The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation - Holocaust Handbooks

82 SANTIAGO ALVAREZ, THE GAS VANS
– A third “original” was published by Rückerl. 52 It is almost identical
with the copy in the German Federal Archives, except that here, too,
the vertical marks, the “ja” and the initial with date are missing on
the last page.
Weckert also pointed out that the initial on the last page of the version
in the German Federal Archives, which is claimed to by Rauff’s, is
very similar to that on 501-PS, but decisively different to Rauff’s signature
and initial on other documents. Be that as it may, since anyone
could have made this initial, it doesn’t prove much.
These differences do not pertain to the machine-written text, which
seems to be identical in all three versions. One may therefore assume
that they all derived from the same document.
Since the Just letter exists in three versions, even though it claims to
be the “onlies” copy, it must be assumed that the “original” was
changed by later additions and/or deletions. How did the original look?
Was it the version reproduced in NS-Prozesse, which shows the least
changes? Or the one in the German Federal Archives, which bears an
initial and a date – which is interpreted to stand for the recipient (Rauff)
and the date of reception (June 10)? Or the one reproduced in Nationalsozialistische
Massentötungen…, which contains numerous underlinings?
Logic makes us assume that the original ought to be in the Federal
Archives, if the document is authentic. In that case the authors of both
books mentioned have reproduced this version, but purged the margin
lines and the initial plus date at the end. While the word “ja” could
simply have been clipped off during reproduction for the book, the lines
at the margin and the initial with date run into the text area and thus had
to be blotted out manually (in 1971 there was no Photoshop around
yet). But why would they have deleted Rauff’s(?) initial and the date on
the last page, if they support their thesis, as Ingrid Weckert rightly
pointed out? And even though it is conceivable that some investigator
or prosecutor using a copy of this document has underlined the most incriminating
sentences of this document – for this is what is underlined
in the Kogon version – why would he also have underlined the date line
on page one and Rauff’s name and rank on the last page?
It is impossible to come to coherent conclusions from these conjectures,
so the questions posed here remain unanswered.
52 Rückerl 1971, pp. 209-213; it ought to be pointed out that Rückerl is also among the editors
of the book Nazi Mass Murder (1993).