Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

146 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
Jewish workers could sleep at night), 436 hence they worked at most for
14 hours each day, which means that over one working day they could
burn ([400÷24]×14=) circa 230 corpses.
Thomas Blatt asserts that the pyres were “more than three yards
high” 437 (i.e. roughly 3 meters). However, the only incineration site
identified for Sobibór (cf. above) covered a surface area of 30 square
meters and was 90 centimeters deep. Actually, the volume below
ground level should not be added to that of the pyre, because it was
needed for the supply of combustion air, but we will still take it into account
and thus assume a pyre 4 meters high with a total volume of some
120 cubic meters. One cubic meter of solid wood (i.e. without any air
space between logs) yields a volume of 1.4 cubic meters when stacked
in the form of sawn and/or split logs. 438 Wood of red pine immediately
upon cutting weighs 880 kg per cubic meter, hence the weight of a pile
of such wood, stacked, occupying one cubic meter (including air space)
would be about 630 kilograms. This amount of wood would have been
sufficient for the incineration of 2 corpses, which would themselves
have occupied a space of some 80 liters or 0.08 cubic meters. In practical
terms, the volume of 300 kg of wood plus one corpse would have
been roughly half a cubic meter.
It follows that one pyre of 120 cubic meters in overall volume would
have contained about 240 corpses. We must, however, take into consideration
that 1 cubic meter of stacked wood is not equivalent to 1 cubic
meter of pyre volume, because in this case additional space for the passage
of combustion air must be provided. Hence, a cubic meter of
stacked red pine in a pyre would weigh less than 630 kg, and the actual
incineration capacity would have been less than the theoretical value of
240 corpses estimated above. For our subsequent calculations we therefore
use a value of 230 corpses.
To the time needed for the actual cremation we have to add the time
it took to build the pyre and the time needed for its dismantling, i.e. the
removal of the ash. Each load of 230 bodies thus involved:
1) The building of the pyre, using (230×0.3=) 69 tons of green wood
and 230 corpses.
436
437
438
J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 70), p. 135.
T. Blatt, op. cit. (note 17), p. 18.
Workshop on: “Le biomasse agricole e forestali nello scenario energetico nazionale”
(agricultural and forestry biomass from the point of view of national energy) Progetto
Fuoco 2004, Verona (18-19 March 2004),
www.progettofuoco.com/media/piemmeti/documents/sezione_3/Sez_III_Hellrigl.pdf