Gas vans

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Alien
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Re: Head in the Oven...

#46

Post by Alien » 09 Feb 2003, 18:31

Scott Smith wrote:Well Alien, I can see that you have as little to add as does Chuckoo. No Smiles and Heils for you.
:P
If I have, "added so little", why do you feel the need to change the subject and evade the truht??
Lets try this again the subject is Gas Vans, please do keep on topic.

Charles Bunch
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Joined: 12 Mar 2002, 21:03
Location: USA

#47

Post by Charles Bunch » 09 Feb 2003, 18:39

Caldric wrote:I was under the impression that the Gas vans were first used in the euthanasia program.
Indeed they were.

Despite the statements by the person who started this thread, there is substantial evidence about the existence and use of gas vans.

It begins with documentary evidence, 14 seperate documents. The historian Mathias Beer has written an essay on gas vans using these documents, as well as some supporting testimony.

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/ftp ... druck.0387

MATHIAS BEER


THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAS-VAN IN THE MURDERING OF THE JEWS

The gas-van is a special product of the Third Reich, it is a
van with a gas-tight cabin/container-box/superstructure
mounted on its chassis/understructure used to kill people by
the motor-exhausts led into that cabin. The designation was
coined only later: "_Gaswagen_ [Gas-van] - that was the
common word only afterwards/later". [1]

In the contemporaneous documents the designation doesn't
arise. There the words _Sonder-Wagen_[2],
_Sonderfahrzeug_[3], _Spezialwagen_[4] and _S-Wagen_[5]
[Special van, special vehicle] are used. In a letter dating
from April 11th 1942 with hindsight to camouflage the word
_Entlausungswagen_ [delousing-van] is used.[6]

There are in all fourteen documents related to that complex,
allowing to assess which types of vans were
transformed/rebuilt into gas-vans and providing technical
data on the container/cabin/superstructure. The documents
give informations about the producers/vendors of the vans,
about technical improvements due to practical experience,
about the operation

Page Two, p.404
---------------

and the operating locations of different vans, moreover the
responsible official services and individuals in charge of
the employment of gas-vans are named. Hence a rather
detailed picture emerges which is, however, not
exhaustive/complete as documents are available only for the
timespan/period starting in 1942 when gas-vans were already
in use for the killings of human beings [7].

[...]

-----------------------


Gas vans were used in the Baltic region, the Ukraine, and all the way to the Caucasus.

This activity is covered extensively in _Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas_ edited by Kogon, Langbein and Ruckerl.

http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/documents/et.html

The Einsatzgruppen and Gas Vans in the Eastern Territories

Einsatzgruppe A operated in the Baltic states, EG B in Byelorussia and Smolensk. They were under the control of the chief of the Security Police and the SD of the Eastern Territories, * which had its headquarters in Riga and was commonly referred to by the initials BdS.
In the middle of December 1941, three gas vans were brought from Berlin to Riga and put at the disposal of the BdS of the Eastern Territories. There were two small Diamond vans and one large Saurer van. Two drivers, Karl Gebl and Erich Gnewuch, arrived from Berlin before Christmas 1941. At the beginning of 1942 they were dispatched with two gas vans to the commander of the BdS regional office for Byelorussia, located in Minsk and known, like the other regional offices, by the initials KdS. Gnewuch said in his deposition, "On orders from my department, I too drove a gas van from Berlin to Minsk. These vans had been constructed with a lockable cargo compartment, like a moving van. It could hold about fifty to sixty Jews. I personally gassed Jews in this gas can." (11)

Some time later the KdS of Byelorussia found that it needed more gas vans. It applied to the BdS in Riga, and an official named Trühe, who was head of the supply section there, telegraphed to the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin:


A transport of Jews, which is to be subjected to special treatment, arrives weekly at the office of the commandant of the Security Police and Security Service of White Ruthenia.
The three S-vans there are not sufficient for that purpose. I request assignment of another S-van (five tons). At the same time, I request the shipment of twenty gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand (two Diamond, one Saurer), because the ones on hand are already leaky. (12)

Trühe declared in his deposition: "I am aware of the use of the so-called gas vans. It was considered a state secret, and I was informed of it only after some time." (13)

He remembered that the gas vans - six in all - had been sent by the Reich Security Main Office from Berlin to Riga. He apparently did not know to which of the regional services they had been attached. The KdS in Riga was supposed to have received one or two of them. (14)

Dr. August Becker, who was charged by the Reich Security Main Office with supervising the use of the gas vans in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, saw on of these vehicles in Riga in June 1941 at the end of a tour of inspection. Another eyewitness, a Jew from Riga named Mendel Vulfovich, testified on 9 December 1944 before a Soviet commission investigating Nazi war crimes: "In February 1942, I saw with my own eyes two thousand elderly Jews from Germany, men and women, being loaded into special gas vans. These vans were painted gray-green and had a large closed cargo compartment with hermetically sealed doors. All those inside were killed by gas." (15)

It is probable that gas vans were also used in the Einsatzgruppe A sector, in Estonia, Latvia, and the region of Leningrad, (16) because a reply dated 22 June 1942 from Rauff's department at the Reich Security Main Office reads: "The delivery of a five-ton Saurer can be expected in the middle of next month. The vehicle is at the Reich Security Main Office for repairs and minor alterations. One hundred meters of hose will be supplied." (17)

A letter dated 13 July announced, "The gas van Pol 71463 is ready. It will be sent to Riga with its driver."

According to Trühe's testimony, the Reichkommissariat for the Eastern Territories had five or six gas vans at its disposal in 1942 and 1943. One or two remained in Einsatzgruppe A's sector - that is, in Riga and the area between Latvia and Leningrad. Four operated in the Minsk KdS sector, where Einsatzkommados 7b, 8, and 9 each had its own van. The fourth was probably stationed in Minsk itself.

One of the drivers, Johann Hassler, said that he was sent to Orel with a gas van and placed under the orders of Commander Ott of EK 7b. He admitted having driven the vehicle to gas Jews at least four times in 1942 and once in the autumn of 1943. The victims of the last trip were members of a work detail Borisov (19) whose job it was to remove all traces of the mass graves.

Adolf Rübe, from Division IVb of the Minsk KdS, revealed the fate of the Jewish auxiliary work detail in Minsk: "One day, at the beginning of October 1943, he [Herder] had a hundred Russian Jews taken in the two Minsk KdS gas vans to the first ditch southeast of Minsk and gassed."

The same fate awaited the Russian prisoners of war who had been working at the mass graves. (20)

A second driver, Heinz Schlechte, was dispatched to Einsatzkommando 8, which was under the command of Sturbannführer Heinz Richter, and in the summer of 1942 he was stationed in Moghilev, where he drove a Saurer. According to his statements, he had been assigned with his van to help evacuate a prison that was full of Jewish prisoners, among them women and children. Once or twice a week, groups of prisoners were taken at night in two or three convoys to a site outside the town where ditches had already been dug. Schlechte drove his van right up to a ditch and turned on the gas. About ten minutes later the vans were emptied by other Jews, who had been brought in a special truck. These Jews were shot shortly afterward. (21) According to Schlechte's estimates, about five thousand to six thousand people had been killed in Einsatzkommando 8's gas vans by the autumn of 1942.

