An update about diesel and gas vans at the Krasnodar trial

 In the article "Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant" I pointed out:

"Deniers also like to point to the two 1943 Soviet gas vans trials in Krasnodar and Kharkov. It was claimed by the Soviets that the gas van engines were diesels. Nick checked out the published English translations of trial transcripts (The People's Verdict), and found only one place where a witness mentions specifically diesel engine (p. 17, interrogation of accused Tishchenko). Given the Soviet propensity for tampering with the published transcripts, one should check the unedited version to see if it mentions "diesel" in this place. Anyway, one swallow does not make a summer, and Tishchenko wasn't even a gas van driver. The rest of the mentions were prosecution's statements, etc. - not the relevant kind of evidence."

I have now gone through the pretrial interrogations of the Krasnodar trial, as well as its original transcript, and found interesting and useful information.

During the interrogation of 08.06.1943 Tischenko indeed mentions a diesel engine. But in the same breath he mentions the use of  бензин - gasoline - for gassings:

"As the German translator [Ivan] SHERTERLAN told me, this vehicle had a carrying capacity of up to 15 tons and could hold up to 100 people. SHERTERLAN also confirmed to me that the vehicle was designed for killing people, explaining that during the engine's operation, part of the gasoline and oil was directed directly into the muffler, where it transformed under the influence of high temperatures into a vaporous state and, along with poisonous gases, was directed through pipes into the body."

Same statement was first made on 28.02.1943.

Clearly, he was not well-versed technically and his testimony could just as easily be used to support the gasoline gassings, given that all the technical details, even if later distorted, were given to Tishchenko by the translator.

During the trial Pushkaryov, who helped loading corpses into the gas vans, actually provided an interesting description of them, omitted in the published version:

"Once, I went to the garage to get gasoline for a lighter, and there was this vehicle. I examined it in detail.

It was a large 7-8 ton vehicle with a diesel engine, painted dark gray. Fake windows were made by hand. The planks were nailed in such a way that it could not be seen whether there were windows. The interior of the vehicle was lined with galvanized iron, and the iron sheets were soldered together.

The doors of the vehicle were hermetically sealed with the help of rubber gaskets. On the floor, there was a wooden grid. At the bottom of the vehicle, there was a hose connected to the exhaust pipe."

"Expert [Prozorovsky]: I have one. The expert commission requests to specify the dimensions of the "dushegubka": its length, width, and height of the body.

Defendant: I understand the question. Its length was 8 meters, its height was2-2.5 meters, and its width was 2 meters.

Expert: How many axles did this vehicle have?

Defendant: I know that it was six-wheeled.

Expert: How many horsepower did the engine have?

Defendant: I don’t know for sure. I know it had 12 cylinders, but I don’t know how many horsepower.

Expert: Was it the same vehicle you observed from the second-floor window, which was under repair?

Defendant: The same one.

Presiding Officer: How can you confirm this?

Defendant: By its external appearance, length, and size — it was the same.

Expert: In this vehicle, where were the openings located: along the edges or in the middle of the floor of the body?

Defendant: The openings were located in the center of the body, closer to the sides.

Expert: How many openings?

Defendant: I saw two openings, approximately 4 centimeters in size, round in diameter."

During the pretrial interrogation of 10.06.1943 some details were different:

"The vehicle was a 7-ton truck with a body painted in gray, featuring fake windows on the sides. According to my observations, the vehicle had a 6-8 cylinder engine."

"Here I saw that after the boarding of Soviet citizens into the vehicle was completed, the vehicle door closed and the engine was started. After idling with the engine running for 10-15 minutes, the vehicle drove out of the Gestapo yard, in which direction - I do not know. But in the same month, I saw this vehicle standing for repairs in garage No. 1 on Ordzhonikidze St. No. 52. The repairs were carried out by German and Russian drivers (I do not know their names). 

When the vehicle was in the garage yard, I examined it in detail and can say the following: 

The vehicle had a long body with double walls, with a double-leaf door at the back, covered with iron. Inside, the vehicle was lined with iron. There were no seats in the vehicle, on the floor was a wooden grate. Under the grate, there were holes that were connected by a hose to the engine."

