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script is here for everybody looking for quotes and text from the important
documentary movie about the Holocaust ever made. This script is a transcript that was painstakingly
transcribed using the screenplay and/or viewings of Shoah. I know, I know, I still need to get
some names in there and I'll be eternally
tweaking it, so if you have any corrections, feel free to
drop me a line. You won't
hurt my feelings. Honest.
Making this film was a long and difficult battle.
I could not have waged it without the support
and the faith of a number of men and women,
some of whom are now gone.
This film is theirs as well.I thank the members of my crew,
those men and women who took part
in the campaigns of research, reporting, filming.
Especially Irène Steinfeldt-Lévi
and Corinne Coulmas, who seconded me, even
risking their personal safety in times of danger.
And Ziva Postec, who worked beside me day
after day for five years, on the editing of the film.My gratitude also goes to Yehuda Bauer,
Professor of Contemporary Jewish History
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
and Raül Hilberg, Professor of Political Science
at the University of Vermont in Burlington (U.S.A.)The story begins in the present at Chelmno,
on the N#arew River, in Poland.
Fifty miles northwest of Lodz,
in the heart of a region that once had
a large Jewish population,
Chelmno was the place in Poland
where Jews were first exterminated by gas.
Extermination began on December .At Chelmno Jews were murdered
in two separate periods :
December - spring :
June - January .
But the way in which death was administrated
remained the same throughout : the gas vans.Of the men, women and children
who went there, only two came out alive :
Mordechai Podchlebnik and Simon Srebnik.
Srebnik, a survivor of the last period,
was a boy of thirteen when he was sent
to Chelmno.His father had been killed before his eyes
in the ghetto in Lodz ; his mother
died in a gas van in Chelmno. The SS placed him
in one of the « Jewish work details »,
assigned to maintaining the extermination camps
and that were in turn slated for death...With the ankles in chain, like all his companions,
the boy shuffled through the village of Chelmno
each day. That he was kept alive longer
than the others, he owed to his extreme agility,
which made him the winner of jumping contests
and speed races that the SS organized
for the chained prisoners.And, also, to his melodious voice :
several times a week, when the rabbits
kept in hutches by the SS needed fodder.,
young Srebnik rowed up the Narew,
Chelmno's river, under guard,
in a flat-bottomed boat,
to the alfalfa fields at the edge of the village.
He sang Polish folk tunes and in return
the guard taught him Prussian military songs.Everyone ln Chelmno knew him.
The PoIish farm foIk and German civillan as weII,
since this PoIish province was annexed to the Reich
after the falI of Warsaw, germanized and renamed
WartheIand. Chelmno was changed to Kulmhof,
Lodz to Litzmannstadt, Kolo to Warthbrücken, etc...
German coIonlsts had settIed every where
in Wartheland, and there was even a German
grade school in Chelmno itseIf.During the night of January
two days before Soviet troops arrived,
the Nazis killed all the remaining Jews
in the « work details » with a bullet in the head.
Simon Srebnik was among those executed.
But the bullet missed his vital brain centers.
When he came to, he crawled into a pigsty.A polish farmer found him there.
The boy was treated and healed
by a Soviet Army doctor.
A few months later Simon left for Tel Aviv
along with other survivors of the death camps.
I found him in lsrael and persuaded him
to return to Chelmno with me.
He was then forty-seven years old.
''A little white house...''
''Lingers in my memory...''
''Of that little
white house...''
''l dream each night...''
He was / years old. He
had a lovely singing voice
and we heard him.
When l heard him again,
my heart beat faster,
because what happened
here... was a murder.
l really re-lived
what happened.
lt's hard to recognize,
but it was here.
They burned people here.
A lot of people
were burnt here.
Yes, this is the place.
No one ever left here again.
The gas vans came in here...
There were two huge ovens,
and afterward, the bodies
were thrown
into these ovens, and the
flames reached to the sky.
To the sky?
Yes.
lt was terrible.
No one can describe it.
No one can
recreate what
happened here.
lmpossible ! And no one
can understand it.
Even l, here, now,
l can't believe l'm here.
No, l just can't believe it.
lt was always this peaceful
here. Always.
When they burnt people
-- Jews -- every day,
it was just as peaceful.
No one shouted. Everyone
went about his work.
lt was silent. Peaceful.
Just as it is now.
''You, girl, don't you cry.''
''Don't be so sad.''
''For the dear summer
is nearing...''
''and l'll return with it.''
''A mug of red wine,
a slice of roast,''
''that's what the girls
give their soldiers.''
''When the soldiers
march along,''
''the girls open their doors
and windows.''
They bought the Germans made
him sing on the river.
He was a toy to amuse them.
He had to do it.
He sang, but his heart wept.
Do ''their'' hearts weep
thinking about that now ?
Certainly, very much so.
They still talk about it
around the family table.
it was public,
so everyone knew of it.
He said that was
true german irony,
people were being killed,
and he had to sing.
That's what l thought.
What died in him in Chelmo?
Everything died.
But he's only human,
and he wants to live.
So he must forget.
The other survivor :
MORDECHAl PODCHLEBNlK
He thanks God for what remain
and that he can forget.
And let's not talk
about that.
Does he think it's good
to talk about it?
For me it's not good.
Then why is he talking
about it?
Because you're
insisting on it.
He was sent books on the
Eichmann trial, where he was
and he didn't even
read them.
He survived, but is he
really alive, or...?
At the time, he felt
as if he were dead,
because he never thought
he'd survive,
but... he's alive.
Why does he smile
all the time?
What do you want him
to do... cry?
Sometimes you smile,
sometimes you cry.
And if you're alive,
it's better to smile.
Why was she so curious
about this story?
HANNA SAlDL - lSRAEL -
Daughter of MOTKE SAlDL,
survivor of VlLNA (LlTHUANlA)
lt's a long story.
As a child, l had little
contact with my father.
He went out to work and
l didn't see much of him.
Besides, he was a silent man
he didn't talk to me.
And when l grew up and was
strong enough to face him,
l questioned him. l never
stopped questioning him,
until l got at the scraps of
truth he couldn't tell me.
lt came out haltingly.
l had to tear the details
out of him,
and finally,
when Mr. Lanzmann came,
l heard the whole story
for the second time.
The place resembles Ponari :
the forest, the ditches.
lt's as if the bodies
has been burned here.
Except there were
no stones in Ponari.
PONARl : forest where most
of the Vilna Jews were massacred.
But the Lithuanian forests
are denser than
the lsraeli Forest, no?
Of course.
The trees are similar, but
taller and fuller in Lithuania.
ls there still hunting
here in Sobibor forest ?
Yes, there are lots
of animals of all kinds.
Was there hunting then?
Only manhunting.
JAN PlWONSKl
Somes victims tried
to escape.
But they didn't know
the area.
At times people heard
explosions in the minefield,
sometimes they'd find a deer
and sometimes a poor Jew
who tried to escape.
That's the charm of our
forests : silence and beauty.
But it wasn't always
so silent here.
There was a time when
it was full of screams
and gunshots,
of dogs' barking,
and that period
especially
.is engraved on the minds
of the people
who lived here then.
After the revolt, the Germans
decided to liquidate the camp
and early in the winter
of
they planted pines that were
three or four years old,
to camouflage all the traces.
That screen of trees?
Yes.
That's where the mass
graves were?
When he first came
here in
you couldn't guess
what had happened here,
that these trees hidden
the secret of a death camp.
How did he react, the first
time he unloades corpses,
when the gas van
doors were opened?
What could he do? He cried.
The rd day, he saw
his wife and children.
He placed his wife in the
gravs and asked to be killed.
The Germans said he was
strong enough to work,
that he wouldn't
be killed yet.
Was the weather very cold?
lt was in the winter of
in early January.
At that time, the bodies
weren't burned, just buried?
No, they were buried and
each row was covered with dirt.
They weren't being
burned yet.
There were around
four or five layers.
The ditches were
funnel-shaped.
They dumped the bodies
in theses ditches
and they had to lay them out
like herrings, head to foot.
So it was they who dug
up and burned
all the Jews of Vilna?
Yes.
ln early Jan. we began
digging up the bodies.
When the last mass
grave opened,
l recognized my whole family.
Who in his family
did he recognize?
Mom and my sisters.
sisters with their kids.
They were all in there.
How could
he recognize them?
YlTZHAK DUGlN :
survivor of VlLNA
They'd been
in the earth months
and it was winter.
They were very well
preserved.
l recognized their faces,
their clothes too.
They'd been killed
relativerly recently?
And it was the last grave?
The Nazi plan was for
them to open the graves
starting with the oldest?
The last graves
were the newest
and we started with the oldest
those of the first ghetto.
ln the first grave there
were bodies.
The deeper you dug,
the flatter the bodies were.
Each was almost a flat slab.
When you tried to grasp
a body, it crumbled,
it was impossible to pick up them.
We had to open the graves,
but without tools.
They said : ''Get used to
working with your hands''.
With just their hands?
When we first opened
the graves,
we couldn't help it,
we all burst out sobbing.
But the Germans almost
beat us to death.
We had to work at
a killing pace for two days,
beaten all the time,
and with no tools.
They all burst out sobbing?
The Germans even
forbade us to use
the words ''corpse''
or ''victim''.
The dead were blocks
of wood, shit,
with absolutely
no importance...
Anyone who said ''corpse''
or ''victim'' was beaten.
The Germans made us
refer to the bodies
as ''Figuren'', that is
as puppets, as dolls,
or as ''Schmattes'',
which means ''rags''.
Were they told
at the start
how many ''Figuren'' there
were in all the graves?
The head of the Vilna
Gestapo told us :
''There are people
lying there,
''and absolutely no trace
must be left of them.''
lt was at the end
of November .
They chased us away
from our work,
and back to our barracks.
Suddenly,
from the part
of the camp called
the death camp,
flames shot up. Very high.
ln a flash,
the whole countryside,
the whole camp
seemed ablaze.
lt was already dark.
We went into our barracks,
and ate...
And from the window,
we kept on watching
the fantastic backdrop
of flames
of every imaginable color,
red, yellow, green, purple.
And suddenly one
of us stood up.
We knew
he'd been an opera
singer in Warsaw.
His name was Salve, and...
facing that curtain
of fire, he began
chanting a song
l didn't know :
''My God, my God,
''why hast Thou forsaken us?
RlCHARD GLAZAR -
BASEL (SWlTZERLAND)
''We have been thrust
into the fire before,
''but we have never
denied Thy Holy Law.''
He sang in Yiddish,
while, behind him, blazed
the pyres
on which
they had begun then,
in November
to burn the bodies
in Treblinka.
That was the first time
it happened.
We knew that night
that the dead would
no longer be buried,
they'd be burned.
TREBLlNKA
When things were ready,
they poured on fuel,
and touched off the fire.
They waited for a high wind.
The pyres usually burned
for or days.
There was a concrete
platform some distance away,
and the bones
that hadn't burned,
the big bones of the feet,
for example,
we took...
There was a chest
with two handles,
we carried
the bones there,
where others
had to crush them.
lt was very fine,
that powdered bone.
Then it was put into sacks
and when there
were enough sacks,
we went to a bridge
on the Narew river,
and dumped the powder.
The current carried it off.
lt drifted downstream.
PAULA BlREN - ClNClNNATl
U.S.A. survivor of AUSCHWlTZ
The Jewish cemetery
is LODZ today
AUSCHWlTZ : the town
Mrs. Pietryra,
you live in Auschwitz?
Yes, l was born here.
And you've never
left Auschwitz?
No, never.
Were there Jews in Auschwitz
before the war?
They made up %
of the population.
They even had
a synagogue here.
Just one?
Just one, l think.
Does it still exist?
No, it was wrecked.
There's something
else there now.
Was there a Jewish
cemetery in Auschwitz?
it still exists.
lt's closed now.
lt still exists?
Yes.
Closed?
What does that mean?
The don't bury there now.
Was there a synagogue
in Wlodawa?
Yes, and it's
very beautiful.
When Poland was ruled
by the csars,
that synagogue
already existed.
lt's even older than
Catholic church.
lt's no longer used.
There's no one to go to it.
These buildings
haven't changed?
Not at all. There were
barrels of herrings here,
and the Jews sold fish.
There were stalls,
small shops,
Jewish business,
as the gentleman says.
That's Barenholz's house.
He sold wood.
Lipschitz's store was there.
He sold cloth.
This was Lichtenstein's.
What was there, opposite?
A food store.
A Jewish store ?
There was a notions
shop here,
it sold thread, needles,
odds and ends,
and there were also
three barbers.
PAN FlLlPWlCZ
- Was that fine house Jewish?
- lt's Jewish.
And this small one?
Also.
And the one behind it?
These were all Jewish.
This one on the left, too?
That one too.
Who lived in it?
Borenstein?
He was in
the cement business.
He was very handsome,
and cultivated.
Here there was a blacksmith
named Tepper.
lt was a Jewish house.
A shoemaker lived here.
What was his name?
Yankel?
Yes.
You get the feeling Wlodawa
was a Jewish city.
Yes, because it's true.
The Poles lived farther out
the center was wholly Jewish
What happened to
the Jews of Auschwitz?
They were expelled
and resettled,
but l don't know where.
What year was that?
lt began in which
was when l moved here.
This apartment also
belonged to Jews.
According to our
information,
the Auschwitz Jews were
''resettled'', as they say,
nearby, in Benzin and
Sosnowiecze, in Upper Silesi.
Yes, because those were
Jewish towns.
Does she know what happened
to the Jews of Auschwitz?
l think they all ended
up in the camp.
That is, they returned
to Auschwitz?
AUSCHWlTZ - BlRKENAU
All kinds of people
from everywhere
were sent here.
All the Jews came here...
to die.
What's they think
when Wlodawa's Jews
were all deported
to Sobibor?
WLODAWA - Sobibor : miles
What could we think?
That it was the end of them,
but they had foreseen that.
How so?
Even before the war, when
you talked to the Jews,
they foresaw their doom,
he doesn't know how.
Even before the war
they had a premonition.
How were they taken to
Sobibor? On foot?
lt was frightful.
He watched it himself.
They were herded on foot to
a station called Orkrobek.
There they put the old
people first
into waiting cattle cars,
then the younger Jews,
and finally the kids.
That was the worst : they
threw them on top of the others.
Were there a lot
of Jews in Kolo?
A great many.
More Jews than Poles.
And what happened
with the Kolo Jews?
Was he an eye-witness?
PAN FALBORSKl
Yes. lt was frightful.
Frightful to see. Even the
Germans hid, they couldn't see that.
When the Jews were herded to
the station, they were beated,
some were even killed.
A cart followed the convoy
to pick up the corpses.
Those who couldn't walk,
the slain?
Yes, those who'd fallen.
Where did this happen?
The Jews were collected
in the Kolo synagogue.
Then they were herded
to the station,
where the narrow-gauge
railroad wen to Chelmno.
lt happened to all the Jews
in the area, not just in Kolo.
Absolutely. Everywhere.
Jews were also murdered
in the forests
near Kalisz,
not far from here.
ABRAHAM BOMBA, survivor of
TREBLlNKA - TEL-AVlV
TREBLlNKA by road
He was born here
in
and has been here
even since.
He lived at this very spot?
Right here.
Then he had a front-row
seat for what happened.
Naturally.
You could go up close or
watch from a distance.
CZESLAW BOROWl
They had land on the far
side of the station.
To work it, he had
to cross the track,
so he could see everything.
Does he remember the first
convoy of Jews
from Warsaw
on July ?
Yes.
He recalls the first
convoy very well,
and when all those Jews
were brought here,
people wondered, ''what's to
be done with them?''
