The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

162 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
These numbers refer to photos of the derelict moving van in the Ostrowski
factory (see Halbersztadt’s paper as quoted on p. 33). Since sulfur
dioxide, the product of burning sulfur, is indeed a disinfestant used
by the Germans already during WWI (usually combined with dry heat,
maybe even from the vehicle’s exhaust gases; see Thompson 1920),
these witnesses’ stories may actually have some truth to it – and may
have inspired them to extrapolate the gassing of clothes to the gassing
of humans. 85
3.6.2.7. Investigative Judge Wadysaw Bednarz
A few words are due about the investigating judge who interrogated
numerous witnesses in the context of the Chemno camp after the war in
Poland. In chapter 2.1. I’ve already mentioned that Judge Wadysaw
Bednarz had the honesty to admit that the dilapidated moving truck
found on the grounds of the Ostrowski factory in Koo was not a gas
van. Bednarz has summarized his findings about the numerous times.
The first summary was written on 7 January 1946 and was submitted as
document USSR-340 during the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal
(Bednarz 1946a). The excerpt read into the IMT transcript does
not contain any details about the gas vans, which are merely referred to
as “murder vans” by the Russian prosecutor Smirnov. 86 Later that year
Bednarz’s summary was published in Polish and English in the collections
of the Polish Central Commission for Investigation of German
Crimes in Poland (Bednarz 1946b), and also in 1946 Bednarz published
a book dedicated to his findings about Chemno, from which I have taken
some of my above quotes of the witnesses’ depositions (1946c).
In USSR-340 Bednarz wrote about the gas vans (1946a, p. 5):
“The camp’s Sonderkommando didn’t have a car repair shop, so
that vehicles requiring repairs were brought very quickly to the
workshop of the company Kraft- und-Reichsstrassenbauamt in Koo.
Eight Polish mechanics of this workshop described these vehicles’
technical design as follows: the vehicle’s dimensions were 2.5-3 m
in width and 6 m in length; the smallest were 2.3 to 2.5 meters wide
and 4.5 to 5 m long. The cargo box was made of narrow boards
bolted together. Inside the vehicle was covered with sheet metal. The
85
Although convicted for his service as a German guard of the Chemno camp in October
1945, Bruno Israel is said to have been released from custody rather swiftly (Krakowski
2007, p. 177).
86
IMT, vol. 8, pp. 330f. Bednarz’ names is misspelled there as Wladislav Bengash, the
camp as Helmno.