the lack of cyanide residue in the alleged 'gas chambers'

[Vallon]

HCN is an acid and is neutralized by ammonia. The increased humidity caused by "hosing" (apart from failing to neutralize the acid and thus killing everybody assigned to remove the bodies) would slow the evaporation rate of the Zyklon, increase the precipitation rate, and therefore result in higher ferricferrocyanide content in the bricks and masonry.

The Leichenkeller would need to be hosed down after the bodies had been removed. I do not think we know whether they used ammonia or chlorine bleach or just water. I find the chemistry of ammonia and metal ion complexes rather complicated, but this site is informative:
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/complexions/aquanh3.html. It says:

Iron is very easily oxidized under alkaline conditions. Oxygen in the air oxidises the iron(II) hydroxide precipitate to iron(III) hydroxide especially around the top of the tube.

So it seems that cleaning up with ammonia would reduce the probability of the ferrous Fe(II) ion being present, which is a necessary condition for the formation of Prussian Blue.

Hosing down would dilute cyanide concentrations, and mopping up would of course remove part of the cyanide. Laurel and Hardy are just in black and white.

[Carto's Cutlass Supreme]

Hi Vallon,

Nobody could go in there and hose anything while the gas was still present, and that's when the chemical reaction in the brick was happening.

I don't think your "chem hose" thesis is supported by any eyewitnesses. Plus I don't think the chemical hosing would break down the inert ferrous cyanide.

Also, Germar's book talks about the penetrating power of HCN to the point where it stains the italic outside of the brick wall as well. Water can't do that.

[Vallon]

I don't think your "chem hose" thesis is supported by any eyewitnesses. Plus I don't think the chemical hosing would break down the inert ferrous cyanide.

That theory is not mine. It was Daniel Saez Lorente who suggested that ammonia was used, and I just looked up what the chemical consequences would be of that.

Because I have never heard of the use of any cleaning chemicals either, I think they just used water. But they must have cleaned the place, otherwise the next group would have been reluctant to go in. Gerstein mentions how messy a gas chamber was (and Müller says exactly the same thing).

Hosing down and mopping up would have diluted and removed HCN that had adsorbed and dissolved in moisture on the walls.

Also, Germar's book talks about the penetrating power of HCN to the point where it stains the outside of the brick wall as well. Water can't do that.

The formation of Prussian Blue requires wet chemistry. Some (but mysteriously not all) bricks of the delousing chambers were blue through and through, but that must have involved transport and reactions in moist, porous brick.

[Hannover]

Vallon says:

The Leichenkeller would need to be hosed down after the bodies had been removed.

Which, if gassings were true, would mean removing all the alleged corpses first and then 'hosing' the alleged gas chamber. And while the corpses were supposedly being removed the Zyklon-B would be penetrating into the walls; water would not be able to remove it. And as we have demonstrated, no residue exists to confirm gassings .... but should if the the alleged events were true.
And, as the process which Vallon alleges would require great amounts of time, the story crumbles since it's claimed that gassings of 2000 occurred in mere minutes so that the alleged next group of 2000 could be immediately processed. Vallon's whole position implodes upon itself.

then Vallon says:

Gerstein mentions how messy a gas chamber was (and Müller says exactly the same thing).

Hosing down and mopping up would have diluted and removed HCN that had adsorbed and dissolved in moisture on the walls.

That's a deflection:

- neither of them talk about 'hosings'

- and what they do talk about is laughable ... links*

Wrong, the HCN would have penetrated beyond the reach of water.

then he says:

The formation of Prussian Blue requires wet chemistry.

Yes, and that is why there should have been vast amounts of cyanide residue in what would have been very humid & moist ' gas chambers' .... if the stories were true.

* Filip Mueller / another lying "eyewitness"
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=95

* Acclaimed "eyewitness" Kurt Gerstein said that?
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?p=1220

* Kurt Gerstein
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=391

Hannover

[Vallon]

Wrong, the HCN would have penetrated beyond the reach of water.

