German (I speak a little, and read a bit more). I
won't quote the whole thing here, but I want to point out some
noteworthy items {15}:

1) Properties of Prussic Acid [HCN, cyanide]:

"Prussic acid is a gas which is generated by
evaporation... the liquid evaporates easily."
"Danger of explosion: 75 grams of HCN in 1 cubic meter of
air. Normal application approx. 8-10 g per cubic meter,
therefore not explosive"
"....one mg per kg of body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0"weight is sufficient to kill a
human being..."

2) Protection against gas.
"Each member must at all times carry with him:
1. his own gas mask
2. at least 2 special filter inserts against Zyklon
Prussic acid [for use in gas mask]
3. The leaflet 'First aid for prussic acid poisoning'
4. work order
5. Authorization certificate

Each disinfestation[sic] squad must at all times carry:
1. at least 3 special inserts as extra stock.
2. one gas detector
3. 1 instrument for injecting Lobelin.
4. Cardiazol, Voriazol tablets
5. 1 lever or pickhammer for opening cans of Zyklon
[etc.. warning signs, material to reseal cans]"

NOTE: No measure of personal protection other than a gas
mask, special filter, a gas detector, and antidote drugs are
mentioned. No precautions are taken to prevent HCN from
seeping through the skin. One can only assume that there
wouldn't be a high enough concentration of gas or there
wouldn't be enough time for the gas to seep in. Therefore, a
gas mask with special filters alone would be sufficient to
protect a user against the gas.

3) Buildings to be fumigated:

A wide variety of structures are mentioned, with all types
of contents. Detailed descriptions are given on how to handle
pets, bedding, clothing, and other domestic items inside of a
building to be fumigated. Also, recommendations for sealing
and ventilating various building types are given. Form these
instructions, it is clear that Zyklon-B was used to fumigate
any number of buildings, including residential dwellings.
Buildings did not have to be designed specifically for
Zyklon's use.

4) Working Temperature:

The instructions discuss using Zyklon at low temperatures,
even below five degrees Celsius. To fumigate a building, it
will take 8g of prussic acid per cubic meter for 16 hours at
temperatures above five degrees Celsius. Even warmer
temperatures need only 6 hours fumigation time. If the
temperature is below five degrees Celsius, the fumigation time
is to be extended to 32 hours.

These times are for flies, lice, fleas, etc. with eggs,
larvae and chrysalises. I can only guess it would take less
time for warm blooded mammals like rats and mice, unless the
"etc." refers to them as well.

Since Zyklon can be effectively used at temperatures close
to freezing, it seems that even cold temperatures did not
prevent the use of Zyklon as fumigant (or the case of the
Holocaust, as a murder weapon).

Let me summarize the points taken from the Degesch
documents: (1) the HCN liquid evaporates easily, and is highly
toxic; (2) normal working concentrations are well below (10X)
explosive amounts; (3) the only protection needed on each
person was a gas mask with special filters; (3) a whole
variety of structures can be fumigated, including dwellings
containing clothing and bedding; and (4) Zyklon can be
effectively used at temperatures below five degrees Celsius.
Taking all of this into account, it would seem that murdering
large numbers of people with Zyklon-B in specially constructed
rooms would be relatively simple, given that the gas is highly
toxic and fairly easy to use for fumigation.

The fact that the irritant indicator was removed from
shipments to Nazi death camps is another curious feature, as
one would wonder why an obvious safety feature would be
removed from a product if its intended use was purely benign.
Eyewitness accounts from individuals such as Fillip Mu"ller
and documents describing the use of Zyklon-B in the gas
chambers themselves are all the more damning.

B) A Hypothetical Gassing

In order to answer the question "How easy would it have
been to gas people with Zyklon-B?", I will carry out some
calculations to show just how feasible such a process would
be. Specifically, I will use an "average" size gas chamber to
see how many people could be fit into one, and how many could
have been killed in 18 months at a camp like Auschwitz, which
had four large chambers (Krema I and Bunkers I and II will not
be considered for reasons of simplicity). I will also discuss
how much Zyklon B would be needed to reach lethal
concentration in the room, and how fast 1 kilo of Zyklon would
have to evaporate to reach the lethal concentration of 300 ppm
in ten minutes.

