The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 365
1942. In it it says: “The known explosion at Kulmhof has to be assessed
as a single case. Its cause is to be ascribed to an operating error.” This
explosion and its consequences are confirmed by several witnesses.
Furthermore the following is stated in the file memo of 23 June 1542
[sic]: “The slide-covered openings in the rear doors are to be omitted,
and replaced with open slits of 100 × 10 mm [4" × 0.4"] in the upper
back wall (not door). They are to be covered on the outside by easily
movable hinged metal flaps” Hence the vehicles did have simple “pressure
relief valves,” which now were to be improved due to practical experiences.
(File memo of 23 June 1942, German Federal Archives, sign.
R 58/871).
2. It would not be surprising if no gas vans had been found after the
war, because the gas vans, like all other traces left by the extermination
of people, were destroyed as best as possible in the rush. But we do not
only have photos of the gas vans made by the Polish authorities after
the war (in the archive in Warsaw and in the Yad Vashem Archives in
Jerusamen [sic]), but according to my information there is a gas van to
this day in Konin (Poland) serving as a memorial to commemorate the
victims.
3. and 4. Of course one can discern differences in the terminology of
the two documents mentioned by you, but, as a comparison with other
extant documents reveals, this does not amount to ‘improbabilities.’
I hope to have answered your questions satisfactorily and remain
with my best greetings
(signed Mathias Beer)
Comments by Pierre Marais
Pierre Marais submitted four questions to the Mathias Beer. Here are
Marais’ four questions, followed by Beer’s answers as well as by Marais’
remarks triggered by them:
1. QUESTION: “How could a gas van, which corresponds to the generally
given description, have functioned when considering the internal
pressure which the engine exhaust gases would have exerted on the
walls of the sealed cargo box?”
ANSWER: “The problem of the large pressure developing in the cargo
box seems to have been known to the persons involved in the devel-