The most important Photograph / corpse color

[Jerzy Ulicki-Rek]

I do have the pictures in my photo camera and was able to recover the page censored by imageshack..
Because picture sharing programs have a problem with this page here it is.Word for word.


Here is full text of page 83 censored by imageshack.us

"Parcels were sent to Dachau,Buchenwald,Sangerhausen,Sachsenhausen,Oranienburg ,Flossenburg,Landsberg -am- Lech,Floha,Ravensbruck,Hamburg-Neugamme,Mauthausen,Theresienstadt,Auschwitz,Bergen-Belsen ,to camps near Vienna and in Central and Southern Germany.
The principal recipients were Belgians,Dutch,French,Greeks,Italians,Norwegians,Poles and stateless Jews.

The relief work could not be unfortunately be extended to all concentration camps because a great many reminded unknown to the ICRC until the end of the war.
Moreover the ICRC was long prevented by the blockade from procuring sufficient funds and goods.]
When it could do so at the very end of the war ,transport had been seriously curtailed by the destruction of roads and railways.

(d)-Fourth phase,January to June 1945.Admittance of the ICRC delegates to the Concentration Camps.

In the chaotic conditions of Germany after the invasion during the final months of the war ,the camps received no food supplies at all and starvation claimed an increasing number of victims.
Itself alarmed by this situation the German Government at last informed the ICRC on February 1,1945 ,in reply to a request of October 2,1944,that individual and collective relieve parcels could be despatched to French and Belgian detainees.
In March 1945 ,discussion between the President of the ICRC and General of the SS Kaltenbruner * gave even more decisive results.
Relief could henceforth be distributed by the ICRS and one of the delegate was authorized to stay in each camp,on condition that he undertook not to leave it before the end of the war.
For the first time ,therefore,the concentration camps were open to the Committee.
In order to take advantage of this last- minute concession,road transport had to be improvised,for there were now no trains in service throughout Germany.
The efforts made by the ICRC in this respect are recorded elsewhere**.Suffice it...

*See vol.1,page 620.
**See pp.184 et seq.
83 "


Jerzy Ulicki-Rek

[astro3]

Thanks Occam's Razor for that very lucid reply. Its wonderful to have some real chemistry here.

But, could you just explain why you are contradicting the online medical dictionary? http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... hemoglobin
Cyanhemoglobin a compound formed by the combination of hydrogen cyanide with hemoglobin. It gives the bright red color to the blood that is characteristic of peracute cyanide poisoning

You're saying that cyanide does not react with haemoglobin, that CO does bind with Haemoglobin but cyanide does not; that cyanide only reacts in tissues with ferric iron. So both produce a pink corpse for different reasons. Uh-huh.

[Kingfisher]

http://forensicpathologyonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=57&Itemid=82

Cherry red staining suggests poisoning by carbon monoxide. Bright red staining is seen in hydro cyanic acid poisoning.

Also http://www.emedicinehealth.com/cyanide_poisoning/page3_em.htm#cyanide_poisoning_symptoms deals with live patients, not corpses:

The skin of a cyanide-poisoned person can sometimes be unusually pink or cherry-red because oxygen will stay in the blood and not get into the cells.

I guess a lot hinges on what colour your cherries are! But the first quote seems to suggest a brighter shade for cyanide poisoning. The second quote says redness can be present already in a live patient suffering from cyanide poisoning, therefore before livor mortis.

[Occam's Razor]

astro3:

But, could you just explain why you are contradicting the online medical dictionary? http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... hemoglobin

I would suggest it's the other way round: They contradict science.
This website gives three source:

cyanhemoglobin /cy·an·he·mo·glo·bin/ (si″an-he″mo-glo´bin) a compound formed by action of hydrocyanic acid on hemoglobin.

Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. © 2007 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

cyanhemoglobin [si″an-he´mo-glo″bin]
a compound formed by the combination of hydrogen cyanide with hemoglobin; it gives the bright red color to the blood that is seen in cyanide poisoning.
Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

and

cyanhemoglobin
a compound formed by the combination of hydrogen cyanide with hemoglobin. It gives the bright red color to the blood that is characteristic of peracute cyanide poisoning.
Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary, 3 ed. © 2007 Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved

So we have three "dictionaries", one for "health consumers", one I believe for nurses ("Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health") and one for veterinarians.

I would suggest we use toxicology textbooks as a reference instead.

A google search for "cyanhemoglobin" gives 5,430 results. Not very much, and basically all from "free online dictionaries".
Let's see what wikipedia has:
They have an entry for carboxyhemoglobin (relevant for CO poisoning):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboxyhemoglobin

But as far as I can see nothing for "cyanhemoglobin". The word doesn't seem to exist in the whole wikipedia database. Not even in the text of some other wikipedia article.

Now let's see what wikipedia has to offer for "cyanide poisoning":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_poisoning

The cyanide ion halts cellular respiration by inhibiting an enzyme in the mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase.

It's a bit confusing, there's cytochrome c, and cytochrome c oxidase. Actually there are several similar molecules that are part of the electron transport chain. The important thing is that they all have a heme group that contains an iron ion that switches between Fe(II) and Fe(III).
But it confirms my explanation. Red blood cells don't have mitochondria, they don't need oxygen and they are not affected by cyanide poisoning:

Mammalian erythrocytes are unique among the vertebrates as they are non-nucleated cells in their mature form. These cells have nuclei during early phases of erythropoiesis, but extrude them during development as they mature in order to provide more space for hemoglobin. In mammals, erythrocytes also lose all other cellular organelles such as their mitochondria, Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum.

As a result of not containing mitochondria, these cells use none of the oxygen they transport; instead they produce the energy carrier ATP by the glycolysis of glucose and lactic acid fermentation on the resulting pyruvate.

source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_blood_cell

Back to the wikipedia page on cyanide poisoning:
Surprisingly, they write:

Acute poisoning

Cyanide poisoning is a form of histotoxic hypoxia because the cells of an organism are unable to use oxygen, primarily through the inhibition of cytochrome c oxidase. Inhalation of high concentrations of cyanide causes a coma with seizures, apnea, and cardiac arrest, with death following in a matter of minutes. At lower doses, loss of consciousness may be preceded by general weakness, giddiness, headaches, vertigo, confusion, and perceived difficulty in breathing. At the first stages of unconsciousness, breathing is often sufficient or even rapid, although the state of the victim progresses towards a deep coma, sometimes accompanied by pulmonary edema, and finally cardiac arrest. Skin color goes pink from cyanide-hemoglobin complexes. A fatal dose for humans can be as low as 1.5 mg/kg body weight.[1]

But they don't give a source for this claim!
As I said, cyanide ions bind to Fe(III) ions, not to Fe(II). And the iron in hemoglobin is normally in the Fe(II) oxidation state. Only a small amount is accidentally oxidized to Fe(III). Hemoglobin with a Fe(III)-iron is called methemoglobin.
Here's the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobin

Methemoglobin (British English: methaemoglobin) (pronounced "met-hemoglobin") is a form of the oxygen-carrying metalloprotein hemoglobin, in which the iron in the heme group is in the Fe3+ (ferric) state, not the Fe2+ (ferrous) of normal hemoglobin. Methemoglobin cannot bind oxygen, unlike oxyhemoglobin. It is bluish chocolate-brown in color. In human blood a trace amount of methemoglobin is normally produced spontaneously. But when it is present in excess the blood becomes abnormally dark bluish brown. The NADH-dependent enzyme methemoglobin reductase (diaphorase I) is responsible for converting methemoglobin back to hemoglobin.

