The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 133
Unfortunately Geyer did not dig dipper into Rauff’s alleged knowledge
of things.
Rauff was more specific about what he knew during an interview he
volunteered to give to a German prosecutor on 28 June 1972. 73 Although
most of the testimony is about competence issues in his former
office at the RSHA – he describes himself again as having been a mere
“mobilization organizer” (p. 8) – there are some devastating statements
about the “final solution” from a man who was allegedly deeply involved
in its implementation:
“Of the measures against the Jews in Russia I knew right from
the start. I never got to know officially, however, on what order the
killing of the Jews was based. While I got to know after the war that
there was a so-called Führer order, the content of which was the
liquidation of the Jews for racial reasons, I cannot remember that
during the war it had ever been said that there was such an order.
Of the existence of such an order I should have been informed for
my activity in Tunis, because there were many Jews there who even
worked for us voluntarily without anything happening to them.
Already during the Polish campaign I had heard of liquidation
measures against the Jews, without being still able today to say
whether I got to know that officially in the course of meetings or
from any conversations.” (p. 8)
So here we have a person allegedly deeply involved in the organization
of the mass murder of Jews, but he knows nothing of any orders to
eliminate the Jews. In fact, his entire testimony is riddled with doubts
and “I don’t know anymore.” This emphasizes that Rauff could not distinguish
anymore between what he knew back then and what he has
“learned” ever since. Fact is, however, that, instead of him killing Jews,
these Jews worked for him “voluntarily without anything happening to
them.”
When asked more specifically about the “gas vans,” Rauff answered:
“Regarding the annihilation of Jews in Russia I know that gas
vans were used for this purpose. I cannot say, however, from when
on and to what extent this happened. I used to think that the thing
with the gas vans started at the time when I was at the navy. Today I
have doubts about this and consider it possible that this matter only
got going after I had returned from the navy. At any rate I know that
73 www2.ca.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/r/rauff.walter/Rauff-deposition-translation; page
numbers of the interrogation protocol as rendered in this translation.