No mention of diesel yet. Also no mention of diesel in the 17.06.1943 or 27.06.1843 interrogations, where the van is described again. Thus the possibility should not be excluded that Pushkaryov's trial testimony could be influenced by the prior testimony by Tishchenko.

Rechkalov was asked whether he had seen reddish or pinkish corpses and described the color of the corpses fresh out of the van as pale yellow and as if with bruises as well as claimed to have seen feces in the van (and said that maybe there was also urine). This indicates that at the time Rechkalov saw this, the people probably died of pure asphyxiation rather than CO poisoning. This was the problem described by Becker in his infamous letter. Interestingly, Becker notes that after the problem was fixed, "distorted faces and excretions, such as could be seen before, are no longer noticed."

In Rechkalov's apparently first written statement he describes the van thus:

"Mass suffocation of prisoners was carried out in the following manner: stripped people were herded into a large vehicle, which could hold 100-200 individuals. The interior was lined with iron, and the dense floor was covered with a wooden grating. The door was securely locked, and the vehicle's engine was started. A hose was connected to the exhaust pipe, through which the processed exhaust gases entered an opening in the vehicle's floor. The hot gas spread beneath the grating throughout the vehicle. In convulsions and due to lack of air, accompanied by heart-rending screams, within 10 minutes, everyone inside dies."

Diesel engine is mentioned during the 01.03.1943 interrogation:

"Once, I had the opportunity to be present during the execution of one group of prisoners; I briefly inspected it [dueshegubka] and can report the following: 

The 'dushegubka' as it was called in the 'Sonderkommando,' was a 15-ton vehicle equipped with a powerful diesel engine. It had a sealed body of large size, capable of holding up to 100 people, which could be hermetically sealed. Inside the body, along the front and left sides, there was a Г-shaped pipe with multiple drilled holes. One end of this pipe was connected to the muffler of the engine and extended under the vehicle body."

During the 05.03.1943 interrogation Rechkalov clarified, that the details of the functioning of the gas van he learned not only from own observations, but also from the Sonderkommando's shoemaker (?), who described the technical part. And later he also said that Tishchenko told him a lot of technical details about the van after their arrest. His diesel claim is therefore not necessarily an eyewitness claim in the first place and can be an assumption, also influenced by Tishchenko.

An interesting description appears during the 10.06.1943 interrogation:

"The policemen accompanying the 'dushegubka', including myself, rode behind it on horseback. While the road was good, the vehicle overtook us, and at one point, we completely lost sight of it. Upon approaching the 'ZIP' area, the road became muddy and impassable, and the gas van got stuck there. Catching up to it, we helped to pull it out."

This corresponds to the description in Becker's letter, that the gas vans were almost unusable in bad weather.

Rechkalov provided more details when confronted with the witness Ivanova on 03.05.1943:

"When the 'dushegubka' was loaded and drove out of the Gestapo yard, we accompanied it on horseback to the anti-tank ditch, which is located behind the 'ZIP', and due to the heavy mud on the way, we often had to pull it out, hearing the groans of suffocating people.

Not reaching the anti-tank ditch, the vehicle stopped because it was impossible to go further due to the mud. From a nearby farm, they brought a cart, into which they transferred the suffocated people from the 'dushegubka' and thus delivered them the remaining 200 meters to the ditch, and there they were thrown.

I told IVANOVA about this case."

This was confirmed by the witness Pereligina on 18.06.1943:

"The residents of our state farm, including me, began to wonder what kind of vehicle it was and why it was driving to the anti-tank ditch.

For a long time we could not find out, but one day in rainy weather the vehicle got stuck in the mud near our state farm and could not get directly to the anti-tank ditch. Then the Germans began to drive up to the vehicle with a cart. When the cart drove up to the vehicle for the first time, I saw the doors open at the back of the vehicle and smoke or steam poured out. When the smoke or steam cleared, they began to take the bodies of people out of the vehicle, strip them naked and then put them on the cart.

