45. Can a crematory oven be operated 100 % of the time?

Ernst Zündel Replies:
Rebuttal # 45:

A bit of background information first.

Cremation of the dead is not a
new concept. It has been practiced by many cultures for many centuries. In
Europe it is a relatively recent practice, since it was frowned upon by the
Catholic Church, which relaxed its opposition only in the late 18th century.

There are many practical reasons for the use of creation. Cremation
allows a more effective control of infectious diseases. It does not take up the
much-needed land for ever expanding graveyards, which is very important in
overcrowded areas. It also eliminates the need to store corpses in the winter
when the ground is frozen. There is nothing sinister about cremation per
se.

Europe's early crematories were coal- or coke-fired furnaces. The
oven or furnace which is used to cremate corpses is properly termed a retort.

Early retorts were simply baking kilns which cooked all the moisture out
of the corpse. Modern retorts actually blow fire from a nozzle into the remains,
causing combustion. Modern retorts also have an extended combustion chamber
(afterburner) with a set of baffles to introduce turbulence into the fuel gases
and to facilitate the complete burning of particles that did not burn in the
main chamber.

The modern furnaces operate at a temperature of 1100 C
(2000 F) or just above, with the temperature falling along the length of the
afterburner. Bones cannot be burned and must be crushed by mechanical means,
which nowadays is done by putting them in a high-speed rotating drum containing
steel balls. In the old days it was done with a mortar and pestle.

Modern retorts are mostly gas fired, even though there are still some
using oil. There are no more coke- or coal-fired crematoria in the US or Canada.

During the second Zündel Trial
in 1998 in Toronto, the court heard testimony of Ivan Lagace, who was at
that time crematory manager at the Bow Valley Crematorium in Calgary, Alberta.
He was recognized by the court as an expert in the practical aspects of
crematorium practices.

Mr. Lagace testified that an average time to
cremate a human body in a modern gas-fired furnace at the temperature of just
over 1000 degrees C (about 2000 F) is two hours. Smaller bodies could be
cremated in about 1.5 hours. The time of 1.5 hours was given in a Toronto Star
article for 17 September 1996; the article mentioned a temperature of 1000 C,
which can only be achieved in modern gas or oil-fired crematory furnaces with a
direct application of flames to the corpse.

Heat energy required to
cremate a corpse, according to that same Star article, ranges from 800,000 to
1.2 million BTU. As mentioned above, older furnaces were fired by coal or coke.
Coke produces very short flames which means there is no flame contact with the
corpse in those furnaces.

This mode of operation produces an average
temperature of about 800 C (1470 F) in the immediate vicinity of the corpse,
which extends cremation time to 3.5 to 4 hours for each corpse. The coal and
coke furnaces do not burn uniformly and combustion has to be continuously
monitored, with the operator adding more coal, if necessary, poking it, and
controlling the introduction of air by dampers.

The crematories utilized
in German camps were of the older type. All of the ovens had multiple retorts
and all were coke fired. None of the retorts in German camps were designed for
multiple corpse incineration, as claimed in exterminationist literature.

In view of all this, one can see how preposterous is the claim that it
took a half-hour to 45 minutes to incinerate a corpse in a W.W. II type
German crematoria. But still, it is a considerable "progress" from 5 (five) to 9
(nine) minutes, that it took to incinerate a body according to the report by the
Soviet State Commission, which investigated Auschwitz in 1945.

Can a
crematory oven be operated nonstop - "nonstop" meaning that you start the next
cremation immediately after completing the previous one?

Factory
recommendations for normal operation and sustained use of crematoria furnaces
allow for three or less cremations per day. Any attempt to exceed that would put
a great stress on refractory specialty brick lining, which will result in a
faster wear and the need for replacement.

The crematory furnace consist
of a shell, constructed of a hard brick, which is lined with a refractory brick
from the inside. The main quality of the refractory bricks is their ability to
withstand high temperature. Another important quality is their low heat
conductivity, which helps to protect the structural bricks of the crema wall
from excessive heat for which they are not designed.

A brick of
refractory lining is very soft and fragile. You can easily scratch it with your
fingernail, which also means it can be easily damaged - for example, with a
poking iron.

