This is a real memo, taken verbatim from the published transcript of Shoah, a 9-hour documentary film on the holocaust directed by Claude Lanzmann (103-05). In this memo, the writer, Just, attempts to persuade his superior, Walter Rauff, of the necessity for technical improvements to the vans being used in the early Nazi program of exterminating the Jews and other "undesirables," just months before the Final Solution of gas chambers and death camps was fully operationalized. In this earlier stage of the Final Solution, four Einsatzgruppen, or "Special Action Groups," A, B, C, and D, had been organized by Himmler to carry out executions by firing squads (Shirer 1248-49).

 

Excerpt from the article "The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust" by Steven B. Katz.

 

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