The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

110 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
3.2.2. Background and Conditions
In lack of access to trial documents of the Krasnodar trial of summer
1943, we have to make do with an analysis of the trial published by
Russian historian Ilya Bourtman in 2008 as well as with an English
booklet published in 1943 by the Moscow Foreign Publishing House
(The Trial, 1943), which is an English translation of articles published
in the Soviet newspaper Pravda. In 1944 this booklet was followed by
another publication with the title The People’s Verdict (1944) containing
the content of the former brochure (pp. 7-44) plus an English translations
of the case summary of the Kharkov trial (pp. 45-124), with excerpts
from interrogations of the defendants and several key witnesses.
This trial will be discusses in chapter 3.3. The Krasnodar trial itself took
place between 14 and 17 July 1943. Although for obvious propagandistic
reasons the newspaper articles published about the trial gave the
impression that German officials were being tried, this was not the case.
Instead, eleven Soviet citizens were mainly accused of collaborating
with the German Sonderkommando 10a (which belonged to
Einsatzgruppe D) in “guarding Gestapo buildings that held arrested Soviet
citizens, executing arrests, going on military searches and expeditions
against the partisans and peaceful Soviet citizens, [and] exterminating
Soviet citizens by hanging, mass shootings, and use of poison
gases” (Bourtman 2008, p. 251). It is the latter aspect in which we are
interested. Just one day after the verdict had been handed down, eight of
the defendants were publicly hanged on the main square of Krasnodar,
underlining the show character of the trial, whereas the remaining three
had to serve long prison terms. Bourtman writes about this trial (ibid., p.
250; unless stated otherwise, all page number in this subchapter are
from this):
“From the apologetic and self-denouncing defendants, to the
largely inconsequential lawyers, to the stern and ruthless prosecutor,
each actor had a scripted part to play. Just as important as the
trial itself (if not more important) was the coverage it received. The
large numbers of people who came to see the executions underscored
the increasing psychological impact of the Soviet war crimes
trials. In Krasnodar, the public execution was attended by thirty
thousand spectators. The Soviet press (including children’s newspapers)
reported every word uttered by the prosecutor; film crews re-