The third gas van, stationed in Vitebsk with Einsatzkommando 9, was also a Saurer. Three drivers confirmed its existence. They were present during the loading of men and women into the trucks. (22)

For major operations, the vans belonging to EG B worked together, as Gnewuch testified: "I was detailed with the gas van to about twelve convoys of arriving Jews. It was in 1942. There were about a thousand Jews in each convoy. With each arrival I made five or six trips with my van. Some of the Jews were shot. I myself never shot a single Jew; I only gassed them." (23)

On 31 July 1942, a convoy of about one thousand Jews arrived at the Minsk station from Theresienstadt. Because an operation was being carried out against the ghetto in Minsk at the time, the convoy was diverted to Baranovichi, where two gas vans were waiting. A member of the local SD office, named Dittrich, later testified that the Jews had been exterminated by the Baranovichi commando. Two gas vans had been used, one driven by Gebl, who, according to Dittrich, came from Minsk or from Berlin, and another driver whose name he did not remember (it was Johann Hassler). He said that both vehicles made seven to nine trips that day. Dittrich estimated the number of victims gassed at between five hundred and seven hundred. Both vans were crammed full, so that when the doors were opened the bodies fell out. (24)

During his interrogation, Hassler admitted having participated in the gassing operations at Baranovichi. One of the survivors of the town's ghetto, Dr. Zalman Levinbuck, mentioned this operation in his testimony. He spoke of a convoy of Czech Jews who were taken from the station by truck: "Among the trucks were huge vans with doors that could be sealed hermetically....We called these airtight vans dushegubky, which means 'soul killer' in Russian. They transported people who were already dead and didn't need to be shot. They were poisoned on the way with gas and exhaust fumes, which resulted from the combustion of gasoline in the engine. These exhaust fumes were introduced into the van through a special hose, instead of being released into the air as is normal, and so people were killed by the carbon monoxide." (25)

At the end of October 1943, the Byelorussian gas vans were concentrated in Minsk for the liquidation of the ghetto there. The operation lasted ten days. Thousands of Jews were killed. The driver, Gnewuch, confirmed that "a ghetto operation took place in the autumn of 1943. I was put into action only once with the gas van. I made three trips with it to the execution site. I gassed about 150 to 180 people. Adolf Rübe and someone called Göbel also drove gas vans. We had been assigned to this operation with three vehicles. Whenever I was gassing Jews, Göbel and Rübe were gassing Jews, too.". (26) The platoon from the Second Police Battalion of the SD was detailed to this killing operation. Its leader, a Russian named Ramasan Sabitovitch Tchugunov, stated during his interrogation: " We shoved them into the gas vans. These vans were packed full of people from the ghetto, the doors were hermetically sealed, and they left the ghetto....We transported men, women, old people, and children. They were not allowed to bring anything at all with them. There were about 50 people in each van....About a thousand people were transported that day." (27)

Boris Dobin, a Jew from the Minsk ghetto, also testified to the use of gas vans in the town. He saw these vans in action on several occasions: "The brutal guards took away van loads of peaceable Soviet citizens who had been interned in the camps. They were loaded into trucks and also onto vehicles equipped to kill by means of exhaust fumes. These vehicles had all-metal cargo compartments. The prisoners from the ghetto called these vehicles 'gas vans.' "

Concerning the liquidation of the ghetto, the witness added: "As I ran past the gate, I noticed some canvas-covered trucks and some gas vans. The guards who wore green uniforms of the German military, were leading groups of prisoners to these vehicles." (29)

On 15 May 1943 representatives of the Italian Fascist party visited Minsk. The general commissioner for Byelorussia, whose name was Kube, showed them a church that was being used as a warehouse. A diplomat named von Thadden, who held the rank of legation counselor, first class, and was then stationed at the Foreign Office in Berlin, heard about this visit from another legation counselor, von Rademacher, and made the following note in his diary on 15 May 1943: "The Italians asked about the little packages and suitcases that were piled up in the church. Kube explained that that was all that was left of the Jews who had been deported from Minsk. Then he showed them a gas chamber in which he said Jews had been gassed. The Fascists were severely shaken." (30)

In 1942 the gas vans were also temporarily put into service at the Maly Trostinec camp in the region of Minsk. (30a)


http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/documents/uk.html

Murders in the Ukraine

The northern and central areas of the Ukraine were in Einsatzgruppe C's zone of action. EG C made up of Sonderkommandos 4a and 4b and Einsatzkommandos 5 and 6. At least five gas vans operated in their areas - two with Sonderkommando 4a, two with Einsatzkommando 6, and one in the area under the control of the commander of the Security Police in Kiev (where Einsatzkommando 5 worked). There was probably a sixth gas van in Sonderkommando 4b, which was in service south of the region where Sonderkommando 4a operated.
In Nuremberg on 6 June 1947, the leader of Einsatzkommando 4a, Paul Blobel, stated under oath: "In September or October 1941, I received a gas van from Einsatzgruppe C (under Dr. Rasch's command), and an execution was carried out using this van." (31)

A member of the commando named Lauer witnessed the earliest documented gassing operation in the Eastern Territories. It took place in November 1941 in Poltava, in the southern Ukraine.


Two gas vans were in service. I saw them myself. They drove into the prison yard, and the Jews - men, women, and children - had to get straight into the vans from their cells. I also know what the interior of the vans looked like. It was covered with sheet metal and fitted with a wooden grid. The exhaust fumes were piped into the interior of the vans. I can still hear the hammering and screaming of the Jews - "Dear Germans, let us out!" The Jews went through our cordon and into the van without hesitating. As soon as the doors were shut, the driver started the engine. He drove to a spot outside Poltava. I was there when the van arrived. As the doors were opened, dense smoke emerged, followed by a tangle of crumbled bodies. It was a frightful sight. (32)
Blobel's driver, Julius Bauer, described the unloading of a gas van: "The use of the gas vans was the most horrible thing I have ever seen. I saw people being led into the vans and the doors closed. Then the van drove off. I had to drive Blobel to the place where the gas van was unloaded. The back doors of the van were opened, and the bodies that had not fallen out when the doors were opened were unloaded by Jews who were still alive. The bodies were covered with vomit and excrement. It was a terrible sight. Blobel looked, then looked away, and we drove off. On such occasions Blobel always drank schnapps, sometimes even in the car." (33)

In the last few days of December 1941 and the early part of January 1942, the gas vans were detailed to exterminate the Jews in Kharkov. Three members of Sonderkommando 4a stated that at least one gas van was used in these executions. The Jews were loaded at the tractor factory and gassed on the way to the site where the shootings of others took place. (34)

One of these eyewitnesses reported:

The Jews had already been assembled in a ghetto outside Kharkov, in barracks-like buildings guarded by security police...I would estimate that about ten thousand Jews had been brought together. The shootings were carried out in the same way as in Kiev.
While the shootings were going on, the gas van was being used. Approximately thirty people at a time were loaded inside. So far as I know, those inside the gas van were killed by means of fumes diverted from the vehicle's exhaust pipe. To the best of my knowledge the driver of the gas van in Kharkov was Oberscharführer Findeisen. There was a second driver. I saw the van only from the outside. It looked like a moving van. (35)

After the major operations in Kharkov there were other smaller ones. The victims were exclusively Jews who had been in hiding. The gas vans were used to empty the prisons. (36)

Willi Friedrich, leader of the 3d Platoon, 2d Company, 3d Police Battalion, was detailed to cordoning duty in the prison area and at the unloading site. He later testified:

From February to May 1942 I was responsible, with my men, for the cordoning measures necessary for the gas-van operations. We were under orders from Blobel and his successor, Dr. Weinmann. As I remember, there were five or six such operations; they took place about every three weeks. I don't know where the van was stationed. But I remember having seen it several times at the prison in Kharkov. It was there that my men and I were ordered to form a cordon outside the prison. The van entered the prison from the rear. I sometimes also saw how Russian civilians - men and women - were loaded into it. The gas van looked like a large moving van. The driver was a man named Findeisen, who also belonged to Sonderkommando 4a. (37 )

After the liberation of Kharkov, the Soviet authorities succeeded in arresting some of the men responsible for these murders. A public trial began in 1943 in Kharkov. On 19 December the press section of the Soviet Ministry for Foreign Affairs released a Reuters dispatch from Moscow on the subject. The dispatch mentioned three Germans by name, among them Hans Rietz, the deputy commander of the Kharkov Gestapo. It explained: "The three Germans are accused of having participated in the brutal extermination of peaceable Soviet citizens during the temporary German occupation of Kharkov, using gas vans and other means."