Clearly, they'd be killed,
but no one yet knew how.
When people began to
understand what was happening
they were appalled, and they
commented privately
that since the world began,
no one had ever murdered so
many people that way.
While all this was happening
before their eyes,
normal life went on?
They worked their fields?
Certainly they worked,
but not
as willingly as usual.
They had to work,
but when they saw all this,
they bought,
what if our house is
surrounded and we're arrested.
Were they afraid for
the Jews, too?
Well, he says,
it's this way :
if l cut my finger,
it doesn't hurt him.
They saw that happened to
the Jews : the convoy came in
and then went
to the camp, and
the people vanished.
He had a field under
yards from the camp.
He also worked during
the German occupation.
He worked his field?
Yes.
He saw how they were
asphyxiated,
he heard them scream,
he saw that.
There's a small hill : he
could see quite a bit.
What did he say?
They couln't stop
and watch.
lt was forbidden. The
Ukrainians shot at them.
But they could work a field
yards from the camp?
They could.
So occasionally he could
steal a glance,
if the Ukrainians
weren't looking.
He worked with
his eyes lowered?
Yes.
He worked by the barbed wire
and heard awful screams.
His field was there?
Yes, right up close.
lt wasn't forbidden
to work there.
So he worked,
he farmed there?
Yes. Where the camp is now,
was partly his field.
lt was off limits, but they
heard everything.
lt didn't bother him to work
so near those screams?
At first is was unbearable.
Then you got used to it.
You get used to anything?
Yes.
Now he thinks... impossible.
Yet it was true.
So he was the convoys
arriving.
There were to cars
in each convoy
and there were
two locomotives
.that took the convoys
into the camp,
taking cars at a time.
And the cars came
back empty?
Yes.
Does he remember...?
Here's how it happened :
the locomotive picked up
cars and took them to the camp
That took maybe an hour,
and the empty cars
came back here.
Then the next cars
were taken, and meanwhile,
the people in the first
were already dead.
They waited, they wept,
they asked for water,
they died.
Sometimes they were naked in
the cars, up to people.
This is where they gave the
Jews water, he says.
Where was that?
Here. When the convoys
arrived, they gave water to
Who gave the Jews water?
We did, the Poles.
There was a tiny well,
we took a bottle and...
Wasn't it dangerous
to give them water?
Very dangerous.
You could be killed for
giving a glass of water.
But we gave
them water anyway.
ls it very cold
here in winter?
lt depends.
lt can get to minus
minus .
Which was harder on the
Jews, summer or winter?
Waiting here, l mean.
He thinks winter, because
they were very cold.
They were so packed in the
cars, maybe they weren't cold.
ln summer they stifled :
it was very hot.
The Jews were very thirsty.
They tried to get out.
Were there corpses
in the cars on arrival?
Obviously.
They were so packed in that
even those still alive
sat on corpses for
lack of space.
Didn't people here who
went by the trains
look through the cracks
in the cars?
Yes, they could look in
sometimes as they went by.
When they were allowed,
they gave them water, too.
How did the Jews
try to get out?
The doors weren't opened.
How'd they get out?
Through the windows.
They removed
the barbed wire
and came out
of the windows.
They jumped, of course.
Sometimes they just
deliberately
sat down on the ground,
and the guards came and
shot them in the head.
They jumped from the cars...
What a sight!
Jumping from the windows.
There was a mother
and child.
- Jewish?
- Yes.
She tried to run away
and they shot her
in the heart.
Shot who... the mother?
Yes, the mother.
This gentleman has lived here
a long time, he can't forget.
He says that now he can't
understand how a man
can do that to another
human being.
lt's inconceivable,
beyond understanding.
Once when the Jews asked for
water, a Ukrainian went by,
and forbade giving any.
The Jewish woman had asked
for water...
threw her pot at his head.
The Ukrainian moved back,
maybe ten yards, and opened
fire on the car.
Blood and brains were
all over the place.
Lots of people
opened the doors,
or escaped through
the windows.
Sometimes the Ukrainians
fired through the car walls.
lt happened chiefly
at night.
When the Jews talked to each
other, as he showed us,
the Ukrainians wanted
things quiet,
and they asked... yes,
asked them to shut up.
So the Jews shut up and
the guard moved off.
Then the Jews started talking
again, in their language,
as he says, ra-ra-ra,
and so on.
What's he mean, la-la-la,
what's he trying to imitate?
Their language.
No, ask him :
was the Jews' noise
something special ?
They spoke Jew.
Does Mr. Borowi
understand ''Jew'' ?
No.
Did he hear screams
behind his locomotive ?
Obviously, since the
locomotive was next to the camp.
They screamed,
asked for water.
The screams from the cars
closest to the locomotive
could be heard very well.
Can one get used to that ?
- No. -
lt was extremely
distressing to him.
He knew that the people
behind him where human, like him.
The Germans gave him
and the other workers
vodka to drink.
Without drinking, they
couldn't have done it.
There was a bonus
that they were paid not
in money, but in liquor.
Those who worked on other
trains didn't get this bonus.
HENRlK GAWKOWSKY
He drank every drop he got
because without liquor
he couldn't stand the
stench when he got here.
They even bought more liquor
on their own,
to get drunk on.
From the station to the
unloading ramp in the camp,
how many miles ?
Four.
ABRAHAM BOMBA
We traveled for two days.
On the morning
of the second day we saw
that we had left
Czechoslovakia
and were heading east.
lt wasn't the SS
guarding us,
but the Schutzpolizei,
the police,
in green uniforms.
We were in ordinary
passenger cars.
All the seats were filled.
You couldn't choose.
There were all numbered
and assigned.
ln my compartment there was
an elderly couple.
l still remember :
the good man
was always hungry and
his wife scolded him,
saying they'd have
no food left
for the future.
RlCHARD GLAZAR
Then, on the second day,
l saw a sign for Malkinia.
We went on a little farther.
Then, very slowly, the train
turned off of
the main track,
and rolled at a walking
pace through a wood.
While he looked out,
we'd been able to open
a window.
The old man in our
compartment saw a boy...
Cows were grazing...
And he asked
the boy in signs,
''Where are we ?''
And the kid made
a funny gesture. This !
Across the throat.
A Pole ?
A Pole.
Where was this ?
At the station ?
lt was where the train
had stopped.
On one side
was the wood,
and on the other
were fields.
And there was a farmer
in a field ?
We saw cows
watched over
by a young man,
a farmhand.
And one of you
questioned him ?
Not in words, but in signs,
we asked,
''What's going on here ?''
And he made that gesture.
Like this.
We didn't really
pay much attention to him.
We couldn't figure out
what he meant.
Once there were foreign
Jews -- they were this fat...
This fat ?
Riding in passenger cars.
There was a dining car,
they could drink,
and walk around, too.
They said they were going
to a factory.
On arrival they saw kind
of a factory it was.
We'd gesture...
Gesture how ?
That they'd be killed.
These people made
that sign ?
He says the Jews didn't
believe it.
But what does
that gesture mean ?
That death awaited them.
The people who had
a chance
to get near the Jews did
that to warn them...
He did it too ?
That they'd be hanged,
killed, slain.
Yes.
Even foreign Jews from
Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
from France too, surely.
And from Holland...
These didn't know,
but the Polish Jews knew.
ln the small cities
in the area,
it was talked about.
So the Polish Jews were
forewarned, but not the others.
Who'd they warn, Polish
Jews or the others ?
All the Jews.
He says the foreign Jews
arrived here in passenger
they were well dressed,
in white shirts,
there were flowers in the
cars, and they played cards.
From what l know,
that was very rare,
Jews shipped
in passanger cars.
Most arrived
in cattle cars.
lt's not true.
lt's not true ?
What did Mrs. Gawkowska say?
She said he may not have
seen everything.
He says he did.
Once, at the Malkinia
station, for example,
a foreign Jew left
the train
to buy something at the bar.
The train pulled out and
he ran after it...
To catch up to it.
So he went past these
''pullmans'', as he calls them
those Jews who were calm,
unsuspecting,
and he made
that gesture to them.
To all the Jews,
in principle.
He just went along
the platform ! Ask him !
Yes. The road was
as it is now.
When the guard
wasn't looking,
he made that gesture.
Ask Mr. Gawkowski
why he looks so sad.
Because l saw men marching
to their death.
Precisely where are we now ?
lt's not far... a mile
and a half from here.
What, the camp ?
What's that dirt road
he's indicating ?
That's where the rail line
into the camp was.
Did Mr. Gawkowski, aside
from the trains of deportees
he drove from Warsaw
or Bialystok
to the Treblinka station...
Did he ever drive
the deportee cars
into the camp from
the Treblinka station ?
Did he do it often ?
Two or three times a week.
Over how long a period ?
Around a year and a half.
That is, throughout
the camp's existence ?
This is the ramp.
Here he is, he goes to the
end with his locomotive,
and he has the cars
behind him.
No, they're in front of him.
He pushed them ?
That's right,
he pushed them.
ln February l began
working here as
an assistant switchman.
The station building,
the rails, the platforms
are just as they were in
? Nothing's changed ?
Nothing.
Exactly where did
the camp begin ?
JAN PlWONSKY
l'll show you exactly.
Here,
there was a fence that ran
to those trees you see there.
And another fence, that ran
to those trees over there.
So l'm standing inside the
camp perimeter, right ?
That's right.
Where l am now is feet
from the station,
and l'm already
outside the camp.
Yes.
So this is the Polish part,
and over there was death.
Yes.
On German orders, Polish
railmen split up the trains.
So the locomotive
took cars,
and headed toward Chelm.
When it reached a switch,
it pushed the cars into the camp
on the other track we can see.
The ramp began there.
So here we're
outside the camp,
and back here we enter it.
Unlike Treblinka, the statio
here is part of the camp.
And at this point
we are inside the camp.
This track was
inside the camp.
And it's exactly as it was ?
Yes, the same track.
lt hasn't changed since then.
Where we are now is what was
called the ramp, right ?
Yes, those to be
exterminated were unloaded.
So where we're standing is
where Jews were
unloaded before being gassed.
Yes.
Did foreign Jews arrive here
in passenger cars, too ?
Not always.
Often the richest Jews,
from Belgium, Holland,
France,
arrived in passenger cars,
sometimes even in st class.
They were usually better
treated by the guards.
Especially the convoys
of Western European Jews
waiting their turn here,
Polish railmen saw the women
making up, combing their hair
wholly unaware of what
awaited them minutes later.
They dolled up.
And the Poles couldn't tell
them anything : the guards
forbad contact
with the future victims.
l suppose were there fine
days like today.
Unfortunately,
some were even finer.
RUDOLF VRBA, survivor of
AUSCHWlTZ - NEW YORK
AUSCHWlTZ - BlRKENAU
And suddenly it started :
the yelling and screaming.
''All out, everybody out !''
All those shouts,
the uproar, the tumult !
''Out ! Get out !
''Leave the baggage !''
We got out stepping
on each other.
We saw men
wearing blue armbands.
Some carried whips.
We saw some SS men.
Green uniforms,
black uniforms...
We were a mass,
and the mass swept
us along.
lt was irresistible.
lt had to move
to another place.
l saw the others undressing.
And l hear : ''get undressed!
You're to be disinfected !''
As l waited, already naked,
l noticed the
SS men separating
out some people.
These were told
to get dressed.
A passing SS man suddenly
stopped in front of me,
looked me over, and said :
''Yes, you too, quick, join
the others, get dressed.
''You're going to work here,
and if you're good,
''You can be a kapo --
a squad leader.''
BlRKENAU : the ramp
We were taken to a barracks.
The whole place stank.
Piled about five feet high
in a jumbled mass,
where all the things people
could conceivably have brought.
Clothes, suitcases,
everything
stacked in a solid mass.
On top of it, jumping
around like demons.
People were
making bundles,
and carrying them outside.
l was turned over to one
of these men.
His armband said,
''Squad Leader''.
He shouted,
and l understood
that l was also to pick up
clothing, bundle it,
and take it somewhere.
As l worked, l asked him :
''What's going on ? The undressed
ones... Where are they ?
And he replied :
''Dead ! All dead !''
But it still hadn't sunk in,
l didn't believe it.
He'd used the Yiddish word.
lt was the first time
l'd heard Yiddish spoken.
He didn't say it very loud,
and l saw he had tears
in his eyes.
Suddenly he started
shouting,
and raised his whip.
Out of the corner of my eyes,
l saw an SS man coming.
And l understood that l was
to ask no more questions,
but just to rush outside
with the package.
All l could think of then
was my friend Carel Unger.
He'd been at the rear
of the train,
in a section that had been
uncoupled and left outside.
l needed someone.
Near me. With me.
Then l saw him.
He was in the nd group.
He'd been spared too.
On the way, somehow, he had
learned, he already knew.
He looked at me,
all he said was : ''Richard,
my father, mother, brother...
He had learned
on the way there.
Your meeting with Carel :
how long after your arrival
did it happen ?
lt was... around minutes
after we reached Treblinka.
Then l left the barracks,
and had my first look
at the vast space
that l soon
learned was called
''the sorting place''.
lt was buried under mountain
of objects of all kinds.
Mountains of shoes,
of clothes, feet high.
l thought about it
and said to Carel :
''lt's a hurricane,
a raging sea.
''We're shipwrecked.
And we're still alive.
''We must do nothing
''but watch
for every new wave,
''float on it,
''get ready
for the next wave,
''and ride the wave at all
costs. And nothing else.''
Greenery, sand
everywhere else.
At night, we were
put into a barracks.
lt just had a sand floor.
Nothing else.
Each of us simply dropped
where he stood.
Half-asleep, l heard
some men hang themselves.
We didn't react then.
lt was almost normal.
Just as it wast normal
that for everyone
behind whom the gate
of Treblinka closed,
there was death,
had to be death,
for no one was supposed
to be left to bear witness.
l already knew that,
three hours after
arriving at Treblinka.
BERLlN
lNGE DEUTSCHKRON.
Born in BERLlN
Lived there throught
the war.
(in hiding beginning
in February )
Now lives in lSRAEL
FRANZ SUCHOMEL :
SS unterscharfuhrer
Are you ready ?
- Yes.
- Then we can...
We can begin.
How's your heart ?
ls everything in order ?
Oh, my heart... For the
moment, it's all right.
lf l have any pain,
l'll tell you.
We'll have to break off.
Of course.
But your health,
in general, is...
The weather today
suits me fine.
The barometric pressure is
high : that's good for me.
You look to be in good
shape, anyway.
Let's begin with Treblinka.
Certainly.
l think that's best.
lf you could give us
a description
of Treblinka.
How did it look
when you arrived ?
l believe you
got there in August ?
Was it August or ?
The th ?
l don't know exactly.
Around August .
l arrived there
with seven other men.
From Berlin ?
From Berlin.
From Lublin ?
From Berlin to Warsaw,
from Warsaw to Lublin,
from Lublin back to Warsaw
and from Warsaw to Treblinka.
What was Treblinka
like then ?
Treblinka then was operating
at full capacity.
Full capacity ?
Full capacity !
Trains arrived...
The Warsaw ghetto
was being emptied then.
Three trains arrived
in two days,
each with three, four, five
thousand people aboard,
all from Warsaw.
But at the same time,
other trains came in
from Kielce and
other places.
So three trains arrived,
and since the offensive
against Stalingrad was in fear,
the trainloads of Jews were
left on a station siding.
What's more,
the cars were French,
made of steel.
So that while Jews
arrived in Treblinka,
were dead.
ln the...
ln the cars.
They had slashed
their wrists, or just died.
