The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 367
3. QUESTION: “Haven’t you noticed any improbabilities in the file
memo of 5 June 1942 [Just document] and in the Becker report of 16
May 1942?”
4. QUESTION: “How is one to explain the entirely different phrasings
of these two documents – the first tries to ‘code,’ whereas the second
expressly talks about gassings and death?”
ANSWER: “Of course one can discern differences in the terminology
of the two documents mentioned by you, but, as a comparison with other
extant documents [which?] reveals, this does not amount to ‘improbabilities.’”
REMARKS: If Beer sees only “differences in the terms used” between
the two documents, then this proves a lack of critical attitude. If he
doesn’t find any improbabilities, then he obviously lacks competence to
investigate the issues at hand, which are mainly physical and technical
in nature.
Beer’s answers devoid of any content did not warrant a continuation
of this correspondence. He did not address my request to name his
sources more accurately.
In order to find out more about the photos allegedly taken by the
Polish investigative commission after the war, a third person sent an inquiry
to the State Museum of Auschwitz and to the Yad Vashem Institute
in Jerusalem [see pp. 371ff.]. I may first quote the essential sentences
of the responses he received from the Auschwitz Museum:
1) “I send you a photograph of the vehicle which served the function
of a gas chamber used to murder inmates with exhaust gases in Hitler’s
extermination camp CHEMNO at the river NER in the district of
KONIN.”
2) “After the war a memorial was erected in CHEMNO on the
grounds of the former extermination camp.”
Since no further information was given as to the origin and the current
archival location of this photo, no further investigations could be
conducted at that time. The photo sent is identical with the one published
by Fleming showing a derelict Magirus truck. The Polish investigation
team taking this photo stated, however, that this was not a gas
van but rather a simple moving truck (see [chapter 2.1.]).
The memorial in Konin mentioned by Beer was revealed as a simple
stone rather than an old van by another photo sent to us by the Ausch-