Einsatzkommando 5 was dissolved as a mobile special operations unit at the end of 1941. Some of the troops were sent to reinforce the Security Police in Rowno, Jitomir, and other places. The remaining twenty-five or so continued to work in the headquarters of the Kiev KdS. Drivers Wilhelm Findeisen and Heinz Oertel took the EG C gas vans to Kiev for temporary deployment. As Findeisen stated,


Another driver was with me, a man from Berlin named Orel or something like that. We then drove this vehicle over to Kiev, too....
The gas van was deployed for the first time in Kiev. My job was to just drive the vehicle. The van was loaded by the local staff. About forty people were loaded inside. There were men, women, and children. I was supposed to tell the people they were going to be put to work. The people were pushed up a short ladder and into the van. The van door was then bolted shut, and the hose was attached. It was already in place - I did that too, it was cold at the time. I drove through the town to the antitank ditches. There the doors of the vehicle were opened. Prisoners had to do this. The bodies were thrown into the antitank ditches. I am sure that it was in Kiev; I myself took part in this operations. (39)

Later on, a smaller gas van was placed at the permanent disposal of the Kiev KdS and the EG C staff. (40)

Another driver, named Eisenburger, admitted that he too had been sent from Berlin to Kiev at the beginning of 1942, with his colleague Sackenreuther and two large gas vans. They arrived at EG C staff headquarters and were detailed to Einsatzkommando 6 in Stalino, where they appeared at the end of February or the beginning of March. By feigning illness, Eisenburger soon managed to get out of taking part in the planned operation. (41) Only the gas van driven by Sackenreuther remained at Stalino.

When he was tried years later by a German court, the head of Einsatzkommando 6, Robert Mohr, declared: "I saw only the outside of the Sonderkommando's gas van, which I came across in Stalino. It was a large gray vehicle that looked like a moving van; it had no windows." (42)

In the reasons given for his conviction in 1967, we find that:


To kill the Jews, Mohr deployed a gas van in the Stalino commando beginning in March or, at the latest, April 1942, a 5-ton truck with a metal cargo compartment similar to a moving van. The van could hold at least sixty people, packed very tightly. It was loaded from the rear. The exhaust fumes could be diverted into the interior by means of a hose. Sackenreuther, an SS-Hauptscharführer who has since died, had driven the van from Berlin to Stalino on the order of the RSHA. He was placed under Mohr's command. His only job was to operate the gas van. Mohr was present at the first operation carried out with this van. At least fifty Jews - men and women - assembled in the interior courtyard of the Hotel Donbas were made to get inside. After the doors had been closed, Sackenreuther directed the exhaust fumes into the interior of the van. The victims shouted and screamed. It took about fifteen to twenty minutes for them to die. Mohr stood close by and observed the proceedings.
At least two hundred Jews were killed in the course of at least four gas-van operations on the morning of one of the Easter holidays, 5 or 6 April 1942. On the previous day the militia had assembled all the Jews - men, women, and children - in a school. Under the supervision of the militia, they were made to take off their usable outer clothing and then get into the van. Each time Sackenreuther drove them to an abandoned mine shaft outside the town. Either on the way or on arrival at the mine shaft, he directed the exhaust fumes into the interior of the van. The members of the Einsatzkommando had to remove the entangled bodies, covered with excrement and urine, one by one from the van and throw them down the mine shaft...

Subsequently, until June 1942, the gas van was used at least four more times, and each time at least fifty Jews - men, women, and children - were killed. The bodies were thrown into the mine shaft by members of the Einsatzkommando. (43)

The other gas van was stationed in Rostov and assigned to another unit of Einsatzkommando 6, whose leader was named Heidelberger. He later said, "In my opinion the executions were carried out by gassings in gas vans." (44)

Dr. Ljudmila Nazarewskaja, a physician from Rostov, subsequently said about the gassings there: "On the evening of 10 August [1942], after the murder of the Jews, three hundred soldiers from the Red Army were also killed at the same place [the Snakes' Gulch]. The soldiers were driven to the railroad crossing. They were loaded into a special gas van. As soon as they were dead they were unloaded....Some of the Jews were also murdered in the same van." (45

http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/d ... s/mcc.html

Murders from the Crimea to the Caucasus

Einsatzgruppe D worked in the southern part of the Ukraine (the Crimea and the regions of Krasnodar and Stavropol), as well as in the northern region of the Caucasus. The EG was headed by Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, who was at the same time head of the internal security service in the Reich Security Main Office. At Nuremberg he was the main defendant in the so-called Einsatzgruppen trial. Einsatzgruppe D was made up of Einsatzkommandos 10a, 11a, 11b, and 12. During their advance on the Crimea, all the units employed gas vans to exterminate Russian prisoners of war and civilians, mostly Jews.
At the beginning of 1942 the staff of EG D was in Simferopol. Three gas vans were also there at this time - two large Saurers and one small Diamond. Their first operation, which was attested to by the drivers Pauly and Stadler, was to "clean out" the Jelna prison in Simferopol. According to Pauly, the large van could hold eighty people, and the smaller one fifty. On that day he had driven the accompanying vehicle during the two trips made by these vans. He was thus, according to his testimony, witness to the murder of about 260 people. (46)

At Nuremberg, Ohlendorf admitted that EG D had gas vans at its disposal. Interrogated by one of the judges, he declared that Himmler had ordered that the women and children be killed by means of gas, and that the vans had been delivered for this purpose. (47)

The verdict handed down by State Court 1 in Munich on 17 September 1975 against two members of the EG D staff, Max Drexler and Walter Kehrer, dealt in detail with the gas vans and their use in Simferopol.


The use of gas vans began at the end of 1941 in the sector of Einsatzgruppe D. They were deployed in order to avoid the psychological distress undergone by those who had to carry out the shootings in the smaller Jewish extermination operations. During these operations the victims were loaded into the gas vans - trucks with hermetically sealed cargo compartments - and killed by engine exhaust fumes.
The staff of EG D had several of these vans, which sent to the various commandos as needed. They were used several times at Simferopol to empty the prison, which was in the building occupied by the group staff. Those Jews who had survived the mass shootings of December 1941, but had gradually been tracked down, were imprisoned here. As soon as the prison was full, the prisoners were killed in a gas van on the order of the group staff, and their bodies were thrown into an antitank ditch outside the town. One several occasions Caucasians were also involved in these operations...

Each time the operations were carried out as follows: one of the vans entered the court- yard of the group staff headquarters, which was near the prison. The Jewish prisoners were brought out of their cells, known as "liquidation cells", and made to get into the vans under strict supervision. The victims first had to strip down to their underclothes.

Because the victims knew what fate awaited them and some of them resisted, members of the commando pushed them into the van. Kehrer occasionally yelled at them and struck them with his fist. The loading over, the back doors were closed. The van stood with its engine running for give to ten minutes, during which time the exhaust fumes were directed into the interior of the cargo compartment by a special device.

The horrors of death were rendered even worse by the conditions of the operation - lack of space, the darkness, and the smell of the exhaust fumes. In mortal agony, the victims shouted and hammered on the sides of the van with such force that those standing near the van could hear them distinctly. With the arrival of the exhaust fumes the victims experienced feelings of suffocation, increased heart rate, and dizziness, etc., until they finally lost consciousness. Some of them started to vomit or empty their bowels and bladder. The victims died after a few minutes, the brain having been deprived of oxygen. But because of the varying degree of each individual's resistance, not all the victims lost consciousness at the same time, which meant that some of them stayed conscious long enough to witness clearly the death throes of the others.

When nothing more could be heard from the interior, the van drove to the antitank ditches that had been dug around Simferopol. Kehrer took part in the loading of the gas vans on all three occasions. For the first operation, only German members of the commando were used. Caucasians took part in subsequent operations.

Each time, the gas van was accompanied by a vehicle in which there were some guards and at least four Jews who were temporarily spared. It was they who had to remove the bodies from the van and throw them into the antitank ditches; then they were killed. Kehrer was present during at least the second and third operations. He was driven there in the vehicle that accompanied the van. He took some of his Caucasians along with him and directed the unloading in the van. The Jews who had to unload the bodies were then shot on his orders. He himself discharged a couple of final shots.