The ones we unloaded
were half-dead
and half-mad.
ln the other trains
from Kielce
and elsewhere,
at least half were dead.
We stacked them
here, here,
here and here.
Thousands of people
piled one on top
of another.
On the ramp ?
On the ramp.
Stacked like wood.
ln addition,
other Jews, still alive,
waited there for two days :
the small gas-chambers
could no longer handle the number.
They functioned day and
night in that period.
Can you please describe,
very precisely,
your first impression
of Treblinka ?
Very precisely.
lt's very important.
My first impression
of Treblinka,
and that of some of the other
men, was catastrophic.
For we had not been told
how and what... that
people were being killed there.
That they hadn't told us.
You didn't know ?
No !
lncredible !
But true.
l didn't want to go.
That was proved
at my trial.
l was told :
''Mr. Suchomel, there are
big workshops there
''for tailors
and shoemakers,
''and you'll be
guarding them.''
But you knew
it was a camp ?
Yes. We were told :
''The Fuhrer ordered
a ressettlement program.
''lt's an
order from the Fuhrer.''
Understand ?
Ressetlement program...
No one ever spoke
of killing.
l understand.
Mr. Suchomel, we're not
discussing you,
only Treblinka.
You are a very important
eye-witness,
and you can explain
what Treblinka was.
But don't use my name.
No, l promised.
All right, you've arrived
at Treblinka.
So Stadie, the sarge,
showed us the camp
from end to end.
Just as we went by,
they were
opening
the gas-chamber doors,
and people fell out
like potatoes.
Naturally, that horrified
and appalled us.
We went back and sat down
on our suitcases
and cried like old women.
Each day, Jews
were chosen
to drag the corpses
to the mass graves.
ln the evening, the
Ukrainians drove those Jews
into the gas-chambers
or shot them.
Every day !
lt was in the hottest
days of August.
The ground undulated
likes waves
because of the gas.
From the bodies ?
Bear in mind, the graves
were maybe
feet deep,
all crammed with bodies !
A thin layer of sand
and the heat. You see ?
lt was a hell up there.
You saw that ?
Yes, just once,
the first day.
We pucked and wept.
You wept ?
We wept too, yes.
The smell was infernal.
Yes, because gas was
constantly escaping.
lt stank horribly,
for miles around.
Miles ?
Miles !
You could smell it all around,
not just in the camp ?
Everywhere. lt depended on
the wind. The stink
was carried on the wind.
Understand ?
More people kept coming,
always more,
whom we hadn't
the facilities to kill.
Those gents were in a rush
to clean out the Warsaw ghetto.
The gas-chambers couldn't
handle the load.
The small gas-chambers.
The Jews had to wait
their turn for a day,
days, days.
They foresaw
what was coming.
They foresaw it.
They may not have been
certain, but many knew.
There were Jewish
women who
slashed their daughters'
wrists at night,
then cut their own.
Others poisoned themselves.
They heard the engine
feeding the gas-chamber.
A tank engine was used
in that gas-chamber.
At Treblinka the only gas
used was engine exhaust.
Zyklon gas,
that was Auschwitz.
Because of the delay,
Eberl, the camp commandant,
phoned Lublin and said :
''We can't go on this way.
l can't do it any longer.
''We have to break off.''
Overnight, Wirth arrived.
He inspected everything
and then left.
He returned with people
from Belzec,
experts.
Wirth arranged to suspend
the trains.
The corpses lying there
were cleared away.
That was the period
of the old gas-chambers.
Because there were
so many dead
that couldn't be gotten
rid off,
the bodies piled up
around the gas-chambers
and stayed there
for days.
Under this pile of bodies
was a cesspool :
inches deep,
full of blood, worms...
and shit.
No one wanted
to clean it out.
The Jews preferred
to be shot
rather than work there.
Preferred to be shot ?
lt was awful. Burying their
own people, seeing it all...
The dead flesh came off
in their hands.
So Wirth went there
himself
with a few Germans
and had long belts
rigged up
that were wrapped around
the dead torsos to pull them...
Who did that ?
SS men.
Wirth ?
SS men and Jews.
SS men and Jews !
Jews too ?
Jews too !
What did the Germans do ?
They forced the Jews to...
They beat them ?
Or they themselves helped
with the clean-up.
Which Germans did that ?
Some of our guards who
were assigned up there.
The Germans themselves ?
They had to.
They were in command !
They were in command, but
they were also commanded.
l think the Jews did it.
ln that case, the Germans
had to lend a hand.
The black execution wall
in the courtyard of block ll
at AUSCHWlTZ l,
the original camp
Filip, on that Sunday
in May
when you first entered
the Auschwitz creatorium,
how old were you ?
Twenty.
lt was a Sunday in May.
lt was a Sunday in May.
We were locked in an
underground cell in Block
We were held in secret.
Then some SS men appeared
and marched us along
a street in the camp.
We went through a gate,
and around feet away,
feet from the gate,
l suddenly saw a building.
lt had a flat roof,
and a smokestack.
l saw a door in the rear.
l thought they were taking
us to be shot.
FlLlP MULLER :
survivor of the liquidations
of the AUSCHWlTZ
''special detail''.
Suddenly, before a door
under a lamp in
the middle of this building.
a young SS man told us :
''lnside, filthy swine !''
We entered a corridor.
They drove us along it.
Right away, the stench,
the smoke choked me.
They kept on chasing us
and then l made out
the shapes
of the first two ovens.
Between the ovens, some
Jewish prisoners were working.
We were in the crematorium's
incineration chamber
in Camp l at Auschwitz.
From there, they herded us
to another big room,
and told us to undress
the corpses.
l looked around me.
There were hundreds
of bodies,
all dressed.
Piled with the corpses
were suitcases, bundles
and, scattered everywhere,
strange, blueish-purple
crystals.
l couldn't understand
any of it.
lt was like a blow on the
head... as if you'd been stunned.
l didn't even know
where l was.
Above all, l couldn't
understand how they
managed to kill
so many people at once.
When we undressed
some of them,
the order was given
to feed the ovens.
Suddenly, an SS man
rushed up and told me :
''Get out of here !
Go stir the bodies !''
What did he mean,
''Stir the bodies'' ?
l entered
the cremation chamber.
There was a Jewish prisoner,
Fischel, who later
became a squad leader.
He looked at me
and l watched him
poke the fire
with a long rod.
He told me,
''Do as l'm doing
''or the SS will kill you.''
l picked up a poker
and did as he was doing.
A poker ?
A steel poker.
l obeyed Fischel's order.
At that point l was in shock
as if l'd been hypnotized,
ready to do
whatever l was told.
l was so mindless,
so horrified
that l did everything
Fischel told me.
So the ovens were fed,
but we were so
inexperienced
that we left
the fans on
too long.
The fans ?
Yes. There were fans to make
the fire hotter.
They worked too long...
The firebrick
suddenly exploded,
blocking the pipes
linking
the Auschwitz
crematorium
with the smokestack.
Cremation was interrupted.
The ovens were out
of action.
That evening,
some trucks came,
and we had to load the rest,
some bodies,
into the trucks.
Then we were taken...
l still
don't know where...
but probably
to a field at Birkenau.
We were ordered
to unload the bodies
and put them in a pit.
There was a ditch,
an artificial pit.
Suddenly, water gushed up
from underground
and swept
the bodies down.
When night came,
we had to stop
that horrible work.
We were loaded
into the trucks
and returned
to Auschwitz.
The next day, we were taken
to the same place
but the water had risen.
Some SS men came
with a firetruck
and pumped out the water.
We had to go down
into that muddy pit
to stack up the bodies.
But they were slimy.
For example, l grasped a
woman, but her hands...
Her hand was slippery, slimy
l tried to pull her,
but l fell over backward,
into the water, the mud.
lt was the same
for all of us.
Up to, at the edge of the pit,
Aumeyer and Grabner yelled,
''Get cracking, you filth,
you bastards !
''We'll show you,
you bunch of shits !''
And in these...
how shall l say ?
-circumstances- of my ''friends''
couldn't take any more.
One was a French student.
All Jews !
They were exhausted.
They just lay there
in the mud.
Aumeyer called
one of his SS men :
''Go on, finish off
those swine !''
They were exhausted. And
they were shot in the pit.
There were no crematorium
at Birkenau then ?
No, there weren't
any there yet.
Birkenau still wasn't
completely set up.
Only Camp Bl, which was late
the women's camp, existed.
lt wasn't until the spring of
that skilled workmen
and unskilled laborers,
all Jews,
must have gone
to work here
and built the crematorium.
Each crematorium
had ovens,
a big undressing room,
around square feet,
and a big gas-chamber
where up to people
at once could be gassed.
TREBLlNKA
The new gas-chambers were
built in September .
Who built them ?
Hackenhold and
Lambert supervised
the Jews who did the work
the bricklaying, at least.
Ukrainian carpenters
made the doors.
The gas-chamber doors
themselves
were armored bunker doors.
l think they were brought
from Bialystok,
from some Russian bunkers.
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
What was the capacity of
the new gas-chambers ?
There were of them, right?
Yes. But the old ones
hadn't been demolished.
When there were a lot of
trains, a lot of people,
the old ovens were put back
into service.
And here... the Jews say
there were on each side.
l say there were
but l'm not sure.
ln any case, only the upper
row, on this side,
was in action.
Why not the other side ?
Disposing the bodies would
have been to complicated.
Too far ?
Yes. Up there, Wirth had
built the death camp,
assigning a detail
of Jewish workers to it.
The detail had
a fixer number in it,
around people,
who worked only
in the death camp.
But what was the capacity
of the new gas-chambers ?
The new gas-chambers...
Let's see... They could
finish off people
in two hours.
How many people at once
in a single gas-chamber ?
l can't say exactly.
The Jews say .
?
That's right, .
lmagine a room this size.
They put more in
at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was a factory !
And Treblinka ?
l'll give you
my definition.
Keep this is mind :
Treblinka was a primitive,
but efficient production
line of death.
A production line ?
Of death. Understand ?
Yes.
But primitive...?
Primitive, yes.
But it worked well, that
production line of death.
Was Belzec
even more rudimentary ?
Belzec was the laboratory.
Wirth was camp commandant.
He tried everything
imaginable there.
He got off
on the wrong foot.
The pits were overflowing
and the cesspool seeped
out in front of the SS mess-hall.
lt stank...
in front of the mess-hall,
in front of their barracks.
Were you at Belzec ?
No. Wirth with his own men.
With Franz,
with Oberhauser
and Hackenhold...
he tried everything there.
Those had to put the bodies
in the pits themselves
so that Wirth could see
how much space he needed.
And when they rebelled...
Franz refused...
Wirth beat Franz with a whip.
He whipped Hackenhold, too.
You see ?
Kurt Franz ?
Kurt Franz.
That's how Wirth was. Then,
with that experience behind
he came to Treblinka.
Excuse me.
How many quarts of beer
a day do you sell ?
You can't tell me ?
l'd rather not.
l have my reasons.
But why not ?
How many quarts of beer
a day do you sell ?
Go on, tell him.
Tell him what ?
Just tell him approximately.
quarts.
That's a lot !
Have you worked here long ?
Around years.
Why are you hiding...
l have my reasons.
your face ?
l have my reasons.
What reasons ?
Never mind.
Why not ?
Do you recognize this man ?
No ? Christian Wirth ?
Mr. Oberhauser !
Do you remember Belzec ?
No memories of Belzec ?
Of the overflowing graves ?
You don't remember ?
MUNlCH
WUPPERAL : ANTON SPlESS,
German state prosecutor
at the TREBLlNKA trial
(Frankfurt, )
When the Action itself
first got under way,
it was almost totally
improvised.
At Treblinka, for example,
the commandant, Eberl, let
more trains come in
than the camp
could handle.
lt was a disaster !
Mountains of corpses !
Word of this foul-up
reached the head
of the Reinhard Action,
Odilo Globocznik, in Lublin.
He went to Treblinka
to see what was
happening.
There's a very concrete
account of the trip
by his former driver,
Oberhauser.
Globocznik arrived
on a hot day in August.
The camp was permeated
with the stench
of rotting flesh.
Globocznik didn't even
bother to enter the camp.
He stopped here, before
the commandant's office,
sent for Eberl
and greeted him
with these words :
''How dare you accept
so many every day
''when you can only
process ?''
Operations were suspended,
Eberl was transferred
and Wirth came,
followed immediately
by Stangl,
and the camp was completely
reorganized.
The Reinhard Action covered
extermination camp :
Treblinka,
Sobibor and Belsec.
There's also talk of death
camps on the Bug River,
for they were all located
on or near the Bug.
The gas-chambers were
the heart of the camp.
They were built first,
in a wood, or in a field,
as at Treblinka.
The gas-chambers were
the only stone buildings.
All the others
were wooden sheds.
These camps weren't built
to last.
Himmler was in a hurry to
begin the ''final solution''.
The Germans had to capitaliz
on their eastward advance
and use this remote
back-country to carry out
their mass murder
as secretely as possible.
So at first
they couldn't manage
the perfection they
achieved months later.
Near the end of March
sizeable groups of Jews
were herded here,
groups of to people.
Several trains arrived
with sections of barracks
with posts, barbed wire, bricks...
and construction of the camp
as such began.
The Jews unloaded
these cars
and carted the sections
of barracks to the camp.
The Germans made them work
extremely fast.
When we saw the pace
they worked at...
lt was extremely brutal.
When we saw the complex
being built, and the fence,
which, after all,
enclosed a vast space,
we realized that what
the Germans were building
wasn't meant
to aid mankind.
Early in June,
the first convoy arrived.
l'd say there were
over cars.
With the convoy were SS men
in black uniforms.
lt happened one afternoon.
He had just finished work.
JAN PlWONSKl
But he got on his bicycle
and went home.
Why ?
l merely thought
these people had come
to build the camp,
as the others
has before them.
That convoy...
There was no way of knowing
that it was
the first earmarked
for extermination.
Besides,
he couldn't have known
that Sobibor would be
a place for the mass
extermination of the Jewish.
The next morning, when
l came here to work,
the station was
absolutely silent,
and we realized,
after talking with the Poles
who worked at the station here
that something utterly
incomprehensible had happened.
First of all, when the camp
was being built,
there were orders shouted in
German, there were screams,
Jews were working at the run
there were shots,
and here there was
that silence,
no work crews,
a really total silence.
cars had arrived,
and then... nothing.
lt was all very strange.
lt was the silence
that tipped them off ?
That's right.
Can he describe
that silence ?
lt was a silence...
Nothing was going on in the
camp. You heard nothing.
Nothing moved.
So then they began
to wonder,
''Where have
they put those Jews ?''
Cell Block
at Auschwitz ,
is where the Special Work
Detail was held.
The cell was underground,
isolated.
For we were...
''bearers of secrets'', we
were reprieved dead men.
We weren't allowed
to talk to anyone,
or contact any prisoner,
or even the SS.
Only those is charge
of the ''Action''.
There was a window.
We heard what happened
in the courtyard.
The executions,
the victims' cries,
the screams, but
he couldn't see anything.
This went on
for several days.
One night an SS man came
from the political section.
lt was around A.M.
The whole camp
was still asleep.
There wasn't a sound
in the camp.
We were again
taken out of our cell,
and led to the crematorium.
Theren, for the first time,
l saw
the procedure used
with those
who came in alive.
We were lined up against
a wall,
and told : ''No one may talk
to those people''.
Suddenly, the wooden door
to the crematorium courtyard
opened, and to
people filed in.
old people, and women.
They carried bundles,
wore the Star of David.
Even from a distance,
l could tell
they were Polish Jews,
probably from Upper Silesia,
from the Sosnowitz ghetto,
some miles from Auschwitz.
