AUSCHWITZ: PLAIN FACTS - Holocaust Handbooks

Robert Faurisson, Reply to Jean-Claude Pressac on the Problem of the Gas Chambers 85competent SS men in whose minds he invites the reader to detect a line of reasoningwhich, in fact, he himself has made up out of nothing.4.4.7. The “Normal” and “Abnormal” Gas Chambers (p. 89)A confused passage deals with the “extraordinary slip” that an ordinary civilianemployee supposedly made in writing a letter to the “Testa” firm, distributorsof Zyklon B. This “slip,” says Pressac, consisted in using the term“normal gas chamber,” and “Testa,” he says, used the same expression in itsreply. Pressac deduces from this that there must have existed “abnormal” gaschambers, i.e. homicidal ones! He does not reproduce the text of this correspondence,but gives us a rather confused summary from which it seems toemerge that, quite simply, the “normal” gas chambers were those designed tofunction with Zyklon B and the “abnormal” gas chambers were those which,designed to function with Zyklon B, were later to undergo “an adaptation ofequipment” in order to function with another product, Areginal, due to theshortage of Zyklon B in May 1944.4.4.8. The Ten Hydrogen Cyanide Gas Detectors (p. 71-72)With the hydrogen cyanide gas detectors we leave the sphere of “slip” and“bungles,” of “criminal traces” and “beginnings of evidence” to discover, finally,“definitive evidence” and even “the definitive evidence.”Of what, exactly?Of the “existence of a homicidal gas chamber in crematory II” (p. 72). Thereader is astonished to see the immense edifice of the gravest accusationbrought against the German people thus built on a simple business letter.On March 2, 1943, the firm Topf und Söhne of Erfurt sent a letter to thecentral construction office at Auschwitz concerning an order for ten hydrogencyanide gas detectors for crematory II. There is nothing odd in that. The letteris commercial, with nothing secretive about it. It reads quite plainly Gasprüfer/Krematorium(gas detectors/crematory). The instruments were called Anzeigegerätefür Blausäure Reste (hydrogen cyanide trace detectors). These arewhat I called the “residual gas detection equipment” in my Mémoire en défense…,53 an expression which, on that occasion, was the translation of Gasrestnachweisgerät.54 This equipment could be found wherever the gassing(Vergasung) gear was stored and wherever disinfections with Zyklon B werecarried out. What with the ravages effected by typhus at Auschwitz and theaccumulation of corpses of epidemic victims in the crematories, operations to53 Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m’accusent de falsifier l’histoire, La Vieille Taupe,1980, p. 171.54 See below, in the appendix, the text of document NI-9912 concerning the use of Zyklon B;this “residual gas detection” was such an ordinary necessity of disinfection gassings that it ismentioned six times therein.