During the advance of the German troops in the second half of 1942, the Einsatzkommandos and their subunits were further deployed in the newly conquered territories. It seems that the use of the gas vans was no longer controlled by the EG D staff, and that the vans were permanently attached to the individual Einsatzkommandos. Einsatzkommando 10a was commanded by Dr. Kurt Christmann. In the findings leading to the verdict delivered against him by a Munich court in 1980, one reads:


On an unspecified day between December 1942 and the beginning of February 1943, the accused personally directed a gas-van operation in the courtyard of the commando building. The van was backed up to within about a meter of the cellar door. In order to obtain what the accused called "speedier effect" from the fumes, as many people as were necessary to fill the van to capacity were made to come out of the cellar and get inside. It held at least thirty people in all. The accused supervised the operation. He tried to hurry along the proceedings by shouting "Faster, faster!" The victims had been made to strip to their underclothes in the cellar. They had been told that they were being taken to the baths. But they were to be killed, because they were considered real or potential enemies of the regime...Among the victims were at least two children under the age of ten.
As they were loaded into the truck, all the victims guessed that they were being taken not to the baths but to their deaths. Many of them shouted, cried, and tried to resist, but the Russian auxiliaries who, under orders from the accused, were carrying out the loading operation, struck them and pushed them into the gas van. Then the driver closed the doors, climbed into the cab, started the engine, and left it running while directing the exhaust fumes into the interior of the van. Finding themselves locked in and in total darkness, the victims must have realized, as soon as they smeeled the exhaust fumes, that they were going to be killed by the fumes. Seized with fear,...they shouted and hammered desperately against the sides of the vehicle.

The gas van remained in the courtyard of the commando building with its engine running until no sound could be heard from inside. Only then did the van leave the courtyard. In this way the local population did not discover from the screams of the victims the real purpose of these vans. The vehicle then headed from the antitank ditches outside Krasnodar, where the Russian auxiliaries, arriving at the same time or having preceded them, threw the bodies into the ditches and covered them with earth. (49)


This was not the first time, however, at the Christmann's name had been mentioned in a war-crimes trial. It had already been brought up between 14 and 17 July 1943, after Krasnodar had been retaken by Red Army troops and a group of his "Caucasian" auxiliaries were being tried by a Societ court. Two of them, named Tischtschenki and Puschkarew, had been given the rank of noncommissioned officer and had been assigned to loading the gas vans used by Einsatzkomando 10a. They described these vehicles in close detail, and their statements coincide with the evidence presented to the Munich court thirty-seven years later. The trial of these Caucasian auxiliaries of ED 10a provided the first opportunity for the public in the Soviet Union and the Western Allied countries to learn the facts about the existence of the gas vans.

The most important evidence was provided by a witness named Kotov, who had been loaded into a gas van and survived. So far as we know, he is the only survivor of this operation. He made the following statement to the court on 16 July 1943:


On 22 August I went to Municipal Hospital No. 3, where I had previously received treatment. I wanted to get a certificate. As I entered the courtyard I saw a large truck with a dark-gray body. Before I had taken two steps a German officer seized me by the collar and pushed me into the vehicle. The interior of the van was crammed full of people, some of them completely naked, some of them in their underclothes. The door was closed. I noticed that the van started to move. Minutes later I began to feel sick. I was losing consciousness. I had previously taken an anti-air raid course, and I immediately under- stood that we were being poisoned by some kind of gas. I tore off my shirt, wet it with urine, and pressed it to my mouth and nose. My breathing became easier, but I finally lost consciousness. When I came to, I was lying in a ditch with several dozen corpses. With great effort I managed to climb out and drag myself. (50)
Under the command on an officer named Trimborn, a subunit of Einsatzkommando 10a went to the town of Jeissk (Yeisk) and executed the children in an asylum there. The verdict of Munich State Court I against Trimborn and his unit, handed down on 14 July 1972, stated:


After Krasnodar had been taken by German troops on 9 August 1942, Einsatzkommando 10a moved into the town. A subunit, under the command of defendant Trimborn, was sent to the town of Jeissk, situated on the east coast of the Sea of Azov, which had been taken the same day. On 8 October 1942 a detachment arrived from Krasnodar. Defendant Dr. Gorz was part of this detachment, which brought with it a gas van and the order to kill the children in the asylum at the corner of Shcherbinovskaia, Barikadnaia, and Budjenny streets. This children's home lay on the outskirts of the town and consisted of several buildings...The central building was reserved for retarded and feeble-minded children; the building at the corner of Shcherbinovskaia and Gogol streets for invalid children and partly for normal children; and the building on Budjenny Street for bedridden children (hydrocephalitics). Their ages ranged from about three to seventeen. The gas van, nicknamed the "soul killer" by the Russians, was a heavy truck with false windows painted on the sides. At the back, double doors permitted the closing of the cargo compartments. The inside was lined with white sheet metal, and the floor was covered with a wooden grid. A hose permitted the exhaust fumes to be directed into the interior. As per the instructions received from Krasnador, the detachment, accompanied by members of the subunit stationed at Jeissk, arrived at the children's home on Friday, 9 October 1942, at about four or five in the afternoon. First the van drove into the court- yard of the building on the corner of Shcherbinovskaia and Gogol streets. The building was surrounded, to prevent any children escaping. The head of the instruction and education sections of the establishment, Galina Kochubinskaia, and the children were assured that they were being taken to Krasnodar for medical treatment. The directress and probably the childrem themselves knew that the Germans killed people in their "soul killer" vehicles. This woman did not believe the reason given, and tried to prevent the children from being transferred, but in vain. The children were assembled in the courtyard. The smallest ones and those who were unable to walk were carried out of the building. The nursing staff cried as they helped with the operation. Some of the children climbed into the van by themselves. When one or two of them resisted or started to scream and try to escape, they were caught, and sometimes beaten or pulled by their arms and legs to the van and thrown inside. Volodia Goncharov, a "pioneer" (a member of the Soviet youth organization), was grabbed by the legs, his head toward the ground, by two men who dragged him out of the building and into the van. The children, who were crying and screaming, finally lay piled one on top of the other in the back of the van. When it was full the doors were closed....The same day the bedridden children from the Budjenny Street building were gassed in the same way. (51)
The use of gas vans by Einsatzkommando 10b was brought to light by the operations carried out in the Crimea. In Feodosiya a commando member named Hanssen received orders in April 1942 from his immediate superior, SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Persterer, to empty the gas vans into an antitank ditch. Hanssen saw women and children among the murdered Jews. (52)

The verdict handed down by Munich State Court I on 23 March 1972 against Finger and other defendants stated:

On an unspecified day in the first half of 1942, dring the second occupation of Kertsch by German troops, the gas van was used to execute at least fifty Jewish men and women, by order of the group. The gas van was a truck with a closed cargo compartment like a moving van. The back door could not be opened from the inside. During the journey the exhaust fumes were diverted into the inside of the van and the people killed in this way.
The defendant Schuchart was present at the loading of the van, for which he provided men from his unit. The Jews, who were being killed because of their race, were submitted to unimaginable suffering and anguish in their fight with death. After the doors of the van were locked and those inside had realized what fate awaited them, they began to scream and hammer against the walls.

The defendant Schuchart declared to a member of the commando, the defendant Schuchart later refused to use the gas vans again, on the grouns that it was impossible to persuade his men to carry out such a task. (53)


Paul Zapp was, until July 1942, head of Einsatzkommando 11a. He had been to Sebastopol to try to get one of EG D's gas vans assigned to him, and he stated that "on this occasion I was present at the extermination of Jews - men and woman - in gas vans. The victims had to strip naked and were herded into the vans. The doors were then closed so that the van was hermetically sealed. The engine was started and left running. After only a short time no more signs of life came from those inside. The van was then driven to a ditch outside of town. The doors were opened and the bodies thrown into the ditch." (54)
In October 1941 a member of Einsatzkommando 11a, named Schiewer, witnessed the use of a gas van with a capacity of fifty people in Armavir in the Caucasus. He was on the cordon duty at the ditch. The van made ten trips to the unloading site. Those on duty with Schiewer were told that the victims were Jews. (55)

An exact description exists of the use of gas vans in an operation carried out in Cherkessk (Cherkassy), in the region of Maikop. The section of the commando stationed there was led by Johannes Schlupper. Towards the middle of September 1942, Schlupper received an order by telephone from the commando leader telling him to arrest the Jews living in Cherkessk and informing him that a gas van would be arriving shortly. Schlupper declared:


On the day specified, the gas van arrived from Cherkessk with a driver and his co-driver. An Untersturmfuhrer accompanied them in an automobile. He was to supervise the operation. On the mayor's orders, the Jews assembled in the freight shed of the railroad station. It is not true that I reassured the Jews by telling them they had to climb into the gas vans so that they could be taken to be deloused. That was the group's business.
I was standing next to the gas van. It was the first time I had seen one. It is not true that as the van drove off I reassured the Jews by telling them that those who got into the gas van would return. I did not even enter the freight shed where the Jews were waiting, and I do not remember that the van made several trips. The victims had to strip completely before getting into the vehicle. I drove ahead of it to the mass grave, where I had already stationed some of my men. All the Jews who had been assembled - forty to fifty men - had to get into the van. So far as I can remember, the exhaust was diverted into the interior as it approached the mass grave. Then we heard a muffled trampling sound coming from the inside . . . The van remained stationary, with its engine running, near the mass grave for about ten minutes. Then it backed up to the edge of the grace, the rear doors were opened, and the cargo compartment tipped up. This made the victims fall out into the grace. It was at night, by moonlight, that this operation took place. (56)

Einsatzkommando 12 had a gas van in the northern Caucasus. A former member of EK 12, Paul Otto, testified to the use of a gas van at Piatigorsk. In September 1942 the Jews were assembled in a square in the town and then taken away in a gas van. It did not make more than ten trips. According to Kramp, another member of the commando, this was a "gassing operation -special treatment," which lasted from six in the morning until the early afternoon. (57)

In the Russian collection entitled Dokumenty Obviniaiut (The documents accuse) there is a statement by a witness, Eugenia Ostroven, who lived near the courtyard onto which the cells of the Piatigorsk prison faced:

I often saw a large truck stop near the prison cell. Then the prison wardens could be heard giving orders to strip, and you could hear the terrible screams of women and children. They were finally pushed half-naked into the van by men from the Gestapo. When it was quite full, the doors were firmly locked. The driver started the engine and left it running at full revs, but he couldn't drown the cries of the prisoners and the trampling of the Russia civilians were taken in the same vehicle somewhere out of town.


In another part of the collection of documents is a statement by one Fenichel, a German prisoner of war who had worked as an auto mechanic. He was able to describe the gas van in Stavropol in detail. He stated that its engine had been built by Saurer and its cargo compartment by the German firm of Gaubschat. (59) Between 5 and 10 August 1942, 660 mentally ill patients were gassed in this van. In the town of Spa-Teberda, fifty-four seriously ill young children were gassed. This was confirmed by the reports of an eyewitness, dated 27 January 1943, and by a medical report. (60)
From all we have been able to learn so far, a total of fifteen gas vans operated in the territories of the Soviet Union occupied by the German Army.

=================

Gas vans were also used at Chelmno. A number of testimonies deal with Chelmno.

http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/schalling.html

Franz Schalling's testimony to Claude Lanzmann in _Shoah_.

LANZMANN: First, explain to me how you came to Kulmhof, to Chelmno.You were at Lodz, right?
SCHALLING: In Lodz, yes.


LANZMANN: In Litzmannstaadt?

SCHALLING: In Litzmannstaadt, yes. We were on permanent guard duty. Protecting military objectives: mills, the roads, when Hitler went to East Prussia. It was dreary, and we were told: "We need men who want to break out of this routine." So we volunteered. We were issued winter uniforms, overcoats, fur hats, fur-lined boots, and two or three days later we were told: "We're off!" We were put aboard two or three trucks...I don't know...they had benches, and we rode and rode. Finally, we arrived. The place was crawling with SS men and police. Our first question was "What goes on here?" They said: "You'll find out!"


LANZMANN: "You'll find out"?

SCHALLING: "You'll find out."


LANZMANN: You weren't in the SS, you were ...

SCHALLING: Police.


LANZMANN: Which police?

SCHALLING: Security guards. We were told to report to the Deutsches Haus, German headquarters, the only big stone building in the village. We were taken into it. An SS man immediately told us: "This is a top-secret mission!"


LANZMANN: Secret?

SCHALLING: "A top-secret mission." "Sign this!" We each had to sign. There was a form ready for each of us.


LANZMANN: What did it say?

SCHALLING: It was a plege of secrecy. We never even got to read it through.


LANZMANN: You had to take an oath?

SCHALLING: No, just sign, promising to shut up about whatever we'd see.


LANZMANN: Shut up?

SCHALLING: Not say a word. After we'd signed, we were told: "Final solution of the Jewish question." We didn't understand what that meant. It all looked normal.


LANZMANN: So someone said ...

SCHALLING: He told us what was going to happen there.


LANZMANN: Someone said: "The final solution of the Jewish question"? You'd be assigned to the "final solution'?

SCHALLING: Yes, but what did it mean? We'd never heard that before. So it was explained to us.


LANZMANN: Just when was this?

SCHALLING: Let's see...when was this...? In the winter of 1941-42. Then we were assigned to our stations. Our guard post was at the side of the road, a sentry box in front of the castle.


LANZMANN: So you were in the "castle detail"?

SCHALLING: That's right.


LANZMANN: Can you describe what you saw?

SCHALLING: We could see. We were at the gatehouse. When the Jews arrived, the way they looked! Half frozen, starved, dirty, already half dead. Old people, children. Think of it! The long trip here, standing in a truck, packed in! Who knows if they knew what was in store! They didn't trust anyone, that's for sure. After months in a ghetto, you can imagine! I heard an SS man shout at them: "You're going to work here." The Jews consented. They said: "Yes, that's what we want to do."


LANZMANN: Was the castle big?

SCHALLING: Pretty big, with huge front steps. The SS man stood at the top of the steps.


LANZMANN: Then what happened?

SCHALLING: They were hustled into two or three big rooms on the first floor. They had to undress, give up everything: rings, gold, everything.


LANZMANN: Yes. And how long did the Jews stay there?

SCHALLING: Long enough to undress. Then, stark naked, they had to run down more steps to an underground corridor that led back up to the ramp, where the gas van awaited them.


LANZMANN: Did the Jews enter the van willingly?

SCHALLING: No, they were beaten. Blows fell everywhere, and the Jews understood. They screamed. It was frightful! Frightful! I know because we went down to the cellar when they were all in the van. We opened the cells of the work detail, the Jewish workers who collected stuff thrown into the yard out of a first-floor window.


LANZMANN: Describe the gas vans.

SCHALLING: Like moving vans.


LANZMANN: Very big?

SCHALLING: They streched, say, from here tothe window. Just big trucks, like moving vans, with two rear doors.


LANZMANN: What system was used? How did they kill them?

SCHALLING: With exhaust fumes.


LANZMANN: Exhaust fumes?

SCHALLING: It went like this. A Pole yelled "Gas!" Then the driver got under the van to hook up the pipe that fed the gas into the van.


LANZMANN: Yes, but how?

SCHALLING: From the motor.


LANZMANN: Yes, but through what?

SCHALLING: A pipe - a tube. He fiddled around under the truck. I'm not sure how.


LANZMANN: It was just exhaust gas?

SCHALLING: That's all.


LANZMANN: Who were the drivers?

SCHALLING: SS men. All those men were SS.


LANZMANN: Were there many of these drivers?

SCHALLING: I don't know.


LANZMANN: Were there two, three, five, ten?

SCHALLING: Not that many. Two or three, that's all. I think there where two vans, on big, one smaller.


LANZMANN: Did the driver sit in the cab of the van?

SCHALLING: Yes. He climbed into the cab after the doors were shut and started the motor.


LANZMANN: Did he race the motor?

SCHALLING: I don't now.


LANZMANN: Could you hear the sound of the motor?

SCHALLING: Yes, from the gate we could hear it turn over.


LANZMANN: Was it a loud noise?

SCHALLING: The noise of a truck engine.


LANZMANN: The van was stationary while the motor ran?

SCHALLING: That's right. Then it started moving. We opened the gate and it headed for the woods.


LANZMANN: Were the people already dead?

SCHALLING: I don't know. It was quiet, no more screams. You couldn't hear anything as they drove by.

===========

http://shamash.org/holocaust/denial/testimony.txt

SS-man Theodor Malzmueller on the Chelmno extermination camp
[Quoted in 'The Good Old Days' - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The
Free Press, NY, 1988., p. 217-219]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
When we arrived we had to report to the camp commandant,
SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Bothmann. The SS-Haupsturmfuehrer addressed us in
his living quarters, in the presence of SS-Untersturmfuehrer Albert
Plate. He explained that we had been dedicated to the Kulmhof
[Chelmno] extermination camp as guards and added that in this camp the
plague boils of humanity, the Jews, were exterminated. We were to
keep quiet about everything we saw or heard, otherwise we would have
to reckon with our families' imprisonment and the death penalty...

