Majdanek this and that

[Fred Ziffel]

very plausible,
I will look into it in a few days
may catch me on X in the next few days

[Fred Ziffel]

another video out from Majdanek Museum
not sure it will be super interesting to you all but any time this museum representee posts, I sit up and listen
Link:

[Fred Ziffel]

I tried to send a PM but failed
Wetzelrad, were you kicked off X?
I wanted to send you something

[Wetzelrad]

I am back on X.

I want to raise a hypothesis about the Majdanek bunker's pipe system. It remains an enigma, owing in large part to the lack of documentation and the totally unnecessary design of it. What was the perforated pipe actually for? I remain unpersuaded by any one explanation.

One possibility that occurs to me is that it was a heating pipe. We know the bunker was originally planned to have a central furnace (described in the cost estimates as a "disinfestation furnace" or "gas furnace", p.134) installed on its north exterior wall, but this was not actually built. In that same plan, there was no cell 14 on its south side, but that is what was built. From this it follows that the most likely purpose for cell 14 was to hold that furnace -- not gas bottles.

It is also true that a Klein air heater (p.131) was installed on the west wall, but since there is no photograph or document that demonstrates this object's presence until after liberation, it seems entirely possible that it was not part of the original build. I submit that the bunker was originally built to be heated from a central furnace in cell 14, with the western furnace being a later addition after a change of plans.

I am not an engineer, so perhaps there are physical reasons that this does not make sense. To my thinking, the long perforated pipes would not make sense for releasing gas, but perforated ducts are sometimes used in heating, so their use seems plausible here. If these pipes are simply too narrow to send hot air through under any circumstances, then I would posit that it was exactly this major design flaw that led to the installation of an alternative furnace system.

The closest comparable facility to the Majdanek bunker is Stutthof's delousing building. This included an exterior brick stove which blew hot air into a pipe which ran along the inside wall of the chamber. The bricks covering this pipe were perforated. See Concentration Camp Stutthof for details, especially the photo section. This particular design quirk is so similar that I am inclined to believe its purpose was exactly the same in both facilities.

[Fred Ziffel]

see attached

[Fred Ziffel]

I still say if the soviets back then were smart, they would have done something like this to sell the gas chamber Holobunga
Since the tanks are extreme high pressure, this would work and supposedly fake out inmates to be gassed

[Wetzelrad]

I definitely am not suggesting water circulation through the pipes. One way, air only.

Perhaps it's too impractical to send air through such a narrow pipe. Perhaps it would require a fan. We know there was an electric outlet on this wall (p.178), so whatever was installed there had power. Also bear in mind the original plan was for this one heater to heat all four chambers, presumably through four pipes.

I'm not sure about exhaust. The ceiling in cell 14 now is all new, isn't it? And as far as I can tell the room never had a door, so it was always exposed to fresh air.

I admit I overlooked the copper fittings. It's true that they look designed for a rubber pipe attachment, which would be totally extraneous for a stationary heating system. Those fittings, taken alone, make the most sense as part of an exchangeable gas tank system. Although I find it strange they are different sizes.

[Wetzelrad]

I came across a rare photo of what I think is one of the gates into the canopy bunker area. Its orientation is not clear to me, but the canopy and gate are recognizable. https://photo.rgakfd.ru/photo/1230186

Posing in it are two Jewish propagandists: Boris Yefimov and Vasily Grossman.

The most notable feature is the sign on the gate forbidding entry with a skull and crossbones. This would be a sensible sign to put outside of a fumigation gas chamber. It has no place outside of a homicidal gas chamber, where the victims were supposed to be fooled into entering.

[Stubble]

I came across a rare photo of what I think is one of the gates into the canopy bunker area. Its orientation is not clear to me, but the canopy and gate are recognizable. https://photo.rgakfd.ru/photo/1230186

Posing in it are two Jewish propagandists: Boris Yefimov and Vasily Grossman.

The most notable feature is the sign on the gate forbidding entry with a skull and crossbones. This would be a sensible sign to put outside of a fumigation gas chamber. It has no place outside of a homicidal gas chamber, where the victims were supposed to be fooled into entering.