According to Ivan Lagace, an average life expectancy of
refractory bricks is about 1500 cremations. Refractory bricks can also be
severely damaged when a corpse is introduced into a hot furnace that was not
allowed to cool down fully following a previous cremation. This happens because
water in body tissues is instantly brought to boiling temperature and the
tissues quite literally explode, splattering body fluids and wet tissues all
around.

One can imagine what will happen to a red-hot brick if you
splatter water on it! There will be plenty of spalling and flaking; it may even
crack! That is why it is very important to either allow a cooling-down period
after a cremation or to reduce the rate of combustion by the end of cremation,
thus allowing the temperature to gradually come down.

Either of these
options, obviously, reduce the number of cremations that can be performed in a
day. And let's not forget that in order to cool down a gas-fired furnace you
simply shut off the flow of gas, but it is much more cumbersome with coal, since
even after no more coal is fed to the furnace, it will take some time for the
coal still in the furnace to burn up.

We also have to keep in mind that
coke slag had to be removed from the furnaces, possibly more than once a day.
The ash which was settling in the flue ducts and chimneys also had to be removed
manually on a regular basis. Those are very labor-intensive operations. The
Holocaust writers keep insisting that cremations were being done "around the
clock", "nonstop", "with hundred per cent duty cycle"; that the crematory ovens
were operating "100% of the time"; and so on, claiming the numbers of bodies
that were being incinerated daily in each oven in the hundreds. That is nonsense
for technical reasons.

Here is an excerpt from the operating instructions for the crematory
operators of an American-manufactured crematory. For the sake of brevity we
skip some paragraphs, leaving only those which reveal the duration of various
operations involved in the cremation process, as well as those items which
indicate a possibility of excessive wear of the furnace components. The copied
paragraphs retain the exact wording of the manual. For that reason,
conversions to degrees C are not provided. In order to do that simply divide
Farenheit by 1.8, subtracting 32 at those levels will not improve
accuracy.

(note to paragr. 3) A. "Your Retort has a timer which has to
be set for length of time to be allotted for entire cycle of Cremation. Rotate
center knob on the timer counterclockwise until indicator pointer is set at
two (2) hours and thirty (30) minutes. [...]

5. Upon the start of the
blower, the timer has now began to run towards completing the two (2) hours
and thirty (30) minute cycle.

[...] 7. Now close the door by pressing
the door "Down" button. You are now starting your Preheat Cycle. This will
take twenty (20) minutes.

NOTE: This time of PREHEAT for the after
compartment is important to prevent any smoke and odor coming out of the hot
air duct. [...]

After the Preheat Cycle has been completed, open the
door. Now place a wooden roller approximately 1.5" to 2" in diameter by 12 to
14 inches long on the floor center tile 18 inches in from the front of the
Retort.

"WARNING"

Use of any metal type roller will cause
excessive wear on the floor tile and shorten the life period of the floor
tile. [...]

12. (after positioning the casket) Now start the main
burner by pressing the main burner "Start" button. The Cremation will take
approximately two (2) hours to be completed.

A. It should be noted that
the "Fuel Saver Device" will begin operation at that point in time when the
temperature reaches 1450 F. The main burner will automatically be positioned
to the low-fire position and remain there until temperature drops below the
1600 F level.

13. At the end of the two (2) hour cremation cycle, the
timer will automatically turn-off the Retort.

14. Open the door upon
completion of the two (2) hour time to check cremains (sic). If the case is
complete, close the door. Now start the blower and leave it run for a minimum
of (1) One Hour. (one (1) hour 15 min. preferred) to cool the retort down on
the cooling cycle. However, if the case is not complete, close the door.

Now initiate steps 5,6 and 12.

Allow cremation cycle to
continue until case is complete. [...] Always check the cremains (sic) before
continuing.

15. The cooling cycle is now completed. Now check the ash
tray for any residual fluids etc., that might not have been consumed during
the Cremation Cycle.

"WARNING"

The ash tray is "HOT". Asbestos
gloves should be used to pull out the ash tray. Serious injury (burns) could
happen to the operator's hands by failure to use the proper equipment.
[...]

16. Turn off the blower.

17. Open the door.

18.
Brush the cremains into the ash pit hole. [...]

"WARNING"

Radiant heat will be coming out the door. Asbestos
gloves should be worn to prevent injury (burns) to the hands when using the
brushes.

19. Close the door.

"WARNING"

Always close the
door when the Retort is hot, and when it is not necessary to have it open to
perform a function.