FlLlP MULLER
l caught some
of the things they said.
l heard ''fachowitz'',
meaning ''skilled worker''.
And ''Malach-ha-Mawis'',
which means ''the angel
of death'' in Yiddish.
Also, ''harginnen'' :
''they're going to kill us''.
From what l could hear,
l clearly understood the
struggle going on inside them.
Sometimes they spoke of work
probably hoping
that they'd be put to work.
Or they spoke of ''Malach-ha-
Mawis'', the angel of death.
The conflicting words echoed
the conflict in their feelings.
Then a sudden silence
fell over those gathered
in the crematorium courtyard.
All eyes converged
on the flat roof
of the crematorium.
Who was standing there ?
Aumeyer, of the SS,
Grabner, the head of
the political section,
And Hossler, the SS officer.
Aumeyer addressed the crowd:
''You're here to work,
''for our soldiers
fighting at the front.
''Those who can work
will be all right.''
lt was obvious
that hope flared
in those people.
You could feel it clearly.
The executioners had gotten
past the first obstacle.
He saw it was succeeding.
Then Grabner spoke up :
''We need masons,
electricians,
''all the trades.''
Next, Hossler took over.
He pointed to a short man
in the crowd.
l can still see him.
''What's your trade ?''
The man said,
''Mr. Officer, l'm a tailor.''
''A tailor ? What kind of
a tailor ?''
''A man's... No, for both
men and women.''
''Wonderful ! We need people
like you in our workshops.''
Then he questioned a woman :
''What's your trade ?''
''Nurse'', she replied.
''Splendid ! We need nurses
in our hospitals
''for our soldiers.
''We need all of you !
But first, undress.
''You must be disinfected.
''We want you healthy.''
l could see the people
were calmer,
reassured by what
they'd heard,
and they began to undress.
Even if they still
had their doubts,
if you want to live,
you must hope.
Their clothing remained
in the courtyard,
scattered everywhere.
Aumeyer was beaming,
very proud of how
he'd handled things.
He turned to some of the
SS men and told them :
''You see ? That's the way
to do it !''
By this device,
a great leap forward
had been made :
Now the clothing
could be used.
RAUL HlLBERG, historian
FRANZ SCHALLlNG
First, explain to me...
How you came to Kulmhof
to Chelmno?
You were at Lodz, right ?
ln Lodz, yes.
ln Litzmannstadt.
We were on permanent
guard duty.
Protecting military
objectives : mills,
the roads, when Hitler
went to East Prussia.
lt was dreary,
and we were told :
''We're looking for men wanted
to break out of this routine.
So we volunteered.
We were issued
winter uniforms,
overcoats, fur hats,
fur-lined boots,
and or days later
we were told, ''We're off!''
We were put aboard
or trucks...
l 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 !''
You'll find out ?
You'll find out.
You weren't in the SS,
you were...
Police.
Which police ?
Security guards.
We were ordered to report to
the Deutsche Haus...
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 !''
Secret ?
''A top secret mission''.
''Sign this !''
We each had to sign.
There was a form ready
for each of us.
What did it say ?
lt was a pledge of secrecy.
We never even got to read
it through.
You had to take an oath ?
No, just sign,
promusing to...
...shut up about
whatever we'd see.
Shut up ?
Not say a word.
After we'd signed, we were
told : ''Final solution
''of the Jewish question.''
We didn't understand what
that meant.
So someone said...
He told us what was going
to happen there.
Someone said ''the final
solution of the Jewish question''.
You'd be assigned to
the ''final solution'' ?
Yes, but what did
that mean ?
We'd never heard
that before.
So it was explained to us.
Just when was this ?
Let's see... when was it...?
ln the winter of - .
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.
So you were
in the ''castle detail'' ?
That's right.
Can you describe
what you saw ?
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 the ghetto,
you can imagine !
l heard an SS man
shout at them :
''You're going
to be de-loused,
''and have a bath.
''You're going to work here.''
The Jews consented.
They said, ''Yes, that's what
we want to do.''
Was the castle big ?
Pretty big, with huge
front steps.
The SS man stood at the top
of the steps.
Then what happened ?
They were hustled into or
big rooms on the first floor.
They had to undress,
give up everything :
rings, gold, everything.
How long did the Jews
stay there ?
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.
Did the Jews enter
the van willingly ?
No, they were beaten.
Blows fell everywhere,
and the Jews understood.
They screamed.
lt was frightful !
Frightful !
l 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
the things thrown out of
the st-floor window into there.
Describe the gas vans.
Like moving vans.
Very big ?
They stretched, say,
from here to the window.
Just big trucks,
like moving vans,
with rear doors.
What system was used ?
How did they kill them ?
With exhaust fumes.
Exhaust fumes ?
lt 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.
Yes, but how ?
From the motor.
Yes, but through what ?
A pipe... a tube.
He fiddled around
under the truck.
l'm not sure how.
lt was just exhaust gas ?
That's all.
Who were the drivers ?
SS men.
All those men were SS.
Were there many
of these drivers ?
l don't know.
Were there O ?
Not that many.
or that's all.
l thinks there were vans,
one big, one smaller.
Did the driver sit
in the cabin of the van ?
Mrs. Uwe ?
No.
He climbed into the cabin
after the doors were closed
and started the motor.
Did he race the motor ?
l don't know.
Could you hear the sound
of the motor ?
Yes, from the gate we could
hear it turn over.
Was it a loud noise ?
The noise of a truck engine.
The van was stationary
while the motor ran ?
That's right.
Then it started moving.
We opened the gate and
it headed for the woods.
Were the people
already dead ?
l don't know.
lt was quiet.
No more screams.
No screams.
You couldn't hear anything
as they drove by.
He recalls : it was ,
days before the New Year.
They were routed out
at night,
and in the morning
they reached Chelmno.
There was a castle there.
When he entered
the castle courtyard,
he knew something awful
was going on.
He already understood.
The site of the castle
They saw clothes
and shoes
scattered
in the courtyard.
Yet they were alone there.
He knews his parents
has been through there,
and there wasn't
a Jew left.
They were taken down
into a cellar.
On a wall was written,
''No one leaves here alive.''
Graffiti in Yiddish.
There were lots of names.
He thinks it was the Jews
from villages around Chelmno
who had come before him,
who had written their names.
A few days after
New Year's,
they heard people arrive
in a truck one morning.
The people were taken
out of the truck
and up to the first floor
of the castle.
The Germans lied, saying
there were to be deloused.
They were chased down
the other side,
where a van was waiting.
The Germans pushed and beat
them with their weapons
to hustle them into
the trucks faster.
He heard people praying :
''Shma lsrael'',
and he heard the van'srear
doors being shut.
Their screams were heard,
becoming fainter
and fainter,
and when there was
total silence,
the van left.
He and the others were
brought out of the cellar.
They went upstairs
and gathered up
the clothes remaining
outside the supposed baths.
Did he understand
then how they'd died ?
MORDECHAl PODCHLEBNlK,
the survivor of the st
period of extermination
at CHELMNO
(the castel period)
Yes, first because there
had been rumors of it.
And when he went out, he saw
the sealed vans, so he knew.
He understood that people
were gassed in the vans ?
Yes, because he'd heard
the screams,
and heard
how they weakened,
and later the vans were
taken into the woods.
What were the vans like ?
Like the one that deliver
cigarettes here.
They were enclosed, with
double-leaf rear doors.
What color ?
The color the Germans used,
green, ordinary.
MARTHA MlCHELSOHN
How many German families were
there in Kulmhof (Chelmno)?
or , l'd say.
Germans from Wolhnia and
families from the Reich,
the Bauers and us.
And you ?
Us, the Michelsohns.
How did you wind up
in Kulmhof ?
l was born in Laage,
and l was sent to Kulmhof.
They were looking
for volunteer settlers,
and l signed up.
That's how l got there.
First in Warthbrucken
(Kolo),
then Chelmno... Kulmhof.
Directly from Laage ?
No, l left from Munster.
Did you opt to go
to Kulmhof ?
No, l asked for Wartheland.
Why ?
A pioneering spirit.
You were young !
Oh yes, l was young.
You wanted to be useful ?
Yes.
What was your first
impression of Wartheland ?
lt was primitive.
Super-primitive.
Meaning...?
Even worse,
worse than primitive.
Difficult to understand,
right ?
But why...?
The sanitary facilities
were disastrous.
The only toilet was in
Warthbrucken, in the town.
You had to go there.
The rest was a disaster.
Why a disaster ?
There were no toilets
at all !
There were privies.
l can't tell you
how primitive it was.
Astonishing !
Why did you choose such
a primitive place ?
l was young, you know.
You can't imagine
such places exist.
You don't believe it.
But that's how it was.
This was the whole village.
A very small village,
straggling along the road.
Just a few houses.
There was the church,
the castle,
a store, too,
the administrative
building and the school.
The castle was
next to the church,
with a high board
fence around both.
How far was your house
from the church ?
lt was just opposite...
feet.
Mrs. MlCHELSOHN
was the Nazi teacher's wife
Did you see the gas vans ?
No... Yes, from the outside.
They shuttled back and forth
l never looke inside...
l didn't see Jews in them.
l only saw things
from outside,
the Jews' arrival,
their disposition,
how they were
loaded aboard.
Since World War l,
the castle
had been in ruins.
Only part of it
could still be used.
That's where the Jews
were taken.
This ruined castle
was used...
For housing and de-lousing
the Poles, and so on.
The Jews !
Yes, the Jews.
Why do you call them ''Poles''
and not ''Jews'' ?
Sometimes,
l get them mixed up.
There's a difference
between Poles and Jews ?
Oh yes !
What difference ?
The Poles weren't
exterminated,
and the Jews were.
That's the difference.
An external difference,
right ?
And the inner difference ?
l can't assess that.
l don't know enough
about psychology
and anthropology.
The difference between
the Poles and the Jews ?
Anyway, they couldn't
stand each other.
On January
the rabbi of Grabow,
Jacob Schulmann,
wrote the following letter
to his friends in Lodz :
''My very dear friends,''/ didn't write sooner:
/ was sure of what /'d heard.''A/as, to our great grief,
we now know a//.''/'ve spoken to an eye-witness
who managed to escape.''He to/d me everything.''They're exterminated in
Che/mno, near Dombie,''and they're a// buried in
the nearby Rzuszow forest.''The Jews are ki//ed in
ways by shooting or gas.''/t's just happened to
thousand of Lodz Jews.''Do not think that this is
being written by a madman.''A/as, it is the tragic,
horrib/e truth.''Horror, horror /
Man, shed thy c/othes,''cover thy head with ashes,
run in the streets''and dance
in thy madness.''/ am so weary that my pen
can no /onger write.''Creator of the universe,
he/p us /''
The creator did not help
the Jews of Grabow.
With their rabi, they all
died in the gas van at Chelmno
a few weeks later.
Chelmno is only miles
from Grabow.
Were there a lot of Jews
here in Grabow ?
A lot, quite a few.
They were sent to Chelmno.
Has she always lived
near the synagogue ?
Yes. The Poles' word is
''Buzinica'', not synagogue.
She says it's now
a furniture warehouse
but they didn't harm it from
a religious point of view.
lt hasn't been... desecrated.
Does she remember the rabbi
at the synagogue ?
The synagogue in GRABOW
She says she's now and
her memory isn't too good,
and the Jews have been gone
for years.
Barbara, tell this couple
they live in a lovely house.
Do they agree ? Do they
think it's a lovely house ?
Tell me about the decoration
of this house, the doors,
what's it mean ?
People used to do carvings
like that.
Did they decorate it
that way ?
No, it was the Jews again.
The Jews did it !
The door's a good
century old.
Did Jews own this house ?
Yes, all these houses.
All these houses
on the square were Jewish ?
Jews lived in all the ones
in front, on the street.
Where did the Poles live ?
ln the courtyards,
where the privies were.
There used to be
a store here.
What kind ?
A food store.
Owned by Jews ?
Yes.
So the Jews lived
in the front,
and the Poles in the coutyar
with the privies.
How long have these
two lived here ?
years.
Where'd they live before ?
ln a courtyard
across the square.
They've gotten rich.
- Them ?
- Yes.
Yes.
How did they get rich ?
They worked.
How old's the gentleman ?
He's .
He looks young and hale.
Do they remember
the Jews of Grabow ?
Yes. And when
they were deported, too.
They recall the deportation
of the Grabow Jews ?
He says he speaks ''Jew'' well.
He speaks ''Jew'' ?
As a kid he played with Jews
so he speaks ''Jew''.
First, they grouped them there,
where that restaurant is,
or in this square,
and took their gold.
An older among the Jews
collected the gold
and turned it
over the police.
That done, the Jews were put
in the Catholic church.
A lot of gold ?
Yes, the Jews had gold
and some
handsome candelabras.
Did the Poles know the Jews
would been killed at Chelmno?
Yes, they knew.
The Jews knew it, too.
Did the Jews try to do
something about it,
to rebel, to escape ?
The young tried to run away.
But the Germans
caught them
and maybe killed them
even more savagely.
ln every town and village,
or streets were closed
and the Jews kept under guard.
They couldn't leave there.
Then they were locked in the
Polish church here in Grabow
and later taken to Chelmno.
Background, the synagogue
The Germans threw children
as small as these
into the trucks
by the legs.
She saw that ?
- Old folks too.
- Threw kids into the trucks.
The Poles knew the Jews
would be gassed in Chelmno ?
Did this gentleman know ?
Does he recall the Jews'
deportation from Grabow ?
At that time,
he worked in the mill.
There, opposite ?
Yes, and they saw it all.
What did he think of it?
Was it a sad cheery about?
Yes. How could you
see that without sadness?
What trades were
the Jews in ?
They were tanners,
tradesmen,
tailors.
They sold things... eggs,
chickens, butter.
There were a lot of tailors,
tradesmen, too.
But most were tanners.
They had beards
and sidelocks.
Yes.
He says they weren't pretty.
They weren't pretty ?
They stank, too.
They stank ?
Why did they stink ?
Because they were tanners,
and the hides stink.
The Jewish women
were beautiful.
The Poles liked
to make love with them.
Are Polish women glad there
are no Jewesses left ?
What'd she say ?
That the women who are
her age now
also liked to make love.
So the Jewish women
were competitors ?
lt's crazy how the Poles
liked the little Jewesses !
Do the Poles miss
the little Jewesses ?
Naturally, such
beautiful women ?
Why ? What made them
so beautiful ?
lt was because they did
nothing. Polish women worked.
Jewish women only thought of
their beauty and clothes.
So Jewesses did no work !
None at all.
Why not ?
They were rich.
The Poles had to serve them
and work.
l heard her use
the word ''capital''.
The capital was
in the hands of the Jews.
Yes... You didn't
translate that.
Ask her again. So the capital
was in the Jews' hands ?
All Poland was
in the Jews' hands.
Are they glad there are
no more Jews here, or sad ?
lt doesn't bother them.
As you know,
Jews and Germans ran all
Polish industry before the war.
Did they like them
on the whole ?
Not much. Above all,
they were dishonest.
Was life in Grabow more fun
when the Jews were here ?
He'd rather not say.
Why does he call them
dishonest ?
They exploited the Poles.
That's what they lived off.
How did they exploit them ?
By imposing their prices.
Ask her if she likes
her house.
Yes,
but her children live
in much better houses.
ln modern houses !
They've all gone to college.
Great ! That's progress !
Her children are the
best-educated in the village.
Very good, Madam !
Long alive education !
lsn't this
a very old house ?
Yes, Jews lived here before.
So Jews used to live here.
Did she know them ?
Yes.
