Fun and profit, using photos of fingernail scratches on the wall of the Auschwitz gas chamber

If you would like to have a photo of the Auschwitz fingernail scratches, hanging on the wall of your living room, you can buy a large framed photo online at

http://www.art.com/products/p14404813-sa-i2875124/david-clapp-fingernail-scratches-in-main-gas-chamber-auschwitz-poland.htm

or at

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Fingernail-Scratches-in-Main-Gas-Chamber-Auschwitz-Poland-Posters_i3971294_.htm

When I went to see the Auschwitz main camp in October 2005, I was alone in the gas chamber for over an hour, and I could have taken photos of the fingernail scratches, suitable for framing, but stupid me, I didn’t realize that there was a market for this sort of thing.

I took the photo below in 2005.  Notice the scratches, on the left side of the photo,  just under the electrical wiring on the wall. At the top of the photo, you can see a ceiling beam, which indicates that the scratches are high up on the gas chamber wall.  Why did the victims reach up so high to put scratches on the wall?  Probably, because an evil Nazi came into the gas chamber and put white paint over the scratches on the lower part of the wall.  The only space left for scratches was high up on the wall.

Scratches on the wall of the gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp

In the photo above, the fingernail scratches are on the left side, near the top of the photo, underneath the electrical wiring, which is for the light fixtures in the room.

The photo below shows the wiring in the gas chamber and the lights in the room.

Wiring and light fixtures in the Auschwitz gas chamber

Notice the wall on the left side of the photo.  All of the scratches appear to be on this wall. Notice that the wall is a light brown color, except for the patches of white and light blue paint, which appear to be covering previous scratches. The new scratches are above the patches of paint, near the ceiling beams.

There are stories that the victims lifted the babies up near the ceiling so that they could live a few minutes longer by breathing the last little bit of pure air.

The photo below shows one of the holes in the ceiling, which was reconstructed by the Soviet Union, after Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945.  There are currently four of these holes, which were allegedly used to pour the Zyklon-B gas pellets into the gas chamber. (Some Holocaust experts say that originally, there were three holes, in a straight line.) The Soviets did the best that they could, when they reconstructed the gas chamber, so don’t complain.

One of the reconstructed holes in the ceiling of  the Auschwitz gas chamber

The question is:  Were these holes air tight?  If not, the gas would have escaped from the room, and it would have taken hours for the victims to die.  Were the babies allowed to live a few minutes longer because they could breathe the fresh hair coming through these holes?

What about the lights in the room?  Were the lights on, while the victims were dying in the gas chamber?  Most likely, the lights WERE on, so that the victims could see well enough to scratch a perfect star of david with their fingernails.

You can see two perfect Stars of David, scratched by a victim, who had very sharp pointed fingernails, at

http://www.nathan-miller.com/photos/israel/ausch/ausch-Pages/Image21.html

You can see an excellent photo of the scratches on the wall [the second photo] on this website:

http://www.boredpanda.com/must-see-powerful-photos/

In the photo, in the link above, notice the electrical wiring at the top of the photo. This photo was taken near the same place where I took my photo.  I was trying to take a photo of the ceiling, so I didn’t get a dramatic shot of the scratches.

What about the walls of the gas chamber?  Fred Leuchter, a gas chamber expert, who has been thoroughly discredited, had some complaint about the walls, and about the lighting, but what does he know?

This quote is from Fred Leuchter’s report on the Auschwitz gas chamber:

None of these facilities were sealed or gasketed. No provision was ever made to prevent condensation of gas on the walls, floor or ceiling. No provision ever existed to exhaust the air-gas mixture from these buildings. No provision ever existed to introduce or distribute the gas throughout the chamber. No explosion-proof lighting existed and no attempt was ever made to prevent gas from entering the crematories, even though the gas is highly explosive.

You can see some excellent photos of Auschwitz on this blog:  http://imgur.com/gallery/pxAvz

Scroll down to Photos # 7, 8 and 9.  Photo # 7 shows a sign in the gas chamber, which tells visitors that they must be silent, out of respect to the thousands of people who died in this room.  That sign was not there the last time that I was in Auschwitz in 2005.

Photo #8 shows one of the holes in the roof of the gas chamber with the lid removed, so that you can look through the hole, up to the sky above.  This is the same hole that I show on my blog today.

Photo #9 shows the scratches on the wall of the gas chamber.

I didn’t know that high school students are now allowed to walk around inside the gas chamber and take photos. Were these students allowed inside the gas chamber without an official tour guide?

There are a million comments on this blog post, which indicate that the students on this trip were very disturbed by seeing the fingernail scratches near the ceiling of the gas chamber.