20. Remove the ash tray from the ash pit. Place the
second ash tray in the ash pit.

21. When doing more than one case per
day, the cooling cycle must be (1) One Hour... (one hour 15 min preferred)
between the first and second case minimum. The cooling cycle time between the
second and third case of the day must be two (2) hours... (two (2) 15 min
preferred).

A. When running more than one case in the same day with
not more than the cooling cycle described above being used. "The Preheat Cycle
is five (5) minutes approximately or 800 F on temperature indicator between
the first and the second case or second and third case of the same day.

22. Your Retort is designed and constructed in such a manner that a
"BREAK-IN PERIOD" is required. The "BREAK-IN CYCLE" is one case per day for
the first twenty-five (25) cases to be processed. At the completion of the
"BREAK-IN CYCLE", your Crematory Retort has been cured out. (refractory is
dried out).

"WARNING".

Failure to conform to the "BREAK-IN
CYCLE" will void the Warranty! It could cause damage to your retort, requiring
repairs that would be the responsibility of the owner for the costs.

23. Factory recommendations for normal operation to your Crematory
Retort is a maximum of three (3) cases per day in a normal eight (8) hour work
day. No more than 50-60 cases should be processed in any month so that the
refractory life is prolonged.

24. When processing more than one case
per day, the above procedures will be followed for the first case, with
particular attention paid to paragraph 21.

"WARNING"

Failure to
follow procedures outlined in paragraph 21 could result in improper
combustion.

25. Should time lapse of more than four (4) hours occur
between the first case and the second case, the Preheat Cycle of fifteen (15)
minutes must be performed prior to the starting of the second case.

"WARNING"

Failure to perform the Preheat Cycle could result in
odor and smoke coming out the hot air duct. [...]

(The note to par. 12
is not a misprint. It simply means that the temperature will still be going up
even in the Fuel Saver mode, only it will be rising at a slower rate. For an
efficient control you have to introduce hysteresis, which means that the
different control modes are turned on or off not simply upon reaching a
certain threshold, but depending on a direction of the parameter change
through a threshold. In other words, it will turn into a low-fire mode at 1450
F when the temperature is rising, but it will go back to normal mode at 1600 F
when temperature was going down through that threshold. This is done to
prevent the controller from changing the mode of operation several times a
minute.)

From that manual for the crematorium furnace operation we can begin
to appreciate the technical difficulties associated with cremation! You simply
cannot exceed the capacity of the furnace if you plan to keep it in a good
working order. Repairs of this kind of equipment are very labor-intensive and
take a long time to properly accomplish. Just imagine what it means to replace
the refractory lining!

You would have to cool the furnace down to the
temperature which would allow people to work inside. According to Ivan Lagace,
cooling would take a minimum of 48 hours. Replacing the lining is a very
involved operation. The entire surface of the furnace has to be covered with
those fire-resistant bricks; you cannot leave even a tiny spot of the oven
structure without protection from the furnace heat!

The manual also
mentions a break-in cycle for the newly built furnace. According to the
testimony of Ivan Lagace, you have to go through the same procedure after every
repair of the refractory.

This involves running the oven at a very low
combustion rate for a while. Only then can you resume cremations, according to
Lagace. For the next 25 days, you can only perform one cremation a day, exactly
what we saw in those excerpts from the manual. And no matter whether a whole
lining had to be replaced or just a few bricks, you still have to shut down the
furnace, let it cool down to the temperature that would allow people to work
inside and then go through the entire break-in process.

Considering all
this, it is inconceivable that the Germans would be trying to perform more
cremations than the ovens could realistically withstand. As mentioned by Lagace,
there is always some flaking of the lining, even during normal operation. The
brick may even crack if overheated, and the crack may be very large, to the
entire depth of the brick. In that case the fire would not be contained within
the retort and the exterior structure would be exposed to temperatures exceeding
those it can safely withstand. That would cause a serious emergency which could
lead to the collapse of the entire furnace structure if not promptly discovered
and corrected.

That is why it is very important to perform regular
inspections of furnaces. In order to inspect the lining, an engineer had to
crawl inside the furnace and closely examine every brick. It may take two days
for the furnace to get cool enough to allow people to work inside. Failure to
perform inspections would entail a considerable risk of severe damage to the
oven structure, which would result in an even greater down time.

