The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 227
of a “gas van” while serving at the headquarters of Einsatzgruppe C in
Kiev and at Sonderkommando 4a in Kharkov.
The gas van which the defendant is said to have driven from Berlin
to Kiev in November 1941 is described in the verdict as follows (1969,
pp. 93f.; 1971, p. 469f.):
“This vehicle was a larger truck of a foreign make painted grey
which looked like a moving truck. It was equipped with an airtight
cargo box which was separated from the driver’s cabin and could
accommodate some 40 to 45 standing persons. The interior was
lined with sheet metal and had removable wooden grates on the
floor, beneath which were pipes. A metal hose was connected to the
opening of the pipes at the cargo box, which could be screwed onto
and thus connected with an especially designed exhaust pipe floor.
The rear of the cargo box had a winged door, which could be sealed
almost [sic] airtight from the outside. The engine exhaust gases
reached the interior through the hose and caused the death of those
locked up inside.”
In this case the executions are said to have been conducted while the
truck was in transit to the burial sites, lasting some 15 to 30 minutes
(1969, pp. 94f.; 1971, pp. 470f.).
Since the defendant operated the truck for roughly half a year all by
himself, and also because the defendant – according to the court – had
emphasized that he had been instructed on how to connect the hose to
the exhaust pipe (1969, p. 94; 1971, pp. 470, 475), his description of a
hose which could be screwed to an especially designed exhaust pipe and
about several “pipes” on the inside underneath the “wooden grates”
must be taken seriously. But his description is still nonsensical, technically
speaking, and it is contradicted by many other witnesses, who describe
other, often similarly or even more nonsensical ways of connecting
the hose to the exhaust pipe.
It is also strange that the court – and thus probably also the defendant
– did not specify the actual make of the truck. Since the defendant
used it for half a year during many quite memorable events – if they
took place – it is hard to believe that he could not remember the make
of the vehicle. Was it one of the legendary, yet elusive Diamond trucks?
One rather peculiar statement in the verdict should not be withheld
from the reader. It concerns the severe cold during the Russian winter
(1969, p. 95; 1971, p. 471):