Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

by Yitzhak Arad

  The quantity of bodies in the large square gradually decreased, until one day the entire field was clear. What will happen to us now? New transports aren’t arriving. Our hearts tell us that our last hour has arrived. . . . but a miracle happened. . . . they selected eighty of our group and shot them, while the rest, several hundred, were directed to other jobs.5

  With the cessation of deportations on August 28, the SS men murdered all the prisoners who had worked in the extermination area in removing and burying bodies. Considerations of secrecy caused the camp command to prevent any contact between the Jews employed in the extermination area and those in the Lower Camp; thus, the latter were not used for clearing the corpses from the reception area. As preparations proceeded for renewing the transports, a group of prisoners from the reception area was transferred to work in the extermination area. This group was reinforced with dozens of men from the first transports to arrive after extermination activities were resumed.6

  An excavator used at Treblinka to remove dead bodies to be burned, and the SS men who operated the excavator. From the Kurt Franz Album.

  An open mass grave in the extermination camp at Treblinka. German photograph from 1943.

  Simultaneously, and in order to ensure that the renewed transports and extermination process would be carried out with all possible efficiency, steps were also taken to give traffic priority to deportee trains and to prevent delays at the way stations en route to Treblinka. One cause of these delays had been the regularly scheduled passenger trains passing through the Treblinka village station. Transport order no. 243 of the Gedob, issued on August 27, 1942, stated that “in order to facilitate special evacuation trains [Umsiedlersonderzüge] activity without malfunctions, Treblinka train station will be closed to normal passenger traffic from September 1 until further notice.”

  This order to eliminate civilian railroad traffic through Treblinka station also contributed to the maintenance of secrecy regarding the transports’ destination and fate. Part of every transport was held at this station for hours, since the death camp’s platform could only handle twenty cars at a time. By limiting civilian traffic at the station, unwanted observers of events at the station were also reduced.7

  Wirth was the leading personality in the reorganization of Treblinka and in guiding the German staff in handling the transports. SS Scharführer Franz Suchomel testified:

  I remember that in the time when the whole camp was entirely disorganized, Wirth conducted talks with the German staff, mainly at 11 o’clock in the evening. These talks took place in the presence of Stangl. . . . Wirth gave detailed instructions as to the liquidation of the transports and to the incorporation of the Jewish working commandos in this process. His instructions were detailed. For example, they described how to open the doors of the freight cars, the disembarking of the Jews, the passage through the “tube” to the upper part of the camp. Wirth personally gave an order that when the Jews were taking off their shoes they had to tie them together. . . . Wirth’s instructions were carried out even after he left Treblinka. . . .8

  The pause taken for the reorganization in Treblinka was short. The continuation of the liquidation of the largest ghetto in Europe—the Warsaw ghetto—could not be postponed long.

  Deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka were renewed on September 3, and the first transport arrived at the camp the following morning. To prevent a new accumulation of corpses and piles of belongings in the reception area, the new camp commanders decided to alter the transport reception system. Several hundred Jews, some who had remained in the camp from the last deportations of late August and others who had arrived with the first new transports, were assigned jobs in the reception area.

  One group of workers waited for the transport at the train platform. It was charged with removing the bodies of those who had died en route and taking them to the ditches. This group also carried to the ditches those deportees who were incapable of walking on their own from the train to the gas chambers. An additional ditch was prepared in the southern corner of the camp, near the train platform, where these Jews were shot by the SS men and Ukrainians. Wirth and Stangl were at the platform when the transport from Warsaw arrived on September 4, and they supervised the work closely. Boris (Kazik) Weinberg, who was deported from Warsaw on September 4 and arrived in Treblinka among the first of the renewed transports, relates:

  We arrived at a kind of train station. Jewish laborers opened our freight-car doors, and we saw in front of us a lot of Germans and Ukrainians. . . . They started screaming and hitting, and we had to run. . . . Jewish workers gave us string to tie our shoes. It turned out they needed about 400 men for work. A “selection” was held among the men, and I was among those chosen. We stood in the courtyard and waited. Through the gate they brought in a group of workers who had already been in the camp for a while. They started hitting them: the scene was indescribable. They hit them with iron and wooden clubs, and a dog bit them. Those in the first rows fell, then the others fell on top of them. They were all pushed into a hut, then removed in groups of twenty men and shot. . . . Hauptsturmführer Stangl arrived and told us that those who had been shot had intended to kill the Germans and wipe out the camp. “I have orders to do the same to you,” he added, “but I don’t want to. There is work here for years. Whoever works well will be treated humanely. . . .” Our daily work was sorting clothes and searching in pockets and elsewhere for gold and valuables. They would beat us endlessly, until our faces swelled up. Usually every two days they eliminated the weak and the beaten. During roll call the German in charge would remove those who had been beaten, line them up in a row, and transfer them to the ditch we later called “Lazarett.” Initially this was just a hole with no fence and no name. . . . This situation continued for some time. . . .9

  The Jewish worker’s constant companion was the threat of selection during one of the thrice-daily roll calls, the fear that if he appeared weak, or if he simply displeased the German inspecting the roll call, his fate was sealed. Kszepicki writes:

  The selection was a constant threat, like a drawn sword over our heads. . . . In the morning we would awaken before the signal and arrange our appearance to look better. Never, even in the best of times, did we shave so often as in Treblinka. Every morning everyone would shave and wash his face in eau de cologne taken from the bundles left by [dead] Jews. Some powdered their faces and even rouged their lips, pinched their cheeks till they were rosy, and all this to gain another few days of life, perhaps a few weeks, who knew. . . .10

  The number of Jewish workers employed in the reception area varied between 500 and 600. Every day some of them were murdered and replaced by strong young men taken by the Germans from the new transports.

  On September 10 (or 11), on the eve of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), one of the last transports of Jews arrived from the Warsaw ghetto. As was the practice with early transports, a group of men was selected for work in the reception area. Everyone else in the transport, about 5,000–6,000 people, were taken to the gas chambers. At the evening roll call, after the day’s work, Oberscharführer Max Bialas, who was in charge, held a selection and pulled out of the rows those who were to be shot by the edge of the ditches. Weinberg describes what happened:

  When we had formed up at the evening roll call, the German in charge ordered all those who had arrived in the camp that same day to form up separately. The men hesitated as to where to stand—were the Germans going to eliminate the new arrivals, or the veterans. At first no one moved, then a few left the ranks. The Germans began beating the men brutally. At that moment a man jumped out of the ranks, ran toward the German Max Bialas with a drawn knife, and stabbed him in the back. He did the deed—then stood by, hesitating. One of the Ukrainians, Corporal Manchuk, saw what happened and ran over and hit the assailant on the head with a shovel he was holding. . . . With Bialas lying on the ground bleeding from his wound, the Ukrainians began hitting and shooting into the crowd. Dozens were killed and wounded. The dep
uty camp commander, Kurt Franz, who was nicknamed “Lalka,” arrived on the scene. [Lalka, “the doll,” was the name given Franz by the prisoners because of his innocent face, like that of a doll.] Franz had the wounded Bialas evacuated, stopped the wild shooting, and ordered the Jews to form up again. He ordered the “camp elder,” Galewski, to stand in front of the roll call, beat him with a whip he carried, and announced that if such an event occurred again, he, Galewski, would be executed. Christian Wirth, who was still in Treblinka, was summoned. He ordered ten men to be selected and shot. Kurt Franz chose them, and they were shot in front of the roll call. The others were put into barracks and held there all night. The next day there was no usual 6 a.m. roll call. The Jews locked in their barracks feared the worst. At 7:30 a.m. they were taken to roll call. It was held under a heavy guard of SS and Ukrainians. One hundred and fifty men were selected, taken to the ditches and shot as punishment for the killing of Max Bialas.11