This is an argument about the how much. You say the effect of cleaning with water so much time after the gassing is negligible on cyanide concentrations. My gut feeling is that it would be significant. But I cannot say how strong the effect would be, and anyway, half as blue would still be blue.

So let us drop the cleaning issue.

After exposure to HCN, stone sometimes turns blue, sometimes not, and nobody understands what the difference is due to.

[Scott]

Hosing down would dilute cyanide concentrations, and mopping up would of course remove part of the cyanide.

Even if this prevented the blue staining it would still leave hotspots in various places, particularly the drains. I don't think any stains have ever been found in any of the Leichenkeller ruins.

According to Pressac the blue staining that can be seen today at the fumigation chambers BW5 at Birkenau was not present during and right after the war but developed later (perhaps in conjunction with outdoor weathering or pollution, although this makes little sense since the staining is mostly inside).

I'm not sure about when the blue staining at Stutthof and Majdanek occurred, but Pressac claims that the blue staining is proof of fumigatory use and not homicide because of the different HCN exposure conditions (which must make him a Stutthof and Majdanek Denier).

Anyway, it seems to me that a morgue would occasionally be fumigated and also hosed down with water and bleach (a base) but I don't see why there would not still be hotspots if the morgue was used for gassings as often as it is claimed to have been.

Removing the partially outgassed Zyklon as soon as possible when the people were dead--just to fool us with lack of cyanide residues--is complete nonsense, and I don't see how it would have sped up matters with the gas 'em and burn 'em cycle either.

Eventually the Hoaxsters are simply going to have to find another murder site, preferably something no longer standing like the bunkers.

[PLAYWRIGHT]

The wire mesh columns deserve a thread all their own – Dr. Countess speech on their feasibility was in 2002 according to the article, I can’t seem to find it or his conclusions. For now, I’ll note that many people have pointed out that the wire columns would have had to be anchored into the floor of the “gas chambers” with dovetail bolts, and neither the remains of those bolts or their holes are present.

But, staying on topic, here’s something interesting from Pressac’s long, detailed, occasionally brilliant but deeply flawed analysis and description of Auschwitz and it’s ancillary equipment.

According to him, ferrocyanide residue WAS discovered in the "gas chambers" - or at least of piece of equipment there. The page I'm linking refers to the zinc covers over the inlets of the ventilation system in Krema II, in Birkenau.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 0484.shtml

[Some of these upper ventilation hole covers from Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium II made of zinc sheet covered with a white layer, were submitted to toxicological analysis in December 1945. After appropriate chemical treatment, scrapings from this white layer gave Prussian blue or ferric ferrocyanide, or ferric thiocyanate, dyes indicating, specifically, but not very precisely, the presence of hydrocyanic compounds.]

(I’ve linked Page 484 – the pictures of the zinc sheets are on Page 487, along with a drawing of the wire mesh columns that, as has been pointed out, has parts that don’t fit together, and a Zyklon introduction device that doesn’t make it past the cement roof into the “gas chamber”).

In other words, they claim they did find ferrocyanide (Prussian or Iron Blue) in the Leichenkeller of Krema II. HCN does not bind to zinc, so the ferrocyanide compounds they found had to have formed in the white paint on the covers.

If ferrocyanide – Iron Blues – were found there, why not in the rest of the Leichenkeller?

Iron Blues would have formed just as easily on the walls as in the paint on these covers, which were near the ceiling, where hosing down would be least efficacious, and where the rising HCN would have concentrated. The "hot spots' previously speculated upon would have been near the ceiling.

But neither Leuchter nor the Krakow Forensic Institute study of 1990 found ferrocyanide in the masonry of any Leichenkeller.

