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The Peepholes in the Doors
Of the Gas Chambers


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From: mvanalst@rbi.com (Mark Van Alstine)
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 17:07:38 -0800

[Jean-Francois Beaulieu] "Again, the only explanation I have on that is from the same review, page 103: here Faurisson refer to page 456 of A.T.O. where Pressac show is 34 criminal proof, another gas tight door with a juda whole and the door is literally mention in German as a 'gas chamber door'"

Mr. Beaulieu, if this is your "only explination" I suggest that you might consider re-thinking your position. "34 criminal proof [sic]" is NOT about a "another gas tight door with a juda [sic] whole" but about the FITTINGS for such a gas-tight door:

"34. Die Beschläge zu 1 Tür mit Rahmen, luftdicht mit Spion für Gaskammer/ The fitting for 1 door with frame, air tight with peephole for gas chamber..."

The translation of this order reads:

28/5/43 No. 459. Disinfestaion Chamber Auschwitz concentration camp [i.e. main camp, NOT Birkenau]

Subject:
1. Fittings for one door and frame, air-tight with peephole for gas chamber.
2. Lath door. Capo Kühne knows about this.
Administration V 4 Order No 158/2 and 2a of 25th January 1943.
Operative: Mirek. Competed: 10/6/43.

And what is Pressac's comment in regards to this?

"...The order has nothing to do with the Birkenau Krematorien, but was destined for one of the disinfestation gas chambers of the main camp, probably the one in Block 1.

"The text of this order was used by R. Faurisson in his little work Re'sponse a Pierre Vidal-Naquet [page 80, Second (enlarged) Edition, La Vielle Taupe, 1982] in his argument aimed at demonstrating that the Gas[s]kammer of Krematorium IV were nothing but ordinary disinfection (sic) gas chambers.

"This document is not part of the incriminating evidence but is presented simply to show the care that must be taken in using the origional documents. (Technique, p.456.)

What this shows, Mr. Beaulieu, is that Mr. Faurisson was busy constructing a strawman to knock down, as are you, instead having the integrity to pursue the truth.

This, of course, brings up the issue of what exactly is the difference between such a gas-tight door with peephole for a disinfestation gas chamber and a gas-tight door with a peephole for a homicidal gas-chamber?

Here, of course, is where it pays to delve into the details regarding the gas chambers in Pressac's Techinque:

Referenceinng Photos 14 and 15 (Ibid. p.456) of the gas-tight door of the Kanada I delousing gas chamber, it can be easily seen that it too has a peephole. This door, in all fuctional respects, is identical to the ones installed in the homicidal gas chambers of the Birkenau Krematorien. Documents 11, 12, and 13 (Ibid. p.486) show photos of a gas-tight door with peephole found in the Auschwitz Bauhof. It is identical to the gas-tight door of the Kanada I delousing gas chamber in all but one respect: There is a hemisperical wire grid on the gas-chamber side of the door protecting the peephole.

This, of course, fits perfectly with the description of the gas-tight door used in Krema II, as given by Henryk Tauber:

"...It was a wooden door, made of two layers of short pieces of wood arranged like parquet. Between these layers there was a single sheet of material sealing the edges of the door [3] and the rabbets of the frame were also fitted with sealing strips of felt. At about head height for an averge man this door had a round glass peephole [see Document 11]. On the other side of the door, i.e. on the gas chamber side, this opening was protected by a hemisperical grid [see Documents 12 and 13]. This grid was fitted because the people in the gas chamber, feeling they were going to die, used to break the glass of the peephole. But the grid still did not provide sufficent protection and similar incidents recurred. The opening was blocked with a piece of metal or wood...." (Ibid. p.483.)

[Jean-Francois Beaulieu] "However, I don't find really extraordinnary the fact that a door, wether it is for an appartment, a house, a morturaty or a delousing facility as a juda hole or a window. Some doors have it, some other not.

With a hemisperical grid protecting the peephole on the inside because the people inside kept breaking the glass? Mr. Beaulieu, you are stretching credulity beyond the breaking point here with your failed defense of Faurisson's (and your) asburd rationlizations.


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