Normally one to two percent of people's hemoglobin is methemoglobin; a higher percentage than this can be genetic or caused by exposure to various chemicals and depending on the level can cause health problems known as methemoglobinemia. A higher level of methemoglobin will tend to cause a pulse oximeter to read closer to 85% regardless of the true level of oxygen saturation.[1]

So normally one to two percent of people's hemoglobin is methemoglobin;
That's important.
Cyanide does bind to this oxidized form of hemoglobin.
Actually, one of the treatment options for cyanide poisoning uses this mechanism:
The patient is given a drug that oxidizes a certain percentage of his hemoglobin to methemoglobin.
Let's say 10-20%. That's not very healthy, but in this case it can be life-saving.

Here's a table from wikipedia:

Methemoglobin saturation is expressed as the percentage of hemoglobin in the methemoglobin state; That is MetHb as a proportion of Hb.

1-2% Normal
Less than 10% metHb - No symptoms
10-20% metHb - Skin discoloration only (most notably on mucus membranes)
20-30% metHb - Anxiety, headache, dyspnea on exertion
30-50% metHb - Fatigue, confusion, dizziness, tachypnea, palpitations
50-70% metHb - Coma, seizures, arrhythmias, acidosis
Greater than 70% metHb - Death

source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobin

The important thing is, that the amount of iron in the red blood cells is very large compared to the amount of iron in the cytochrome c enzymes in the rest of the body.
If you convert a certain amount of normal hemoglobin to methemoglobin, you still have enough normal hemoglobin to transport oxygen. But now you have a large supply of Fe(III) in the methemoglobin that can bind and absorb cyanide. And thus relieve the other body cells from their cyanide burden.

The thing is, this wouldn't make sense if cyanide would bind to normal hemoglobin. It doesn't, and that's why you must convert hemoglobin to methemoglobin in order to bind cyanide.

Let's look at the wikipedia article for cyanide poisoning again. Here's what they write about treatment options:

Treatment of poisoning and antidotes
[...]
Nitrites:
The nitrites oxidize some of the hemoglobin's iron from the ferrous state to the ferric state, converting the hemoglobin into methemoglobin.

Cyanide binds avidly to methemoglobin, forming cyanmethemoglobin, thus releasing cyanide from cytochrome oxidase[15] Treatment with nitrites is not innocuous as methemoglobin cannot carry oxygen, and methemoglobinemia needs to be treated in turn with methylene blue.
[...]
4-Dimethylaminophenol:
4-Dimethylaminophenol (4-DMAP) has been proposed[by whom?] in Germany as a more rapid antidote than nitrites with (reportedly) lower toxicity. 4-DMAP is used currently by the German military and by the civilian population. In humans, intravenous injection of 3 mg/kg of 4-DMAP produces 35 percent methemoglobin levels within 1 minute. Reportedly, 4-DMAP is part of the US Cyanokit, while it is not part of the German Cyanokit due to side effects (e. g. hemolysis).

Here's another article that's linked from the wikipedia article:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/wa ... ex-eng.php

The cyanide concentration is higher in red blood cells than in plasma by a factor of two or three, reflecting cyanide's tendency to bind to methaemoglobin. Cyanide may also accumulate in body cells by binding to metalloproteins or enzymes such as catalase or cytochrome c oxidase.

So "cyanide binds avidly to methemoglobin, forming cyanmethemoglobin". And in emergency cases they actually convert up to 35% of the patient's blood to methemoglobin.

As we saw earlier, normally one to two percent of people's hemoglobin is methemoglobin;.

Cyanide doesn't bind to hemoglobin to form "cyanhemoglobin". But it does bind to methhemoglobin to form cyanmethemoglobin. But only 1 to 2% of your hemoglobin are methemoglobin.
So normally your venous blood looks bluish through the skin because it has low oxygen content. During cyanide poisoning venous blood is full of oxyhemoglobin which has a bright red color. And 1 or 2 percent may be cyanmethemoglobin. I don't even know the color of cyanmethemoglobin. But let's say it's also bright red. We now have 1 or 2 percent bright red cyanmethemoglobin in both veins and arteries, and up to 98% of bright red oxyhemoglobin. In arteries and veins. Actually, it might be a little bit less, since some body cells might still be able to utilize a little bit of oxygen. But the proportion of oxyhemoglobin to cyanmethemoglobin should be very big. And I mean, I don't think that cyanmethemoglobin glows in the dark or so. You can't have much more bright red than bright red. In other words, cyanmethemoglobin might add a little bit to the skin color, but I am very sure that the majority comes from the oxyhemoglobin.

Why do some books and even wikipedia claim the opposite? I guess you know that most book authors, journalists and even scientists are lazy. They simply copy and paste what they find somewhere else, without checking it.
Look at the talk page of the wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cyanide_poisoning

It's obvious that these guys have no idea what they are talking about.

Here's the German wikipedia entry on cyanide poisoning (Blausäurevergiftung):

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaus%C3%A4urevergiftung

Blausäurevergiftung

Die primäre Giftwirkung besteht in der Blockade der Sauerstoff-Bindungsstelle durch eine irreversible Bindung des Cyanids an das zentrale Eisen(III)-Ion des Häm a3 Kofaktors in der Cytochrom c Oxidase der Atmungskette in den Mitochondrien der Zelle. Durch die Inaktivierung dieses Enzyms kommt die Zellatmung zum Erliegen, die Zelle kann den Sauerstoff nicht mehr zur Energiegewinnung verwerten und es kommt damit zur sog. „inneren Erstickung“.

Die Bindung des Cyanids an Eisen(II)-Ionen ist vergleichsweise gering. Die Inaktivierung des Hämoglobins durch Komplexierung des Eisen(II)-Ions spielt daher bei Vergiftungen eine untergeordnete Rolle.

Da der Sauerstoff von den Zellen nicht verwertet werden kann und das venöse Blut damit sauerstoffreich bleibt, kommt es in der Regel trotz ausgeprägter Atemnot nicht zu einer Zyanose. Dies sowie der typische Geruch nach Bittermandeln sollte die Diagnose ermöglichen. Aus gleichem Grund finden sich nach dem Tod durch Blausäure bei dem Toten Leichenflecke (Livores), die ähnlich denen bei Vergiftung durch Kohlenstoffmonoxid leuchtend rot sind.

Bei einer Vergiftung mit sehr hohen Konzentrationen kommt es in Sekunden zur Hyperventilation, Atemstillstand, Bewusstlosigkeit und innerhalb von wenigen Minuten zum Herzstillstand. Eine hellrote Färbung der Haut bleibt in diesen Fällen oft aus.

