Upper Silesia

FIGURE 15.7 Secondary changes in the total group composition of soluble organic matter as a result of simulated water washing extracts of the Miocene lignite and shale (both of the Bechatow open cast mine, Poland), the Upper Devonian shale (the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland), and the Upper Carboniferous bituminous coal (the Upper Silesia Coal Basin, Poland). 

But one couldn t look back to 1936 and say that Ter Meer, skeptically studying the influence of buna on Farben s fortunes and on the economy as a whole, could foresee that full employment sometimes brings greater evils than unemployment. Auschwitz existed then only as a "buna plant to the east." The name "Auschwitz" did not yet exist, except as the German translation for a little Polish town in Upper Silesia. Not until 1937 did full employment and "buna autarchy" begin to move eastward, driven by more than the danger of financial failure. In that year, said Ter Meer, "political reasons" dictated an abnormal expansion of most of Farben s plants, with the biggest emphasis on buna rubber. 

Ignoring the southern ripple, Ter Meer s advance men scoured the territory of Upper Silesia, which ran from northeast Germany fifty miles into Poland. This special territory had been charted by Farben months before. 

Three miles from the restaurant where they ate dinner, the security clerk of the Vermittlungstelle Wehrmacht was about to quit for the day. He carefully checked the papers that were stamped "secret — l.G. farbenindustre." Among them were rough sketches of a proposed "buna plant to the East," the plans for the Fuerstenberg site in Upper Silesia, and mobilization plans for more than 100,000 tons of buna mbber for the year 1939. 

Bodzek, D K. Luks-Betlej, and L. Warzecha, Determination of Particle-Associated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Ambient Air Samples from the Upper Silesia Region of Poland, Atmos. Environ., 27A, 759-764 (1993). 

At Tarnowitz in Upper. Silesia, tho rich mineral obtained there, and containing about eighty per cent, of lead, is treated in a blast furnace like the last-mentioned, with about twelve per cent, of old iron or shot, and as much of the rich matt from the preceding as is thought necessary, together with thirty-six per cent, of the scoria from the same operation, to confer fusibility. 

Process for the Smelting of Zinc Orss m Upper Silesia,—The ores of zinc worked in this district"... 

Figa. 636, 637, 638, 639, 640,represent the ordinary furnaces, called double ovens, adopted in Upper Silesia for the reduction nnd distillation of zioc from its ores. 

In Upper Silesia, in the summer of 1921, while unloading caked ammonium nitrate from a railway car in order to make the work easier shot holes were bored in the material, and charged with an ammonium nitrate explosive, whereupon the charges were exploded. The detonation of these charges was followed by the detonation of ammonium nitrate contained in the car. The detonation was transmitted to ammonium nitrate in the neighbouring car. This accident claimed numerous victims and was accompanied by appreciable material damage. 

Although the name of Auschwitz, a town in Polish Upper Silesia, is utilized as a synonym for the alleged National Socialist crime of an assembly-line extermination of Jews—frequently described as unique —thus far, worldwide, there has never been any balanced description of this concentration camp. Generally, only three books, from the thousands on the subject, are worth selecting for discussion here. 

I.G. Farbenindustrie AG factory had a concentration camp in its immediate vicinity by the name of Monowitz, which was connected to the extensive system of more than 30 different Auschwitz concentration camps more than 30 kilometers in Upper Silesia and Western Poland. If the SS had looked for a simpler way to kill millions of Jews, the center of extermination certainly would have been built in the vicinity of Monowitz, with a direct process gas pipeline from the I. G. Farbenindustrie AG factory. 

Fialkowski, W., Klonowska-Olejnik, M., Smith, B.D. and Rainbow, P S. (2003) Mayfly larvae (Baetis rhodani and B. vernus) as biomonitors of trace metal pollution in streams of a catchment draining a zinc and lead mining area of Upper Silesia, Poland, Environmental Pollution 121 (2), 253-267. 

Contrary to the photos of the camps in eastern Poland, the photos of Auschwitz (illustrations 5 and following) were taken by the Americans. It took the Allied landing in Italy in autumn of 1943 before the Americans were able to bomb the industrial area of Upper Silesia Allied reconnaissance flights over this area therefore did not begin until the winter of 1943/44.17 However, the corresponding air photos were not submitted to the National Archives by the CIA, and thus made accessible to the public, until the late 1970s. It was also the CIA which published the first photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1979, authored by D. Bmgnioni, R. Poirer.18... 

In 1943 there were more than a dozen secondary camps in Gliwice [Gleiwitz auth.], and in Upper Silesia there were more than 225 camps for inmates, prisoners-of-war andforced laborers. ... 

Auschwitz Upper Silesia WVHA gas chambers (HCN) one million11... 

Widespread damage of Norway spruce was observed also in Southern Germany after 1981 and later on in Switzerland and Eastern France vdiile it could be seen in South East Poland also within and outside the industrial region in Upper Silesia. Extended areas were affected in South West Sweden but not as severe as in Central Europe (Scholz, 1984). 

Poland 30,456 8,677 28.5 600 7 Industrial region of Upper Silesia Coniferous forest, especially pine... 

Nitroarenes can be effectively determined by RP-HPLC-FLD after reduction to the corresponding PAA. Reduction with NaHS was found to be more efficient than with NaBHj/CuCL. The method was applied to determination of 2-nitrofluorene and 1-nitropyrene, which were converted to 2-fluorenylamine (10b) and 1-pyrenamine (13), respectively, and were found to be at ca 5 ppm levels in dust collected in the Upper Silesia region202. 

Mielzynska D, Siwinska E, Kapka L, et al. The influence of environmental exposure to complex mixtures including PAHs and lead on genotoxic effects in children living in Upper Silesia, Poland. Mutagenesis 2006 21 (5) 295—304. 

By the end of 1944, Germany had a formidable nerve gas arsenal dispersed around the country. Poison gas shells were stored at Krappitz in Upper Silesia others were said to have been hidden in old mine shafts in Lausitz and Saxony. In all, the various top secret munitions dumps contained around 12,000 tons of tabun — 2,000 tons loaded into shells, 10,000 into aircraft bombs. 

Fig. 8-11. Frequency distribution of pH values observed in hydrometeors. (A) Ernst (1938), 47 bulk rain samples collected in Bad Reinerz, combined with 80 samples showing a similar distribution collected in Oberschreiberhau (both locations in upper Silesia, central Europe), 1937-1938. (B) Mrose (1966), 206 bulk rain samples collected at Dresden-Wahnsdorf (German Democratic Republic), 1957-1964. (C) Esmen and Fergus (1976), about 200 individual rain drops collected during a single rainstorm in Delaware, 1974. (D, E) Likens etal. (1984), weekly samples of bulk rainwater collected at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest Station, New Hampshire, D 1964-1968, E 1975-1979. (F) Falconer and Falconer (1980), 824 measurements of cloud water collected continuously at Whiteface Mountain, New York, 1977.

Konrad Emil Bloch (1912-2000) was bom in Upper Silesia (then a part of Germany), left Nazi Germany for Switzerland in 1934, and came to the United States in 1936, becoming a US. citizen in 1944. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1938, taught at the University of Chicago, and became a professor of biochemistry at Harvard in 1954. 

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