Imagine a room with 210 square meters of floor space. I
chose this value as it was mentioned as a typical size of a
gas chamber in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Leuchter report FAQ
routinely posted by Ken Mcvay
{16}. I'll simply assume that the walls are 2.5 meters high,
so the building will have a total volume of 525 cubic meters,
or 5.25 X 10^5 liters.

The structure would be fitted with vents on the ceiling
for pouring in the Zyklon, and exhaust fans would be be used
to clear the room once gassing was completed. This structure
would be largely below ground, to help maintain a constant
temperature using the earth as insulation. (Not all of the
gas chambers at Auschwitz were below ground, in fact Kremas IV
and V were above ground structures.) Keeping the chambers
below ground would also allow easy access to the roof. The
perpetrators could pour gas in through the roof while wearing
gas masks. Camp inmates could be used to remove the bodies and
transport them to the crematoria once the gassing was complete
and the room had been cleared of gas. In reality, a quite
simple operation.

Also, imagine that there are four such buildings in the
camp (representing Kremas II, III, IV, and V at Auschwitz),
and that each has a crematoria to go with it. For the sake of
simplicity, each gas chamber will carry out only one gassing
per day, and the gas chambers will be forcibly ventilated for
at least one hour.

For the specifics of the gassing, let's look at just one
chamber. A building with 210 m^2 of floor space can easily
accommodate four people per square meter (my calculations
based upon how many people I could fit in one square meter, it
wasn't even a tight fit) As I said earlier, the empty volume
of the room is 525 m^3. By my calculations, a human person
will take up 0.081 cubic meters {17}. At four people per
square meter, that's 840 people in one room, which take up
68.04 m^3 of space. That leaves a free volume of 456.96 m^3
(457 m^3 from now on.)

To show (1) how much Zyklon it would take to reach the
lethal 300 ppm level, and (2) how fast 1 kilo of Zyklon would
have to evaporate to reach 300 ppm in ten minutes, we need to
know how much volume one kg of air takes up. Ideal gas
assumptions say that one mole (6.021 X 10^23 molecules) of gas
occupy 22.4 liters at 25 deg Celsius {18}. One mole of gas is
21% oxygen an 79% nitrogen (ignore the 1% of other gases and
assume they're not there.) Multiply this times the molecular
weight of the gases (grams per mole of gas, 28g for N2, 32g
for O2) and the weight of one mole of gas is (0.21)*32 +
(.79)*28 = 28.84 grams, or 0.02884 kg per 22.4 liters (the
vol. of one mole of gas). One kilogram of gas will therefore
occupy 776 liters of volume.

How much Zyklon-B will be needed to reach a concentration
of 300 ppm? 300 ppm HCN corresponds to 300 milligrams of HCN
per kilogram of air. For 457 cubic meters of air, you need to
do some manipulations:

457 m^3 = 4.57 X 10^5 liters * (1 kg air/ 776 liters)
= 589 kilos of air.

(0.300 grams HCN/ kg air)*(589 kg air) = 176.7 grams HCN.

...less HCN than is contained in one can of Zyklon-B. In
reality, if only 176 grams of HCN are poured into such a
room,they may have to wait some time before everyone is dead.
What if you pour in a whole kilogram of HCN?

The question now becomes, If 1 kg of HCN (5 cans) are
poured into our gas chamber, how fast will the HCN have to
evaporate to reach a lethal concentration in ten minutes? For
this example, I will assume a constant rate of evaporation on
a per gram basis. The rate of evaporation will be:

176.7 grams HCN/10 minutes = 17.67 grams/minute
(17.67 grams HCN/minute)/(1000 g HCN) X 100 = 1.76%

Only 1.76% of the HCN will have to evaporate per minute.
Actually, the numbers would be slightly different as there
will be less HCN each minute, so 1.76% won't be as much HCN
after eight minutes as it was in the first. Taking this loss
of material into account, even a constant 1.76% evaporation
rate takes only 12 minutes. For a substance that is normally
a gas at room temperature, an evaporation rate this slow seems
quite probable. As HCN boils at 26 degrees Celsius, it is
quite likely that the gas will evaporate much faster than
1.76% per minute.