It must
also be stressed that the number of 1500 cremations per life of a refractory
lining, given by Ivan Lagace, refers to an average time, which means that one
lining could have survived 1700 cremations, while the other had to be replaced
after 1300. Considering the fact that, with the exception of two furnaces in
Majdanek I, which had one retort each, all other furnaces had multiple retorts,
which means several furnaces on the same foundation and with the flue channels
merging into the same smoke stack.

Auschwitz-Birkenau had furnaces with
2 retorts, 3 retorts and even 4 retorts each, adjacent retorts sharing a wall.
This means that the entire group of retorts had to be shut down in order to make
repairs in just one retort. So if the lining in one retort had to be replaced,
say, after a "mere" 1300 cremations, what should be done next? Do we then
restart the furnace, while there is only 200 cremations left in the average
capacity of the other retort(s)? Or would it make more sense to strip the old
lining from the other one, two or three retorts, whatever the case might be, and
put a new one in? One option would take more time and effort for repair, while
the other would allow to avoid an extra period of reduced capacity due to
break-in period.

Multiple-retort furnaces are more economical from the
purely thermal point of view. They allow a considerable reduction in coke
consumption. For example, a three-retort furnace required only 20 kg of coke for
the cremation of each emaciated adult corpse. However, their maintenance and
repair involve a greater loss in cremation capacity during a down time. That
could be another reason why the Germans provided such a considerable reserve
cremation capacity in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Even if we imagine that,
during the typhus epidemics in the camps, the furnaces had to be operated
"around the clock", it is inconceivable that the Germans would be operating the
ovens in excess of their capacity, thus causing so much "wear and tear" on the refractory lining that it would require more
frequent repairs than could be achieved under proper operating
conditions.

Fred
Leuchter, in his report (which is available from Samisdat 206 Carlton
Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2L1 CANADA, as is the testimony of Ivan
Lagace), gives a set of numbers with regards to cremations that were
realistically possible in German camps. He puts an average theoretical capacity
of 6.8 corpses per retort per 24-hour period, while the realistic, practical
capacity is even lower, just 3 (three) corpses in 24-hours. This gives a
"theoretical average" for Auschwitz-Birkenau of just over 350 corpses a day,
while the realistic value, given by Leuchter, is 156.

In light of these
numbers, and the above technology involved, you can appreciate how absurd are
the numbers thrown around by Holocaust propagandists, according to which
thousands of bodies were being incinerated each day in Auschwitz-Birkenau
crematoria. It is important to emphasize that even these numbers are too high,
since they do not take into account the down time due to inspections,
maintenance, repair and periods of drastically reduced cremation capacity during
the break-in periods following repairs. It also does not take into account the
fact that after the completion of Krema installations at Birkenau, those at
Auschwitz were no longer used and the Krema I building was converted into a bomb
shelter.

There is no room to go into those details here, but Samisdat has
books in its catalog which extensively describe such things, for example, a
report by Germar Rudolf who conducted forensic examination of several camps soon
after Leuchter.

The same can be said about the claims that the Germans
were supposedly putting three bodies at a time in each retort. It should be
obvious to anybody that in a properly designed crematory oven the combustion
chamber should be big enough to allow adequate circulation of flames and flue
gases around the body. However, making the chamber too large would, obviously,
mean that plenty of flue gases would escape through the smokestack without
giving away their energy to the corpse, which, of course, is wasteful.

On the other hand, a chamber that is too small would not allow adequate
volumes of hot flue gases to pass by and circulate around the body, thus slowing
down the cremation process. It might simply be impossible to maintain a
combustion process of adequate volume and intensity, since an obstructed
combustion chamber would plug the escape route for flue gases.

It is, of
course, possible to design a furnace that would be able to burn three or even
ten bodies at a time, but the German crematoria were not of that type, as is
manifestly obvious from examination of either existing furnaces that are being
shown to tourists in the camps or from the old engineering blueprints.

In summary:

According to the Holocaust propagandists, the mere presence of crematoria
in the camps means the proof of the program of mass extermination. But these
days, not even the hard-core exterminationists claim that Buchenwald or Dachau
were extermination camps, and yet each of those had a crematory.

