The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS 61
shown by the handwritten remark on the back of the Belgrade telegram
(see chapter 2.2.3.2.). Fact is that all except one of the mentioned deportation
transports to be “processed” went to Minsk, not Riga, which is
therefore where the vans would have been needed. This may be the reason
why this part of the sentence was crossed out. Yet still, it is striking
that the most important information needed to send the van on its way –
its destination – is not mentioned anywhere.
What is strange as well is this document’s request on page 2 under
#3 to submit a draft for an answer, even though it already contains the
very answer to the telegram from Riga on its page 1.
2.2.3.5. Leaky Exhaust Hoses
Flexible metal hoses, which are commonly referred to as exhaust,
ventilation or suction hoses, are usually made of thin, sometime zincplated
steel bands coiled up like a spiral. 41 They overlap at the edge,
where they interlock in a groove. Although this gives them some flexibility,
such hoses are neither gastight (unless especially sealed) nor
pressure resistant. Apart from funneling gases, these hoses are also used
to transport free-flowing solids (grains, powders, pellets, granules, etc.),
which would wear down rubber or plastic hoses too fast. Characteristic
for these metal hoses was their relatively low flexibility. 42 In the present
case, where the hose is said to have made a 90° bent from the horizontal
exhaust pipe to the cargo box floor, this low flexibility would have
made an installation difficult, and the metal hose bending first downward
from the exhaust pipe and then in an arch back upward toward the
floor opening would be in danger of hitting the road surface (see Illustration
26, p. 378). A technician wearing his thinking cap would therefore
either have installed an L-shaped pipe in the floor to avoid having
to bent the hose, or better still, he would have connected the cargo box
with the exhaust pipe through a hole in the lower side wall (beneath the
grate), thus also eliminating the risk of items falling or fluids flowing
into this pipe. Such a connection would have required only a bend
shaped like a flat ~ in the metal hose, if such a hose was necessary at
all.
41 Some of today’s exhaust hoses are even made of high-temperature resistant plastics or
mineral fibers, but such materials did not yet exist during the Second World War.
42 Although today’s hoses are quite flexible and usually also sealed, cf.
www.flextraction.co.uk/pdfs/hoses/metal-hoses/Metal-Hose-375-Special-Fibre-Seal.pdf.