14.000 Chapter 5.

The delousing and disinfestation installations of BW 5a and 5b in KGL Birkenau. This chapter needs some clarification.

1. Hydrogen Cyanide will always leave blue stains if it is effectively used, unless the walls are painted steel or of some other inert, non-porous material and washed down with ammonia or bleach after every usage. The execution time may be only five minutes but his is after the gas has sublimated, which requires heat, and the additional time of several hours for venting. In the United States it takes at least twenty minutes to ventilate a much smaller chamber (600 cf) and a much smaller dosage is used. The walls are then washed. As usual, Mr. Pressac is in error. His description is both impractical and impossible.
2. It should be noted that Pressac claims that an alleged gassing utilized 1% or 10,000 ppm of HCN in air. This being some forty times the lethal dosage. In U.S. gas chambers 0.320% or 3200 ppm of HCN in air is used as the dosage. This means that the Germans allegedly utilized some 3.125 times the overkill dosage used in the U.S. U.S. gas chambers contain all non-porous surfaces (painted steel) and must be washed with bleach after each execution. The normal exposure time is fifteen minutes to the HCN and all surfaces must be washed with bleach to prevent staining and corrosion. This is even with a preheated air intake to prevent condensation. It seems that the NAZIS were able to suspend the laws of nature to prevent staining.
3. A photo #6 (page 59) has an erroneous explanation. Pressac claims that because of the short exposure time and low temperature the HCN would only have had time to leave traces on metal hardware and not the brick and mortar. This is incorrect. We know from experience that brick and mortar will pick up cyanide quicker than metal. Mr. Pressac seems to have his facts backward, again. I would suggest that he study the American Execution System to see what really occurs. The concept that delousing gassings leave blue stains and people gassings do not, is ludicrous.