by Yishai Sarid
I sat down with a young guy who showed me what they’d accomplished so far. The work was very raw. It included an “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign and some sheds, as well as a crematorium chimney. He apologized that the graphics weren’t complete yet and said they would be improved. But it wasn’t Auschwitz, nor any other camp I knew, and he said that was exactly why they wanted my advice. They wanted it to look as real and authentic as possible.
I spent a few good hours with him, going over the details one by one: the gate and the guard towers and the train tracks and the color of the dirt and the shape of the ramp and the manner in which the paths split right and left, the wood from which the sheds were built, and the electric connections on the fences. They had made plenty of mistakes.
A few weeks later, he sent me a visualization of the undressing room and the gas chambers. I gave lots of notes. We were far from being finished. For instance, they were wrong about the spot from which the can of poison was tossed in, and they didn’t know there was an elevator that carried the bodies from the doorway to the gas chamber up to the crematoriums. And they had missed the teeth examination part, and didn’t understand how the crematoriums had been loaded at all. So many mistakes.
“What are you going to do with this?” I asked him the next time we met.
He stared at me, pretending not to understand. “It’s a collaboration with Yad Vashem,” he said.
I persisted: “I know that, but what are you going to do with it? And where are the people? The victims?”
He said that would be handled during the next phase. The intention was to provide the experience of a prisoner (“a victim,” I corrected) as well as a guard (“a murderer,” I corrected again). He asked me about the sensations of prisoners and guards (I didn’t bother to correct him again). What could I tell them about their psychology?
I was deterred by the question. I told him I was an expert on extermination, not the mind. “Oh, I see,” he said.
I visited the company offices a few times and enjoyed being there. There was a creative atmosphere: young men in T-shirts sitting in front of large screens, walking around, eating bananas, drinking espresso from a machine. I saw one of them working on a visualization of the Colosseum. A man was eaten by a lion and the crowd roared. Another guy was working on a game where players trapped slaves in the African jungle. The players burned down the village and threw down nets to capture males and fertile females. I figured them out.
“It’s going to be a game,” I told my guy, the one in charge of the camps.
Finally, he conceded, “You can call it that if you want. People love horror games.” I have no idea why he admitted it.
I tried to change my attitude and be more empathetic. The next time I guided a tour group, I tried my best to memorize the names of all the children and teachers, committing their faces to memory. I showed no chagrin when they wrapped themselves in flags and sang. I even sang along with them. I listened patiently to their recitation, trying to find merit in each piece of reading.
We were standing on the edge of the Chelmno forest, where the gas trucks came and where the dead were buried.
“My grandmother’s parents died here,” one girl said shyly. “They were from Lodz.”
I held on to her personal story and asked her to tell us everything she knew. She was charming and smart and told the story well—what she knew of it, at least, which wasn’t much. I asked how her grandmother had survived, and she hesitated before saying she wasn’t sure. Her grandmother didn’t like to talk about it. She was just a kid.
I pushed her. I told her the Germans first sent over twenty thousand children on a special roundup. Their parents dressed them as warmly as possible, as if they were going on a field trip. There are photos of the children waiting to be picked up. The parents were told their children were being sent to a special children’s colony, and they never returned.
The girl didn’t know what to say. She said she had no way of finding out, because her grandmother was dead.
For some reason, her ignorance upset me. I signaled to the students to stop singing and began my explanations. I told them that in this space, between the village and the forest, the Germans performed a pilot run of their poison extermination. Eichmann visited when they started using gas trucks, dropping in to see how things worked, even before the Wannsee Conference. He saw the entire extermination process with his own eyes, from the arrival at the village castle through loading onto trucks, killing, the unloading of bodies, the pulling of gold teeth, and the tossing into pits. When he was put on trial in Jerusalem, he said it was hard to watch, but that he’d learned some important lessons to be used in other camps, where the idea of trucks was rejected in favor of immobile facilities.
“Can you tell us something else about the children?” a teacher asked. I said I didn’t know what I could tell them other than the horror.
“Do we know their names?” she insisted.
I told her some of them were known, but most of them were not.
“That’s terrible,” the teacher cried. “Just to think about them arriving here without their parents, in these trucks. How can you explain such cruelty?”
I spread my arms and said human beings were capable of anything, especially murder. They relied on ideology or religion. In recent centuries nationalism has served as a good excuse, but mostly people liked seeing other people’s children dying. Even us Jews, back in biblical times, murdered women and children, I reminded them, by explicit orders from God. I don’t know why I decided to get into that, it was clearly a mistake.
“How dare you make that comparison?” the teacher railed, taking one step forward, prepared to defend our national honor.
I told her I wasn’t making any comparison, it’s just that children have always been killed, even now.
“Not like that,” she said.
“That’s true,” I said, “but your question is feigning innocence. Don’t you know people are murderers? It’s in our nature.”
When we walked back to the bus, they talked about me behind my back. There was no more affection between us.
