Blue Wall Paint

Discussion of the Analysis Results 8.4.1. Blue Wall Paint  

The hypothesis expressed by J. Bailer,52,54 that blue paint could be responsible for the high cyanide values in the disinfestation chambers, does not correspond to the facts  

Iron Blue is not sold as wall paint at all, since it lacks sufficiently high lime fastness (see chapter 6.6.1.). 

If this argument were correct, it would be remarkable that the SS, of all the rooms in the Third Reich, would apply blue paint only to their disinfestation chambers where no one could admire it and, strangely, always the same blue. All other rooms were whitewashed. Were the SS practitioners of blue magic  

The disinfestation chambers themselves already had a coat of lime paint. Why would they cover this coat of lime paint with another paint which, in addition, is not even lime fast They would therefore have had to wait until the lime paint and plaster had set before one could paint the walls. And then it would have been by no means certain that the paint would not furthermore have become stained as a result of chemical reactions. 

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Bailer s argument is refuted by the fact that none of the colored walls shows any pattern of brush marks, and no identifiable coat of paint, since wall paint consists not only of pigment, but also of a not inconsiderable proportion of binding agents and other chemicals. The blue pigment is, however, simply one component of the lime paint and plaster. 

The value of voltammetric studies of immobilized microparticles for investigating objects of art was demonstrated by the group of Domenech-Carbo in Valencia. These authors described the analysis of Maya Blue, which had been used in wall paintings found at several archeological sites at Campeche and Yucatan in Mexico [58-62]. Figure 6.31 shows a wall painting from the Early Classical Maya period. The Maya... 

D 2575 POLYMERIZED FATTY ACIDS D 2931 LATEX FLAT WALLS PAINTS D 2932 EXTERIOR HOUSE COATINGS D 3129 LATEX FLAT WALLS PAINTS D 3256 PHTHALOCYANIN BLUE, GREEN... 

Iron objects are depicted in the wall paintings of the Egyptian pyramids and always with a blue color. The butcher has a blue grinding tool hanging at his hip, the carpenter has blue tools for woodworking. The metal iron was called benipe, a word that probably has the meaning metal from heaven, a reason for the blue color [8.4]. 

Howard (1995) identified blue vivianite on a Romanesque wall painting that had altered to yellow, producing an overall green pigment. This alteration may be due to conversion of tile original vivianite to metavivianite, or due to changes in the oxidation state of the constituent iron. 

Azurite (blue) Basic copper carbonate, 2CuC03Cu(0H)2 From prehistoric times Most important in wall paintings in the East known in ancient Egypt... 

From the remarks of a Polish research team having conducted investigations on behalf of the Auschwitz Museum, we also know that the disinfestation chamber in the Auschwitz main camp is colored a spotty blue.56,57 To my knowledge, only the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers of Dachau camp (DEGESCH circulation chambers) exhibit no blue pigmentation, because the walls were professionally coated with a paint impermeable to gas and water. 

Prof. Dr. Jan Markiewicz, Jan Sehn Institute for Forensic Research, Toxicology Department, Cracow, on behalf of the Auschwitz State Museum. J. Markiewicz provides more exact data on the sample taking locations, the type of material, and the depth taken in a sample taking records. The control samples were taken from a disinfestation chamber in the Auschwitz main camp, the interior walls of which, according to the report, were painted during the war, so that only a pale blue tint is visible in places. This is not, therefore, unaltered masonry material thus, in case the samples were taken from the upper layer of the wall only, one has to expect lower results in comparison to an untreated wall.56,57... 

As shown in chapter 6.5., the environment is only alkaline in the non-carbonated masonry. It was also established that an alkaline environment even supports the accumulation of cyanide and certain other steps in the reaction towards the formation of Iron Blue. If one assumes, as an extreme case, a complete conversion of all iron compounds contained in the masonry into pigment (1 to 2% iron content), the values found by Leuchter are even rather low. Whether the walls of the disinfestation wing were painted blue, i.e., whether a high cyanide content can only be found on the upper, i.e., the paint layer of the wall, will be discussed at a later time. 

They furthermore assume, together with J. Bailer,52 54 that the blue pigmentation of the disinfestation chamber walls could be due to a coat of paint. To exclude this pigmentation from the analysis, they decided to apply a method which is insensitive to iron cyanides. 

A coat of paint on the interior of the room would not explain the patchy pattern of the blue stains on the interior of the exterior walls of the disinfestation wing of Building 5a. 

Neither would a coat of paint on the interior of the room explain the absence of blue coloration on the interior walls added to the disinfestation wing at a later time. Or are the SS supposed to have painted only certain walls, and then, not evenly, with paint brushes, but, perhaps, soiling the wall statistically by throwing and spattering ... 

Bailer s argument furthermore fails to explain the still higher cyanide concentration of deeper, greenish-bluish coats of material in the walls of the disinfestation wing of Building 5b or does he perhaps intend to argue that the SS even applied iron-blue paint to wall plaster and wall mortar where no one could ever admire it There, it would in addition have certainly have been decomposed into its component parts due to the alkaline pH value of fresh mortar and would have lost its color at least temporarily. 

Then we are in a house, not at all like mine but assumed by my dreaming brain to be mine, and Richard s friend is spray painting the white wall (we have none in our house) with blue paint (neither do we have any blue rooms). The paint sprayer is a tank device of the type used to apply copper sulphate to grapevines or to exterminate cockroaches. Suddenly, the paint is being sprayed not only on the wall but upon a painting hanging on the wall. 

As is typical of most dreams, I am so involved in the scenario that it never occurs to me that I am dreaming. As I see Richard Newland (and his unidentified friend), see my house (even though it is clearly not mine), see the blue paint as it is sprayed on the walls, and move through the sequence of scenes, I accept all of these unlikely features as real on the strength of my hallucinatory perceptions, my delusional beliefs about them, and my very strong feelings of anxiety and apprehension. 

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