The Krakow people did discover cyanide in some of the more protected areas of the Leichenkellers, using tests that deliberately discriminated against ferrocyanides, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous thread, I suspect that the non-ferrous cyanide compounds that they found– which they didn’t bother to identify, an incredible omission – is most likely due to modern atmospheric pollution from the rubber plants at Monowitz, which are still operating. Non-ferrous cyanide compounds are too water soluable to have survived since 1944.

This evidence is actually rather fragmentary, but such speculations as I can make are:

a) Ferrocyanide formed in the paint but not on the Leichenkeller walls. The problem with that idea is obvious.

b) The zinc covers – which were found in the building yard, not in the Leichenkeller – were never from the Leichenkeller at all, but from a different building.

c) The 1945 Polish chemical analysis was flawed. Since these covers still exist with their paint, and since ferrocyanides are forever, they should be tested again.

d) They made up the story about ferrocyanide in the paint, little realizing that this would mean that there would have to be ferrocyanide in the masonry too. ALSO on the wire mesh covering the peepholes on the doors , and iron bolts on the benches (all supposedly recovered also in the building yard), and on and on…

I invite other possibilities. The exterminationists have a difficult question here. Why would ferrocyanide compounds form in the paint of the zinc exhaust covers, but not in the masonry of the Leichenkellers?

A reminder - since those zinc covers were from near the ceiling, they were the inlet covers. The two Leichenkellers with a ventilation system had a design flaw - the inlets near the ceiling, the outlets near the floor, the reverse of a good gas chamber design. But perfect for a morgue design.

[Hannover]

It should be noted that Vallon is arguing that the lack of cyanide residue is because the alleged 'gas chambers' were hosed down.

That's interesting since the latest reason given by the 'holocau$t' Industry spokesmen is that the Zyklon-B was supposedly withdrawn through 'wiremesh' devices after a few minutes and allowed to outgas on top of the alleged gas chambers.

- Hannover

[Hannover]

PLAYWRIGHT,
see:

Zyklon-B wire mesh insertion devices debunked
http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=309

- H.

[Vallon]

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/pressac/technique-and-operation/pressac0484.shtml

[Some of these upper ventilation hole covers from Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium II made of zinc sheet covered with a white layer, were submitted to toxicological analysis in December 1945. After appropriate chemical treatment, scrapings from this white layer gave Prussian blue or ferric ferrocyanide, or ferric thiocyanate, dyes indicating, specifically, but not very precisely, the presence of hydrocyanic compounds.]

Playwright, you say that the zinc was painted. I do not see evidence for that. Zinc probably is attacked by gaseous HCN to produce a zinc cyanide (maybe catalyzed by moisture). The product is white, producing a white layer on these covers.

What the Krakow institute did was to test what this substance was. They probably used some solution of ferric and ferrous ions as an indicator. This reagent turned blue, which is proof of the presence of cyanide.

There are probably hundreds of qualitative and quantitative tests for cyanides. One of the oldest, simplest, and best qualitative tests is the Prussian blue test. This test combines the unknown with a mixture of iron (II) and iron (III) salts in acidic media. The formation of a blue solution or precipitate indicates the presence of cyanide.

It is not a good idea to just flush cyanides down the sink or toilet, or to throw them in the trash. They should first be converted to non-poisonous compounds. Sodium hypochlorite solution (household chlorine bleach) does an admirable job. The hypochlorite oxidizes cyanide to harmless cyanate, which can then be disposed of like other household waste.

http://www.totse.com/en/technology/scie ... 69605.html

Hannover: yes, pulling up the Zyklon pellets would of course further reduce exposure of the walls to HCN.

Has anybody looked for those things to fix the columns to the floor? Sounds as if they would be difficult to find.

[Turpitz]

I wonder where all this water running at pressure came from?

I also wonder where it went.

[PLAYWRIGHT]

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/pressac/technique-and-operation/pressac0484.shtml

[Some of these upper ventilation hole covers from Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium II made of zinc sheet covered with a white layer, were submitted to toxicological analysis in December 1945. After appropriate chemical treatment, scrapings from this white layer gave Prussian blue or ferric ferrocyanide, or ferric thiocyanate...]

