The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

228 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
“In order to keep the gas van operable, it was protected from the
severe cold during many days and nights by lighting a fire underneath
the vehicle in order to protect it from freezing.”
If that is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the actual reason
why the gas vans were frequently defective, as the court stated in the
sentences before. Any rubber or wooden parts wouldn’t have liked a
fire in their vicinity at all, not to mention lubricants, fuel, hydraulic liquids
etc.
3.7.4.11. LG Kiel, Verdict of 28 Nov. 1969
This trial was held against Heinz Joachim Schl.[?], a selfincriminating
defendant who had previously played an important role
during other trials by delivering the courts “first hand” knowledge about
the gas van deployment (see e.g. chapter 3.7.4.9.). Here he faced charges
regarding his claimed activities as a gas van driver for
Sonderkommando 8 in and around Mogilev from June to August 1942
(pp. 287, 293). But because they considered the defendant’s firm belief
credible that refusing orders to partake in the mass gassings would have
endangered his own life (the so-called “putative emergency situation,”
pp. 301-307), he was acquitted.
The gas vans are initially described only in passing as vehicles with
cargo boxes, into which the engine exhaust gases were piped via a hose,
resulting in the victims’ death within 10 to 15 minutes. This statement
is followed by quotes from the Becker and Just documents (p. 284). Afterwards
we find a somewhat more detailed description, the source of
which is unclear, but probably stems from the defendant himself (ibid.):
“The vehicle had a truck frame upon which a cargo box of some
7 to 8 m was installed. The box could be opened at the rear with
doors. The vehicle had a grey exterior painting. The interior of the
box was lined with sheet metal. A wooden grate was on its floor, beneath
which two longitudinal pipes and a cross pipe ran, which were
equipped with small holes through which the engine exhaust gases
were led into to box’s interior. The exhaust pipe tapered off conically;
the cone sported a threat with a cap nut, to which a hose was
connected, whose other end was attached to the vehicle’s cargo box
in order to perform the gassings. Some 50 to 55 persons could be
accommodated in the vehicle’s cargo box with much effort; already
with 50 persons the cargo box was overcrowded.”