The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

168 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
In contrast to Srebrnik’s 1945 maximalist claim about the vans’ capacity,
he reduced it during the Eichmann trial to “eighty to a hundred
people.” This is all we can learn about the gas vans from his testimony.
The tall tale told in 1945 about Finkelstein’s living sister in the
flames received a workover, as he no longer claims that she came back
to life in the flames, but he repeats the miracle of how he survived being
shot in the neck, showing the court some scars allegedly stemming from
that event, even though the wounds to his nose are now said to have
been caused by some glass slivers.
Although the Jerusalem prosecutors or judges were in general quite
credulous, there were moments during the trial when they were not
quite inclined to follow Srebrnik. One of these occasions concerned the
alleged death toll of the camp during Srebrnik’s presence in 1944. Right
after the war in 1945 he had stated (Srebrnik 1945):
“I estimate that in 1944 alone 15,000 Jews were brought to
Chelmno. However, I did not count them – my assumption is based
on what the gendarmes had said before the transports arrived. That
is why I claimed that in 1944 15,000 Jews were killed in Chelmno.”
During the Jerusalem trial in 1961, however, he claimed that the
Germans had killed 1,200 Jews more or less every day for nine months
straight:
“Q. How many people were brought to Chelmno for extermination,
after they began arriving?
A. About 1,000-1,200.
Q. Every day?
A. Yes. […]
Q. I understood that there were exterminations for about nine
months while you were there?
A. Yes, […]
Presiding Judge: Did they put 1,200 people to death every single
day?
Witness Srebrnik: That was more or less every day.”
This the Presiding Judge could not believe, hence he asked the witness
a final question:
“One of the witnesses who preceded you [Mieczysaw urawski]
gave much lower figures.”
But Srebrnik insisted on his figures, even though mathematically
speaking this would have amounted to the absurdly high figure of (9
months × 30 days × 1,200/day =) 324,000 victims (minus an occasional