Vergiftungssymptome

Symptome für eine Vergiftung sind unter anderem:

Atemnot
Bittermandelgeruch der Ausatemluft
Kopfschmerzen
Schwindel
Erbrechen
Krämpfe
Ohnmacht
rosige Hautfarbe

I'm too lazy to translate it. (Any volunteers?)

But what they basically say is:

- binding of cyanide to Fe(II) rather low, therefore inactivation of hemoglobin not important in cyanide poisoning

- bright red livores (seems to be the same as livor mortis), similar to the ones after CO poisoning

- sometimes no bright red skin color after very high intoxication that leads to rapid death (unconsciousness in seconds, cardiac arrest in minutes)

- typical symptom among others: rosy skin color

I think the "sometimes no bright red skin color after very high intoxication that leads to rapid death (unconsciousness in seconds, cardiac arrest in minutes)" doesn't apply to the holocaust story, because such rapid death would have required enormous amounts of cyanide and "complying" victims, who voluntarily took a deep breath of the stuff.
Enormous amounts of cyanide would have resulted in enormous amounts of prussian blue in the alleged gas chamber walls. And in the large gas chambers it wouldn't have been possible to achieve such high levels almost instantaneously in the whole room. Plenty of people who would have had a rather slow death and as a consequence a rosy skin color.


CO and cyanide poisoning are covered in every textbook on toxicology. I would suggest that you go to your next university library, grab several toxicology textbooks and look it up. I would look for several, because probably not every one of them will explain the mechanism of skin color change. But some will.


Kingfischer wrote:

The second quote says redness can be present already in a live patient suffering from cyanide poisoning, therefore before livor mortis.

Yes, definitely. That's what I wanted to explain with the sunburn example. Livor mortis is when the blood coalesces in the lower body parts. You then have more blood concentrated at one place, which makes the color much more intense. But the rosy skin color is already there, before death. When livor mortis sets in, the rest of the skin gets pale again, because now the blood seeps to the lowest body parts.

I guess a lot hinges on what colour your cherries are!

Yeah, that's true. Seems like google censores images of human corpses. It's difficult to find such photos.

[borjastick]

Too much information for me. We need to keep this simple. The bottom line is as Fred the plumber says, no witness statements talk of red bodies in the post gassing periods.

And as the great Hannover would say and has said a million times, show me a gas chamber...

[Occam's Razor]

borjastic wrote:

Too much information for me.

I know what you mean. My reply was for astro3, he explicitly requested this information, even twice. And as far as I know he has the background to understand it.

The bottom line is as Fred the plumber says, no witness statements talk of red bodies in the post gassing periods.

Yes, that's what it boils down to. Believers are trying to find all kinds of excuses why nobody mentioned reddish / rosy bodies. That's why at least some of us must try to explain that these people have no idea what they are talking about.

But apart from that I agree with you. We must keep it simple. Millions are supposed to have been killed with either cyanide or carbon monoxide. At least the vast majority would have had a rosy or even reddish skin color after the gassing. And nobody mentioned that. That's extremely strange.

[Friedrich Paul Berg]

WOW! My special thanks to both Occam's Razor and Jerzy Ulicki-Rek for their enormously interesting answers above.

To Occam's Razor let me say quickly here that there seem to be some subtle differences even within the medical community as to the exact meanings of some of the terms used. "Lividity" as used in the Austrian study which repeatedly uses the word "immediately" does not simply mean the color of "livor mortis"--but rather the color of the corpse even before livor mortis has set in. That is why they spoke of coroners being able to identify CO fatalities "immediately" at the death scene--which would have also included, at least in some cases: at the very moment of death. Nothing they wrote even remortely suggests that any coroner should wait at least 20 minutes to 4 hours before making a lifesaving decision about the presence of CO at the death scene.. The corpse of any light-skinned person would show the intensely red coloring of the blood itself through the skin (even before death) over much of the body--and long before hypostasis (or livor mortis) could have possibly set in.


CO poisoning victim (still alive) with red coloring from San Antonio, Texas at: http://www.sanantoniohomemonitoring.com/San-Antonio-Carbon-Monoxide-Alarm.html

But even with any of the suggested delays in the appearance of the red coloring, ALL of the CO gassing scenarios would have given countless opportunites for "eyewitnesses" to see that RED coloring in many of the corpses. Just removing the corpses from a gas chamber (as many as 800 in the CO gas chambers at the AR camps or even 2,000 from cyanide in Auschwitz-Birkenau) would have taken many minutes and probably hours. The bodies would have then been piled up in huge piles, also for many hours at least, before they could have possibly been consumed by fire or decompostion.

I dare say that even if only 10% of the corpses had displayed anything like the intense red coloring in my logo, that would have still been an intensesly memorable experience for any "eyewitnesses"--even decades after the war. The "eyewitnesses" for the Soviet trials at Krasnodar and Kharkov in 1943 and for Sachsenhausen after the war (where Dr. Leidig seemed to have testified) had no memory problems in that regard. The western trials seemed to have been burdened by a need to conform somehow to Gerstein's absurd statement about "blue" corpses.

To Jerzy, I will be happy and eager to post the actual image of page 83 on my own website with a link to his own excellent but underappreciated website.


Friedrich Paul Berg
Learn everything athttp://www.nazigassings.com
Nazi Gassings Never Happened! Niemand wurde vergast!

[friedrichjansson]

I have been looking at various textbooks for information on the corpse color question for both CO and cyanide. I should probably gather together the various passages on the subject that I've found, but a few comments for now:

1. As Occam has stated, we have to distinguish between color of postmortem hypostasis [aka lividity, livores, or livor mortis] and the color produced immediately by CO or cyanide. The question is how the color changes over time. Both CO and cyanide are associated with reddish coloration even in clinical cases, but this is not as intense a color as the livor mortis can be. Many sources warn against relying on pink coloration in clinical cases - I get the sense that the authors feel that doctors have often mistakenly dismissed the possibility of CO poisoning simply because a patient didn't have a pink face and want to keep this from happening again. You know, old Mrs. Tibbet comes in complaining that she's had headaches ever since her furnace was repaired, but the doctor tells her she can't be suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning because her face isn't pink. Some sources make comments like "in clinical cases the bright-red color may be dismissed as mild sunburn or flushing." A carbon monoxide saturation of around 30% is frequently mentioned as a threshold for the visibility of distinctive coloration in the livores. In cases of death by exhaust [as in suicide by running the car in the garage] carbon monoxide saturation is generally over 70%.

2. As the livor mortis is clearly visible within an hour or two after death (and starts to appear even earlier), sonderkommando witnesses and witnesses who worked at burying the bodies at the Reinhardt camps would have seen the bodies with livor mortis in place. Witnesses who claim to have merely glanced at the immediate aftermath of a gassing, on the other hand, would have seen the flushing caused by the cyanide or carbon monoxide, but would not have seen the more intense livor mortis.