  As further punishment the prisoners received neither food nor water for three days; they had to make do with whatever they found in the victims’ belongings. Max Bialas, who was badly wounded, was taken immediately to the army hospital in Ostrow. He died of his wounds either en route or at the hospital.12

  The Jew who killed Bialas was Meir Berliner, an Argentinian citizen who was visiting Warsaw with his wife and daughter when war broke out. They were sent to Treblinka despite their Argentinian citizenship. The wife and daughter were taken straight to the gas chambers, while Berliner was selected for labor.13 The killing of Max Bialas was carried out by Berliner at his own initiative, without assistance and without revealing his intentions to the others. He planned his action in advance and hid a knife specifically for this purpose, but his timing was dictated by the knowledge that his end was near. His was an individual act of heroism and despair.

  Berliner’s act aroused shock and fear among the SS personnel in the camp. It was the first instance of resistance at Treblinka after over a month and a half of operation, during which a quarter of a million Jews had been murdered. The Germans realized that in their despair the Jews could be very dangerous. During the first days after the incident, the Germans were very suspicious; they ordered every Jew who passed near them to raise his hands, and they checked for knives or other hidden weapons. To perpetuate the name of the dead SS man, the camp command decided to name the Ukrainian guards’ barracks after him. A sign was affixed to the barracks’ entrance—“The Max Bialas Barracks.”14

  There was, however, no basic change as a result of the killing. The Treblinka death factory continued operating at full capacity. Transports arrived daily and the mass murder continued, including the killing of Jewish workers employed in the reception area. Between September 3 and September 12, some 52,000 Jews, all from Warsaw, were murdered. The last transport of the “big expulsion” from the Warsaw ghetto arrived on September 21, 1942. It comprised about 2,200 people, including the Jewish police, who had taken part in the deportations from the ghetto, and their families. Nearly 254,000 Jews taken from the Warsaw ghetto between July 23 and September 21, 1942, were murdered at Treblinka.15

  13

  The Mission of Gerstein

  and Pfannenstiel

  The gassing system that had been developed and introduced by Wirth in the Operation Reinhard death camps proved only partially satisfactory. The frequent engine breakdowns caused disturbances and delays in the entire extermination process. Globocnik was aware of these shortcomings and, in coordination with the higher authorities of the SS, decided to look into the possibility of introducing an alternative gassing system. The prevailing opinion among the higher SS authorities in charge of the extermination of Jews was that Zyklon B was more suitable for this task.

  Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein, the chief disinfection officer in the Main Hygienic Office of the Waffen SS, and SS Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, professor and director of the Hygienic Institute at the University of Marburg/Lahn, who had also served as hygienic adviser of the Waffen SS, were sent to Lublin in the middle of August 1942. Gerstein’s main mission was to check the possibility of introducing the gas Zyklon B into the gas chambers. Zyklon B had already been successfully used in Auschwitz instead of the engines that were still supplying the monoxide gas in the death camps of Operation Reinhard. In addition, Gerstein was to advise regarding the disinfection of the clothes left behind by the Jews.1

  Gerstein submitted a written report of his mission when he was incarcerated in an American army prison at the end of the war in April-July 1945. The report described his visit to Lublin, Belzec, and Sobibor.

  On June 8, 1942, SS Sturmbannführer [Rolf] Günther of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, dressed in civilian clothes, walked into my office. He was unknown to me. He ordered me to obtain for him, for a top secret mission, 100 kilos of prussic acid and to take it to a place known only to the truck driver. A few weeks later, we set out for the potash plant near Kolin (Prague). . . .

  I understood little of the nature of my mission. But I accepted. . . .

  On the way to Kolin, we were accompanied by SS Obersturmbannführer and M.D., Professor Pfannenstiel, Professor of Hygiene at the University of Marburg/Lahn. . . .

