The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 145
The same methods were of course also applied by the Stalinist
Polish postwar judiciary during other trials against Germans. Although
this is not to say that Germans did not commit crimes during the war in
Poland, this nevertheless needs to be kept in mind when looking into
these court cases.
3.6.2.2. The Cases against Piller and Gielow
According to my knowledge, two trials were conducted in Poland
shortly after the war in which gas vans played a role. The only information
I could come by so far I have found in the chapter on the
Kulmhof/Chemno camp of Kogon et al., who quote frequently from
witness statements contained in the trial records of these trials, one of
which had been conducted in ód, the other in Kalisz (court file dates
1947 and 1948, respectively; Kogon et al. 1993, fn 6, 10, 13, 17-19, 35,
37, 39, 41-43, pp. 262f.). The remaining quotes of that chapter refer almost
exclusively to the court records of the Bonn trial against the
Chemno guards, which I will address in chapter 3.7.4.1.
Kogon et al. quote a “confession” made by Walter Burmeister after
the war in Poland about the deployment of gas vans in Chemno. He describes
them just as they appear in the extant authentic correspondence
between the RSHA and the Gaubschat company, yet instead of a simple
hole in the floor through which the gas was piped, he claimed in deviation
from the standard version that underneath the obligatory wooden
floor grate there was a “pipe, pierced with holes, which led out to the
front,” where a “metal spiral hose” was attached in order to pipe exhaust
gases into the cargo box. Burmeister insisted with resolve, however,
that the vehicles were “medium-weight Renault trucks with Otto
engine,” which had been “difficult to drive” (Kogon et al. 1993, p. 77).
However, there is no documentary or anecdotal evidence that a Renault
truck has ever been used by the RSHA for anything, let alone as a gas
van equipped as described by Burmeister. They are all supposed to have
been Diamond or Saurer trucks. This indicates that Burmeister was
merely parroting what the Poles put on his platter, and he added his own
yarn, which reveals the worthlessness of his statement.
It is worth noting that, during an interrogation some 15 years later in
Germany on January 24, 1961, Burmeister described the piping device
differently, this time strictly following the version claimed by the Becker
and Just letters (Klee/Dreßen/Rieß 1988, p. 202):