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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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CHAPTER 5
THE DELOUSING AND DISINFESTATION INSTALLATIONS
IN KGL
BIRKENAU BUILDINGS BW 5a and 5b
(Summary
study)
THE DELOUSING AND DISINFESTATION GAS CHAMBERS
OF BAUWERKEN 5a and 5b
(Birkenau I) |
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The study of "Work sites" 5a and 5b in the first
construction stage (Birkenau 1) presents delousing gas chambers
using Zyklon-B and shows the evolution of the "disinfestation"
techniques used in these buildings.
When Birkenau I was
completed it was a matter of urgency to have a delousing
installation, like that of Stammlager Block 3. A project drawing of
8/I 1/41 [Drawing 2] was made, showing showers and delousing
grouped together, an arrangement that had not been possible
initially in the main camp. The prisoners' health situation being
catastrophic [Document 1], the only product suitable for
drastic measures was one already used, Zyklon-B, which being in the
form of a gas had necessarily to be used in a closed space, a
"Gaskammer / gas chamber". The two buildings, BW 5a and 5b had one
gas chamber per building, each ventilated by two extractor fans.
As from April 1943 it was envisaged to replace delousing gas
chambers by a less dangerous technique, that of hot air
disinfestation chambers [Bauleitung drawing 2262 of 8/4/43].
This conversion was concretized on drawing 2540 of 5th July 1943
[Drawing 5]
At present, however, only BW 5b still has
a gas chamber in conformity with drawings 801, 1293 and 1715
[Drawings 2, 3 and 4]. Various improvements made to BW 5a and
5b meant that they were fitted with real saunas. Later, the 5a gas
chamber was dismantled, the ventilation of the roof modified, the
extractor fans removed and the holes filled in. According to drawing
2540 [Drawing 5] two hot air disinfestation chambers of
greatly reduced size were installed there, these being the same
model as one already operating in the north part of BW 5a, together
with an autoclave. This association was to be repeated later in the
design of the "Zentral Sauna", but on a much larger scale.
In B W 5a and 5b, the delousing of the prisoners and their
clothing always followed the same pattern. Simplifying the procedure
somewhat, the prisoners entered, from left to right on the first two
drawings [Drawings 2 and 3], through the windbreak entrance
into the "dirty" room where they undressed [Photo 16] and
their clothes were taken through the "dirty" anteroom and airlock to
the gas chamber. After destruction of the lice using hydrocyanic
acid, the effects were once more available to the prisoners, rid of
parasites, but still just as dirty. For their part, the prisoners
passed under the showers, whose temperature varied according to the
whim of the hot/cold water "mixer" on duty, then emerged on the
"clean" side and waited for their treated clothes so that they could
get dressed again. The overall operation could proceed more or less
correctly or be transformed into a nightmare if the Capos or the SS
were so inclined.
This modus operandi had a serious fault:
the dirty clothes, that had been alive with lice, were given back
with the lice dead but the clothes still dirty. Arrangements were
made to try to alleviate this problem, the use of autoclaves
[Photo 15] and hot air chambers [Photos 12 to 14]
making it possible to disinfest and disinfect at the same time, as
well as to roughly clean. It should be noted that the introduction
of this new system and the sauna meant that the direction of the
disinfestation circuit was changed on the last two drawings
[Drawings 4 and 5] to right to left, the sequence for the
prisoners being: undress / sauna / shower / wait / dress. As for the
clothes, it is not possible to state whether they went in the
autoclave, then in a gas chamber or were subjected to only one of
these treatments.
BW 5a [Photos 9, 10 and 11] and 5b
[Photos 6, 7 and 8] each had a delousing gas chamber of 108m²
floor area, an enclosed space, separated from the main body of the
building by airlocks, with two ventilation outlets in the roof ridge
and ventilated artificially by two extractor fans.
A stove,
fired from the airlock, i.e. from outside the gas chamber, completed
the equipment initially. The part of the building enclosing the gas
chamber being separated from the main part of the building and more
sensitive to variations in the outside temperature, this single
stove was not enough and two others were added (photographic
evidence: Photos 6 and 8] The fact is that clothes do not
give off natural heat like human beings and in winter it was
necessary to heat the gas chamber to reach the point at which
hydrocyanic acid evaporates, 26° C. The characteristics of a
traditional and "home-made" delousing gas chamber in KL. Auschwitz
can be defined as follows: |
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Room separated from
others by one, or two airlocks: |
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An extractor fan for
ventilation: |
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One or more stoves to
obtain the hydrocyanic acid vaporization temperature: |
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The
openings: |
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The doors and windows being of
normal construction, they had to be sealed by sticking strips of
paper over the cracks: |
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Gas-tight doors could be
installed, gas-tightness being achieved by fixing felt sealing
strips on both the door and the frame and a light fit being ensured
by two angled bolts being screwed into the catches in which the
latch bars were housed. |
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After the transformation of BW 5a, the path taken and
the introduction of hot air by forced draught into the
disinfestation chambers are clearly indicated. The source of the hot
air, on the other hand is not known and the generators are not
mentioned. It can be assumed that it either came from the main
boiler house or that there was a separate heating system connected
with the blower system, near to the disinfestation chambers.
In the two delousing gas chambers of BW 5a and 5b there
appeared in the course of time a bluish coloring of the walls, known
as the "blue wall phenomenon", which permits the immediate
distinction on sight between delousing and homicidal gas chambers.
The delousing and homicidal installations where hydrocyanic gas was
used were of strictly identical design: a closed space of any
desired volume with one or two gas-tight or temporarily sealed doors
and fitting with one or two fans for ventilation (sometimes natural
ventilation only). Their method of use was radically different. Lice
are less susceptible to the toxicity of hydrocyanic acid than is
man. A hydrocyanic gas concentration of 0.3g/m³ (lethal dose) is
immediately fatal for man, while in order to destroy lice a
concentration of 5 g/m³ applied for at least 10 hours is necessary.
If this concentration is maintained for 6 hours, all insects are
destroyed [source: Degesch]. In Birkenau, the quantity poured into
the homicidal gas chambers was forty times the lethal dose (12 g/m3)
which killed without fail one thousand people in less than five
minutes. Afterwards the fans were switched on or the natural
ventilation started. Then came the cremation of the corpses over a
period of 24 hours (in Krematorien II and III). The contact time for
the hydrocyanic acid with the walls of the homicidal gas chambers
never exceeded about ten minutes per day at a temperature below 30
degrees Celsius. In the clothing delousing gas chambers a minimum
concentration of 5 g/m³ was used during several cycles per day, the
duration of the cycle varying according to the contact time chosen.
This hydrocyanic saturation for 12 to 18 hours a day was reinforced
by the heat given off by stoves (situated in the chamber) providing
a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. The walls were impregnated with
warm hydrocyanic acid for at least 12 hours a day, which was to
bring about in situ the formation of a dye, "Prussian blue" or
potassium iron (III) hexacyanoferrate (II), whose composition varied
according to the conditions of formation, The bluish coloring of the
walls, was not visible at the liberation of the camp, but appeared
in subsequent years, under the influence of various physico-chemical
factors which have not been studied. The "blue wall" phenomenon
makes it possible now to distinguish visually, empirically, but with
absolute certainty, between delousing gas chambers, where the
phenomenon is present, and homicidal gas chambers where it is not.
Without additional heat the too brief contact of nevertheless high
concentrations of hydrocyanic acid with the walls of the homicidal
installations was not able to provoke a development of the reaction
appreciable enough to be
visible. | |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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