The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

118 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
6 months. Maybe both figures have the same source: After the war, with
hundreds of thousands and millions of victims claimed for each and
every alleged German murder location, the 7,000 figure of the Krasnodar
trial was probably no longer horrific enough, and hence maybe it
was amended by adding a nine: 97,000.
To summarize: What we have found out about this trial and the evidence
presented does not yield any new evidence about the existence of
gas vans. Quite to the contrary, the circumstances of the trial and the
claims made increase our skepticism.
3.3. The Kharkov Trial
The conditions of the Kharkov trial were the same as those of the
Krasnodar trial, hence I refer to what I have stated in the previous chapter.
The Kharkov chapter in The People’s Verdict is much longer than
the one on Krasnodar primarily due to lengthy quotes from confessions
made by the defendants and from witness statements. I will subsequently
quote a number of them, restricting myself to passages containing information
about the alleged gas vans and to such passages requiring
comments for other reasons. I insert due comments after each quote.
“As established by the investigation similar ‘gas lorries,’ which
were nicknamed ‘murder vans,’ were used by the Germans for murdering
peaceful Soviet citizens not only in Krasnodar but also in
Kharkov.
These vans, as testified by the German defendants in the present
case and also by witnesses who witnessed the crimes committed by
the Germans, are large closed trucks of dark grey colour, driven by
Diesel engines. The vans are lined inside with galvanized iron and
have airtight folding doors at the back. The floor is equipped with a
wooden grating under which passes a pipe with apertures. This pipe
is connected to the exhaust pipe of the engine. The exhaust gases of
the Diesel engine, containing highly concentrated carbon monoxide,
enter the body of the van, causing rapid poisoning and asphyxiation
of the people locked up in the van.” (p. 49)
It is a simple fact that Diesel exhaust gases never contain “highly
concentrated carbon monoxide.” This quote is the first time a probably
horizontal “pipe with apertures” running underneath the grate is men-