What was their name ?
She doesn't know.
What was their trade ?
Benkel, their name was.
And what was their trade ?
They had a butcher shop.
A butcher shop.
Why is she laughing ?
Because the gentleman
said it was
a butcher shop where you
could buy cheap meat. Beef !
What does he think about
their being gassed in trucks?
He says he doesn't like
that at all.
lf they'd gone to lsrael
of their own free will,
he might have been glad.
But killing them
was unpleasant.
Does he miss the Jews?
Yes, because there were
some beautiful Jewesses.
For the young,
it was... fine.
Are they sorry the Jews are
no longer here or pleased?
How can l tell?
l never went to school.
l can only think of how
l am now. Now l'm fine.
ls she better off?
Before the war,
she picked potatoes.
Now she sells eggs and
she's much better off.
Because the Jews are gone
or because of socialism?
She doesn't care, she's happy
because she's doing well now.
How did he feel about
losing his classmates?
lt still upsets him.
Does he miss the Jews?
Certainly.
They were goog Jews,
Madam says.
GRABOW in winter
The Jews came in trucks
and later there was
a narrow-gauge railway
that they arrived on.
They were packed tightly
in the trucks,
or in the cars
of the narrow-gauge
railway.
Lots of women and children.
Men too, but most
of them were old.
The strongest were
put in work details.
They walked with chains
on their legs.
ln the morning,
they fetched water,
looked for good,
and so on.
These weren't killed
right away.
That was done later.
l don't know
what became of them.
They didn't survive,
anyway.
Two of them did.
Only two.
They were in chains ?
- On the legs.
- All of them ?
The workers, yes. The others
were killed at once.
The Jewish work squad went
through the village in chain
Yes.
Could people speak to them ?
No, that was impossible.
Why ?
No one dared.
What ?
No one dared.
Understand ?
Yes... No one dared.
Why, was it dangerous ?
Yes, there were guards.
Anyway, people wanted nothing
to do with all that.
Do you see ?
Gets on your nerves,
seeing that every day.
You can't force a whole
village to watch such distress.
When the Jews arrived,
when they were pushed into
the church or the castle...
And the screams !
lt was frightful !
Depressing.
Day after day,
the same spectacle !
lt was terrible !
A sad spectacle !
They screamed. They knew
what was happening.
At first, the Jews thought
they were going to be de-loused.
But they soon understood.
Their screams
grew wilder and wilder.
Horrifying screams.
Screams of terror.
Because they know what
was happening to them.
Do you know how many Jews
were exterminated there ?
Four something
... ...
.
yes.
l knew it had a in it.
Sad, sad, sad !
''When the soldiers march,
''the girls open
their windows and doors...''
Do you remember a Jewish
child, a boy of ?
He was in the work squad.
He sang on the river.
On the Narwa River ?
Yes.
- ls he still alive ?
- Yes, he's alive.
He sang a German song
that the SS in Chelmno
taught him.
''When the soldiers march,
''the girls open
their windows and doors...''
SlMON SREBNlK,
the survivor of the nd
period of extermination
at CHELMNO
(the church period)
So it's a holiday
in Chemno !
What holiday ?
What's being celebrated ?
The birth of the Virgin
Mary. lt's her birthday.
lt's a huge crowd,
isn't it ?
But the weather's bad...
lt's raining.
Ask them if they're glad
to see Srebnik again.
Very. lt's a great pleasure.
Why ?
They're glad
to see him again,
because they know all
he's lived through.
Seeing him as he is now,
they're very pleased.
They're pleased ?
Why does the whole village
remember him ?
They remember him well
because he walked with
chains on his ankles,
and he sang on the river.
He was young,
he was skinny,
he looked ready
for his coffin.
Ripe for a coffin !
Did he seem happy or sad ?
Even the lady,
when she saw that child,
she told the German,
''Let that child go !''
He asked her, ''Where to ?''
''To his father and mother.''
Looking at the sky, he said:
''He'll soon go to them.''
The German said that ?
They remember when the Jews
were locked in this church ?
Yes, they do.
They brought them
to the church in trucks.
At what time of day ?
All day long
and into the night.
What happened ? Can they
describe it in detail ?
At first, the Jews
were taken to the castle.
Only later were they put
into the church.
The second phase, right !
ln the morning, they were
taken into the woods.
How were they taken
into the woods ?
ln very big armored vans.
The gas came through
the bottom.
Then they were carried
in gas vans, right ?
Yes, in gas vans.
Where did
the vans pick them up ?
The Jews ?
Yes.
Here, at the church door.
The trucks pulled up
where they are now ?
No, they went right
to the door.
The vans came
to the church door?
And they all knew
these were death vans?
Yes, they couldn't
help knowing.
They heard screams
at night ?
The Jews moaned,
they were hungry.
They were shut in
and starved.
Did they have any food ?
You couldn't look there.
You couldn't talk to a Jew.
Even going by on the road,
you couldn't look there.
Did they look anyway ?
Yes, vans came and the Jews
were moved farther off.
You could see them,
but on the sly.
ln sidelong glances.
That's right,
in sidelong glances.
What kinds of cries and
moans were heard at night ?
They called on Jesus
and Mary and God,
sometimes in German,
as she puts it.
The Jews called on Jesus,
Mary and God !
The presbytery
was full of suitcases.
The Jew's suitcases ?
Yes, and there was gold.
How does she know
there was gold ?
The procession !
We'll stop now.
Were there as many Jews
in the church
as there were
Christians today ?
Almost.
How many gas vans were
needed to empty it out?
An average of .
lt took vans to empty it!
ln a steady stream?
Yes.
The lady said before that
the Jews' suitcases were
dumped in the house opposite.
What was in this baggage?
Pots with false bottoms.
What was
in the false bottoms?
Valuables...
objects of value.
They also had gold
in their clothes.
When given food, the Jews
sometimes threw them valuables
or sometimes money.
They said before it was
forbidden to talk to Jews.
Absolutely forbidden.
Ask them if they miss the Jews.
Of course.
We wept too, Madam says.
And Mr. Kantarowski gave
them bread and cucumbers.
Why do they think all
this happened to the Jews ?
Because they were
the richest !
Many Poles were also
exterminated. Even priests.
Mr. Kantarowski
will tell us what
a friend told him.
lt happened in Myno
jewyce, near Warsaw.
Go on.
The Jews were
gathered in a square.
The rabbi
asked an SS man,
''Can l talk to them ?''
The guard said yes.
So the rabbi said that
around years ago,
the Jews condemned the
innocent Christ to death.
And when they did that,
they cried out :
''Let his blood fall on our
heads and on our sons' heads
Then the rabbi told them :
''Perhaps the time has come
for that, so let us do nothing.''
''Let's us go, let us do
as we're asked.''
He thinks the Jews expiated
the death of Christ ?
He doesn't think so, or even
that Christ sought revenge.
He didn't say that.
The rabbi said it.
lt was God's will,
that's all !
What'd she say ?
So Pilate washed
his hands and said :
''Christ is innocent'',
he sent Barrabas.
But the Jews cried out :
''let his blood fall
on our heads''
That's all,
now you know !
Was the road between
Chelmno, the village
and the woods where the pits
were asphalted as it is now?
The road was narrower then,
but it was asphalted.
How many feet were
the pits from the road ?
They were around , feet,
maybe ,
or feet away.
So even from the road,
you couldn't see them.
How fast did the vans go?
PAN FALBORSKl
At moderate speed,
kind of slow.
lt was a calculated speed
because they had to kill
the people inside
on the way.
When they went too fast, the
people weren't quite dead
on arrival in the woods.
By going slower, they had
time to kill the people inside.
Once a van skidded
on a curve.
Half an hour later,
l arrived
at the hut of a forest
warden named Sendjak.
He told me :
''Too bad you were late.
''You could have seen
a van that skidded.
''The rear of the van opened
''and the Jews fell
out on the road.
''They were still alive.
''Seeing those Jews crawling,
a Gestapo man
''took out his revolver
and shot them.
''He finished them all off.
''Then they brought Jews who
were working in the woods.
''They righted the van,
''and put the bodies
back inside.''
This was the road
the gas vans used.
There were people
in each van.
When they arrived,
the SS said :
''Open the doors !''
We opened them. The bodies
tumbled right out.
An SS man said, '' men
inside !'' These men
worked at the ovens.
They were experienced.
Another SS man screamed :
''Hurry up !
The other van's coming !''
We worked until the whole
shipment was burned.
That's how it went,
all day long. So it went.
l remember that once
they were still alive.
The ovens were full,
and the people lay
on the ground.
They were all moving,
they were
coming back to life,
and when they were thrown
into the ovens,
they were all conscious.
Alive.
They could feel
the fire burn them.
When we built the ovens, l
wondered what they were for.
An SS man told me :
''To make charcoal.
For laundry irons.''
That's what he told me.
l didn't know.
Whe the ovens
were completed,
the logs put in
and the gasoline
poured on and lighted,
and when the first gas
van arrived,
then we knew why
the ovens were built.
When l saw all that,
it didn't affect me.
Neither did the nd
or rd shipment.
l was only
and all l'd ever seen
until then
were dead bodies.
Maybe l didn't understand.
Maybe if l'd been older
l'd have understood,
but the fact is, l didn't.
l'd never seen
anything else.
ln the ghetto, l saw...
in the ghetto in Lodz,
that as soon as anyone
took a step, he fell dead.
l thought that's the way
things had to be,
it was normal. l'd walk
the streets of Lodz,
maybe yards,
and there'd be bodies.
People were hungry.
They went into the street
and they fell, they fell...
Sons took their father's
bread,
fathers took their sons',
everyone wanted
to stay alive.
So when l came here,
to Chelmno, l was already
l didn't care
about anything.
l thought : if l survive,
l just want one thing :
loaves of bread.
To eat. That's all.
That's what l thought.
But l dreamed, too, that
if l survive, l'll be the
only one left in the world,
not another soul
Just me. One.
Only me left in the world,
if l get out of here.
The RUHR
''Geheime Reichssache'',
secret Reich business.
''Berlin, June .
''Changes to be made to special
vehicles now in service
''at Kulmhof (Chelmno)
and to those now being built.
''Since December ,
'' have been processed
(verarbeite in German)
''by the vehicles in
service, with no major incidence.
''ln the light of observation
made so far, however,
''the following technical
changes are needed :
''First, the van's
normal load
''is usually to
per square yard.
''ln Saucer vehicles,
which are very spacious,
''maximum use of space
is impossible,
''not because of
any possible overload,
''but because loading
to full capacity
''would affect
the vehicle's stability.
''So reduction of the load
space seems necessary.
''lt must absolutely
be reduced by a yard,
''instead of trying to solve
the problem, as hitherto,
''by reducing the number
of pieces loaded.
''Besides, this extends
the operating time,
''as the empty void must also
be filled with carbon monoxid.
''On the other hand,
if the load space is reduced
''and the vehicle
is packed solid,
''the operating time can be
considerably shortened.
''The manufactures told us
during a discussion,
''that reducing the size
of the van's rear
''would throw it badly
off balance.
''The front axle, they claim,
would be overloaded.
''ln fact, the balance
is automatically restored
''because the merchandise
aboard displays
''during the operation
''a natural tendency to
rush to the rear doors, and
''mainly found lying there
at the end of the operation.
''So the front axle
is not overloaded.
''Secondly :
''The lighting must be better
protected than now.
''The lamps must be enclosed
in a steel grid
''to prevent
their being damaged.
''Lights could be
eliminated,
''since they apparently
are never used.
''However,
it has been observed
''that when the doors
are shut,
''the load always presses
hard against them
(against the doors )
''as soon as darkness sets in.
''This is because the load
naturally rushes
''toward the light
when darkness sets in,
''which makes closing
the doors difficult.
''Also, because of the
alarming nature of darkness,
''screaming always occurs
when the doors are closed.
''lt would therefore be
useful to light the lamp
''before and during the
first moments of the operation.
''Third :
''For easy cleaning
of the vehicle,
''there must be a sealed drain
in the middle of the floor.
''The drainage hole's cover,
to inches in diameter,
''would be equipped
with a slanting trap,
''so that fluid liquids
''can drain off during
the operation.
''During cleaning,
the drain can be used
''to evacuate
large pieces of dirt
''The aforementioned
technical changes
''are to be made
to vehicles in service
''only when they come
in for repairs.
''As for the vehicles
ordered from Saurer,
''they must be equipped with
all innovations and changes.
''shown by use and
experience to be necessary.
''Submitted for decision
to Gruppenleiter ll D,
''SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer
Walter Rauff.
''Signed Just.''
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
SS Unterscharführer
''Looking squarely ahead,
brave and joyous,
''at the world.
''The squads march to work.
''All that matters
to us now is Treblinka.
''lt is our destiny.
''That's why we've become
one with Treblinka
''in no time at all.
''We know only the word
of our Commander.
''We know only obedience
and duty.
''We want to serve,
to go on serving
''until little luck
ends it all. Hurray!''
Once more, but louder!
We're laughing about it
but it's so sad!
No one's laughing.
Don't be sore at me.
You want History.
l'm giving you History.
Franz wrote the words.
The melody came
from Buchenwald.
Camp Buchenwald,
where Franz was a guard.
New Jews who arrived
in the morning
New ''worker Jews''?
They were taught the song
and by evening
all of them had to sing it.
Sing it again.
All right.
lt's very important.
But loud!
''Looking squarely ahead,
brave and joyous,
''at the world.
''The squads march to work.
''All that matters to us
now is Treblinka.
''lt is our destiny.
''That's why we've become
one with Treblinka
''in no time at all.
''We know only the word
of our Commander.
''We know only obedience
and duty.
''We want to serve,
to go on serving
''until little luck
ends it all. Hurray!''
Satisfied?
That's unique.
No Jews knows that today!
How was it possible
in Treblinka
in peak days
to ''process''
people?
is too high.
But l read that figure
in court reports.
Sure.
To ''process''
people.
To liquidate them.
Mr Lanzmann,
that's an exaggeration.
Believe me.
How many?
to .
But we had to spend half
the night at it.
ln January, the trains
started arriving at a.m.
Always at a.m.?
Not always. Often.
Yes.
The schedules were erratic.
Yes.
Sometimes one came at a.m.
then another at noon,
maybe another late
in the evening. You see?
So a train arrived.
l'd like you
to describe in detail
the whole process.
During the peak period.
The trains left
Malkinia station,
for Treblinka station.
How many miles from
Malkinia to Treblinka?
About six miles.
Treblinka was a village.
A small village.
As a station, it gained
in importance because
of the transports of Jews.
They were divided into
sections of or
or cars.
Or cars?
And shunted
into Treblinka Camp,
and brought to the ramp.
The other cars waited,
loaded with people,
in Treblinka station.
The windows were closed
off with barbed wire,
so no one could get out.
On the roofs
were the ''hellhounds'',
the Ukrainians or Latvians.
The Latvians were the worst.
On the ramp, for each car,
there stood
two Jews
from Blue Squad
to speed things up.
They said : ''Get out,
get out. Hurry, hurry!''
There were also
Ukrainians and Germans.
How many Germans?
to .
No more?
No more. l can assure you.
How many Ukrainians?
Ten.
Ukrainians, Germans.
... people
from the Blue Squad.
Men from the Blue Squad
were here
and here. They sent
the people inside.
The Red Squad was here.
So the Red Squad was here.
What was
the Red Squad's Job?
The clothes...
to carry the clothes
taken off by the men
and by the women
up here immediately.
How much time elapsed between
unloading at the ramp
and the undressing,
how many minutes?
For the women,
let's say an hour in all.
An hour, an hour
and a half.