Kind of the Germans to post that clear warning sign on the entrance gate to the supposed extermination area...

[Eye of Zyclone]

I came across a rare photo of what I think is one of the gates into the canopy bunker area. Its orientation is not clear to me, but the canopy and gate are recognizable. https://photo.rgakfd.ru/photo/1230186



Posing in it are two Jewish propagandists: Boris Yefimov and Vasily Grossman.

The most notable feature is the sign on the gate forbidding entry with a skull and crossbones. This would be a sensible sign to put outside of a fumigation gas chamber. It has no place outside of a homicidal gas chamber, where the victims were supposed to be fooled into entering.

Clearly a Judeo-Bolshevik version of the trick that was used by American psychological warfare agents at Dachau in May 1945...

[Fred Ziffel]

Wetzelrad
I am sincerely impressed by your ability to find these type of photos
I am speculating after looking at the varied characteristics in the photo that the sign is located as shown by the red circle in the attachment.

[Fred Ziffel]

Why not use the room heater that was there near north door?

[Wetzelrad]

I am speculating after looking at the varied characteristics in the photo that the sign is located as shown by the red circle in the attachment.

This was my first thought, but the background doesn't fit. The background includes a silhouette of large buildings on the left and a door on the right. That doesn't match any configuration looking north, east, or west. If looking south (really southwest), I think the silhouette could be B42 and mostly the roof of B43.

I made my own drawing which is slightly more accurate than the Soviet drawing.



I drew in the cone of vision in a way that appears to conform well with the photo. Still, with the lack of detail I'm not 100% sure on this identification. Possibly this could be a canopy-style roof elsewhere in the camp, like maybe at a gatehouse. The lighting conditions also deserve some consideration.

I have some further thoughts about the sign. Firstly, the sign could be a generic design, that is, non-specific to the bathhouse area. If you look close, you will see that the sign is attached to a short signpost, of a kind meant to go in dirt. This means the sign could have been easily removed and placed here by the Soviets. Alternatively, it could have been, along with other signs, mass-produced in whole or in part and put here by the Germans.

For comparison, here are photos I have come across of signs with skull and crossbones on fences at Majdanek.
https://d3k74ww17vqc8e.cloudfront.net/a ... _9_da1.jpg
https://furtherglory.com/Poland/Majdanek/Majdanek07.jpg
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... +Image.jpg
https://api.majdanek.eu/uploads/thumbs/ ... 506743.jpg

None are identical to the sign we are looking at. None of them share its text. The fourth one is at least stylistically similar.

The text of the sign is: "Das Überschreiten der Splittergräben ist verboten!"
In English: "Crossing the splinter trench is prohibited!"

The word "Splittergraben" was common in both world wars to refer to makeshift air shelters. Its literal translation is "splinter trench", meaning a dugout that protects occupants from shrapnel. I'm not sure how to interpret it in the context of Majdanek. To my knowledge, the only subterranean structures there were the shooting range and a drainage ditch.

If "Splittergraben" referred to the bunker and canopy, then it tells us that place became an air raid shelter. If so, it would support Fritz Berg's theory about air shelter doors (see images here). But this seems unlikely to me. I'm not aware of any documents or witnesses that refer to this area as an air shelter, and it doesn't make much sense to restrict "crossing" an air shelter in this context.

Is it possible that this was a generic sign to restrict crossing double barbed-wire fences, the gap between which is sometimes called a "trench"? I can't rule it out, but it seems like stretching the language too far.

A third possibility is that this sign was taken from an actual splinter trench, even though I can find no documentation to support it. We know that Splittergraben were built at Auschwitz (see The Making of the Auschwitz Myth, pp.110,112) and Treblinka (museum book, pp.144-145).

I leave it to the reader to make sense of the sign. Perhaps someone else can offer a theory or shed some light.

Again I have to point out that if the gassing story was true, signs in this location should have said something inviting like "this way to the bath".