I watched this whole scene together with my neighbor KOROLCHUK Gorpina. We both started counting how many corpses were taken out of the vehicle and saw that each time 10 corpses were put on the cart, but I don't remember how many times the cart drove up

Among the corpses that were placed on the carts were both large and small - obviously children.

Since then, whenever there was mud, the vehicle stopped in the same place and the corpses were transported to the anti-tank ditch on a cart. When the weather was dry, the vehicles drove directly to the anti-tank ditch and I did not see what was happening there."

There was some further testimony about that, including by the mentioned Korolchuk.

Witnesses who did not know much about the gas van could still confirm some important details, like Tuchkov's claim that the gas van, about which he did not want to go in depth, had fake windows, a common claim at that trial.

Kladov's trial description of the gas van is also worth translating:

Defendant: Peklo stood in the yard, so I went inside and looked at the vehicle. The vehicle was closed. I was with a rifle which was slung across.

President: From what distance were you observing it?

Defendant: I approached the vehicle itself and even probed the fake windows with the bayonet.

President: How bold of you.

Defendant: I slung the rifle and measured the width of the vehicle. It was two rifles wide. It does not look like a bus. A bus has a semi-oval shape, but this was a [unclear] vehicle. On the left side, it had some kind of corrugated pipes, then a cylinder, followed by expansions [?] about a quarter meter wide. At the back, it had a two-leaf door running with a bolt from top to bottom, which acted as a latch. There was also a hinge, it turned to the left.

President: It turns out you know all the details of this vehicle's structure.

Defendant: There was a red cross painted on the front of the glass.

(He uses the dialectal adjective "уборчатый" to refer to the vehicle and to the pipes. When the word refers to the pipes, it means corrugated, in this context - flexible; indeed, there is evidence of the use of such pipes in the gas vans. The meaning of calling a vehicle this word is not clear to me. Could be a transcription mistake or a wrong turn of phrase by the accused. On the whole it's not a very clear description - what are the "expansions" or "thickenings" etc.?)

During the pretrial interrogation of 27.06.1943:

"I did not see the internal structure of this vehicle, but I can describe its external appearance, as I repeatedly saw the 'dushegubka' in the Gestapo garage, which I had to guard.

It was a large vehicle, resembling a wagon, dark gray in color, with a closed body at the back, having a double-leaf door with a latch on a hanging lock.

The sides of the body had false windows, in the form of wooden slats placed next to each other.

I was convinced that the windows were false because, by pushing a bayonet between the slats, supposedly covering the windows, I felt that under the slats there was an iron lining of the body. At the front of the vehicle, on the windshield, there was a painted image of the Red Cross."

Some testimonies about the woman named Natalya Lapukh, whose suspected fate had been gassing, and whose corpse was then found by her friends and acquaintances in a mass grave - all crimson in color and without any wounds that could be the cause of death - are of some interest.

Nadezhda Makarova, who was forced to lead her psychiatric patients into the van testified on 10.06.1943:

"The inside of the vehicle was painted yellow, there were no benches, there were wooden grates on the floor, there were pipes on top, but their purpose is unknown to me. The vehicle had thick walls, 10-12 cm thick, and on both sides of the vehicle in the upper part of the body there were small windows, square of about 10 cm, covered with an iron grate on the outside of the vehicle, through which light did not penetrate into the vehicle."

Could those squares be overpressure openings covered with flaps, like those discussed in the Just memo?

I haven't found any other testimonies about diesel.

One more point though. The published Soviet description of the trial, both in Russian and in English, says:

In their report the Committee of Experts stated that the carbon monoxide could undoubtedly have had lethal effect if the waste gases from the Diesel engine penetrated the closed van.

However, the expert report never mentioned diesel. Neither was diesel mentioned when the expert testified in court. So the text in the book is an extrapolation.

The primary materials of the Krasnodar trial contain very interesting evidence. The evidence for diesel engines in gas vans, that appears in the trial materials, is extremely weak and cannot serve to disprove the fact that all engine-based gas vans ran on gasoline.