The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

62 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
This brings up the next point: Neither does the normal configuration
of an exhaust pipe require a hose and usually doesn’t have one either,
nor can a reason be seen why it is absolutely necessary to use a metal
hose in order to convert a van into a “gas van.” The exhaust pipe could
have been readily connected to the cargo box with a solid pipe, where
simple devices suffice to permit a thermal expansion. A reversible connection
of the exhaust pipe to the cargo box would have been required,
however, if occasionally the truck’s cargo box was to serve also as a
normal transport device, as I have explained on page 37. And in fact, a
number of court verdicts claim that the gas vans were first driven to an
execution site with the victims locked up inside the cargo box, but that
the gassing itself occurred only after arrival, when the vehicle was stationary
again (see chapter 4.2.7.). Whether such a procedure would
have made sense and would have been efficient is a question I will not
discuss here.
An absolute necessity for flexible metal hose would have existed only,
if the cargo box had a special design requiring the exhaust system to
be both connected to it and moveable. However, in all the witness testimonies
I have encountered only one claims a movable cargo box, here
a cargo box that could be tipped in order to unload its cargo (Kogon et
al. 1993, p. 70). But even that could have been done after disconnecting
the exhaust system from the box. In addition, this statement stands in
such crass contradiction to all other witness statements and to the extant
documents that it can safely be disregarded.
Since metal hoses for hot aggressive gases were zinc-plated, they
could resist corrosion relatively well. Dangerous to exhaust pipes and
hoses are primarily acidic components of the exhaust gas itself, like nitrous
and sulfuric oxides, which, if dissolved in water, form highly aggressive
acids. Water in exhaust pipes and hoses forms primarily during
the first minutes of operation, when the exhaust system is cold and water
contained in the exhaust gas condenses inside of it. Major amounts
of fluids that have accrued inside the pipe due to other reasons would
have been blown out right at the start of the engine.
Although the “telegram” gives no reason why the hoses were leaking,
the Just document analyzed in the next chapter suggests that “accruing
fluids” were responsible for this. It could be hypothesized that
human body fluids are meant with this, but it is a fact that such fluids –
urine, blood, feces, saliva – are not corrosive in any way. As a matter of
fact, the ammonia which develops from urine, the main body fluid to be