A whole train took hours.
Yes.
ln hours, it was all over.
Between the time
of arrival
and death.
lt was all over in hours?
hours, / hours,
hours.
A whole train?
Yes, a whole train.
And for only one section,
for cars, how long?
l can't calculate that
because the sections
came one after another
and people flooded
in constantly, understand?
Usually, the men waiting
who sat there, or there,
were sent straight up
via the ''funnel''.
The women were sent last.
At the end.
They had to go up there too,
and often waited here.
... at a time.
people. women
with children.
They had to wait here until
there was room here.
Naked.
Naked. ln summer and winter.
Winter in Treblinka
can be very cold.
Well, in winter, in December
anyway after Christmas.
But even before Christmas
it was cold as hell.
Between and minus .
l know : at first it was
cold as hell for us, too.
We didn't have
suitable uniforms.
lt was cold for us too.
But it was colder for.
For those poor people.
ln the ''funnel''.
ln the ''funnel'',
it was very, very cold.
Can you...
describe this ''funnel''
precisely? What was it like?
How wide? How was it for
the people in this ''funnel''?
lt was about feet wide.
As wide as this room.
On each side were walls
this high or this high.
Walls?
No, barbed wire.
Woven into the barbed wire
were branches
of pine trees.
You understand?
lt was know
as ''camouflage''.
There was a ''Camouflage
Squad'' of Jews.
They brought in
new branches every day.
From the woods?
That's right.
So everything was screened.
People couldn't see anything
to the left or right.
Nothing.
You couldn't see
through it.
lmpossible.
Here and here too.
Here, too.
lmpossible to see through.
Treblinka, where so many
people were exterminated
wasn't big, right?
lt wasn't big.
feet
at the widest point.
lt wasn't a rectangle,
more like a rhomboid.
You must realize that here
the ground was flat,
and here it began to rise.
And at the top of the slope
was the gas-chamber.
You had to climb up to it.
The ''funnel'' was called the
''Road to Heaven'', right?
The Jews called it
the ''Ascension''.
Also ''The Last Road''.
l only heard those
two names for it.
l need to see it.
The people go into
the ''funnel''.
Then what happens?
They're totally naked?
Totally naked. Here
stood two Ukrainians
guards.
Yes.
Mainly for the men.
lf the men wouldn't go in,
they were beaten
with whips.
Here too. Even here.
Ah, yes.
The men were ''driven'' along.
Not the women.
Not the women.
No, they weren't beaten.
Why such humanity?
l didn't see it.
l didn't see it. Maybe
they were beaten too.
Why not?
They were about
to die anyway.
Why not?
At the entrance to the
gas-chambers, undoubtedly.
ABRAHAM BOMBA
- lSRAEL -
ln the ''funnel'',
the women had to wait.
They heard the motors
of the gas-chamber.
Maybe they also heard people
screaming and imploring.
As they waited, ''death-panic''
overwhelmed them.
''Death-panic''
makes people let go.
They empty themselves, from
the front of the rear.
So often, where
the women stood,
there were or rows
of excrement.
They stood?
They could squat
or do it standing.
l didn't see them do it.
l only saw the feces.
Only women?
Not the men, only the women.
The men were chased through
the ''funnel''. The women
had to wait until
a gas-chamber was empty.
And the men?
No, they were whipped
in first.
You understand?
The men were always first?
Yes, they always
went first.
They didn't have to wait.
They weren't given time
to wait, no.
And this ''death-panic''...
When this ''death-panic''
sets in,
one lets go.
lt's well-known
when someone's terrified,
and knows he's about to
die. lt can happen in bed.
My mother was kneeling
by her bed.
Your mother?
Yes. Then there was
a big pile.
That's a fact.
lt's been medically
proved.
Since you wanted to know :
as soon as they were
unloaded,
if they'd been loaded
in Warsaw, or elsewhere,
they'd already been beaten.
Beaten hard, worse
than in Treblinka,
l can assure you.
Then during the train
journey, standing in cars,
no toilets, nothing,
hardly any water.
Fear.
Then the doors opened
and it started again,
''Bremze, bremze!''
''Czipsze, czipsze!''
l can't pronounce it :
l have
false teeth. lt's Polish.
''Bremze'' or ''czipsze''.
What does ''bremze'' mean?
lt's a Ukrainian word.
lt means ''faster''.
Again the chase...
a hail of whiplashes.
The SS man Kuttner's
whip was this long.
Women to the left,
men to the right.
And always more blows.
No respite?
None.
Go in there, strip.
Hurry, hurry!
Always running.
Always running.
Running and screaming.
That's how they were
finished off.
That was the technique.
Yes, the technique.
You must remember :
it had to go fast.
And the Blue Squad
also had the task
of leading the sick
and the aged...
To the ''infirmary'',
so as not to delay the flow
of the people to the gas-chambers.
Old people would have
slowed it down.
Assignment
to the ''infirmary''
was decided by Germans.
The Jews of the Blue Squad
only implemented
the decision :
leading the people there,
or carrying them
on stretchers.
Old women, sick children,
children whose mother
was sick,
or whose grandmother
was very old,
were sent along
with the grandma
because she didn't know
about the ''infirmary''.
lt had a white flag
with a red cross.
A passage led to it.
Until they reached the end,
they saw nothing.
Then they'd see
the dead in the pit.
They were forced to strip,
to sit on a sandbank,
and were killed
with a shot in the neck.
They fell into the pit.
There was always
a fire in the pit.
With rubbish,
paper and gasoline,
people burn very well.
RlCHARD GLAZAR
- S WlTZERLAN D -
The ''infirmary''
was a narrow site
very close to the ramp
to which the aged
were led.
l had to do this too.
This execution site
wasn't covered,
just an open place
with the roof,
but screened by a fence,
so no one could see in.
The way in was
a narrow passage,
very short,
but somewhat similar
to the ''funnel''.
A sort of tiny labyrinth.
ln the middle of it, there
was a pit.
And to the left
as one came in,
there was a little booth,
with a kind of wooden plank
in it,
like a springboard.
lf people were too weak
to stand on it,
they'd have to sit on it,
and then,
as the saying went
in Treblinka jargon,
SS man Miete would
''cure each one
''with a single pill'' :
a shot in the neck.
ln the peak periods,
that happened daily.
ln those days, the pit...
and it was at least
to feet deep...
was full of corpses.
There were also cases
of children who for
some reason arrived alone
or got separated
from their parents.
These children were led
to the ''infirmary''
and shot there.
The ''infirmary''
was also for us,
the Treblinka slaves,
the last stop.
Not the gas-chamber.
We always ended up
in the ''infirmary''.
AUSCHWITZ today.
The sorting station.
RUDOLF VRBA
Su rv ivor of AU SC HWlTZ
Before each gassing
operation,
the SS took sterned
precautions.
The crematorium was ringed
with the SS men.
Many SS men patrolled
the court
with dogs
and machine-guns.
To the right
were the steps
that led underground
to the ''undressing room''.
ln Birkenau, there were
crematoria,
crematorium ll,
lll and lV, V.
Crematorium ll
was similar to lll.
ln ll and lll,
the ''undressing room'' and
the gas-chambers
were underground.
A large ''undressing room''
of about square feet
and a large gas-chamber
where one could
gas up to people
at a time.
Crematorium lV and V
were of a different type
in that they weren't
located underground.
Everything
was at ground level.
ln lV and V,
there were gas-chambers
with a total capacity
of at most to
people at a time.
AU SC HWlTZ Museum
Model of crematoriums ll and lll
E lev ators hoisted bod ies
to the ovens
Crematorium ll and lll
had ovens each.
Crematorium lV and V
had ovens each.
As people reached
the crematorium,
they saw everything
this horribly
violent scene.
The whole area
was ringed with SS men.
Dogs barked.
Machine-guns.
They all, mainly the Polish
Jews, had misgivings.
They knew something
was seriously amiss.
But one of them
had the faintest
of notions
that in or hours
they'd be reduced to ashes.
When they reached the
''undressing room'', they saw
that it looked like
an lnternational
lnformation Center!
On the walls were
hooks
and each hook
had a number.
Beneath the hooks were
wooden benches.
So people could undress
''more comfortably'',
it was said.
And on the numerous
pillars
that held up this
underground ''undressing room'',
there were signs with slogan
in several languages :
''Clean is good!''
''Lice can kill!''
''Wash yourself!''
''To the disinfection area.''
All those signs
were only there
to lure people into the
gas-chambers already undress.
And to the left,
at a right-angle,
was the gas-chamber
with its massive door.
C rematorium lll :
the und ressing room
The gas chamber
ln Crematoria ll and lll,
Zyklon gas cystals were
poured in by a so-called
''SS-disinfection squad'',
through the ceiling,
and in Crematoria lV and V
through side openings.
With or cannisters
of gas,
they could kill
around people.
This so-called
''disinfection squad''
arrived in a truck
marked with a red-cross
and escorted
people along
to make them believe
they were being
led to take a bath.
But the red-cross was only
a mark to hide
the cannisters of Zyklon gas
and the hammers to open them.
The gas took about
to minutes to kill.
The most horrible thing was,
once the doors of the gas-
chambers were opened...
the unbearable sight.
People were packed
together like basalt,
like block of stone.
How they tumbled out of
the gas-chamber?
l saw that several times.
That was the toughest
thing to take.
You could never get
used to that.
lt was impossible.
C rematorium lV.
lmpossible
Yes. You see, once
the gas was poured in,
it worked like this :
it rose from
the ground upwards.
And in the terrible
struggle that followed,
because it was struggle.
The lights were switched off
in the gas-chambers.
lt was dark,
no one could see.
So the strongest people
tried to climb higher.
Because they probably
realized
that the higher they got,
the more
air there was.
They could breathe better.
That caused the struggle.
Secondly, most people tried
to push their way to the door.
lt was psychological :
they knew where
the door was, so maybe
they could force their way.
lt was instinctive
a death struggle.
Which is my children...
and weaker people,
and the aged, always
wound up at the bottom.
The strongest were on top.
Because in the
death struggle...
a father didn't realize
his son lay
beneath him.
And when the doors
were opened?
They fell out.
People fell out like
blocks of stone,
like rocks falling
out of a truck.
But near the Zyklon gas,
there was a void.
There was no one where
the gas crystals went in.
An empty space.
Probably the victims
realized that
the gas worked
strongest there.
And the people were...?
The people were battered.
They struggled and fought
in the darkness.
They were covered
in excrement,
in blood,
from ears and noses.
One also sometimes saw
that the people lying
on the ground,
because of the pressure
of the others,
were unrecognizable.
Children had their
skulls crushed.
Yes.
How?
lt was awful.
Vomit.
Blood from the ears
and noses.
Probably even menstrual
fluid... sure of it.
There was everything
in that struggle for life
that death struggle.
lt was terrible to see.
That was
the toughest part.
FlLlP MU LLER, C zech Jew,
su rv ivor of the liqu idations
of the AU SC HWlTZ
''special detail''
lt was pointless
to tell the truth
to anyone
who crossed the threshold
of the crematorium.
You couldn't save
anyone there.
lt was impossible
to save people.
One day, in
when l was already
in Crematorium V,
when l was already
in Crematorium V,
a train
from Byalistock arrived.
A prisoner
on the ''special detail''
saw a woman
in the ''undressing room'',
who was the wife
of a friend of his.
He came right out
and told her :
''You are going
to be exterminated.
''ln hours
you'll be ashes''.
The woman believed him
because she knew him.
She ran all over and
warned to the other women.
''We're going to be killed.
''We're going to be gassed''.
Mothers carrying
their children
on their shoulders,
didn't want to hear that.
They decided
the woman was crazy.
They chased her away.
So she went to the men.
To no avail.
Not that they didn't
believe her.
They'd heard rumors
in the Byalistock ghetto,
or in Grodno, and elsewhere.
But who wanted
to hear that!
When she saw that no one
would listen,
she scratched her
whole face.
Out of despair. ln shock.
Ans she started to scream.
So what happened?
Everyone was gassed. The
woman was held back.
We had to line up
in front of the oven.
First they tortured her
horribly,
because she wouldn't
betray him.
ln the end,
she pointed to him.
He was taken out of the line
and thrown alive into the oven.
We were told : ''Whoever tell
anything will end like that!''
We, in the ''special detail'',
kept trying to figure out
if there was a way
we could tell people
to inform them.
But
our experience,
in several instances,
where we were
able to tell people,
showed that it was
of no use.
That it made
their last moments
even harder to bear.
At most, we thought it
might help...
Jews from Poland,
or Jews from Theresienstdat
(the Czech family camp),
who'd already spent
months in Birkenau,
we thought it might have
been of use in such cases
to tell people.
But imagine what
it was like in other cases :
Jews from Greece, from
from Hungary, from Corfu
who'd been traveling
for or days,
starving,
without water for days
dying of thirst,
they were half-crazed
when they arrived.
They were dealt
with differently.
They were only told :
''Get undressed, you'll soon
get a mug of tea.''
These people were
in such a state
because they'd been
traveling so long,
that their only thought
was to quench
their thirst.
And the SS executioners
knew that very well.
lt was all preprogrammed
a calculated part of
the extermination process
that if people
were so weak,
and weren't given
something to drink,
they'd rush into
the gas-chamber.
But in fact,
all these people
were already
being exterminated before
reaching the gas-chambers.
Think of the children.
They begged their mothers,
screaming :
''Mother, please,
water, water!''
The adults, too, who'd spent
days without water,
had the same obsession.
lnforming those people
was quite pointless.
C ORFU
MOSHE MORDO
These are my nephews. They
burned them in Birkenau.
Two of my brother's kids.
They took them to the
crematorium with their Mom.
They were all burned
in Birkenau.
My brother.
He was sick, and they put him
in the oven,
in the crematorium,
and burned him.
That was at Birkenau.
The oldest boy was
the second was .
Two more kids ''kaput''
with their Mom.
Yes, children l lost.
Your father too?
My Dad, him too.
How old was your father?
Dad was years old.
He was
years old and he died
in Auschwitz.
Auschwitz, that's right.
and he died at Birkenau.
My father.
Your father made
the whole trip.
The whole family died.
First the gas-chamber,
then the crematorium.
On Friday morning,
June
members of the Corfu Jewish
community came,
very frightened,
and reported
to the Germans.
This square was full
of Gestapo men and police,
and we went forward.
There were even traitors, the
Recanati brothers, Athens Jews.
After the war
they were sentenced
to life imprisonment.
But they're already free.
We were ordered
to go forward.
By the street?
Yes, by this street.
How many of you were there?
Exactly , .
Quite a crowd?
A lot of people.
Christians stopped there.
Christians, that's right.
And they saw.
Where were the Christians?
At the street corner?
Yes. And on the balconies.
After we gathered here,
Gestapo men with machine-guns
came up behind us.
What time was it?
lt was a.m.
ln the morning.
A fine day?
Yes, the day was fine.
o'clock in the morning.
, . That's a lot
of people in the street.
People gathered.
The Christians heard the Jews
were being rounded up.
Why'd they come?
To see the show.
Let's hope it
never happens again.
Were you scared?
Very scared.
There were young people,
sick people,
little children,
the old, the crazy,
and so on.
When we saw they'd
even brought the insane,
even the sick
from the survival
we were frightened
for the survival
of the whole community.
What were you told?
That we were to appear here
at the fort
to be taken
to work in Germany.
Poland.
Poland, that's right.
The Germans had put up
a proclamation on all
the walls in Corfu.
lt said all Jews
had to report.
And now that we were all
rounded up, life would be
without us in Greece.
lt was signed by the police
chiefs, by officials.
and by the mayors.
