The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 235
among other places, had been indicted by the British for assisting in the
Einsatzgruppe D’s claimed mass murder of the local Jewish populace.
Yet Manstein‘s defense team managed to prove that the local Jewish
community was never threatened with destruction, let alone that it was
destroyed (Paget 1951, pp. 170f.).
The verdict here under scrutiny has the leanest description of those
alleged “gas vans” ever encountered in any verdict. All one can read
there is (p. 287):
“During these operations the victims were loaded into the gas
vans – trucks with hermetically sealed cargo boxes – and killed by
engine exhaust fumes. […] After loading the winged rear doors were
closed. The van stood with its engine running for five to ten minutes,
during which time the exhaust fumes were directed into the interior
of the cargo box by a special device. […] The victims finally died after
a few minutes, caused by a paralyzed brain due to lack of oxygen.
[…]
When nothing more could be heard from the interior, the van
drove to the anti-tank ditch that had been dug around Simferopol.”
This finding follows the common, yet technically impossible pattern
of hermetically sealed cargo boxes. The alleged gassing is here claimed
to have happened while the van was stationary. The introduction of the
exhaust gases by means of “a special device” is awkwardly imprecise.
The killing time reported is on the low side.
As to the defendant’s attitude the verdict elaborates (p. 294):
“[…] the defendant denied strongly to have participated in any
gas van operations. He stated that he has never seen a gas van in his
life and that he had not even heard of the existence of such vehicles
at that time; […].”
Evidence to the contrary originated almost exclusive from testimonies
and affidavits by Russian citizens (p. 294), the same kind of witnesses
that had appeared during the Krasnodar show trial. The defendant’s
suspicion of a Soviet orchestration of these testimonies was
brushed aside by the court (pp. 295). The 1943 Krasnodar trial and its
show trial nature as the origin of the claims leveled against the defendant
are not mentioned in the verdict.
The defendant was sentenced to four years imprisonment. 121
121 The other defendant, “Max Dreh.,” was sentenced to five years imprisonment.