The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 357
b) How could this “driving around within the camp,” which must
have attracted the inmate’s attention, be reconciled with the repeatedly
claimed secret nature of these extermination activities?
Choumoff claims furthermore that these “especially equipped vans”
gassed their victims “during a ride of some 5 km between Mauthausen
and Gusen.” This implies that those vans could safely operate for a considerable
span of time (at least the time it takes to drive 5 km, that is, 8
minutes or more) while their exhaust pipe was connected to a hermetically
sealed cargo box – which I dispute once more emphatically.
Moreover we are told – and not for the first time – that this van was indeed
a “coach” (p. 37).
[Comments by the present author: In order to emphasize the absurdity
of these Mauthausen gas van claims, permit me to quote from a
“primary” source instead of relying on Choumoff. It is a list compiled
in 1945 by a former inmate clerk of the Mauthausen camp, Ernst Martin:
129
“Gas auto
An inmate transport car was equipped in a way that ‘Zyklon B’
could also[!] be introduced. The car loaded inmates in Mauthausen,
gassed them during transit, unloaded them at the crematorium in
Gusen and on the way back loaded inmates in Gusen, gassed them
during transit and brought them to the crematorium in Mauthausen.”
Hence it was a true gassing merry-go-round, wasting fuel along the
way – while there was allegedly a stationary Zyklon B gas chamber in
Mauthausen all along.
Whereas the witnesses quoted earlier in the present study claimed
that the “gas vans” were either a Saurer, a Diamond, an Opel, or a Renault
truck, Choumoff presents us a “witness” who “believes that the
vehicle was a Mercedes [...] of one and a half or two tons” (p. 38). Considering
the fact that this witness was actually the head of the transport
department, he had to know it. However, if assuming an average weight
of 60 kg for each victim, a maximum load of two tons would have allowed
only up to 32 victims (plus the driver) to enter this van, which is
in conflict with all witness statements.
129 “Aufstellung über die Art der Ermorderung von Häftlingen im K.L. Mauthausen” by
Ernst Martin, a former inmate clerk, dated 8 May 1945, Archiv Museum Mauthausen,
ref. DÖW 2721; Klamper 1991, p. 33.