That it's better
without Jews?
Yes. We found out
after we came back,
right?
Was Corfu antisemitic?
Corfu's always
had antisemitism?
lt existed, sure,
but it wasn't
so strong in the years
just before that.
Why not?
Because they didn't
think like that
against the Jews.
ARMANDO AARON
P resident of the Corfu
Jewish commun ity
And now?
Now we're free.
How do you get on
with the Christians now?
Very well.
What'd he say?
He asked me what you said.
He agrees our relations with
the Christians are very good.
Did all the Jews
live in the ghetto?
Most of them.
What happened
after the Jews left?
They took all our possession
all the gold we had with us.
They took the keys to our
houses and stole everything.
To whom was all this given?
Who stole it all?
By law, it was to go
to the Greek government.
But the state got only
a small part of it.
The rest was stolen,
usurped.
By whom?
By everybody,
and by the Germans.
Of the , people
deported
around were saved.
% of them died.
Was it a long trip from
Corfu to Auschwitz?
We were arrested
here on June
and finally arrived June .
Most were burned
on the night of the th.
lt lasted from
June to ?
We stayed here
for around days.
Here in the fort.
No one dared escape and leaved
his father, mother, brothers.
Our solidarity was
on religious
and family grounds.
The first group
left on June .
l went with the nd convoy
on June .
What kind of a boat
were you on?
A zattera. That's a boat
made of barrels
and planks.
lt was towed by a small boat
with Germans in it.
On our boat there were ,
or guards,
not many Germans,
but we were terrified.
You can understand, terror
is the best of guards.
What the journey like?
Terrible! Terrible!
No water, nothing to eat.
cars that were good
for only animals,
all of us standing up.
A lot of us died.
Later they put the dead
in another car in quicklime.
They burned them
in Auschwitz, too.
Next figu re :
WALTER STlER
Ex-member of the Nazi party
Former head, Reich Railway s,
Bu reau
(''Railroads of the Reich'')
You never saw a train?
No, never.
We had so much work,
l never left my desk.
We worked day and night.
''G.E.D.O.B.''
''GEDOB'' means
''Head office
of Eastbound Traffic''.
ln Jan. l was assigned
to GEDOB Krakow.
ln mid-
l was moved to Warsaw.
l was made chief
traffic planner.
Chief of the Traffic
planning office.
But your duties were the same
before and after ?
The only change :
l was promoted head
of the department.
What were your specific
duties
at GEDOB in Poland
during the war?
The work was
barely different
from the work
in Germany :
preparing timetables,
coordinating the movement of
special trains
with regular trains.
There were
several departments?
Yes.
Department was in charge
of special trains
and regular trains.
The special trains
were handled by Dept. .
You were always in the Dept.
of special trains?
Yes.
What's the difference between
a special and a regular train?
A regular train
maybe used by anyone
who purchases a ticket.
Say from Krakow to Warsaw.
Or from Krakow to Lemberg.
A special train
has to be ordered.
The train is specially
put together
and people
pay group fares.
Are there still special
trains now?
Of course.
Just as there were then.
For group vacations you can
organize a special train?
Yes, for instance,
for immigrant workers
returning home
for the holidays
special trains
are scheduled.
Or else one
couldn't handle
the traffic.
You said after the war
you handled
trains for
visiting dignitaries.
After the war, yes.
lf a king visits Germany
by train
that's a special train?
That's a special train.
But the procedure
isn't the same
as for special trains
for group tours,
and so on.
State visits are handled
by the Foreign Service.
Right. May l ask you
another question?
Why were there
more special trains
during the war,
than before or after?
l see what you're
getting at.
You're referring to
the so-called
''Resettlement trains''.
''Resettlement''. That's it.
That's what they were called.
Those trains
were ordered by
the Ministry of Transport
of the Reich.
You needed an order
from the Ministry
of Transport
of the Reich
- ln Berlin?
- Correct.
And as for
the implementation
of those orders,
the Head Office
of Eastbound Traffic
in Berlin dealt with it.
Yes, l understand.
- ls that clear?
- Perfectly.
But mostly, at that time,
who was being ''resettled''?
No! We didn't know that.
Only when we were fleeing
from Warsaw ourselves,
did we learn that they
could have been Jews
or criminals
or similar people?
Jews, criminals?
Criminals. All kinds.
Special trains
for criminals?
No, that was just
an expression.
You couldn't talk about that.
Unless you were tired
of life,
it was best not
to mention that.
But you knew
that the trains
to Treblinka
or Auschwitz were...
Of course we knew.
l was the last district :
without me, these trains
couldn't reach
their destination.
For instance a train
that started in Essen,
had to go through
the district of Wuppertal,
Hannover, Magdeburg, Berlin,
Frankfurt/Oder,
Posen, Warsaw, etc.
So l had to.
Did you know that Treblinka
meant extermination?
Of course not!
You didn't know?
Good God, no!
How could we know?
l never went to Treblinka.
l stayed in
Krakow, in Warsaw,
glued to my desk.
You were a...
l was strictly
a bureaucrat!
l see.
But it's astonishing
that people
in the department
of special trains
never knew
about the ''final solution''.
We were at war.
Because there were others
who worked for
the railroads who knew.
Like the train conductors.
Yes, they saw it. They did.
But as to what happened,
l didn't.
What was Treblinka for you?
Treblinka or Auschwitz?
Yes, for us Treblinka,
Belzec, and all that,
were concentration camps.
A destination.
Yes, that's all.
But not death.
No, no. People
were put up there.
For instance, for a train
coming Essen
or Cologne, or elsewhere,
room had to be
made for them there.
Whith the war and the allies
advancing everywhere,
those people had to be
concentrated in camps.
When exactly
did you find out?
Well, when
the word got around,
when it was whispered.
lt was never said outright.
Good God, no!
They'd have hauled you off
at once! We heard things...
Rumors?
That's it, rumors.
During the war?
Towards the end of the war.
Not in ?
No! Good God, no!
Not a word!
Towards the end
of maybe.
End of ?
Not before?
What did you...?
lt was said that
people were being sent to
camps, and those
who weren't in good healt
probably wouldn't survive.
Extermination came to you
as a big surprise?
Completely. Yes.
You had no idea.
Not the slightest. Like that
camp, what was its name...?
lt was in the Oppeln district.
l've got it : Auschwitz!
Yes.
Auschwitz was
in the Oppeln district.
Right. Auschwitz wasn't far
from Krakow.
That's true.
We never heard
a word about that.
Auschwitz to Krakow
is miles.
That's noy very far.
And we knew nothing.
Not a clue.
But you knew
that the Nazis...
That Hitler didn't like
the Jews.
That we did.
lt was well-known,
it apparead in print.
lt was no secret.
But as to
their extermination,
that was news to us.
l mean, even today
people deny it.
They say there couldn't
have been so many Jews.
ls it true? l don't know.
That's what they say.
Anyway what was done was
an outrage.
What?
The extermination.
Everyone condemns it.
Every decent person.
But as for knowing
about it, we didn't.
The Poles, for instance.
The Polish people
knew everything.
That not surprising,
Dr. Sorel.
They lived nearby,
they heard,
they talked.
And they didn't have
to keep quiet.
TREBLlNKA - the station
The ''special detail'''s
life depended
on the trainloads due
for extermination.
When a lot of them came in,
the ''special detail''
was enlarged.
They couldn't do
without the detail,
so there was
no weeding-out.
OSWlEClM (AUSCHWlTZ)
the station today.
But when there were
fewer trainloads,
it meant immediate
extermination for us.
We, in the ''special detail'',
knew
that a lack of trains
would lead
to our liquidation.
- FlLlP MULLER -
The ''special detail''
lived in a crisis situation .
Every day,
we saw thousands
and thousands
of innocent people
disappear up the chimney.
With our own eyes,
we could truly fathom
what it means
to be a human being.
There they came,
men, women, children,
all innocent.
They suddenly vanished,
and the world
said nothing!
We felt abandoned.
By the world, by humanity.
But the situation
taught us fully
what the possibility
of survival meant.
For we could gauge
the infinite value
of human life.
And we were convinced
that hope lingers in man
as long as he lives.
Where there's life, hope
must never be relinquished.
That's why we struggled
through our lives of hardship,
day after day, week after
week, month after month,
year after year,
hoping against hope
to survive,
to escape that hell.
At that time,
in January, February,
March,
hardly any trains arrived.
Was Treblinka glum
without the trains?
l wouldn't say
the Jews were glum.
They became so
when they realized...
l'll come to that later,
it's a story in itself.
Yes, l know.
The Jews,
those in the work squads,
thought at first
that they'd survive.
But in January,
when they stopped
receiving food,
for Wirth had decreed
that there were
too many of them,
there were a good to
of them in Camp l.
Up there?
Yes.
To keep them from rebelling,
they weren't shot or gassed,
but starved.
Then an epidemic broke out,
a kind of typhus.
The Jews stopped believing
they'd make it.
They were left to die.
They dropped like flies.
lt was all over.
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
They'd stopped believing.
lt was all very well to say...
We kept on insisting :
''You're going to live!'' We
almost believed it ourselves.
lf you lie enough,
you believe your own lies.
Yes.
But they replied to me :
''No, chief, we're just
reprieved corpses''.
The ''dead season'',
as it was called
began in February
after the big trainloads came in
from Grodno and Bialystok.
Absolute quiet.
lt quieted in late January,
February and into March.
Nothing. Not one trainload.
The whole camp was empty,
and suddenly, everywhere,
there was hunger.
lt kept increasing.
And one day when the famine
was at its peak,
Oberscharfuhrer Kurt Franz
appeared before us
and told us :
''The trains will be coming
in again, starting tomorrow.''
We didn't say anything.
We just looked
at each other,
and each of us thought,
''Tomorrow
''the hunger will end.''
At that period,
we were actively
planning the rebellion.
We all wanted to survive
until the rebellion.
The trainloads came from
an assembly camp in Salonika.
They'd brought in Jews
from Bulgaria, Macedonia.
These were rich people : the
passenger cars bulged with
possessions. Then an
awful feeling gripped us,
all of us, my companions
as well as myself,
a feeling of helplessness,
of shame.
For the threw ourselves
on their food.
A detail brought
a crate full
of crackers,
another full of jam.
They deliberately
dropped the crates,
falling over each other,
filling
their mouths with crackers
and jam.
The trainloads from
the Balkans brought us
to a terrible realization :
RlCHARD GLAZAR
we were the workers
in the Treblinka factory,
and our lives depended
on the whole
manufacturing process,
that is, the slaughtering
process at Treblinka.
This realization
came suddenly
with the fresh
trainloads?
Maybe it wasn't so sudden,
but it was only with
the Balkans trainloads
that it became
so stark to us,
unadorned.
Why?
people,
probably with not a sick
person among them,
not an invalid, all healthy
and robust! l recall
our watching them
from our barracks.
They were already naked,
milling among their baggage.
And David. David Bratt.
said to me :
''Maccabbees!
''The Maccabees have
arrived in Treblinka!''
Sturdy, physically
strong people,
unlike the others.
Fighters!
Yes, they could
have been fighters.
lt was staggering for us,
for these men and women,
all splendid, were
wholly unaware of what
was in store for them.
Wholly unaware.
Never before
had things gone
so smoothly
and quickly. Never.
We felt ashamed, and also
that this couldn't
go on, that something
had to happen.
Not just a few people acting
but all of us.
The idea was almost ripe
back in November .
Beginning in November '
we'd noticed
that we were
being ''spared'',
in quotes.
We noticed it
and we also learned
that Stangl,
the commandant, wanted,
for efficiency's sake,
to hang on to men
who were already trained
specialists in the various
sorters, corpse-haulers,
barbers who cut
the women's hair, and so on.
This in fact is what later
gave us the chance
to prepare
to organize the uprising.
We had a plan
worked out
in January
code-named ''The Time''.
At a set time, we were
to attack
the SS everywhere,
seize their weapons and
attack the Kommandantur.
But we couldn't do it
because things were at
a standstill in the camp,
and because typhus
had already broken out.
ln the fall of
when it was clear
to all of us
that no one
would help us
unless we helped
ourselves,
a key question
faced us all :
for us in the ''special
detail'', was there
any chance to halt
this wave
of extermination
and still save our lives?
We could see only one :
armed rebellion.
We thought
that if we could get
hold of a few weapons
and secure
the participation
of all the inmates
throughout the camp, there
was a chance of success.
That was the essential thing
That's why
our liaison men
contacted the leaders
of the Resistance movement,
first in Birkenau,
then in Auschwitz l,
so the revolt could be
coordinated everywhere.
FlLlP MULLER
The answer came that
the Resistance command
in Auschwitz l agreed
with our plan
and would join with us.
Unfortunately, among
the Resistance leaders
there were
very few Jews.
Most were political
prisoners
whose lives
weren't at stake,
and for whom each day
of life lived through
increased their chances
of survival.
For us in the ''special
detail'', it was the opposite.
RUDOLF VRBA
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
RUTH ELIAS (ISRAEL)
C rematorium V
At the end of February,
l was in a night squad
at Crematorium V.
Around midnight,
there appeared
a man from
the political section :
Oberscharfuhrer Hustek.
He handed Oberscharfuhrer
Voss a note.
Voss was then in charge
of the crematoria.
l saw
Voss unfold the note
and talk to himself,
saying, ''Sure, always Voss.
''What'd they do without Voss?
How can we do it?''
That's how he talked
to himself.
Suddenly he told me,
''Go get the kapos''.
l fetched the kapos,
kapo Schloime,
and kapo Wacek.
They came in,
and he asked them :
''How many pieces
are left?''
By ''pieces'' he meant bodies.
They told him :
''Around pieces.''
He said : ''By morning,
those pieces must be
''reduced to ashes.
''You're sure it's ?''
''Just about'', they said.
''Assholes! What do you mean
''just about''?''
Then he left
for the ''undressing room''
to see for himself.
Where the bodies were.
They were piled there :
at Crematorium V, the
''Undressing room'' also serve
as a warehouse for bodies
After the gassing?
After the gassing the bodies
were dragged there.
Voss went there to check.
He forgot the note
leaving it on the table.
l quickly scanned it
and was shocked
by what l read.
BlRKENAU
The lake of ashes
The crematorium was
to be gotten ready
for ''special treatment''
of the Czech family camp.
ln the morning, when
the day squad came on,
l ran into kapo Kaminski,
one of the Resistance
leaders in the ''special detail''
and told him the news.
He informed me
that Crematorium ll
was also being prepared.
That the ovens were
ready there, too.
And he exhorted me :
''You have friends
and fellow-countrymen.
''Go see them. They're
locksmiths and can move around
''so they can go
to Camp B ll B.
''Tell them to warn
these people
''of what's
in store for them
''and say that if they defend
themselves, we'll reduce
''the crematoria to ashes.
''And at camp B ll B,
they can immediately
''burn down
their barracks.''
We were certain
that the next night,
these people
would be gassed.
But when no night squad
went out, we were relieved.
The deadline had been
postponed for a few days.
But many prisoners,
including the Czechs
in the family camp,
accused us of spreading panic
of having
circulated
false reports.
That night l was
at Crematorium ll.
As soon as the people
got out of the vans,
they were blinded
by floodlights
and forced through
a corridor
to the stairs leading to
the ''undressing room''.
They were blinded,
made to run.
Blows were rained on them.
Those who didn't run fast
enough were beaten to death.
by the SS.
The violence used against
them was extraordinary.
And suddenly...
Without explanation?
Not a word. As soon as
they left the vans,
the beatings began.
When they entered
the ''undressing room'',
l was standing near
the rear door,
and from there
l witnessed
the frightful scene.
