The 1946 Cracow Auschwitz Trial

The 1946 Cracow Auschwitz Trial. In 1945, the Jan Sehn Institute for Forensic Research (Instytut Ekspertyz Sadowych) prepared a report on a forensic investigation of Auschwitz that was submitted in evidence in the 1946 Auschwitz trial in Cracow, Poland.74 This expert report should be treated with caution, because forensic examinations and judicial procedures under the Communists have been anything but trustworthy, and in 1945, Poland was a Stalinist satellite. One need only point to the example of Katyn, the Soviet account of which was fully endorsed by Poland s Communist regime.73 

The Cracow forensic investigators took hair, presumably cut from inmates, and hair clasps from bags found by the Soviets in Auschwitz. Tested for cyanide residues, both hair and clasps showed positive results. Additionally, a zinc-plated metal cover was tested for cyanide and found to have a positive result as well. The Cracow Institute claims that this metal cover once shielded the exhaust duct of a sup- 

74 Published in German, op. cit. (note 52), pp. 36-40 the original is in the Auschwitz State Mu-seum. 

The tests conducted by the institute were qualitative, not quantitative, analyses. In other words, they could only determine whether or not cyanide was present, not how much of it was there. As to whether or not homicidal gassing with hydrogen cyanide took place in Auschwitz, these analyses are worthless, for three reasons  

We face a similar problem with the zinc-plated covers allegedly used to cover the ventilation ducts of the supposed gas chambers their exact origin and history is unknown. It would have been much preferable for the Cracow Institute to have analyzed samples from the walls of the alleged gas chambers instead of obtaining samples from pieces of metal  

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