The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

124 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
crept towards the windows. Many were so weak that they fell dead
after crawling a few steps. Those who reached windows and climbed
onto sills were shot from tommy-guns by S.S troopers who had surrounded
the building.” (p. 102, similar pp. 103f.)
Considering that the German Armed Forces were desperate for hospital
space and equipment in order to treat their own wounded soldiers,
who would seriously believe that the first thing they had on their mind
when occupying Kharkov would have been to set the local hospital on
fire? It is more likely that the hospital, if it burned down during the early
days of the occupation in the first place, was a victim of Soviet sabotage
troops which the Red Army left behind in many major cities to
wreak havoc among the German occupational forces.
“The depositions of the accused and the witnesses state that in
various parts of the temporarily occupied territory of the U.S.S.R.
the German fascist invaders used specially equipped large vans in
the bodies of which Soviet citizens were murdered by exhaust gases
containing carbon monoxide. The medico-legal experts proved this
beyond doubt for the first time when examining bodies exhumed in
the town of Krasnodar and in its vicinity. At the same time the presence
of carbon monoxide was irrefutably established by a combination
of physiological, chemical and spectroscopic tests of the blood
in the tissues and organs of the corpses. The same method of poisoning
with carbon monoxide as was used in Krasnodar has been
proved by medico-legal examination of some of the bodies exhumed
in Kharkov.
The lorry which came to be known as the ‘gas van’ or ‘murder
van,’ designed to exterminate people inside its airtight body by
means of exhaust gases, must be regarded as a mechanical method
for the simultaneous poisoning of large groups of people.” (pp.
109f.)
The alleged spectroscopic test merits the same comments as those allegedly
performed for the Krasnodar trial.
In summarizing, it can be concluded that, according to the two Soviet
show trials, the alleged gas vans of an unspecified make and model
were grey (pp. 8, 28, 29, 29, 49, 50, 65, 77, 85, 105), had Diesel engines
(8, 9, 13, 17, 49, 49), weighed five to seven tons (8, 16, 85), and had
two axles and six cylinders (p. 85), and most importantly: their doors
closed hermetically (pp. 9, 17, 50, 65, 85, 90). This latter point plus the
claimed Diesel engine renders the claims of mass gassings within the