3. The inventors of the gassing story hurt their cause by making their victims be naked. It would be much more believable that witnesses might fail to see the redness of the corpses if said corpses were clothed.

4. Many sources suggest that cyanide and carbon monoxide produce the same coloration, and warn against confusing them at autopsy. Hypothermia is also mentioned as a cause of a similar coloration. Among those who distinguish between the color produced by cyanide and that produced by carbon monoxide, most claim that cyanide produces a deeper red, sometimes called "brick red" in contrast with the "cherry red" produced by carbon monoxide. The color changes in the livores produced by carbon monoxide and cyanide are anything but obscure - they are mentioned more often in the textbooks than is any other color change.

I have a number of pictures of CO fatalities that I can make available. I have not found any pictures of cyanide victims.

[Friedrich Paul Berg]

Here's a reference I found just today for the first time--about clinical CO poisoning victims:

Telltale Coloring of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Unlike other conditions that decrease oxygen in the blood, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning are almost never pale or blue (cyanotic). Although it doesn't happen every time, skin coloring in victims of severe carbon monoxide poisoning will often be bright pink or flushed red.

http://firstaid.about.com/od/hazardousmaterials/qt/06_COpoisoning.htm

There are few pictures of cyanide victims--but I found the following in a book by G Austin Gresham:


See also "The Eyewitnesses Lied" for many more pictures at: http://www.nazigassings.com/TheEyewitnessesLied.html
It is becoming clear now that one major simple reason for rejecting the holocaust gassing claims is that many of the victims, whether from CO or HCN, would have been bright RED. Except for testimony generated by the Soviets in their outrageous show trials--there is no supporting testimony about RED corpses in any western trials The Tauber testimony about his visit to the mortuary in Birkenau included old corpses which were already turning green from decomposition.

Of course, we want simple arguments--but, we have one here. Of course,the hoaxers will fight tenaciously because for them this is an existential battle. They will blow smoke for as long as they possibly can. But in any event, this part of the struggle will be much easier than it was to bring them to concede that diesel exhaust was NOT the source of deadly CO.


Friedrich Paul Berg
Learn everything athttp://www.nazigassings.com
Nazi Gassings Never Happened! Niemand wurde vergast!

[Hannover]

Below is a rebuttal to the Revisionist position on corpse color. One is immediately struck with the multiple references to the laughable Yankel Wiernik*.

* see:
"eyewitness" Yankel Wiernik at Treblinka'
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33&p=120

Read on, comments wanted.

- Hannover

'Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 5: Gas Chambers at the Aktion Reinhard Camps (6). Corpse Color.'
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... _6507.html

Corpse Color
Another of MGK’s criticisms of Aktion Reinhard witnesses involves the color of the gassed corpses.[246] For them, it can be taken as a “matter of fact”[247] that the gassing victims should have exhibited clear cherry-red features, and as no witness refers to such a color on the victims, MGK are “certain that something is not right with the gas chamber testimonies.”[248] This type of argumentation is dubious on its face, for it presupposes an exact knowledge of several things: the murderous circumstances inside the gas chambers, the factors which bring about a “bright cherry red” appearance of carbon monoxide victims, that the gassing victims would necessarily have displayed the cherry-red color, and that this discoloration is easily apparent to the untrained human eye.

To support such a claim, MGK have to rely on medical and toxicological literature regarding carbon monoxide poisoning; however, to our knowledge, none of the four deniers (including Friedrich Berg) who use this argumentation have any type of medical expertise from which to judge or interpret such medical discourse. In their cursory review on such a complicated topic, they are quick to jump to selective conclusions without a full appreciation of the explanations made in the literature and their applicability to the Reinhard camps.
A classic example of such a selective and faulty approach can be found in Thomas Kues’ handling of reports written by Jewish physicians on bodily conditions inside the Warsaw Ghetto between 1940 and 1942. In their account on circumstances inside the ghetto, the physicians provide medical data on the residents soon to be sent to Treblinka, and the effect of the malnourished and starvation conditions on their physical health, something they termed as “hunger disease.”[249] The physicians refer to “hemodilution” and substantial decreases in the amount of haemoglobin in the blood of the Warsaw ghetto Jews.
Kues dishonestly represents the work of the Warsaw physicians. In his article, Kues cites a chart put together as a review of autopsy results of strictly hunger disease deaths. Kues includes the statistic that anaemia was found in only 5.5% of the autopsy cases as “an indication that even among fatal cases of malnutrition, anaemia was far from always present.” However, Kues leaves out an important statement by the physicians related to the lack of anaemia found in the autopsies:

We must emphasize that only 5.5% of the cases showed advanced anaemia. Fairly large amounts of hemosiderin are found in livers and spleens, and it is certain that in hunger disease RBCs are being destroyed, but on the other hand as a result of the diminished size of the organs and tissues, the amount of blood left is enough to prevent the symptoms of advanced anaemia.[250]

Thus, the anaemia that Kues refers to is advanced anaemia, which was less present than more mild forms. Kues must realize this, for he quotes reports from the physicians examining patients of hunger disease openly stating that “anaemia was prevalent.”
The points that ghetto residents suffered from anaemia and hemodilution are very noteworthy, as they greatly undermine any expectation that Aktion Reinhard victims should have exhibited a cherry-red lividity. One source makes this point explicitly about carbon monoxide victims:

When the victim is anaemic the (classical ‘cherry-pink’) color may be faint or even absent because insufficient haemoglobin is present to display the color. In racially-pigmented victims the color may obviously be masked, though may still be seen on the inner aspect of the lips, the nail-beds, tongue, and palms and soles of hands and feet. It is also seen inside the eyelids, but rarely in the sclera.[251] (Emphasis added)

Thus, in a medical article describing a circumstance which was applicable to the ghetto victims (insufficient haemoglobin), the appearance of cherry-red is hardly expected to be noticeable (“faint or even absent”).
Among other points, the reports detail the horrendous state of the Jews’ circulatory and respiratory systems.[252] Their poor health in these regards was certainly tied to the starvation conditions of the ghetto, as medical literature bears out:

Malnutrition has a tremendous impact on respiratory functions. It affects respiratory muscle performance, lung structure, defense mechanisms, and control of ventilation and predisposes to respiratory failure and prolonged mechanical ventilation.[253]

