The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 153
done to the exhaust pipe would probably have been bigger than the
functionality gained – but was any functionality gained at all?
Adding a slider to close the rear part of the exhaust pipe sounds easy
enough, but that is far from true. The slider had to be held in place by
something and at once be able to close the pipe completely. Hence this
would have required cutting a piece out of the exhaust pipe and inserting
some device that could accommodate the slider. That would have
made sense only, if one insisted on leaving the metal hose leading into
the box’s interior connected at all times. If it was added only during a
gassing, as the witness claimed, it could just as well have been stuck (or
screwed) onto the end of the exhaust pipe. So there was really absolutely
no point for such a messy, complex remodeling of the exhaust pipe.
It can safely be assumed that the witness made it up.
Another remarkable feature attested to by the witness are the two
pipes branching off inside the cargo box to both sides, running “along
the sides of the box floor.” Giving such a meticulous description of a
sophisticated detail might make the testimony more credible in the eyes
of the read, but at closer inspection the opposite turns out to be true.
It may be assumed that the witness implied that these pipes were
meant to serve the even distribution of the gas inside the van close to
the floor (comparable to the burner of a gas stove). Such a system
seems reasonable at first sight, but as I have described before (pp. 118,
130), this is far from true. I may elaborate on this a little more here,
even if it appears repetitive. Since the exhaust gases would have
streamed into the cargo box with considerable speed and since the victims,
through their body motions and breathing, would have caused sufficient
air motion in the van to further distribute and mix the gases, a
sophisticated gas distribution pipework was utterly unnecessary. It
would only have complicated the manufacture and maintenance of these
alleged vans. As a matter of fact, cleaning the van equipped with such
pipes would have been difficult, and the pipes would have been in constant
acute danger of being damaged by the cleaning personnel. The existence
of such a pipework is moreover contradicted by the Just document
(if one is inclined to take it seriously), which in its third paragraph
suggests the upward relocation of the intake pipe (for the gas) so that no
fluids can enter into the opening. If it existed in the first place, it can be
concluded from this that the gas intake consisted of a mere opening in
the floor.