The
exterminationists like to point at the total number of 52 retorts at
Auschwitz-Birkenau and claim that as a proof of the extermination program. It is
a known fact that after completion of crematoria in Birkenau, Krema I in
Auschwitz was no longer used and was later converted into a bomb shelter. So we
only need to consider 46 retorts at Birkenau. And if we look at the death
statistics in Auschwitz, we can appreciate the rationale for this considerable
reserve capacity.

During the first 20 days of August 1942, in the male
sector alone, there were 4,113 deaths - an average of 216 deaths per day. During
the remaining part of that year more than 20 thousand inmates died of typhus.
Taking this into consideration, it is reasonable to assume that the Auschwitz
administration would have ordered the construction of 46 retorts on the basis of
the projected worst case.

By comparison, in 1939 some 102 thousand
people died in Germany, with an average of 280 per day. At that time there were
131 crematoriums with approximately 200 ovens. We can see that on average there
were 1.4 cremations per oven per day.

This considerable reserve capacity
existed in Germany even in peace time and even considering the fact that most
people were dying of causes other than infectious diseases, mostly old age. But
in camps during the war the main cause of death was typhus, so it was very
important to dispose of those bodies as fast as possible, which explains this
reason for that reserve capacity.

Between the period of December '41 to
March '43 there were six operational retorts at Auschwitz. If we assume 6.8
theoretical cremations a day, then during that period of time there could be
approximately 6.8x480=3264 cremations. The more realistic number of three bodies
per retort per day would come up to 3x480=1440. Again, this is disregarding the
down time and the periods of reduced capacity.

In March 1943 Birkenau
Krema II was completed, but after a short period of service it had to be shut
down and the refractory lining redone. Krema IV, containing two furnaces, four
retorts each, was completed at the end of March. It operated for just two months
and was abandoned in May '43. In April Krema V, containing two furnaces, four
retorts each, was finished. Therefore, in April '43 sixteen more retorts were
operational for a total of 22. This number of operational retorts stayed the
same for the next six weeks. Krema III started operating on 25 June '43, after
which Krema I was shut down. On 12 July the rework on Krema II was completed.
Krema V was mothballed at about the same time.

We will not bore the
reader with calculations of the "theoretical" and realistic cremation
capacities. Those who are interested can work it out with a calculator. All we
want to show here is that ovens were often being repaired, and the claims of the
holocaust writers to some smooth, trouble-free operation every single day,
around the clock, twelve months a year, for years in a row, is simply
preposterous.

It is now claimed today that 1.5 million people perished
in Auschwitz. Originally it was claimed that 4 million were killed. There was
even a commemorative plaque, claiming 4 million. In 1989, under the pressure of
evidence, to which the revelations of the Zündel Trials contributed a great
deal, that plaque was removed, and after that, the most often quoted number
moved into the range of 750 to 850 thousand.

Then it was raised again!

Somehow the "conductors" of this show do not see anything wrong with all
these manipulations with millions. But the most "suspicious" flaw in their
"arithmetic" is the simple fact that if six million was the alleged total of the
Jewish dead, with four million originally "allocated" to Auschwitz. How is it
conceivably possible, then, to hold on to those six million in the light of the
fact that the Auschwitz total was eventually considerably reduced - by more than
three million, according to some exterminationists?!

As mentioned in QA # 1, the
"death books" of Auschwitz - more than forty volumes! - have been released in
1989 by Mr. Gorbachev. Out of 74 thousand entries, only about 30 percent have
names that could be attributed to Jews!

One final, specific point.
Nizkor claims that "...more recently, the Holocaust-deniers have begun to rely
on the testimony of Ivan Lagace, who apparently said at the Zundel trial and
later in print that it takes six to eight hours per body."

This is a
lie. The average time, required for cremation of a body in a modern, gas-fired
furnace, even according to Lagace is 2 (two) hours, with larger bodies taking as
long as 2.5 hours. Lagace specifically said that the fat bodies are easier to
burn, but the lean ones are very "stubborn fuel", because they have a greater
percentage of "wet tissues".

Samisdat has an entire set of trial
transcripts and also a book that includes all witness testimonies of the second
Zundel trial, including that of Lagace. The entire Lagace testimony can be found
at http://www.webcom.com/ezundel/english/dsmrd/dsmrd26lagace.html

Anybody interested in this subject but without the patience for detail
may consult any good Encyclopedia or the local crematory in their area. They
will be shocked to discover how they have been lied to by the Holocaust
propagandists all along.