THE RUDOLF REPORT

GERMAR RUDOLF · THE RUDOLF REPORT123 345Figs. 49-53: The five properly constructed ventilation holes in the ceiling ofthe oven room to the upper story, crematorium III; condition: December1991. Note the cracks caused by the explosion.the concrete when at least one of the two large holes was pierced. Anopening pierced through the concrete in the roof of either morgue 1(‘gas chamber’) in consideration at a later time would inevitably havehad the consequence, when the building was blown up, that the breaksand fissures caused to the roof by the explosion would have runpreferentially through these holes.The reason for this is that explosions exert extraordinarily greatforces, and that the formation of cracks is favored by any weakness inthe structure, since the tension peaks attain very high values in the vicinityof acute angles (notch effect, see Fig. 48). Such holes, in particu-126