Posted: May 01, 2010 6:07 pm
Tyrannical wrote:That is very long, and my attention span isn't. Could you highlight the relevant part?
The whole study is relevant. There's a number of highlights, though, including:
As has been mentioned twice before in this study, the best information we have on the output of these ovens is the period from October 31 to November 12, 1941 in Gusen, after they had been overhauled. While the 677 bodies burned during these 13 days average 26 per muffle, an analysis of the underlying data reveals that a Topf oven could burn far in excess of this amount. On November 7, 1941 these two muffles incinerated 94 bodies in a period of 19 hours and 45 minutes, or 47 per muffle. This means that each oven could incinerate a body in 25.2 minutes. This was probably achieved by adding a new body to the oven before the prior body had been totally incinerated, a method which appears to have been envisaged by the Topf instructions discussed earlier.
Admittedly, the number 4756 is a bit controversial, as noted here:
The most controversial information comes from the Bauleitung on June 28, 1943. It reported that in a 24 hour period the six ovens of Krema I could incinerate 340 bodies; the five triple muffle furnaces each in Kremas II and III could incinerate 1440 corpses, or 2880 combined; Kremas IV and V could each incinerate 768 corpses or 1536 combined. The total for all five was 4756 and the total for the four Birkenau crematoria Kremas II through V - was 4416. For purposes of comparison with Gusen, there were many lighter-weight women and children incinerated in the Auschwitz ovens. By contrast, there were no women and children in Gusen in 1941, only men.
Deniers reject the Bauleitung figures outright. Denier critics have not totally accepted these numbers. However, the Gusen data suggests that the Bauleitung figures may have been more credible than previously suspected. The Bauleitung's 340 figure for 24 hours for the six ovens of Krema I comes out to about 25 minutes per body burned, the same result achieved at Gusen on November 7, 1941.
I still recommend that you read the whole thing, though.