Residents of the ghetto had an average cardiac output (volume of blood circulated by heart to body) which was 50% of the normal output of a human being.[254] This is an important fact as Risser et al believe that low carboxyhemoglobin levels in carbon monoxide victims (which they believe is strongly correlated with the absence of cherry-red discoloration) can be explained as due to a “compromised ability to oxygenate.”[255] This poor inability to properly oxygenate is well reported for the future Treblinka victims by the Jewish physicians, but certainly also held true for Jews living in other ghettos across the Generalgouvernment, where similar starvation conditions abounded.
When these poorly oxygenated bodies were tightly packed into an enclosed gas chamber for a period of time, Oxygen deprivation would also certainly have played a role in the victims’ death, which would explain witness references to blue features of the gassed corpses. In a postwar statement that Mattogno dishonestly left out, Pfannenstiel specifically noted the cause of asphyxiation in testimony about his trip to Belzec as the cause of the “bluish faces” in some of the gas chamber victims.[256] Mattogno is aware of this statement, as he quotes from the exact location in the interrogation document, but he selectively left out Pfannenstiel’s association of the blue faces with asphyxiation (not carbon monoxide poisoning) made in the sentence immediately after his quote; instead, Mattogno dishonestly criticizes Pfannenstiel by alleging that carbon monoxide victims should have been cherry-red, despite the clear statement by Pfannenstiel that the blue faces were not the result of carbon monoxide.[257] Also, among the testimonies who recall blue features on the corpses (Pfannenstiel, Schluch, and Gerstein), Schluch and Pfannenstiel restricted the bluish tinge to the victims’ facial features.[258]
Kues also is incorrect to assume that the cherry-red color of carbon monoxide victims is present “in at least 95% of all fatal cases” of such poisoning.[259] In a September 2008 publication regarding a review of ten years worth of carbon monoxide victims in Louisville, Kentucky, the authors noted:

Fatal CO intoxication has been described in persons who did not exhibit the classical cherry red cutaneous lividity (27-29). Although the presence of cherry red lividity in these victims aids in postulating a potential cause of death, it is not always a reliable characteristic feature. Twenty-eight cases in our study pool, representing c. 30% of the total cases (n=94) reviewed, failed to show classic cherry red lividty at autopsy. In the victims, who exhibited neither decompositional changes nor cherry red lividty (n=13), COHbg (carboxyhemoglobin) ranged from 29% to 71.5%. Classical cherry red lividity was absent in decomposed cases secondary to the literal rainbow of cutaneous putrefactive discoloration. From the data from our study pool, we conclude that CO intoxication often occurs without cherry red lividity, in part from decompositional color alterations manifested at autopsy.[260]

Thus, a study more recent than any cited by Kues lowers the expectation of a cherry-red appearance in corpses to 70%. Indeed, it remains unclear when the corpses should have displayed the discoloration. In Kues’ article on the issue, after citing several sources of medical literature discounting the appearance of the cherry-red color in non-fatal cases as a reliable indicator of CO poisoning due to its rarity amongst patients[261], Kues finds one such example sufficient enough to declare that such an appearance is “not highly exceptional.”[262] Despite recording many more fatal cases of CO poisoning which did not display the cherry-red discoloration, Kues writes that the discoloration occurs as soon as the poison had been absorbed into the blood. The visibility of such discoloration before livor mortis (the settling of blood after death), however, is not an often observed phenomenon as Kues’ own sources show.[263] Also, physical pressure upon a corpse either prevents or severely limits the color appearance during livor mortis; as mentioned earlier in this chapter the gas chambers, while not always filled to extreme levels, had many people per square meter which would have brought pressure upon the corpses.[264]
When these facts are combined with the unlikely chance that Poland’s malnourished Jews would turn cherry-red after a gassing (due to the numerous health problems described above), the variables that determine the appearance and visibility of such a discoloration[265], and the dishonest presumptions of the deniers’ argument to this end, we can dismiss their cherry-red corpse color claims as unsubstantiated.[266]
It should also be pointed out that MGK have falsely attacked Wiernik’s description of the color of gassed corpses in his experience in the Treblinka death camp. In the English translation of this account, the text states that all of the victims were “yellow from the gas.”[267] Kues then snidely remarked that yellow was a color “hardly confused with cherry red.”[268] For Mattogno and Graf, this supposed observation by Wiernik shows “beyond doubt” that the “story of the engine exhaust gas chambers lacks any kind of basis in reality”, but is simply a propaganda tale.[269]
MGK have always cited the English edition of Wiernik’s text, seemingly never bothering to check the original Polish. The problem that arises here is that Wiernik, in the original Polish version of 1944, uses a vernacular expression: the gassed were "żółci-zatruci."[270] "Zatruci" means "poisoned," - "żółci" here comes from "żółć," meaning "gall," a substance often associated with "poison," (e.g. the German "Gift und Galle speien," not from "żółty," which means "yellow"). In Polish literature, we often find "żółć" associated with "cierpienie," "suffering." So Wiernik, who is using poetic language in this instance, wants to tell us that the victims were "dead as a doornail" (or something to that extent).[271] Thus MGK had criticized Wiernik on the basis of a misunderstood translation. One would think that since MGK were the ones to focus on corpse color descriptions, that they would actually check Wiernik’s original description. Revisionist scholarly standards must not be too strict. Recently however, many years after making the allegation and only after being informed of the translation problem Kues withdrew his criticism of Wiernik’s statement, dismissing him as having “nothing concrete to say about the appearances of the corpses.”[272]

[246] The point originated (briefly) with Berg’s 1983 presentation on the toxicity of diesel exhaust, and was then developed further in Berg’s 2003 contribution to Rudolf’s Dissecting the Holocaust. In Treblinka and Bełżec, Mattogno and Graf accept this argument in passing, while Kues expanded it in his article, ‘Skin Discoloration Caused by Carbon Monoxide Poisoning’, http://www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrtkco.html.
[247] M&G, Treblinka, p.73.
[248] Thomas Kues, ‘Skin Discoloration Caused by Carbon Monoxide Poisoning,’ Inconvenient History blog, http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2011/06/sk ... oloration/.
[249] Myron Winick, ed., Hunger Disease: Studies by the Jewish Physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto, trans. Martha Osnos. New York: Wiley, 1979.
[250] Ibid., p.226.
[251] Bernard Knight, Forensic Pathology (New York: Oxford University, 1991), p.507; See Charles Provan, ‘The Blue Color of the Jewish Victims at Belzec Death Camp,’ The Revisionist 2/2, 2004, pp.159-164.
[252] Winick, Hunger Disease, pp.134-137.
[253] Marco Ghignone and Luc Quintin, ‘Malnutrition and Respiratory Function,’ International Anesthesiology Clinics 42/1, Spring 1986, pp.65-74.
[254] Winick, Hunger Disease, pp.134-135.
[255] Daniele Risser, Anneliese Boensch, and Barbara Schneider, ‘Should Coroners Be Able to Recognize Unintentional Carbon Monoxide-Related Deaths Immediately at the Death Scene?’ Journal of Forensic Sciences, 40/4, July 1995, p.597.
[256] Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, 6.6.1950, BAL 162/208 AR-Z 252/59, Bd. 1, p.44.
[257] Mattogno, Bełżec, p.56.
[258] Pfannenstiel stated that some victims showed “a bluish puffiness about the face,” while Schluch stated that the blue only appeared in “the lips and nose tips” of some corpses. It is thus likely that Gerstein’s reference to “blue bodies” was due to exaggeration, something Gerstein was prone to in his accounts.
[259] In ‘Skin Discoloration Caused by Carbon Monoxide,’ Kues cites two studies, one of which clearly states that it found such a characteristic in 91% of the CO cases it surveyed.
[260] Sean M. Griffen, Michael K. Ward, Andrea R. Terrell, and Donna Stewart, ‘Diesel Fumes Do Kill: A Case of Fatal Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Directly Attributed to Diesel Fuel Exhaust with a 10-year Retrospective Case and Literature Review,’ Journal of Forensic Science, 53/5, September 2008, p.1208.
[261] i.e., Bruno Simini, ‘Cherry-red discolouration in carbon monoxide poisoning,’ The Lancet, Vol. 352 (October 1998), p. 1154; Kent R. Olson, MD, ‘Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Mechanisms, Presentation, and Controversies in Management,’ The Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 1, 1984, p. 236.
[262] See Kues’ second bullet point in the section ‘Summary of the medical evidence’.
[263] See in Kues’ article Item 2, item 3, Item 4, Item 5, Item 6, Item 7, and Item 8. All fatalities presented through his selected sources had progressed into stages of livor mortis, including those of the “fresh corpses” that Kues discusses in Risser et al (“fresh corpses…are said to show a typically cherry-pink coloring of livor mortis.”)
[264] Jason Payne-James, Anthony Busuttil, William S. Smock (editors), Forensic Medicine: Clinical and Pathological Aspects, London: Greenwich Medical Media, 2003, p.98, Table 9.5.
[265] G.H. Findlay, ‘Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Optics and Histology of Skin and Blood,’ British Journal of Dermatology, 1988, pp.45-51.
[266] It should be kept in mind that testimony regarding the gas van experiment at Sachsenhausen reported the cherry-pink color (see pX). We doubt that such a detail will change MGK’s denial of homicidal gassings.
[267] Wiernik, ‘A Year in Treblinka,’ p.158.
[268] Original version of Kues, ‘Skin Discoloration Caused by Carbon Monoxide,’ available at http://www.codoh.com/newrevoices/nrtkco.html.
[269] M&G, Treblinka, p.73.
[270] Wiernik, Rok w Treblince, p.7.
[271] Perhaps another example would be the statement, “I am feeling blue today.” This is not connected to the actual color blue.
[272] Kues, ‘Skin Discoloration Caused by Carbon Monoxide’, Revised version, n. 40.
Posted by HC Guest Blogger at 11:46 PM