The people were bloodied.
They knew
then where they were.
They stared at the pillars
of the so-called
''lnternational lnformation
Center'' l've mentioned,
and that terrified them.
What they read
didn't reassure them.
On the contrary,
it panicked them.
They knew the score.
They'd learned
at Camp B ll B
what went on there.
They were in despair.
Children clung to each other.
Their mothers,
their parents,
the old people all cried,
overcome with misery.
Suddenly,
some SS officers appeared
on the steps,
including the camp
commandant, Schwarzhuber.
He'd given them his word
as an SS officer
that they'd be
transferred
to Heidebreck.
So they all began
to cry out,
to beg, shouting :
''Heidebreck was a trick!
''We were lied to! We want
to live! We want to work!''
They looked their SS
executioners in the eye,
but the SS men
remained impassive,
just staring at them. There
was a movement in the crowd.
They probably wanted
to rush to the SS men
and tell them how
they'd been lied to,
then some guards
surged forward,
wielding clubs,
and more people
were injured.
ln the ''undressing room''?
Yes.
The violence climaxed
when they tried to force
the people to undress.
A few obeyed,
only a handful.
Most of them refused
to follow the order.
Suddenly, as though
in chorus
like a chorus....
they all began to sing.
The whole ''undressing room''
rang
with the Czech
national anthem,
and the ''Hatikva''.
That moved me terribly,
that...
Please stop!
That was happening
to my countrymen,
and l realized
that my life
had become meaningless.
Why go on living?
For what?
So l went into
the gas-chamber with them,
resolved to die.
With them.
Suddenly, some who recognize
me came up to me. For
my locksmith friends
and l had sometimes
gone into
the family camp.
A small group
of women approached.
They looked at me and said
right there in the gas-chamber.
You were inside
the gas-chamber?
One of them said :
''So you want to die.
But that's senseless.
''Your death won't give us
back our lives.
''That's no way.
''You must get out of
here alive,
''you must bear witness
to our suffering,
''and to the injustice
done to us.''
RUDOLF VRBA
and h is friend WETZLER
escaped on april .
Several prisonners had prev iously
tried to flee, but all were caugh t.
JAN KARSKY,
University Professor (USA)
Former courier of the Polish
Government in exile
NEW YORK
WASHINGTON
The RUHR
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
WARSAW
WARSAW
Next figure :
Dr FRANZ GRASSLER,
deputy to AUERSWALD,
the Nazi Commissioner
of the WARSAW ghetto.
You don't remember
those days?
Not much.
l recall more clearly
my pre-war
mountaineering trips than
the entire war period
and those days in Warsaw.
All in all,
those were bad times.
lt's a fact : we tend
to forget, thank God,
the bad times more easily
than the good.
The bad times
are repressed.
l'll help you remember...
ln Warsaw you were
Dr. Auerswald's deputy.
Yes.
Dr. Auerswald was...
Commissioner of the
''Jewish district'' of Warsaw.
Dr. Grassler, this is
Czerniakow's diary.
You're mentioned in it.
lt's been printed,
it exists?
He kept a diary
that was recently
published.
He wrote on July :
July ? That's the
first time l've re-learned a date.
May l take notes?
After all...
it interests me too.
So in July l was
already there!
He wrote on July :
''Morning in the Community''
-- the Jewish Council HQ --
''and later with
Auerswald, Schlosser...''
Schlosser was...
''And Grassler,
''on routine matters.''
That's the first time...
That my name is mentioned...
Yes, but there were of us.
Schlosser... was in...
the ''economic department''.
l think he had to do
with economics.
And the second time
was on July .
C ZERN lAKOW was president
of the Warsaw Jewish Council
He wrote every day?
Yes.
Yes, every day.
lt's quite amazing
that the diary was saved.
lt's amazing
that it was saved.
BURLlNGTON - VERMONT
(U.S.A.)
RAUL HlLBERG
Did you go
into the ghetto?
Seldom. When l had
to visit Czerniakow.
What were
the conditions like?
Awful. Yes, appalling.
Yes?
l never went back when
l saw what it was like.
Unless l had to :
in the whole period
l think l only went
once or twice.
We, at the Commission,
tried
to maintain the ghetto
for its labor force,
and especially to prevent
epidemic, like typhus.
That was the big danger.
Yes.
Yes?
Can you tell us
about typhus?
l'm not a doctor.
l only know that typhus
is a very dangerous
epidemic
that wipes people out
like the plague,
and that it can't be
confined to a ghetto.
lf typhus had broken out --
l don't think it did,
but there was fear
that if might --
it would have it the Poles
and the Germans.
Why was there typhus
in the ghetto?
l don't know if there was,
but there was a danger,
because of the famine.
People didn't get
enough to eat.
That's what was so awful.
We at the Commission,
did our best to feed
the ghetto,
so it wouldn't become
an incubator of epidemics.
Aside from humanitarian
factors, that's what mattered.
lf typhus had broken out --
and it didn't --
it wouldn't have stopped
at the ghetto.
Czerniakow also wrote :
that one of the reasons
the ghetto was walled in
was because
of this German fear.
Yes, absolutely!
Fear of typhus.
He says Germans always
associated Jews with typhus.
Maybe. l'm not sure if there
were grounds for it.
But imagine that mass
of people
packed in the ghetto...
There weren't only
the Warsaw Jews,
but others who came later.
The danger kept
on growing.
The Germans had a policy
on the Warsaw ghetto.
What was that policy?
You're asking
more than l know.
The policy that wound up
with extermination,
the Final Solution...
we knew nothing about it.
Our job was
to maintain the ghetto,
and try to preserve
the Jews as a work force.
The Commission's goal,
in fact, was
very different from
the one that later
led to extermination.
Yes, but do you know
how many people died
in the ghetto
each month in ?
l don't know now...
if l ever knew it.
But you did know.
There are exact figures.
l probably knew...
Yes : a month.
a month? Yes, well...
That's a lot.
That's a lot, of course.
But there were
far too many people in
the ghetto. That was it.
Far too many.
Far too many.
My question is philosophical.
What does a ghetto mean,
in your opinion?
History's full of ghettos,
going back centuries,
for all l know.
Persecution of the Jews
wasn't a German invention,
and it didn't start
with World War ll.
The Poles persecuted
them too.
But a ghetto like Warsaw's,
in a great capital,
in the heart of the city
that was unusual.
You say you wanted
to maintain the ghetto.
Our mission wasn't
to annihilate the ghetto,
but to keep it alive,
to maintain it.
What does ''alive''
mean in such
That was the problem.
That was the whole problem...
But people were dying
in the streets.
There were bodies everywhere.
Yes.
That was the paradox.
You see it as a paradox?
l'm sure of it.
Why? Can you explain?
No.
Why not?
Explain what?
But the fact is...
Jews were being exterminated
daily in the ghetto.
Czerniakow wrote...
To maintain it properly
we'd have needed
more substantial rations,
and less crowding.
Why weren't the rations
more humane?
Why weren't they?
That was a German
decision, no?
There was no real decision
to starve the ghetto.
The big decision to
exterminate came much later.
That's right, later.
ln .
Precisely!
years later.
Just so. Our mission,
as l recall it,
was to manage the ghetto,
and, naturally, with those
inadequate rations,
and the overcrowding,
a high, even excessive,
death rate was inevitable.
Yes.
What does ''maintain'' the
ghetto mean in such condition...
the food, sanitation, etc.?
What would the Jews do
against such measures?
They couldn't do anything.
The Final Solution Conference
was held here
BELZEC - S ite
of the exterm ination camp
Why did Czerniakow
commit suicide?
Because he realized
there was no future
for the ghetto.
He probably saw before l did
that the Jews would be killed.
l suppose the Jews
already had
their excellent
secret services.
They were too well informed,
better than we were.
Think so?
Yes, l do.
The Jews knew more than you?
l'm convinced of it!
lt's hard to believe.
The German administration
was never informed
of what would happened
to the Jews.
When was the first
deportation to Treblinka?
Before Auerswald's suicide,
l think.
Auerswald's?
l mean Czerniakow's. Sorry.
July .
Those are dates...
So the deportations began
July .
Yes.
To... Treblinka.
And Czerniakow killed
himself July .
Yes, that is...
The next day.
The next day. So that was it,
he'd realized
that his idea...
lt was his idea, l think
of working in good faith
with the Germans,
in the Jews' best interests.
He'd realized this idea,
this dream, was destroyed.
That the idea was a dream.
Yes. And when
the dream faded,
he took the logical way out.
Did you think this idea
of a ghetto was a good one?
A sort of self-management,
right?
That's right.
A mini-State?
lt worked well.
But it was self-management
for death, no?
We know that now.
But at the time...
Even then!
No!
Czerniakow wrote :
''We're puppets,
we have no power''.
Yes.
No power.
Sure... that was...
You Germans
were the overlords.
Yes.
The overlords. The masters.
Obviously.
Czerniakow was merely a tool.
Yes, but a good tool.
Jewish self-management
worked well, l can tell you.
lt worked well for years,
, ... /
years... and in the end...
ln the end...
''Worked well'' for what?
To what end?
For self-preservation.
No! For death!
Yes, but...
Self-management,
self-preservation...
That's easy to say now.
You admitted the conditions
were inhuman.
Atrocious... horrible!
Yes.
So it was clear even then...
No! Extermination
wasn't clear.
Now we see the result.
Extermination isn't so
simple. One step was taken,
then another, and another,
and another...
Yes.
But to understand
the process, one must...
l repeat : extermination
did not take place in
the ghetto, not at first.
Only with the evacuations.
Evacuations?
The evacuations
to Treblinka.
The ghetto could have been
wiped out with weapons,
as was finally done,
after the rebellion.
After l'd left.
But at the start...
Mr. Lanzmann, this is
getting us nowhere.
We're reaching no
new conclusions.
l don't think we can.
l didn't know
then what l know now.
You weren't a nonentity.
But l was!
You were important.
You overestimate my role.
No.
You were nd
to the Commissioner
of the Warsaw
''Jewish district''.
But l had no power.
lt was something.
You were part of the vast
German power structure.
Correct. But a small part.
You overestimate the authority
of a deputy of then.
- You were .
- .
At you were...
you were mature.
Yes, but for a lawyer
who got his degree at
it's just a beginning.
You had a doctorate.
The title proves nothing.
Did Auerswald have one too?
No. But the title's
irrelevant.
Doctor of Law...
What did you do
after the war?
l was with a moutaineering
publishing house.
That so?
l wrote and published
mountain guide books.
l published a climbers'
magazine.
ls climbing
your main interest?
Yes.
The mountains, the air...
Yes.
The sun, the pure air...
Not like the ghetto air.
N EW YORK.
GERTRU DE SC H N ElDER
and her mother.
LOHAME HAGHETTAOT
KlBBUTZ MUSEUM.
Ghetto fighters' Kibbutz
-- lSRAEL.
The Jewish Combat Organization
J.C.O. in the Warsaw ghetto
was officially formed
on July .
After the first mass
deportation to Treblinka,
wich was interrupted
on Sept.
some Jews
remained in the ghetto.
On January the
deportations were resumed.
Despite a severe lack
of weapons,
the members of the J.C.O.
called for resistance,
and started fighting, to the
Germans' total surprise.
lt lasted days.
The Nazis withdrew
with losses,
abandoning weapons
the Jews grabbed.
The deportations
were stopped.
The Germans now knew
they had to fight
to conquer the ghetto.
The battle began on the
evening of April
the eve of Pessach
Passover.
lt had to be a fight
to as the death.
SlMHA ROTTEM,
know as ''Kajik''.
lTZHAK ZUCKERMANN,
know as ''Antek'',
nd in command of the J.C.O.
l began drinking
after the war.
lt was very difficult.
Claude, you asked
for my impression.
lf you could lick my heart,
it would poison you.
At the request
of Mordechai Anielewicz,
commander-in-chief
of the J.C.O.,
Antek had left the ghetto
days before the German attack.
His mission :
to ask Polish Resistance
leaders to arm the Jews.
They refused.
l don't think the human
tongue can describe
the horror we went
through in the ghetto.
ln the streets, if you
can call them that,
for nothing was left
of the streets,
we had to step
over heaps of corpses.
There was no room
to pass beside them.
Besides fighting the Germans
we fought hunger
and thirst.
We had no contact
with the outside world,
we were completely isolated,
cut off from the world.
We were in such a state
that we could
no longer understand
the very meaning of
why we went on fighting.
We thought of attempting
a break-out
to the Aryan part of
Warsaw, outside the ghetto.
Just before May l,
Sigmund and l were sent
to try to contact
Antek in Aryan Warsaw.
We found a tunnel
under Bonifratrska Street
that led out
into Aryan Warsaw.
Early in the morning,
we suddenly emerged into
a street in broad daylight.
lmagine us
on that sunny May ,
stunned to find ourselves in
the street, among normal people.
We'd come from
another planet.
People immediately
jumped on us
because we certainly
looked exhausted,
skinny, in rags.
Around the ghetto,
there were always
suspicious Poles
who grabbed Jews.
By a miracle,
we escaped them.
ln Aryan Warsaw,
life went on as naturally
and normally as before.
The cafés operated normally,
the restaurants,
buses, streetcars...
The movies were open.
The ghetto was an isolated
island amid normal life.
Our job was to contact
ltzhak Zuckermann
to try to mount
a rescue operation,
to try to save
the few fighters who might
still be alive in the ghetto.
We managed
to contact Zuckermann.
We found two sewer workers.
On the night of May -
we decided to return
to the ghetto
with another buddy,
Riszek, and the sewers.
After the curfew,
we entered the sewers.
We were entirely at the
mercy of the two workmen,
since only they knew the
ghetto's underground layout.
Halfway there,
they decided to turn back,
they tried to drop us,
and we had to threaten
them with our guns.
We went on through
the sewers,
until one of the workmen
told us
we were under the ghetto.
Riszek guarded them
so they couldn't escape.
MlLA . J.C.O
bun ker headquarters
l raised the manhole cover
to go up into the ghetto.
At bunker Mila
l missed them by a day.
l had returned
the night of May - .
The Germans found the bunker
on the morning of the th.
WARS AW the monument
to the ghetto figh ters
Most of its survivors
committed suicide,
or succumbed to gas
in the bunkers.
The replica of the monument
to the ghetto figh ters
l went to bunker
Francziskanska .
There was no answer when
l yelled the password,
so l had to go
on through the ghetto.
l suddenly heard a woman
calling from the ruins.
lt was darkest night,
no lights, you saw nothing.
All the houses were in ruins
and l heard only one voice.
l thought
some evil spell
had been cast on me,
a woman's voice talking
from the rubble.
l circled the ruins.
l didn't look at my watch,
but l must have spent
a half-hour exploring,
trying to find the woman
whose voice guided me,
but, unfortunately,
l didn't find her.
Were there fires?
Strictly speaking, no, for
the flames had died down,
but there was still smoke,
and that awful smell
of charred flesh
of people who had surely
been burned alive.
l continued on my way,
going to other bunkers
in search of fighting units,
but it was
the same everywhere.
l'd give the password :
''Jan''.
That's a Polish first name,
Jan.
Right. And l got no answer.
l went from bunker
to bunker
and after walking
for hours in the ghetto,
l went back
toward the sewers.
Was he alone then?
Yes, l was alone
all the time.
Except for
that woman's voice,
and a man l met as
l came out of the sewers,
l was alone throughout
my tour of the ghetto.
l didn't meet a living soul.
At one point, l recall
feeling a kind of peace,
of serenity,
when l said to myself,
''l'm the last Jew.
''l'll wait for morning
and for the Germans.''