I have searched for experimental kinetic data on HCN
evaporation to no avail. If anyone knows where I get some
data (short of doing the expts myself), let me know. This
information would be particularly useful in answering the
question: "How fast HCN would actually evaporate?"

With only one gassing a day, plenty of time will be left
for ventilating the gas chamber and moving the bodies to the
crematoria for combustion. The next question is, given one
gassing a day and four gas chambers at the camp, how many
people can be killed in a time period of one and one half
years (18 months)? I chose this time period since the four
large extermination facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau were in
operation from 1943 until their destruction by the fleeing
Nazis in November 1944 {19}. For the sake of argument, I'll
say that's about 1 1/2 years (May 1943 to Nov. 1944).

If the gas chambers were in operation for 548 days (1 1/2
yrs), the total dead would be:

(840)*(4)*(548) = 1,841,280 dead from gassing alone.

Most estimates say that 1 to 2 million died at Auschwitz
altogether, including deaths from starvation, torture, summary
execution, and medical experiments. Clearly then, based upon
my largely hypothetical example, it was both possible and
feasible to murder that many, even in a fairly short time
scale of 584 days with just four working gas chambers. In the
case of Auschwitz, an even shorter time of operation would be
necessary as not all of the 1.6 million were murdered in the
four main gas chambers. Executions by firing squad and
gassings in the makeshift Bunkers I and II were also carried
out. Also, many more died from starvation, torture, and
disease.

The only limiting factor would be the crematoria for
disposing of the bodies, as one could conceivably produce
bodies much faster via gassing than could be cremated. Given
the number actually killed at Auschwitz this may not have been
a problem -- see the letter to SS Gen. Kammler below (also ref
24).

C) Relate to Existing Documents on the Holocaust

Many documents discussing the operation of the gas
chambers at Auschwitz exist. The testimony of Hanz Stark is
an excellent example {20}. Hanz Stark was connected with
Auschwitz's "Political Department", and was responsible for
registering new arrivals to the camp. He was also responsible
for observing executions carried out in a room next to Krema
I, initially carried out with a small caliber rifle. The
terminology used for people dispatched in this manner was
Sonderbehandlung -- special treatment in English. Prisoners
who had received "special treatment" were said "to have been
found special lodgings." Stark was quite explicit that this
meant execution.

Later on, "experimental" gassings took place in the
execution room adjoining Crematoria I. Stark was also a
witness to gassings that took place there, and his description
is quoted here (in English, typos are mine):

"As I have already mentioned, the first gassing was
carried out in the small crematoria in autumn 1941. Grabner
ordered me to go to the crematorium in order to check numbers,
just as I had had[sic] to do with the shootings. About 200-
250 Jewish men, women, and children of all ages were standing
at the crematorium. There may also have been babies there

[....] Nothing was said to the Jews. They were merely ordered
to enter the gas chamber, the door of which was open. While the
Jews were going into the room, medical orderlies prepared for
the gassing. Earth had been piled up against one of the external
walls of the gassing room so that the medical orderlies could get
onto the roof of the room. After all the Jews were in the chamber,
the door was bolted and the medical orderlies poured Zyklon-B
through the openings..."

And as he later describes in a gassing he participated in
personally:

" As the Zyklon-B - as already mentioned - was in granular
form, it trickled down over the people as it was being poured
in. They then started to cry out terribly for they now knew
what was happening to them [...] After a few minutes there was
silence. After some time had passed, it may have been ten to
fifteen minutes, the gas chamber was opened. The dead lay
higgeldy piggeldy all over the place. It was a dreadful
sight."

Note that these gassings took place at Krema I, a much
smaller structure than the homicidal gas chambers constructed
at the Birkenau complex (Krema II, III, IV, V). This explains
why the chamber had a much smaller capacity, and earth had to
be piled up along side the room to allow access to the roof.
Other than that, the process is similar to the one I described
in the "hypothetical gassing" section.