[Friedrich Paul Berg]

An actual pdf with highlighting of the important essay "Diesel Fumes DO Kill" is at: http://www.nazigassings.com/Griffin.pdf

The essay quoted above by Hannover from Holocaust Controversies contains nothing that has not been answered many times over already--either here on this thread, or by MGK, or by me on my own website or by me in earlier essays. The reliance by the hoaxers on arguments based on anemia or malnutrition is ridiculous even if there were some cases of extreme malnutrition and anemia. Essentially the hoaxers must prove that A-L-L corpses from CO poisoning ever seen at the AR camps--every corpse ever--somehow failed to display the intense bright cherry RED coloring. If only a few percent of the corpses had displayed such coloring, that would have been burned into the consciousness of any real eyewitnesses. Therefore, the t-o-t-a-l absence of any such "eyewitness" accounts only PROVES that we are indeed looking at a truly monstrous hoax.


Friedrich Paul Berg
Learn everything athttp://www.nazigassings.com
Nazi Gassings Never Happened! Niemand wurde vergast!

[friedrichjansson]

Here are some pictures of carbon monoxide fatalities, with some comments from me.

CO_deaths.pdf

(1.44 MiB) Downloaded 231 times

[friedrichjansson]

One comment on the claims of the holocaust controversies fellows: they argue that "physical pressure upon a corpse either prevents or severely limits the color appearance during livor mortis; as mentioned earlier in this chapter the gas chambers, while not always filled to extreme levels, had many people per square meter which would have brought pressure upon the corpses." Unfortunately I don't have the book which they reference, so I don't know what kind of support their citation gives to their claim, but on the face of it, this argument is absurd. Pressure prevents the appearance of livor mortis because it pushes the blood away. But that blood has to go somewhere, and the coloration of the place where it goes will become more intense as a result. Even if the corpses were subject to uniform pressure the blood would still be present. In reality, there would be plenty of skin not under pressure no matter how densely the people were packed.

The interpretation of the h/c guys - that pressure somewhere prevents the formation of livor mortis anywhere on the body - would imply that if you want to prevent the formation of livor mortis, all you need to do is clamp the foot of the corpse in a vice.

[Occam's Razor]

Hannover wrote:

'Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 5: Gas Chambers at the Aktion Reinhard Camps (6). Corpse Color.'

I read that chapter a few months ago. I must admit I found it interesting, although I believe the assumptions and conclusions are wrong.

This type of argumentation is dubious on its face, for it presupposes an exact knowledge of several things: the murderous circumstances inside the gas chambers, the factors which bring about a “bright cherry red” appearance of carbon monoxide victims, that the gassing victims would necessarily have displayed the cherry-red color, and that this discoloration is easily apparent to the untrained human eye.

Does anyone need "eye training" to spot a sunburn?

To support such a claim, MGK have to rely on medical and toxicological literature regarding carbon monoxide poisoning; however, to our knowledge, none of the four deniers (including Friedrich Berg) who use this argumentation have any type of medical expertise from which to judge or interpret such medical discourse.

Do the authors of this book / chapter have this expertise? I'd really like to know, because my experience is that holocaust believers as a rule have no grasp of natural sciences at all. I have yet to come across a holocaust believer who knows anything about chemistry, biology, medicine or physics. They are lawyers, historians, language teachers, or are into some other liberal arts stuff, but never from the natural sciences. And they are the ones who have taken over the relevant wikipedia pages on the holocaust and bully everyone into believing that the "deniers" have been debunked. Freaks who know nothing about chemistry declare that Rudolf's report has been debunked. Which is not true. And that's just one example.

In their cursory review on such a complicated topic, they are quick to jump to selective conclusions without a full appreciation of the explanations made in the literature and their applicability to the Reinhard camps.

Yeah, selective conclusions. And "without a full appreciation of the explanations made in the literature". We shall see that the author should be cautious to make such accusations. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

In his article, Kues cites a chart put together as a review of autopsy results of strictly hunger disease deaths.

Kues includes the statistic that anaemia was found in only 5.5% of the autopsy cases as “an indication that even among fatal cases of malnutrition, anaemia was far from always present.”
However, Kues leaves out an important statement by the physicians related to the lack of anaemia found in the autopsies:

We must emphasize that only 5.5% of the cases showed advanced anaemia. Fairly large amounts of hemosiderin are found in livers and spleens, and it is certain that in hunger disease RBCs are being destroyed, but on the other hand as a result of the diminished size of the organs and tissues, the amount of blood left is enough to prevent the symptoms of advanced anaemia.[250]

Thus, the anaemia that Kues refers to is advanced anaemia, which was less present than more mild forms.

According to the author 5.5% of the autopsies had severe anemia. And the rest had, according to the author, mild anemia. Where's the problem?
We're talking about autopsies. Dead people. You can't conclude from the percentage of anemia among autopsies of dead people to the percentage of anemia among the rest of the population.

Kues must realize this, for he quotes reports from the physicians examining patients of hunger disease openly stating that “anaemia was prevalent.”