The extermination camp was made up of the so-called "castle" and the
camp in the woods. The castle was a fairly large stone building at the
edge of the village of Kulmhof. It was there that the Jews who had
been transported by lorry or railway were first brought...

When a lorry arrived the following members of the SS-Sonderkommando
addresses the Jews: (1) camp commandant Bothmann, (2) Untersturmfuehrer
Albert Plate from North Germany, (3) Polizei-Meister Willy Lenz from
Silesia, (4) Polizei-Meister Alois Haeberle from Wuerttenberg. They
explained to the Jews that they would first of all be given a bath and
deloused in Kulmhof and then sent to Germany to work. The Jews then
went inside the castle. There they had to get undressed. After this
they were sent through a passage-way on to a ramp to the castle yard
where the so-called "gas-van" was parked. The back door of the van
would be open. The Jews were made to get inside the van. This job was
done by three Poles, who I believe were sentenced to death. The Poles
hit the Jews with whips if they did not get into the gas vans fast
enough. When all the Jews were inside the door was bolted. The driver
then switched on the engine, crawled under the van and connected a
pipe from the exhaust to the inside of the van. The exhaust fumes now
poured into the inside of the truck so that the people inside were
suffocated...


Testimony of gas-van driver Walter Burmeister
[Quoted in 'The Good Old Days' - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The
Free Press, NY, 1988., p. 219-220]
------------------------------------------------------------
As soon as the ramp had been erected in the castle, people started
arriving in Kulmhof from Lizmannstadt in lorries... The people were
told that they had to take a bath, that their clothes had to be
disinfected and that they could hand in any valuable items beforehand
to be registered...

When they had undressed they were sent to the cellar of the castle and
then along a passageway on to the ramp and from there into the
gas-van. In the castle there were signs marked "to the baths". The gas
vans were large vans, about 4-5 meters long, 2.2 meter wide and 2
meter high. The interior walls were lined with sheet metal. On the
floor there was a wooden grille. The floor of the van had an opening
which could be connected to the exhaust by means of a removable metal
pipe. When the lorries were full of people the double doors at the
back were closed and the exhaust connected to the interior of the
van...

The Kommando member detailed as driver would start the engine right
away so that the people inside the lorry were suffocated by the
exhaust gases. Once this had taken place, the union between the
exhaust and the inside of the lorry was disconnected and the van was
driven to the camp in the woods were the bodies were unloaded. In the
early days they were initially burned in mass graves, later
incinerated... I then drove the van back to the castle and parked it
there. Here it would be cleaned of the excretions of the people that
had died in it. Afterwards it would once again be used for gassing...

I can no longer say what I thought at the time or whether I thought of
anything at all. I can also no longer say today whether I was too
influenced by the propaganda of the time to have refused to have
carried out the orders I had been given.

--------------------------

Testimony of Adolph Eichmann concerning Chelmno

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/chelm06.htm

Source:
Klee, E., W. Dressen, V. Riess. The Good Old Days. New York: The Free Press, 1988, p 221-222.

ANSWER: I just know the following, that I only saw the following: a room, if I still recall correctly, perhaps five times as big as this one, or it may have been four times as big. There were Jews inside it, they had to get undressed and then a van, completely sealed, drew up to the ramp in front of the entrance. The naked Jews then had to get inside. Then the lorry was closed and it drove off.

QUESTION: How many people did the van hold?

ANSWER: I can't say exactly. I couldn't bring myself to look closely, even once. I didn't look inside the entire time. I couldn't, no, I couldn't take any more. The screaming and, and, I was too upset and so on. I also said that to [SS-Obergruppenfuehrer] Mueller when I submitted my report. He did not get much from my report. I then followed the van - I must have been with some of the people from there who knew the way. Then I saw the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

The van drove up to a long trench, the door was opened and bodies thrown out. They still seemed alive, their limbs were so supple. They were thrown in, I can still remember a civilian pulling out teeth with some pliers and then I just got the hell out of there. I got into the car, went off and did not say anything else... I'd had more than I could take. I only know that a doctor there in a white coat said to me that I should look through a peep-hole at them in the lorry. I refused to do that. I could not, I could not say anything, I had to get away.

I went to Berlin, reported to Gruppenfuehrer Mueller. I told him exactly what I've just said, there wasn't any more I could tell him... terrible...I'm telling you... the inferno, can't, that is, I can't take this, I said to him.

==========

One of the few people to escape from Chelmno was Yakov Grojanowski.

On January 6, 1942, Yakov Grojanowski of Izbica Kujawska, Poland, was one of 29 Jews rounded up for a work detail and sent to Chelmno. For 14 days Grojanowski worked as a grave-digger, burying Jews and Gypsies who had been killed in the mobile gas vans. On the 19th of January, Grojanowski managed to escape from a transport bus, and eventually made his way to the Warsaw Ghetto. There, working with Oneg Shabbat, a report of his experience was developed, and using the Polish underground, this report eventually made its way to London sometime around June, 1942. Significantly, this represents a record of Germans systematically gassing Jews a full two years before the Soviet liberation of death camps gave that fact a far broader audience.

The full 14 day account has been published.

The Holocaust
Martin Gilbert
Owl Books, 1987
pgs. 252-279

It has also been posted to the newsgroup alt.revisionism and can be easily found by doing a google group search for Yakov Grojanowski.

Here is day 2

Wednesday, 7 January 1942 - Day 2

Wednesday, 7 January, at seven in the morning, the gendarme on duty knocked and ordered us to get up. We hadn’t slept anyway, because of the cold. It took half an hour till they brought us black coffee and bread from our provisions.

We drew some meagre consolation from this and told each other there was a God in heaven; we would, after all, be going to work.

At about 8:30 in the morning (it was already late, because the days were short) we were led into the courtyard.

Six of us had to go into the second cellar room to bring out two corpses. The dead were from Klodawa (Kladow), and had hanged themselves. (I don’t know their names.) They were conscript grave-diggers. Their corpses were thrown on a lorry.

We met the other fourteen enforced grave-diggers from Izbica. As soon as we came out of the cellar we were surrounded by twelve gendarmes and Gestapo men with machine guns. We got on the lorry together with the twenty-nine enforced grave-diggers and the two corpses; our escort were six gendarmes with machine guns. Behind us came another vehicle with 10 gendarmes and two civilians. We drove in the direction of Kolo for about seven kilometres till turning left into the forest; after half a kilometre we halted at a clear path. We were ordered to get down and line up in double file.

An SS man ordered us to fall in with our shovels, dressed, despite the frost, only in shoes, underwear, trousers and shirts. Out coats, hats, gloves, etc., had to remain in a pile on the ground. The two civilians took all the shovels and pick-axes down from the lorry. Eight of us who weren’t handed any tools had to take down the two corpses.

Already on our way in to the forest we saw about fourteen men, enforced grave-diggers from Klodawa, who had arrived before us and were at work in their shirtleeves.

The picture was as follows: twenty-one men in twos, behind them eight men with two corpses, ringed by armed Germans. The people from Klodawa were also guarded by 12 gendarmes.

All in all we were guarded by thirty gendarmes. As we approached the ditches the men from Klodawa asked us in whispers, ‘Where are you from?’ We answered, ‘From Izbica.’ They asked how many of us there were and we replied twenty-nine. This exchange took place while we worked.

The eight men without tools carried the two corpses to the ditch and threw them in. We didn’t have to wait long before the next lorry arrived with fresh victims. It was specially constructed. It looked like a normal large lorry, in grey paint with two hermetically closed rear doors. The inner walls were of steel metal. There weren’t any seats. The floor was covered by a wooden grating, as in public baths, with straw mats on top. Between the driver’s cab and the rear part were two peepholes. With a torch one could observe through these peepholes if the victims were already dead.

Under the wooden grating were two tubes about fifteen centimetres thick which came out of the cab. The tubes had small openings from which gas poured out. The gas generator was in the cab, where the same driver sat all the time. He wore a uniform of the SS death’s head units, and was about forty years old. There were two such vans.

When the lorries approached we had to stand at a distance of five metres from the ditch. The leader of the guard detail was a high-ranking SS man, an absolute sadist and murderer.

