The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 51
The irrational expressions used in the Becker document about turning
a mould and the casting of a sleeve in it are therefore conspicuous.
Most likely the author of this document knew only that the Saurer
trucks frequently broke down due to damaged sleeves – that couldn’t
have been a secret – but he obviously had no idea what these items really
were. This leaves us with two options: Either the author and signer of
said report was technically ignorant and quite naïve, or else we are dealing
with a crude forgery clumsily using a characteristic of the wartime
Saurer trucks, which was well-known to their drivers back then, in order
to give it some realistic content. Considering all the peculiarities of
this document, I am inclined to posit the second option.
– 15th sentence: Although the author of the letter can claim mitigating
circumstances for his act of bribery due to the described situation, it
is very strange that an SS officer admits in writing to a higher-ranking
superior to have acted that way, all the more so since by so doing he also
incriminates the responsible person of the workshop, who has acted
for far less unselfish motives than the author himself.
– 20th sentence: the author probably means that repairs will be carried
out, not defects.
– 21st sentence: It is not specified what kind of sealing is meant.
Concerning rivets it should be noted that it is highly unlikely that they
became loose as a result of the “uneven terrain” and the “hardly describable
way and road conditions”: Bolted connections can become
loose – this happens frequently – yet rivets hardly ever do. But if they
do, such damage is often serious, as loose rivets cannot be repaired but
have to be replaced, and while becoming loose, they often widen the
holes into which they were fastened. This gives the impression that the
author let his fantasy run loose without bothering about the probability
of his claims.
In this context it is worth noting that many witness testimonies and
subsequently many court verdicts claim that the cargo boxes used were
merely lined with sheet metal on the inside, which means that the cargo
box itself was made of wood, since a sheet metal lining would have
been superfluous, had the box been made of metal. Hence, if we follow
the majority of anecdotal evidence, it would have been the sheet metal
lining which, according to the Becker document, had become leaky and
needed to be soldered to keep it airtight.
– 22nd, 23 rd , and 24th sentence: Fissures in metal plates are not
sealed by soldering but rather by welding. Such repair work could have