THE RUDOLF REPORT

5. AUSCHWITZ“The people going to be gassed and those in the gas chamber damagedthe electrical installations, tearing the cables out and damaging theventilation equipment.”2. Several hundred people, locked into a cellar with a very smallsurface area, anticipating death, would panic and attempt to escape,damaging everything that stood in their way. So what would the victimslocked into the cellar have done to the wire mesh columns describedby the eyewitnesses? If these columns actually existed, theirouter framework would have to have been of solid steel, but certainlynot of fragile wire mesh construction.3. These columns would, in addition, have had to have been solidlyanchored in the concrete ceiling, the floor, and the concrete pillars.But since solid anchoring dowels did not yet exist at that time, hoopirons would have been cast into the concrete during the construction ofthe cellar, spread out to a ‘dovetail’ inside the concrete. 257 If carriedout after completion of the building, holes would have been chiseledinto the concrete, and the hoop irons would have been cast in cementfilling these holes, see Fig. 47. In both cases, a removal of such cast-inhoop irons would have been impossible. Allone could do is cut them off with a saw or awelding torch. 258 Hence, if any introductiondevice was ever installed in these morgues,traces of such hoop irons must still be present.4. Furthermore, the steel reinforcementrods in the reinforced concrete would have torun wreath-like around the hole, and would becapable of verification by means of inductiondevices, even today.5. Since, in addition, the morgues’ roofswere covered with a layer of soil approximatelyone half meter thick, the entire constructionwould have to be protected againstthe intrusion of soil and rain water, and in sodoing it would have been indispensable toraise the edges of the holes above the surfaceFig. 47: Hoop ironwith dovetail, castin cement in a holein concrete.257 I am grateful to Carl Hermann Christmann, a certified building engineer, for this information.258 I am grateful to R. Faßbender, a certified building engineer, for this information, who alsoprovided the drawings.123