He ordered that eight men were to open the doors of the lorry. The smell of gas that met us was overpowering. The victims were gypsies from Lodz. Strewn about the van were all their belongings: accordions, violins, bedding, watches and other valuables.

After the doors had been open for five minutes orders were screamed at us, ‘Here! You Jews! Get in there and turn everything out!’ The Jews scurried into the van and dragged the corpses away.

The work didn’t progress quickly enough. The SS leader fetched his whip and screamed, ‘The devil, I’ll give you a hand straight away!’ He hit out in all directions on people’s heads, ears and so on, till they collapsed. Three of the eight who couldn’t get up again were shot on the spot.

When the others saw this they clambered back on their feet and continued the work with their last reserves of energy. The corpses were thrown one on top of another, like rubbish on a heap. We got hold of them by the feet and the hair. At the edge of the ditch stood two men who threw in the bodies. In the ditch stood an additional two men who packed them in head to feet, facing downwards.

The orders were issued by an SS man who must have occupied a special rank. If any space was left, a child was pushed in. Everything was done very brutally. From up above the SS man indicated to us with a pine twig how to stack the bodies. He ordered where the head and the feet, where the children and the belongings were to be placed. All this was accompanied by malicious screams, blows and curses. Every batch comprised 180-200 corpses. For every three vanloads twenty men were used to cover up the corpses. At first this had to be done twice, later up to three times, because nine vans arrived (that is nine times sixty corpses.

At exactly twelve o’clock the SS leader with the whip ordered: ‘Put your shovels down!’ We had to line up in double file to be counted again. Then we had to climb out of the ditch.

We were surrounded by guards all the time. We even had to excrete on the spot. We went to the spot where our belongings were. We had to sit on them close together. The guards continued to surround us. We were given cold bitter coffee and a frozen piece of bread. That was our lunch. That’s how we sat for half an hour. Afterwards we had to line up, were counted and led back to work.

What did the dead look like? They weren’t burnt or black; their faces were unchanged. Nearly all the dead were soiled with excrement. At about five o’clock we stopped work. The eight men who had worked with the corpses had to lie on top of them face downwards. An SS man with a machine gun shot at their heads. The man with the whip screamed: ‘The devil, get dressed quickly!’

We dressed quickly and took the shovels with us. We were counted and escorted to the lorry by gendarmes and SS men. We had to put the shovels away. Then we were counted again and pushed into the lorry.

The journey to the Schloss took about fifteen minutes. We travelled together with the men from Klodawa and talked very quietly together.

I said to my colleagues: ‘My mother wanted to lead me to a white wedding canopy, she won’t even have the experience of leading me to a black one.’ We cried softly and spoke in whispers so the gendarmes sitting at the back shouldn’t hear us.

On the first day the following happened: it was ten in the morning. A certain Giter from Bydgoszcz, a fat individual, resident in Izbica during the war, belonged to the group of ‘eight’ and was unable to keep up with the speed of the work. The SS man with the whip ordered him to undress. He flogged him and others till they lost consciousness. His body looked black as spleen. He had to lie down alone in the ditch where he was shot.

It turned out that there were many more rooms in the Schloss. We numbered twenty in our room, with fifteen more in the adjacent one. There weren’t any other enforced grave-diggers. As soon as we came into the cold and dark cellar we threw ourselves down on the straw and cried about everything that had befallen us. The fathers wept from pain at never seeing their little ones again. A fifteen-year-old boy by the name of Monik Halter embraced and kissed me. Weeping, he said to me, ‘ Ah, Schlomo, even if I die a victim, my mother and sister should at least stay alive.’ Meir Pitrowski, forty years old from Izbica, my neighbor on the straw, kissed me and said, ‘I have left my dear wife and eight children at home. Who knows if I’ll ever see them again, and what is going to happen to them.’

Gershon Prashkar, a fifty-five -year-old from Izbica, said, ’We have a great God up in heaven and must pray to him. He won’t desert us—that’s why we must all now together say the prayer of confession and penitence before death.’ Amid great pain and tears we recited the prayer. It was a very depressing sight. The sergeant-major knocked at the door, shouting, ‘Quiet, you Jews or I shoot!’ We continued the prayer softly with choking voices.

At 7:30 in the evening they brought us a pot of thin kohlrabi soup. We couldn’t swallow anything for crying and pain.

It was very cold and we had no covers at all.

One of us exclaimed, ‘Who knows who among us will be missing tomorrow.’ We pressed close together and lapsed into exhausted fitful sleep haunted by terrible dreams. We slept for about four hours. Then we ran about the room freezing cold and debated the fate that was in store for us.
===========

For Chelmno there was also the testimony of many Poles who lived in the area.

Jerzy Halbersztadt of the University of Warsaw has written about three local factory workers who actually worked on one of the gas vans.

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/chelm00.htm

[...]

However, at least three witnesses were able to see the
vehicles from the short distance. Mr. Jozef Piaskowski (b. 1908)
was employed in the Reichsstrassenbauamt in Kolo (former
*Ostrowski factory). In the winter 1941/42 he was ordered to
repair the damaged cooler in the biggest of Chelmno vans.
Piaskowski was an experienced driver. He declared later that he
has never seen the motor of this type. "The motor was a bit odd".
"It was enormous". The most interesting in his


Charles Bunch
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Posts: 846
Joined: 12 Mar 2002, 21:03
Location: USA

#48

Post by Charles Bunch » 09 Feb 2003, 18:48

Here's the remainder of the post which was apparently too long for the software.

===========

For Chelmno there was also the testimony of many Poles who lived in the area.

Jerzy Halbersztadt of the University of Warsaw has written about three local factory workers who actually worked on one of the gas vans.

http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/chelm00.htm

[...]

However, at least three witnesses were able to see the
vehicles from the short distance. Mr. Jozef Piaskowski (b. 1908)
was employed in the Reichsstrassenbauamt in Kolo (former
*Ostrowski factory). In the winter 1941/42 he was ordered to
repair the damaged cooler in the biggest of Chelmno vans.
Piaskowski was an experienced driver. He declared later that he
has never seen the motor of this type. "The motor was a bit odd".
"It was enormous". The most interesting in his report is the
description of the exhaust system. He has noticed that the exhaust
pipe was divided into three parts. First and third were done of
metal as in normal cars. But, the central part was done of the
elastic, "hydraulic" pipe which could joint both standard tubes or
could be screwed to the holen the van's floor. After the repair
of the cooler, when the motor was tested, so much exhaust fumes
were produced that the air in the garage (size 30 m x 12 m) started
immediately to be blue. The German bosses ordered to open all
windows and doors. The workers who spent a very short time in
the polluted air have got headache. The witness heard later their
comments that the motor of this car uses 75 liters of petrol per 100
km, so twice more than normal motors do. Piaskowski stated that
he had seen two military type gas-masks in the driver's cab.
Piaskowski's colleague, Mr. Bronislaw Mankowski (b. 1882)
confirmed his story and added that he had seen the van when the
middle part of the exhaust tube was joint to the hole in the car's
floor. Mankowski declared that he looked inside the box when
the watchmen left their posts for a while. He had seen a hole
covered with a perforated sheet iron in the middle of the wooden
floor.

Another witness Mr. Bronislaw Falborski (b. 1910) was
employed in the "Kraft" company in Kolo where the vehicles of
the SS-Sonderkommando Kulmhof were repaired starting from
1942. In summer 1942 he received the order to repair one of the
gas vans. His description of the exhaust pipe is in general the
same as done by witnesses cited above. The only (but important)
difference is the description of the connection of elastic pipe with
the hole in the car's floor. According to Falborski (who made
even a picture) they were joint by two fasteners tightened by four
screws. It seems that this connection was permanent, quite
difficult to change and only optionally substituted by the standard
connection of both metal parts of the exhaust pipe as in normal
cars. Falborski's report seems reliable as his task was to make
this connection air-tight by the change of the packing between
two fasteners.

The cases of the repair of gas vans in the local workshops of
Kolo seem to be rare and exceptional. Probably it happened only
in necessity when it was impossible to use military- or SS-motor
services.

============

While this is not a compete recap of all evidence for gas vans, it is certainly enough to establish the fact of their existence and use, contrary to the flimsy denials offered by some on this board.