After that trip, I received a notification from the travel agency that arranged the administrative aspect of the trips and paid my dues that the customers had not been satisfied. Though my knowledge and professionalism were perfect, as the manager who spoke to me said, the client was unhappy with my emotional content and overall message. They claimed I made no connection with the children and made them feel despair, going so far as to hurt the honor of the victims.
I wrote a furious letter to the travel agency, explaining that this was, at best, a terrible misunderstanding, and, at worst, a lie. I clarified the facts, but also promised to take the criticism to heart and try to do better. Sometimes the educational message and historical facts clash—that was my way of explaining it away—and I would try to buff down that friction.
My explanation was accepted, and the manager called me back, speaking in an appeased tone, saying I was one of their best guides, there was no doubt about that. They had received excellent reviews about me in the past, and of course meant no offense, it’s just that it’s always best to learn from criticism.
“Of course,” I said, and that was that.
The guide for most VIP tours of the camps was usually the press attaché from the Israeli embassy—a Polish Jew who had migrated to Israel, then returned to live in Poland. I’d met him once or twice while I stayed there. One night, the consul called me urgently and asked if I happened to be free the following day to guide the Minister of Transportation, because the regular guide had been involved in a car accident and was lightly injured, and I came highly recommended by Yad Vashem. I happened to be free. I’d been intending to work on proofreading the book, but I was happy to put it off for this opportunity. The Minister of Transportation was in Poland on an official visit and wanted to visit one of the sites of the Holocaust. Since he’d already visited Auschwitz a few years ago as part of the March of the Living, he w
anted to visit Treblinka this time.
I looked for a new outfit. I never thought too much about what I wore for normal tours, but I had to dress up nice for the minister. The shops around the ghetto were already closed, but I knew the big mall was open late. I called Ruth from the taxi, told her about the invitation, and asked her what she thought I should wear. She was too preoccupied to think about that. She told me Ido had come home from kindergarten with a scratch on his forehead. He’d been pushed and was refusing to go back again.
“Listen,” I told her, I might have been gruff. “I have an important day tomorrow; I’m guiding the minister. I’ll deal with the kindergarten stuff when I get back to Israel.” I was angry with her and the child. I wanted him to get over it already; to hit back.
I got to the mall in time to buy a button-down and some slacks at an international brand-name store.
I knew Treblinka like the back of my hand. I didn’t need any special preparation. I only warned myself to behave, to be informative, interesting, and awe-inspiring. Not to be dragged into any statements that were too original. I could do it. It was my job. I was the best of my kind.
The next morning, I was picked up in a large car. The ambassador was sitting inside. We were briefly introduced. I tried not to get too excited, but it was definitely a step up. I decided not to spare my honor and added the title “doctor” to my name, and the ambassador mentioned again that the consul had received a warm recommendation of me from Yad Vashem. “The minister likes to keep things short,” said the ambassador. “The entire visit is planned to last no longer than thirty minutes. It’s cold today. It’s symbolic, no need to linger over every single detail.”
I nodded and made the appropriate adjustments.
We waited for the minister to come out of the hotel with his entourage. He was accompanied by some aides and security guards. I recognized his face from television and was truly excited when he got in the car. I almost took a bow when we were introduced. He asked my name, where in Israel I was from, and how many years I’d been doing this job, and that was the end of our chit-chat. Most of the way he was busy talking on the phone with Israel about some urgent matter under his jurisdiction that had made the news and consulting with his media advisor, who was sitting beside him.
The ambassador and I sat silently, staring at the frozen ground outside. It was nice and warm in the car. The police car rode ahead of us with flashing lights, making way for us through traffic. The ambassador and his advisor formulated a response to something together. We arrived at the familiar turn to Treblinka, near the train tracks, and turned onto the inner road leading to the camp. The trees were naked, the wind was chilling, and snow began to fall.
I cleared my throat and waited for the minister to step out of the car. “Between July 1942 and August 1943 more than 800,000 Jews were murdered in this place, almost all on the day they arrived,” I began.
The minister placed a yarmulke on his head and took large, quick steps ahead, as if he were there to take over the place. His guards and aides rushed all around him. I continued my explanations. The minister nodded, not listening.
“Where’s the photographer?” the media advisor asked, panicked, and gesticulated to urge him to the head of the line, to document the visit.
We walked through the field of stones commemorating the exterminated communities and reached the monument, where I managed to get a few words out while the minister placed a wreath on the monument. He didn’t look at me or ask any questions. The photographer documented him from all angles, standing in front of the monument with his head lowered, until finally the minister said, “Okay, guys, let’s get out of here.” It really was very cold.
Back in the car, I asked the ambassador’s deputy in a whisper if that was all right, and he said it was excellent, exactly what it should have been. “You were great,” he emphasized.
Indeed, I was invited a few more times to accompany important people—not the highest-ranking ones, not ministers, but senior servants and vice-ministers and the like, even after the regular embassy guide returned to work.
On the first free day I had after that, I returned to Sobibor to dig. Really dig, with a hoe, and with my hands, on my knees, mining for bits of bone, collecting pins and buttons left behind by the dead. The archaeologist didn’t ask any unnecessary questions. He’d agreed for me to come as soon as I’d called him.