OK, that seems to refer to living people. But does it mean that everyone had anemia? No. Prevalent doesn't mean everyone, and the physicians can only make observations about their patients.

To make it short, the author seems to claim that every single jewish gas chamber victim was anemic and therefor they wouldn't have shown the classic reddish skin discoloration. This claim is simply BS. You simply have to look at some photos of the ghettos and their inhabitants, or at the photos from the famous "Auschwitz Album" to realize that such a believe is nonsense. Or photos from the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of the war. While one can find photos with emaciated looking people there is a surprising number of photos with very healthy looking and well-fed jews.

I believe we have a thread here on the CODOH forum with photos from the Warsaw ghetto that show healthy looking jews.

Take the photos from the "Auschwitz Album". These photos supposedly show Hungarian jews on their way to the gas chambers. In reality they simply show Hungarian jews who get out of their train and who are probably on the way to a delousing building. But the point is, that these jews look absolutely healthy. Countless jews were allegedly deported from western countries and immediately gassed on arrival. Even if all jews from the ghettos were totally emaciated and anemic, which they weren't, there would have been countless other jews from western countries who would not have been emaciated and anemic when they were supposedly gassed.

One reason for this misunderstandig might be that the author believes that only victims of carbon monoxide poisoning show a reddish skin discoloration. And that he therefore dismisses the people who were shipped to and allegedly gassed in Auschwitz with Zyklon B. But this believe is not true. Victims of cyanide poisoning show a similar skin discoloration.

The next problem is the claim that the gassing victims would not have shown signs of skin discoloration because of anemia.

The points that ghetto residents suffered from anaemia and hemodilution are very noteworthy, as they greatly undermine any expectation that Aktion Reinhard victims should have exhibited a cherry-red lividity. One source makes this point explicitly about carbon monoxide victims:

When the victim is anaemic the (classical ‘cherry-pink’) color may be faint or even absent because insufficient haemoglobin is present to display the color. In racially-pigmented victims the color may obviously be masked, though may still be seen on the inner aspect of the lips, the nail-beds, tongue, and palms and soles of hands and feet. It is also seen inside the eyelids, but rarely in the sclera.[251]

Thus, in a medical article describing a circumstance which was applicable to the ghetto victims (insufficient haemoglobin), the appearance of cherry-red is hardly expected to be noticeable (“faint or even absent”).

First, it's absolutely ridiculous to assume that every single victim was anemic, and that not one of them would have shown a reddish skin discoloration. We're talking about hundreds of victims per gassing, or up to 2000 in the case of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Even if only a small percentage, let's say 10%, would have shown a reddish skin discoloration, the eyewitnesses would have noticed it.

Among other points, the reports detail the horrendous state of the Jews’ circulatory and respiratory systems.[252] Their poor health in these regards was certainly tied to the starvation conditions of the ghetto, as medical literature bears out:

Malnutrition has a tremendous impact on respiratory functions. It affects respiratory muscle performance, lung structure, defense mechanisms, and control of ventilation and predisposes to respiratory failure and prolonged mechanical ventilation.[253]

Residents of the ghetto had an average cardiac output (volume of blood circulated by heart to body) which was 50% of the normal output of a human being.[254] This is an important fact as Risser et al believe that low carboxyhemoglobin levels in carbon monoxide victims (which they believe is strongly correlated with the absence of cherry-red discoloration) can be explained as due to a “compromised ability to oxygenate.”[255] This poor inability to properly oxygenate is well reported for the future Treblinka victims by the Jewish physicians, but certainly also held true for Jews living in other ghettos across the Generalgouvernment, where similar starvation conditions abounded.

Now it gets absurd. The author wants us to believe that the jews who arrived at the Reinhardt camps were all complete physical wrecks. Unfortunately we have several eyewitness accounts that give a totally different picture. Has anyone else noticed the typical stories of several Reinhardt camp survivors who described the "beautiful naked young jewish girl" that was about to be gassed? Doesn't sound like the description of a human wreck.

Now we come to a really important part:

When these poorly oxygenated bodies were tightly packed into an enclosed gas chamber for a period of time, Oxygen deprivation would also certainly have played a role in the victims’ death, which would explain witness references to blue features of the gassed corpses. In a postwar statement that Mattogno dishonestly left out, Pfannenstiel specifically noted the cause of asphyxiation in testimony about his trip to Belzec as the cause of the “bluish faces” in some of the gas chamber victims.[256] Mattogno is aware of this statement, as he quotes from the exact location in the interrogation document, but he selectively left out Pfannenstiel’s association of the blue faces with asphyxiation (not carbon monoxide poisoning) made in the sentence immediately after his quote; instead, Mattogno dishonestly criticizes Pfannenstiel by alleging that carbon monoxide victims should have been cherry-red, despite the clear statement by Pfannenstiel that the blue faces were not the result of carbon monoxide.[257] Also, among the testimonies who recall blue features on the corpses (Pfannenstiel, Schluch, and Gerstein), Schluch and Pfannenstiel restricted the bluish tinge to the victims’ facial features.[258]

Bluish skin discoloration. And the author mentions three witnesses who claimed such a bluish discoloration:

Pfannenstiel, Gerstein and Schluch

Where's the problem? Well, claims of bluish skin discoloration contradict the author's claim that the victims had anemia and therefore couldn't show a reddish skin discoloration from CO poisoning.
The claim that anemic victims of CO poisoning sometimes don't show the reddish skin discoloration is true. But guess where the blue color during / after asphyxiation comes from?
As Friedrich Paul Berg has pointed out in this thread, deoxygenated blood may not be really blue, but unlike oxygenated blood it looks bluish through the skin.
And guess what happens, if you can't turn red from CO or cyanide poisoning because of anemia? You can't turn blue either!
Either you can turn red, then you can also turn blue. Or you can't turn red, because of anemia, but then you can't turn blue either.

In other words:

If the claims from Pfannenstiel, Gerstein and Schluch are true, enough jews had enough hemoglobin in their blood that would have resulted in a reddish skin discoloration. But nobody mentioned such a red or rosy skin discoloration.

But why did the jews form the accounts of Pfannenstiel, Gerstein and Schluch turn blue? Our author tries to convince us that they died from asphyxiation. What does that mean? Is that how all the Aktion Reinhardt victims died? Or only the ones from this "experiment"? Is that a new twist in the ever changing holocaust narrative? First CO from Diesel engines, then CO from gasoline engines, now asphyxiation? But what was the purpose of the engines, then? And this excuse doesn't work for Zyklon B!

According to the official narrative the victims of Aktion Reinhardt were gassed with engine exhaust. If the engines were gasoline engines, the victims would have died from CO poisoning, and they would have looked rosy / reddish.

Btw., Pfannenstiel, Gerstein and Schluch are not the only eyewitnesses who mentioned bluish discolorations. This is from Mattogno / Graf, Treblinka - Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?

