The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

246 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
in Serbia. All subsequent page numbers are from Byford 2010 unless
stated otherwise:
“The alleged presence of the gas van at Banjica poses two interesting
questions. There is some agreement among historians today
that, when it comes to precise events, details or numbers, eyewitness
testimonies are […] ‘inaccurate with the regularity of a metronome.’
[…] And yet, historians who acknowledge the unreliability of testimonies
are generally not concerned with exploring or explaining the
origins or the nature of the erroneous claims found therein. Having
established that a specific account of an event or a series of events is
inaccurate or erroneous, they are quite content to pass on the questions
pertaining to the nature of the ‘eroding,’ ‘distorted,’ ‘false’ or
in some cases even deliberately fabricated memory to psychologists
who are believed to have the relevant expertise and vocabulary to
address them. So, the first question – how, or indeed why, does an
image, in this case that of the gas van, become part of the subjective
experience and life story of a small group of survivors? – is arguably
one for psychologists rather than historians to consider.
The second question concerns the way in which erroneous information
found in a small number of testimonies becomes part of historical
knowledge and public memory. Why were eyewitness reports
about the gas van at Banjica incorporated into accounts of the
camp’s history, in spite of the glaring inconsistencies among them
and the absence of corroborating evidence? How did historians and
a wide range of non-historically trained writers, who cooperated in
the creation and transmission of public history in postwar Yugoslav
society, approach survivor testimony as a historiographic source?
Linked to this question is a broader one: namely, what was the role
of survivor testimony in Yugoslav historiography of Nazi concentration
camps? […]
Also, I argue that the origin of the claim about the gas van at
Banjica can be traced to a wartime rumor, which in the postwar period,
through a process of both individual and institutional transmission,
became ‘solidified’ and entrenched in the official history of the
Nazi occupation of Serbia.” (p. 9)
One reason why Byford considers witness statements about “gas
vans” in the Banjica camp unreliable is their inconsistency and contradictory
nature. Since I later want to juxtapose these statements with