The testimony of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Ho"ss
is also very useful {21}. With regards to the gassing
process, he describes both gassings in the large chambers in
the Birkenau complex and ones carried out in the makeshift
Bunkers I and II. Bunkers I and II were used while the major
extermination facilities were under construction, and had a
capacity of about 200-300 people at once. The process in the
bunkers was similar to that in Krema I (see above). The
extermination chambers was somewhat different, as Ho"ss
mentions that they where equipped with an electric ventilation
system to quickly ventilate the rooms, and an electric lift to
quickly transport bodies to the Krema ovens for incineration.
Here the gas chambers were located underground, which allowed
easy access for pouring Zyklon-B into the chambers.

Aerial photographs of the camps taken by allied
reconnaissance planes during the war corroborate Ho"ss
testimony, particularly with regards to the architecture of
the underground gas chamber in Krema II {22}.

A particularly gruesome testimony is provided by former
camp inmate Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier {23}:

Extract from evidence given at the Nuremburg Trials on the
Auschwitz Extermination Camp:
---------------------------------

M. DUBOST: Did you actually see the "selection" when
transports arrived?

VAILLANT-COURIER: Yes, because when we were working in the
Sewing Block in 1944, the block in which we lived was situated
just opposite the place where the trains arrived. The whole
process had been improved: Instead of carrying out the
"selection" where the trains arrived, a siding took the
carriages practically to the gas chamber, and the train
stopped about 100m from the gas chamber. That was right in
front of our block ..

[...]
They were taken to a red brick building with a sign that
said Baths. There they were told to get undressed and given a
towel before they were taken to the so called shower room.
Later, at the time of the large transports from Hungary, there
was no time left for any degree of concealment. They were
undressed brutally. I know all these particulars because I
was acquainted with a little Jewess from France .... when I
got to know her she worked on undressing the small children
before they were taken into the gas chamber.

After all the people were undressed they were taken into a
room that looked like a shower room, and the capsules were
thrown down into the room through a hole in the ceiling. an
SS man observed the effect through a spy-hole. After about 5-7
minutes, when the gas had done its job, he gave a signal for
opening the doors. Men with gas masks, these were prisoners
too, came in and took the bodies out. They told us that the
prisoners must have suffered before they died, because they
clung together in bunches like grapes so that it was difficult
to separate them....
------

There are also documents discussing exactly how many
people could be killed, and how many bodies could be cremated
in a given day. For example, Ho"ss mentions that a maximum
number of 10,000 people could be gassed in a given day (note
that this is the number _gassed_, not cremated.) A letter sent
to Berlin, addressed to SS General Kammler mentions that the
total number of bodies that could be processed in one day as
4,756 {24}. Note that this figure includes cremation of the
bodies as well as gassing. Based on this document, a total of
2.6 million people could be murdered and their corpses
disposed of in just one and one half years (548 days). This
is hardly a poor generalization, as the major extermination
facilities at Auschwitz went on line in late 1942 (Krema II
and III) and mid 1943 (Krema IV and V) {25}.

Based on the figures in the letter, my numbers generated
from the "hypothetical gassing" may err on the side of
caution. Note that I am not claiming that 2.5 million plus
were killed at Auschwitz, as I do not know the exact figure.
It should be self evident that the murder of about 1 to 2
million people in these camps (or even more) was not
only feasible, it was well documented. There are many more
volumes of documents on the Holocaust, and one need merely
search their local library to find many volumes of them.

Conclusion and Summary

In the preceding sections, I have (hopefully) shown how
cyanide acts as a poison, the relative ease with which it was
used for fumigation, and how it was used to murder hundreds of
thousands of innocents in gas chambers. Let me reiterate my
points very quickly:

1) Cyanide is very poisonous and kills by inhibiting oxidative
metabolism.

2) Cyanide was commonly used for fumigation with relative
ease.

3) With a modification of procedures used for de-infesting a
building, Zyklon-B could easily be used to murder over one
million people in 1 and 1/2 years.

4) Documents exist that discuss how gassing was done at
Auschwitz, and how many people could be killed and cremated
in a given time period.