Playwright, you say that the zinc was painted. I do not see evidence for that. Zinc probably is attacked by gaseous HCN to produce a zinc cyanide (maybe catalyzed by moisture). The product is white, producing a white layer on these covers.

But then the results would have shown none of the various compounds from the ferrocyanide family that Pressac cites, which, since they are ferro-cyanides, contain iron (Atomic symbol Fe - from the Greek word for iron, Ferric). The zinc covers are, well, made of zinc, so the only possible source for the iron for the formation of ferrocyanides is the paint. Paints usually contain trace amounts of iron, used as a binder.

What the Krakow institute did was to test what this substance was. They probably used some solution of ferric and ferrous ions as an indicator...

The methodology of the Krakow tests is listed in their report. They dissolved masonry samples in dilute acid, and boiled it in the presence of potassium. They then measured the potassium sample to see how much of it had been converted into potassium cyanide, the amount formed being consistent with the amount of cyanide present in various compounds in the original masonry sample. This methodology will detect the presence of cyanide, but not identify what compound it originally came from.

As it says in their report, they deliberately used a method that discriminated against ferrocyanides, curious about what amount of cyanide not bound to iron they might find. They were trying to discredit the Leuchter report, which had found no ferrocyanides, but had not tested for other possible cyanide compounds.

Their theory was, that while Leuchter hadn't found ferrocyanide, he was still out of line saying that no cyanide had been used in the Leichenkellers, since he hadn't checked for other cyanide compounds.

The first time around, the Krakow team found nothing. The second time, they found cyanide, but used the cited test, which doesn't tell you what compound it came out of. Since the most common element they found in the mortar was calcium, it follows logically that the compound was probably calcium cyanide, an extremely water-soluable salt that could not possibly last for 45 years in the open, even in a protected area, since it would dissolve into any water, including the water in the air on a humid day. And located in a swamp, Birkenau is a very humid place in the summer.

[Vallon]

I wonder where all this water running at pressure came from?

I also wonder where it went.

I would expect plumbing in something that was designed as a morgue, but they could also have used buckets and swabs.

[Vallon]

But then the results would have shown none of the various compounds from the ferrocyanide family that Pressac cites, which, since they are ferro-cyanides, contain iron (Atomic symbol Fe - from the Greek word for iron, Ferric). The zinc covers are, well, made of zinc, so the only possible source for the iron for the formation of ferrocyanides is the paint. Paints usually contain trace amounts of iron, used as a binder.

What the Krakow institute did was to test what this substance was. They probably used some solution of ferric and ferrous ions as an indicator...

Maybe the 1945 tests were not Krakow. Sorry if that made my remarks unclear. But what Pressac says in your reference is that iron was added by the forensics people in 1945 to test for Zn(CN)2 (a white powder). If it turns blue when adding Fe(II) and Fe(III), it must be cyanide. But it is just a qualitative test.

Later tests by Krakow were quantitative measurements. In cases like these you cannot say whether it was calcium cyanide or something else. It does not matter. It is just free cyanide.

The Krakow methods did not measure cyanide bound in iron complexes. Probably just because they are a forensic institute, usually looking for poisons. And iron cyanide complexes are not poisonous. You could lace a blueberry muffin with prussian blue, and nobody might notice.

[Hannover]

Vallon quoted:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschw ... 0484.shtml

[Some of these upper ventilation hole covers from Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium II made of zinc sheet covered with a white layer, were submitted to toxicological analysis in December 1945. After appropriate chemical treatment, scrapings from this white layer gave Prussian blue or ferric ferrocyanide, or ferric thiocyanate...]

Oh really?
Who did this 1945 study?
Do we have the complete study that this 1945 'analysis' came from so that we can verify the claims?

- Hannover