Observations, Part I
In this case the CN~ content in mortar (old and fresh) and in new brick was for the most part lower in the wetted materials than in the dry ones. It seems that here a tendency is revealed towards the competitive action of carbon dioxide, which dissolves in water. In this series of tests fresh plaster showed an exceptionally high affinity to hydrogen cyanide.
After an interval of a month the mean decrease of hydrogen cyanide content in this material was 73% and so it was markedly greater than in the run with hydrogen cyanide only. In as many as four samples that loss ranged from 97% to 100% and then airing was nearly complete. This statement is significant in as much as in their reasoning the revisionists did not take into consideration certain circumstances, namely, the simultaneous action of cyanides and carbon dioxide on the chamber walls. In the air exhaled by man carbon dioxide constitutes 3.5% by volume. Breathing for 1 minute, he takes in and next exhales 15-20 dm³ of air, comprising on the average 950 cm³ CO²; consequently, 1000 people breathe out about 950 dm³ of carbon dioxide. And so it can be estimated that, if the victims stayed in the chamber for 5 minutes before they died, they exhaled 4.75 m³ of carbon dioxide during that period. This is at least about 1% of the capacity, e. g. of the gas chamber of Crematorium II at Birkenau, the capacity of which was about 500 m³, whereas the concentration of hydrogen cyanide virtually did not exceed 0.1% by volume (death occurs soon at as low HCN concentrations as 0.03% by volume). Therefore, the conditions for the preservation of HCN in the gas chambers were not better than in the delousing chambers, despite what the revisionists claim. Besides, as has already been mentioned, the chamber ruins have been thoroughly washed by rainfall.