  We then set off with the truck for Lublin (Poland). SS Gruppenführer Globocnik was waiting for us. He told us: “This is one of our most secret matters, indeed the most secret. Anyone who talks about it will be shot. Only yesterday two babblers were shot.” He then explained to us: “At present”—this was August 17, 1942—“there are three installations”:

  (1) Belzec, on the Lublin-Lvov road. Maximum per day: 15,000 persons (seen)!

  (2) Sobibor, I don’t know exactly where: not seen: 20,000 persons per day.

  (3) Treblinka, 120 km northeast of Warsaw: 25,000 persons per day; seen.

  (4) Majdanek, near Lublin; seen in preparation.

  Except for the last one, I made a thorough inspection of all these camps, accompanied by Police Chief Wirth, the head of all these death factories.

  Globocnik said: “You will have to disinfect large quantities of clothing ten or twenty times, the whole textile accumulation. It is only being done to conceal that the source of clothing is Jews, Poles, Czechs, etc. Your other duty will be to improve the service in our gas chambers, which function on diesel engine exhaust. We need gas which is more toxic and works faster, such as prussic acid. The Führer and Himmler—they were here on August 15, the day before yesterday—instructed me to accompany personally all those who have to see these installations.” Then Professor Pfannenstiel: “But what did the Führer say?” Globocnik replied: “The Führer ordered all action speeded up! Dr. Herbert Lindner, who was with us yesterday, asked me: ‘But wouldn’t it be wiser to cremate the corpses instead of burying them? Another generation may perhaps judge these things differently!’ I replied: ‘Gentlemen, if there were ever, after us, a generation so cowardly and so soft that they could not understand our work which is so good, so necessary, then, gentlemen, all of National Socialism will have been in vain. We ought, on the contrary, to bury bronze tablets stating that it was we who had the courage to carry out this gigantic task!’ The Führer then said: ‘Yes, my good Globocnik, you are right!’”

  We left for Belzec two days later. . . .

  Next morning, a few minutes before seven, I was told: “In ten minutes the first train will arrive!” Indeed, a few minutes later a train arrived from Lvov, with 45 cars holding 6,700 people, of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival. . . .

  Then the march began. To the left and right, barbed wire; behind, two dozen Ukrainians, guns in hand.

  They approached. Wirth and I were standing on the ramp in front of the death chambers. Completely nude men, women, young girls, children, babies, cripples, filed by. At the corner stood a heavy SS man, who told the poor people, in a pastoral voice: “No harm will come to you. You just have to breathe very deeply, that strengthens the lungs, inhaling is a means of preventing contagious diseases. It’s a good disinfection!” They as
ked what was going to happen to them. He told them: “The men will have to work, building roads and houses. But the women won’t be obliged to do so; they’ll do housework, cooking.” For some of these poor creatures, this was a last small hope, enough to carry them, unresisting, as far as the death chambers. . . .

  . . . Unterscharführer Hackenholt was making great efforts to get the engine running. But it doesn’t go. Captain Wirth comes up. I can see he is afraid because I am present at a disaster. Yes, I see it all and I wait. My stopwatch showed it all, 50 minutes, 70 minutes, and the diesel did not start. The people wait inside the gas chambers. In vain. They can be heard weeping, “like in the synagogue,” says Professor Pfannenstiel, his eyes glued to a window in the wooden door. Furious, Captain Wirth lashes the Ukrainian assisting Hackenholt twelve, thirteen times, in the face. After 2 hours and 49 minutes—the stopwatch recorded it ail—the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons in four times 45 cubic meters Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead, that could be seen through the small window because an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments. After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead. . . .

  . . . Two dozen workers were busy checking the mouths of the dead, which they opened with iron hooks. “Gold to the left, without gold to the right!”. . . Dentists hammered out gold teeth, bridges and crowns. In the midst of them stood Captain Wirth. He was in his element, and showing me a large can full of teeth, he said: “See for yourself the weight of that gold! It’s only from yesterday and the day before. You can’t imagine what we find every day—dollars, diamonds, gold. You’ll see for yourself! . . .”