Perhaps 25 to 45 minutes later, the chutes on the other side could be
opened and the corpses tumbled out. The bodies were naked; some of them
were white, others were blue and bloated. [p. 35f…]

p.24
and

Relying upon the statements of three eyewitnesses, Rachel Auerbach
writes:176
“The bodies were naked; some of them were white, others were blue
and bloated.”

p.73
both quotations refer to the same source;
source is a book from Rachel Auerbach who related this information from other eyewitnesses

A further method was a gas – again without further description – with immediate
effect. A Polish officer spoke of this, who was sent to Treblinka with
his Jewish wife on September 6, 1942, but who escaped from there a few days
afterward. His report belongs to the series of reports, which was sent to the
Polish government-in-exile in London on March 31, 1943:117

“Outside of the barracks the women undressed completely, and together
with the naked children they were led to the huge barracks of ‘Treblinka
II’ through a side exit on a path, which was surrounded on both sides
by a wire net. One supposedly takes a bath in these barracks, but in reality
a sudden death by gas occurs. I do not know what kind of gas is used, but I
know from a colleague who worked three weeks in ‘Treblinka II’ that the
corpses have a bluish color. […] I do not know how many people have
been killed in Treblinka; the piles of clothes and shoes are enormous and
attain a height of two storeys; they take up a huge surface. […] At the head
of the group of Jewish workers are a Jew, the Kommandant of the camp,
and his deputy. [sic!]”

p.49
source is an article from a polish author about reports that were sent to the
Polish government-in-exile in London:

Krystyna Marczewska, Władysław Waźniewski, “Treblinka w swietle Akt Delegatury Rządu
RP na Kraji” (Treblinka in the Light of the Files of the Delegation of the Government of the
Polish Republic for the Nation) in: Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich
w Polsce, Vol. XIX, Warsaw 1968

Here's another one:

And how about the "testimony" of the Milton Buki "eyewitness report," which claims that the bodies of the gassing victims exhibited "blue spots," even though the bodies of persons killed by the inhalation of cyanide gas are not blue, but red?

source:
"Just Call Me Meyer" - A Farewell to "Obviousness"
By Jürgen Graf
The Revisionist 2(2) (2004), pp. 127-130.

So now we have at least six references to bluish skin discoloration.

Again: If you can turn blue, you can also turn red!

Back to our article:

Kues also is incorrect to assume that the cherry-red color of carbon monoxide victims is present “in at least 95% of all fatal cases” of such poisoning.[259] In a September 2008 publication regarding a review of ten years worth of carbon monoxide victims in Louisville, Kentucky, the authors noted:

Fatal CO intoxication has been described in persons who did not exhibit the classical cherry red cutaneous lividity (27-29). Although the presence of cherry red lividity in these victims aids in postulating a potential cause of death, it is not always a reliable characteristic feature. Twenty-eight cases in our study pool, representing c. 30% of the total cases (n=94) reviewed, failed to show classic cherry red lividty at autopsy. In the victims, who exhibited neither decompositional changes nor cherry red lividty (n=13), COHbg (carboxyhemoglobin) ranged from 29% to 71.5%. Classical cherry red lividity was absent in decomposed cases secondary to the literal rainbow of cutaneous putrefactive discoloration. From the data from our study pool, we conclude that CO intoxication often occurs without cherry red lividity, in part from decompositional color alterations manifested at autopsy.[260]

The author concludes:

Thus, a study more recent than any cited by Kues lowers the expectation of a cherry-red appearance in corpses to 70%.

Huh? 70%?

Remember how the author began his article?

In their cursory review on such a complicated topic, they are quick to jump to selective conclusions without a full appreciation of the explanations made in the literature and their applicability to the Reinhard camps.

Whoever doesn't understand scientific texts shouldn't lecture others about them.

The total number of cases is n=94.
28 of them did not show the classic cherry red discoloration at autopsy
That would be 30%. And the remaining 70% did show cherry red discoloration.
But: There is this sentence:
"In the victims, who exhibited neither decompositional changes nor cherry red discoloration (n=13)".
And this one:
"Classical cherry red lividity was absent in decomposed cases secondary to the literal rainbow of cutaneous putrefactive discoloration."
In other words: the 28 cases or 30% include cases who did not show cherry red discoloration because of decomposition. Because of the "literal rainbow of cutaneous putrefactive discoloration".
Only 13 cases had no cherry red discoloration AND no decompositional changes.
That's 14%. Did the remaining 86% show the reddish discoloration? We can't tell for sure, because in 15 cases (28-13) the reddish discoloration wasn't visible because of discoloration due to decomposition. But we can assume that at least 70% of this group also showed reddish discoloration when they died. So the overall number is not 70% as our expert author claims, but somewhere between 80 and 86%.

And even if only 70% showed rosy skin color after CO or cyanide poisoning: That would still support the revisionist case!

The visibility of such discoloration before livor mortis (the settling of blood after death), however, is not an often observed phenomenon as Kues’ own sources show.

Not true. BS.

Also, physical pressure upon a corpse either prevents or severely limits the color appearance during livor mortis; as mentioned earlier in this chapter the gas chambers, while not always filled to extreme levels, had many people per square meter which would have brought pressure upon the corpses.

Now it gets really ridiculous.
If you push your finger into your skin, or into a livor mortis spot, the blood goes away. You push it away. If you squeeze away the blood from one place, it simply flows to another place. The idea that no livor mortis would have formed because the jews were packed so tightly into the gas chambers is utterly ridiculous. The blood simply flows to a place without pressure. This passage is solid proof that the author of this chapter is completely out of touch with reality.

When these facts are combined with the unlikely chance that Poland’s malnourished Jews would turn cherry-red after a gassing (due to the numerous health problems described above), the variables that determine the appearance and visibility of such a discoloration[265], and the dishonest presumptions of the deniers’ argument to this end, we can dismiss their cherry-red corpse color claims as unsubstantiated.

Yeah, sure. They couldn't turn red, but they could turn blue. Holocaust Wonderland.


friedrichjansson:
Great posts, and thanks for the photos!

[Hannover]

One comment on the claims of the holocaust controversies fellows: they argue that "physical pressure upon a corpse either prevents or severely limits the color appearance during livor mortis; as mentioned earlier in this chapter the gas chambers, while not always filled to extreme levels, had many people per square meter which would have brought pressure upon the corpses." Unfortunately I don't have the book which they reference, so I don't know what kind of support their citation gives to their claim, but on the face of it, this argument is absurd. Pressure prevents the appearance of livor mortis because it pushes the blood away. But that blood has to go somewhere, and the coloration of the place where it goes will become more intense as a result. Even if the corpses were subject to uniform pressure the blood would still be present. In reality, there would be plenty of skin not under pressure no matter how densely the people were packed.

The interpretation of the h/c guys - that pressure somewhere prevents the formation of livor mortis anywhere on the body - would imply that if you want to prevent the formation of livor mortis, all you need to do is clamp the foot of the corpse in a vice.

The 'pressure' nonsense is so desperate that it's laughable. The impossible storyline says that the corpses were moved just minutes after death, the pressure would be removed and there goes there absurd 'pressure' excuse.

- Hannover