Windig
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Re: Gas vans

#49

Post by Windig » 26 Dec 2010, 04:28

May I ask what is to understand with the word "Troßfahrzeuge" of the Kampfgruppe Prützmann.
I could not find anything about Troßfahrzeug nor in my German language. Could this be a Gas van deceleration?
Date goes to beginning of 1944 Einsatzgruppe 6 Nowo-Potschajew Region.

michael mills
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Posts: 8999
Joined: 11 Mar 2002, 13:42
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Gas vans

#50

Post by michael mills » 30 Dec 2010, 02:01

"Trossfahrzeug" means a vehicle for carrying baggage. "Tross" means the baggage-train of an army.

Not every vehicle possessed by an Einsatzgruppe was a homicidal gas van. Since they were intended to be highly mobile formations, they needed a lot of non-homicidal vehicles simply to transport themselves and their equipment.

mick
Member
Posts: 23
Joined: 11 Apr 2010, 22:51

Re: Nazi Microwave Ovens...

#51

Post by mick » 30 Dec 2010, 22:11

Scott: You wrote,
Scott Smith wrote: Well, of course they would fear anything, even bathing; these wild rumors did not come from wholecloth. But oft-repeated rumors are not fact. It might have been a Human Soap factory for all they knew, and there are plenty of Survivors who will say that they witnessed Human Soap manufacture at Auschwitz.
I have recently received a film on dvd called "The Nuremberg Trials" directed by S.Svilov, central Documentary film studios Moscow U.S.S.R

When watching this documentary, the viewer is drawn to a particular clip which shows a number of headless bodies.
The commentator stresses that these bodies are being prepared for cremation.
The documentary clearly states that the substance from these bodies will be turned into soap.
You are then shown large cubes of soap.
As this has been documented on the film, is it you're opinion that this is hearsay?

UMachine
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Posts: 528
Joined: 15 Apr 2006, 16:35
Location: canada

Re: Gas vans

#52

Post by UMachine » 31 Dec 2010, 04:03

Several times in this thread we see reference that people had to strip naked before getting into the vans.Does any member recall this apparently authentic film footage that would sometimes be shown on the CBC iirc,just a few minutes long?In the footage,a waiting heavy truck with double doors sits idling while people,children included are loaded into the van,fully dressed.Then the doors are shut and a approx 3-4 inch hose from the smoky diesel is attached to a port on one of the doors.The truck drives off with the hose still attached.Does any member recall this footage aired in the sixties?Authentic?

David Thompson
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Location: USA

Re: Gas vans

#53

Post by David Thompson » 31 Dec 2010, 04:58

UMachine -- (1) The diesel exhaust stories are unlikely, unless the engine was used to pump the carbon monoxide gas into the passenger compartment. Diesel exhaust is sooty, but it generally doesn't produce lethal amounts of carbon monoxide. Most of the testimony about the use of engine exhaust refers to gasoline engines rather than diesels. We already have a number of open threads on the diesel topic, as you will see if the check the German and Axis war crimes research thread in the section index.

What kind of diesel engines where used?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=25742
Fun with DIESEL GAS-VANS at Krasnodar and Kharkov...
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=571
REAL DIESEL VANS!
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1881
Gassing Vans Revisited
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=20051
Death van trials
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=15777
Chelmno
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=11862

(2) The only photographs of gassing vans I've seen were still photographs, and the passengers were stripped, not clothed.

mick -- It's been a long time since Scott Smith joined our discussions, and we have a number of open threads on the subject of human soap. As I recall, there were rumors, but no evidence, of human soap production at KL Auschwitz. The human soap manufacture appears to have been an isolated experiment, at a single camp -- KL Stutthof -- which involved executed Polish prisoners, not Jews. See the the German and Axis war crimes research thread in the section index.

Human soap experiments

Stutthof soap industry
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=41765
Human soap again
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=32276
Nazi Soap Recipe! IMT USSR-196
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=29963
Evidence for human soap at Danzig
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=24718
Soap
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=6275
Soap...
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=2670
Soap (first thread in H&WC section to be locked)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=29

UMachine
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Posts: 528
Joined: 15 Apr 2006, 16:35
Location: canada

Re: Gas vans

#54

Post by UMachine » 31 Dec 2010, 05:05

David Thompson wrote:UMachine -- (1) The diesel exhaust stories are highly unlikely, unless the engine was used to pump the carbon monoxide gas into the passenger compartment.

(2) The only photographs of gassing vans I've seen were still photographs, and the passengers were stripped, not clothed.

mick -- It's been a long time since Scott Smith joined our discussions, and we have a number of open threads on the subject of human soap. As I recall, there were rumors, but no evidence, of human soap production at KL Auschwitz. The human soap manufacture appears to have been an isolated experiment, at a single camp -- KL Stutthof -- which involved executed Polish prisoners, not Jews.
I have seen this old film footage several times in the mid to late sixties.If the people were told to strip they would be suspicous.If still dressed they would think that they were merely being transferred to some other location and not be aware until the doors were shut and the hose attached...too late.

David Thompson
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Re: Gas vans

#55

Post by David Thompson » 31 Dec 2010, 05:11

UMachine -- You wrote:
I have seen this old film footage several times in the mid to late sixties
That may be, but the witness accounts I've seen don't back it up. The footage may have just been a later and imaginative "reconstruction" -- there's no shortage of them.

UMachine
Member
Posts: 528
Joined: 15 Apr 2006, 16:35
Location: canada

Re: Gas vans

#56

Post by UMachine » 31 Dec 2010, 05:20

David Thompson wrote:UMachine -- You wrote:
I have seen this old film footage several times in the mid to late sixties
That may be, but the witness accounts I've seen don't back it up. The footage may have just been a later and imaginative "reconstruction" -- there's no shortage of them.


I suppose it could be,but it could have been just a small number that were handled locally,not all Jews that got onto a train made it to the main camps either,who knows,maybe it's sitting in a CBC basement in a box.

mick
Member
Posts: 23
Joined: 11 Apr 2010, 22:51

Re: Gas vans

#57

Post by mick » 31 Dec 2010, 20:43

David you wrote,

[Mick,it's been a long time since Scott Smith joined our discussions, and we have a number of open threads on the subject of human soap. As I recall, there were rumors, but no evidence, of human soap production at KL Auschwitz. The human soap manufacture appears to have been an isolated experiment, at a single camp -- KL Stutthof -- which involved executed Polish prisoners, not Jews. See the the German and Axis war crimes research thread in the section index.

Human soap experiments


David i did not intend to undermine Scott Smith, however if it came across that way it was unintentional, i therefore apologise to Scott Smith.
I am aware of Scott's vast knowledge of the holocaust to which i respect, i was merely seeking Scott's opinion on the subject.

Regards Mick

paolosilv
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Posts: 296
Joined: 14 Jun 2009, 02:48

Re: Gas vans

#58

Post by paolosilv » 11 May 2011, 00:36

Forgotten names associated with Unit II D 3a:
Helmut Hoffmann; Friedrich Pradel, 7 years imprisonment; Watler Hoess; Theodor Friedrich Liedling; Walter Schade; Felix Wittlich; Franz Reinhold Schwede d. 1960; I can't seem to find much info on when they died.

best. Paolo

murx
Member
Posts: 646
Joined: 23 May 2010, 21:44

Re: Gas vans

#59

Post by murx » 30 May 2011, 03:24

The confession of gas vans was obtained by an inmate who had shot the commander Ziereis. According to this witness Ziereis during his last hours out of own free will confessed everything. No other person had witnessed the confessions. Ziereis also had confessed to have driven the vans himself "in circles" during the gassings (It makes ME wonder, why they drove at all).
Nevertheless during the Mauthausen trials it seemed not to have been a subject of accusations.

http://www.nachkriegsjustiz.at/prozesse ... VgLinz.php

David Thompson
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Re: Gas vans

#60

Post by David Thompson » 30 May 2011, 03:55

murx -- You wrote:
No other person had witnessed the confessions. Ziereis also had confessed to have driven the vans himself "in circles" during the gassings (It makes ME wonder, why they drove at all).
Nevertheless during the Mauthausen trials it seemed not to have been a subject of accusations.
Nothing in your link backs up these claims.

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