Jankowski and the Krema I "ventilators".

On 16.04.1945 Stanislaw Jankowski aka Alter Feinsilber testified before the investigative judge Jan Sehn and deputy prosecutor Edward Pechalski about his experiences in the Auschwitz Sonderkommando. Among other things he said this about the morgue of crematorium I in the main camp (Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 1973, p. 40):

This big hall had no windows, only two vents in the ceiling, electric light and one door leading from the corridor, the other door leading to the ovens.

On 29.09.1980 he testified before a Paris notary as follows:

This room had no windows, but there were ventilators [ventilateurs] in the ceiling.

Carlo Mattogno also quotes Jankowski's 06.09.1985 statement (Auschwitz: Crematorium I, 2016, p. 34):

... in the ceiling, as far as I remember, there were two openings for the introduction of the gas; there were no false showers, I do not remember any ventilators.

Mattogno sums up (p. 35):

It is, moreover, very curious to see that Jankowski did not know anything about "ventilators" in 1945, then miraculously remembered them in 1980, only to forget about them again in 1985!

But did he? Notice how in the first two statements "vents" and "ventilators" follow the claim about there having been no windows. This hints at a possibility that Jankowski meant the same thing by them. Moreover, if he didn't, one would have to conclude - implausibly - that he forgot to mention the Zyklon B introduction openings at all.

Did he use some word to describe the vents that was mistaken by the French notary as "ventilateurs"?

Let's go to the Polish text of the 1945 statement (AGK, NTN 82, p. 13):

Ta duża sala była bez okien posiadała tylko dwa wentyle w suficie...

So the word translated as "vent" was "wentyl". French was not Jankowski's native language, so most probably in 1980 he used the Polish word which was then misunderstood as referring to a ventilator. He then failed to catch the mistake in the text.

This explains both why in 1980 "ventilators" appear instead of "vents", unlike in 1945, and also why in 1985 he knew of no ventilators. This is the most parsimonious explanation, which Mattogno, who has read the Polish text, could have thought of if he weren't such a hack.

How Reliable is the Statement of Maximilian Grabner?

The post-war statement scripted by the former head of the Political Department in Auschwitz Maximilian Grabner in Vienna, probably in late September 1945, was recently published by Sergey. In this posting, the reliability of his testimony will be assessed in some more detail. As a result, Grabner is a fairly reliable witness on most of the Auschwitz history touched by him, including atrocities. Only anything tangent to his own role and fate in the camp has been distorted and perverted to serve his purpose and discharge himself from any misconduct.

A point for point dissection of his testimony can be found in the appendix. This exercise is meant to assist in gauging the reliability and credibility of his account. A trained historian may do such en passant while studying the source, but it's use full to remind Holocaust deniers that corroboration forms a bond between evidence that needs to be broken first else it is greatly enhancing their mutual strength and that pointing out a few deliberate or undeliberate mistakes in a lengthy testimony (of which typically only some are real mistakes, while others are simply made up by denier's historical ignorance and personal incredulity) is not sufficient to dismiss it as uncredible, nor does it explain anything.

On the Number of the Zyklon B Introduction Holes in the Roof of Crematorium I

With the publication of Daniel Keren, Jamie McCarthy, Harry W. Mazal’s article “The Ruins of the Gas Chambers: A Forensic Investigation of Crematoriums at Auschwitz  I and Auschwitz-Birkenau” (Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2004, vol. 18, no. 1) the slow-burning debate on the number of the Zyklon B introduction openings in the morgue of crematorium I in Auschwitz Stammlager moved forward. It was not the last word on the topic, but it was a very prominent contribution.