5) These documents support my hypothetical example and
give detailed accounts of the gassing process.

If anyone has any questions or comments you can reach me
at the following addresses:

bpharmon@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu

brianh@itsa.ucsf.edu (after 10/14/94)

and also:

Brian Harmon
439 Kirkham St.
San Francisco, CA 94122

I am currently a graduate student in Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology at the University of California, San
Francisco.

Appendix:

i. Qualifications of The Author:

I have Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Zoology
and Chemistry from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056.
I also have over two years of research experience as of
4/8/94.


ii. Copyright Notice

(c) Brian Harmon, April 1994. This may be distributed
freely, provided it is not modified in any way, and all
credits are given to the author. Any altering of this
document without express consent of the author is hereby
forbidden. Quoted material in this text is copyrighted by the
publishers of the original source(s).

iii. Acknowledgements:

I would especially like to thank Danny Keren for his
help on this project. I also would like to thank Ken McVay
for his assistance, and for Charles Egger for functioning as a
second reader and editor.

Endnotes

1) All biochemical Data and information is taken from:

Voet, Donald and Voet, Judith G. _Biochemistry_. (New York:
John Wiley and Sons) (c) 1990, 1223 pp.

Another source worth looking at is:

"Cyanide Toxicity". Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry, U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. in
_American Family Physician_, Vol. 48, no 1, July 1993.
pp 107-113.

2) Voet, p 530.

3) ibid, p 546 and Dr. Jan Jaworski, personal communication.

4) ibid, p 549.

5) Elkins, Hervey B. _The Chemistry of Industrial
Toxicology_. (New York: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.) 2nd ed.,
(c) 1959, p 94

6) Voet, pp 538-544.

7) ibid, p 545 (figure).

8) ibid, p 535.

9) ibid, p 222.

10) Elkins, p 94

11) ibid, p 94

12) Nuremburg Document NI-9912, the Degesch Manual on how to
use Zyklon properly. I obtained both German and English
versions from:
Mendelsohn, John and Detwiler, Donald S. _The
Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes._ "Volume
12: The 'Final Solution' in the Extermination Camps and the
Aftermath" (New York: Garland Publishing) c. 1982, p 137.

13) Nuremburg Doc NI-032, from Mendelsohn and Detwiler, p 128.

14) Nuremburg Doc NI-9913-A (excerpts) from Mendelsohn and
Detwiler, p 149.

15) The Degesch manual is form Mendelsohn and Detwiler, pp
131-146.

16)Mcvay, Kenneth N. (1993) "HOLOCAUST FAQ: The Leuchter Report"
Usenet.news.answers. Available via anonymous ftp
from rtfm.mit.edu in pub/usenet/news.answers/holocaust
/leuchter/part01 (and ~part 02). approx. 23 pages, p 4.

17) I assumed that a human was merely a rectangular box,
neglecting the head. The height of the box was measured from
the shoulders to the floor, the breadth was measured across
the chest at sternum level, and the depth was also measured at
the same height. Based upon five people, the average
measurements were (rounded off the the nearest cm): 150 X 36
X 15 cm.

18) In an ideal gas, the atoms/molecules do not interact with
each other. While this is clearly not the case, for order-of-
magnitude calculations this assumption is fairly accurate.

19) Brugioni, Dino and Poirier, Robert. _The Holocaust
Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Extermination Complex_. (Washington D.C.: Central
Intelligence Agency). (c) Feb. 1979, p 13

20) _"The Good Old Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its
Perpetrators and Bystanders_. ed by Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen,
and Volker Reiss. English translation of "Die Scho"ne Zeit".
(New York: The Free Press, div. of MacMillan, Inc.) (c) 1991.
pp 252-255.

21) _The Good Old Days_, pp 271-273.

22) Brugioni and Poirier, p11.

23) _Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the
Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and
the Soviet Union_. ed. by Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and
Abraham Margaliot. (Jerusalem: Yad Veshem) (c) 1981, pp 358-
361

24) McVay, p 10. A GIF of the letter can be obtained via
anonymous FTP from Listserv@oneb.alamanac.bc.ca

25) _The Good Old Days_, p 271

 

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