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 (AIPN 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.