The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 187
service in Sonderkommando 1a and 1b of Einsatzgruppe A at the eastern
theater of war, mainly in and around Minsk. They were sentenced to
the following prison terms: life + 8, 15, 10, 8, 7, 3 × 4½, 2 × 4, 3½
years; five of the defendants were said to have been involved in gas van
executions. Many of the defendants confessed.
The striking features of this verdict are its long passages dealing
with the history of National Socialist anti-Jewish measures and the NS
organizations implementing them. In this regard it is therefore a history
lesson to the public rather than an attempt at clarifying certain alleged
events. Again, some of the homicides dealt with are not said to have
been committed with “gas vans,” so I will not address them here.
Regarding the deployment of “gas vans” in the Minsk area the court
writes, obviously to a great degree based on the extant documents discussed
in chapter 2:
“Starting roughly in June 1942, gas vans were used for killings.
The headquarters had three such vehicles at their disposal, one
large Saurer truck and two somewhat smaller Diamond trucks. The
Imperial Security Main Office, which also called these vehicles ‘svehicles’
(special vehicles) in its official writings, had devised these
devices on the one hand in order to accelerate the mass killing, and
on the other hand because it was feared that carrying out so many
shootings would be too heavy an emotional burden for the assigned
men. The gas vans were deployed only on the explicit order of the
commander. They were entrusted to particular drivers, which had
been prepared in Berlin for taking over these vehicles. The gas vans
had a cuboid cargo box making them look like a moving truck. They
were lined with sheet metal on the inside. A double door at the rear
was the only opening. A foldout ladder facilitated the entry. […]
These [vehicles] were always loaded so densely that body stood next
to body. This allowed up to 60 persons to be crammed into it. After
the doors had been closed, the occupants were surrounded by complete
darkness and airtightly locked away from the outside world.
The gas vans then drove to the execution site and stopped next to the
pit. Only then the extermination was initiated. The driver and his codriver
connected a hose and piped into the interior the exhaust gases
of the engine, which was running only on low hand throttle. […] the
vehicle rocked forth and back for minutes, although this turmoil subsided
slowly. After some 15 minutes the vehicle stood still.” (p.
194f.)