The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

114 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
for his propaganda, but that the allegations made were “exaggerated”
(Bishop, p. 33).
3.2.3. Gas Van Claims during the Krasnodar Trial
But now back to the gas vans. Bourtman states that none of the defendants
of the Krasnodar trial had been accused of having been involved
in any act of mass murder, so statements about gas vans during
the trial had an exclusively declamatory nature and were very vague.
They served clear propaganda purposes (p. 258):
“Children’s newspapers also covered the trial. One image that
appeared often in accounts published for children was that of the
‘murder vans’ (as the newspapers dubbed them) in which some
6,280 Soviet citizens were [allegedly] gassed during the course of
the regional occupation. For many Soviet citizens, it seems, the
murder vans were emblematic of Germany’s ruthless efficiency and
inhumanity. At every turn, prosecutor Yachenin exploited the image
of the vans, and this focus was reflected in the dozens of newspaper
reports devoted to them. On July 21, 1943, Pionerskaia Pravda, a
weekly geared to children between the ages of 8 and 14, ran an article
entitled ‘Hitler’s Murder Vans.’”
Since I have not yet seen any of these pictures of alleged gas vans
published in the Soviet media during that time, I cannot currently comment
on them. I will instead quote a few excerpts from The People’s
Verdict:
“Lastly, the investigation revealed that many thousands of Soviet
citizens were put to death by asphyxiation by means of carbon monoxide
in motor vehicles specially equipped for this purpose, known
as ‘murder vans.’
In the autumn of 1942, [68] the Germans began to utilize specially
equipped motor vehicles, which the population called murder vans,
for the purpose of doing away with Soviet citizens.
These murder vans were covered five-ton or seven-ton greypainted
motor trucks, driven by Diesel engines. The interior of these
vans was lined with zinc-plated sheet iron. At the back they had
double doors which closed hermetically. The floor consisted of a
68
Note that orthodox historiography assumes the fall of 1941 as the beginning of these gassings.