I left Warsaw at dawn—I couldn’t sleep anyway—and arrived around noon. I’d lost cell service in the forest again, and even the car radio had stopped playing, but I found the way more easily this time.
The archaeologist added me to the group of Polish laborers, who didn’t seem pleased about it. I tried to tell them I was only there for a few hours. I didn’t want them to think I was there to steal their jobs. But my Polish was horrendous. I’d never made a real effort to learn the language properly, and they didn’t understand. They dug a new hole, first beating the ground hard, then, once the soft layer beneath was exposed, switching to small pickaxes. The archaeologist took samples of the soft dirt to be tested in a lab. The new hole was close to the spot where the walls of gas chambers had been uncovered. Other holes in the area had revealed remains of bones, rusty spoons, hair pins, and other personal effects.
My hands began to hurt pretty quickly, but I didn’t allow myself to take any breaks, even when the Poles stopped to eat and rest. The archaeologist offered me a part of his sandwich and I took a quick bite standing up because the ground was so cold. He told me that in a few days he would be going to Israel to celebrate one of his three sons’ bar mitzvahs. I heard a bus approaching and pulling up. When the people descended I recognized Hebrew, which sounded foreign and out of place. Their guide explained that this path was where the Jews were whipped and rushed toward the gas chambers. I took another bite of the sandwich and kneeled inside the pit again. Now I dug with my hands, no gloves, seeking hard contact. My hands were scratched, my back hurt, and the Poles used their lunch break to its fullest degree, standing around, smoking and watching me dig.
The tour group came nearer and was standing almost over my head at this point. The guide explained the digs taking place on the premises. I lowered my head and waited for them to leave with their guide and his explanations.
“Look at how they dig, these derelicts,” one of them said. “With their hands. I have an aunt who was murdered here. I hope he isn’t touching her with his filthy hands.”
I had to hold back not to step out of the hole and come at him. I was furious.
“The chamber was connected to the motor of an old tank and the people inside were poisoned with carbon monoxide,” the guide continued, using phrases that glorified the process. I heard myself in his voice and was appalled. He had no mercy. I recalled how much appreciation I had for the undertaker who had crawled into my father’s grave to receive the shrouded body, taking him in his arms and placing him tenderly on the ground. I realized that’s what I was trying to do down in that pit. I was about to lose hope of finding anything down there, but as evening descended my fingers bumped into something hard. I grabbed hold of it before I lost it. “I found something,” I declared, and pulled out a key, corroded at the tip but retaining its shape.
The archaeologist came closer, took the key from my hands, and said, “Nice work. We don’t find this kind of thing just every day.”
He took down the date and time of the find, the location of the pit. He took a photo of the key, slipped it into a small bag, and sealed it.
“Let me look at it for a moment,” I asked. I looked at the key from every angle, searching for a hint or a mark so that I wouldn’t have to try every door in Europe in search of the appropriate lock. I returned the key.
Suddenly, the archaeologist smiled at me, lighting up the forest for a moment. I liked his tough face and strong arms. Perhaps the two of us together would have been able to kill one German man. Not with the children. Not with the women. Not when we were starving. Not facing the barrels of rifles. It w
ould be arrogant to think that could be possible.
The workers were eager to get out of there, but I thought about sticking around a little longer until it grew completely dark.
“Don’t stay here alone,” the archaeologist said, reading my mind. “This is a job. We finish and we leave. Otherwise we lose our minds. It’s too awful.”
Another question arrived from the editor: why did I need such a long, practically glorifying description of Reinhard Heydrich, which did not directly contribute to the subject of my research—the matter of unity and difference in the extermination mechanism in Final Solution camps?
I had a clear answer to that and was surprised an editor employed by you would even ask such a thing. Let’s put aside the fact that Heydrich was the operations officer of the Final Solution and the originator of the Wannsee Conference. Isn’t it enough that Operation Reinhard, which utilized the camps in Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, and which the book depicts at length, was named after him?
This was my answer to the editor, but he wouldn’t let go. Why, then, he persisted, was there a need to describe the beauty of the murderer and his fine manners, which had captivated the Führer’s heart; his athletic abilities, and the fact that he had been a fighter pilot during the offensive on the Russian front, along with an official image of him in SS uniform? And why was it important to point out his courage in riding alone with his driver in a Mercedes with the roof lowered, allowing fighters of the Czech underground to assassinate him, and his slow death after a bit of fabric made of horsehair penetrated the gunshot wound in his belly, creating septicemia that caused his death? The editor marked whole paragraphs to be slated for cutting.
He’s got a point, I thought. He was right. I was looking for heroes to connect the events, and finding them on the German side. Loathsome heroes, but heroes nonetheless. Had they completed their mission and won the war, humanity would have exalted them, building monuments in their honor, naming garden cities in the east, stadiums, and concert halls after them. No one would have been digging through sites of human waste in the forests, which would be forever erased from our memories.