The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

170 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
…/Session-065-06.html). But urawski came up with a new outrageous
tale he had not mentioned back in 1945:
“So they [the Germans] lined us up with bottles on our heads and
had their game of target practice. Those whose bottle was hit stayed
alive, and those they hit in the head – fell, and the others had to bury
them.”
It goes without saying that this tale is technically and physically possible,
but whether one believes it is a matter of probability and personal
inclination, that is to say: if you think that the Germans during World
War II were a race of devils and that the witnesses testifying in Jerusalem
were inclined to tell the truth, then this event would very well have
been possible.
Another interesting aspect of urawski’s testimony is his response to
the question as to what happened to the gas vans after the dissolution of
the Chemno camp:
“Q. What happened to the gas vans?
A. The gas vans were also taken in the direction of Koo.”
This is, of course, the location where the famous moving van was
found on the grounds of the Ostrowski company, so this brief episode
can be regarded as an attempt to remedy the slip-up in urawski’s 1945
testimony about the truck found there having been used for disinfestation.
The one implausibility which reoccurred in Jerusalem was
urawski’s story about his escape. This time the interrogator simply
didn’t ask any “stupid” questions raising the issue of how urawski got
rid of his chain, so the absurdity remained inconspicuous to the uninformed
reader/listener.
3.6.4. Austria
Here, too, I rely on what Kogon et al. mention with regards to a trial
conducted by the Landesgericht in Vienna in the early 1960s (1993, pp.
78f.). Their only reference to this trial consists of a quote from a summary
of the interrogation of two defendants given only by the initials of
their last names. In it gas vans are mentioned only in passing: “The
people were killed by piping in engine exhaust fumes” (ibid., p. 79).
The verdict of the LG Kiel of 11 Apr. 1969, p. 39, mentions a pending
criminal investigation in Austria against the driver of an alleged gas van
referred to there only as “We.” So far I have not been able to obtain any
information about this case.