Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

by Yitzhak Arad

  By the order of Kurt Franz, white suits with blue collars and lapels were sewn for the people in the orchestra in the tailor shop. Gold appeared in a white frock coat with the same decoration, patent leather shoes, pressed pants, and a white shirt. . . .16

  Gold was liked by the SS, and for his fortieth birthday a party was held for him in the tailor shop. Drinks and baked goods were brought from the German kitchen, the orchestra performed in its gala clothes, and for the occasion a special repertoire was prepared. The SS men and prisoner capos were invited to this show. But Gold’s groveling in front of the SS men and the special food rations he received—even though he sometimes shared them with the members of the orchestra—did not endear him to the prisoners. Many prisoners were even very critical and revolted by what was going on, but sometimes they were forced to participate in the very events that they so detested. Strawczinski writes:

  After supper [the orchestra] plays music in the tailor shop, the largest and nicest hall in the “ghetto.” The sky over and around the camp is red from the fire burning in the tremendous oven that was built lately, and the wind brings the smells of flesh and charred bones. It is almost impossible to breathe outside. In the tailor shop, our “aristocracy” has gathered [capos and prisoners with position of authority] with their girls. Germans and Ukrainians also appear. The girls and our “cavaliers” dance to the rhythm of the wonderful sounds of Gold’s orchestra. They spend almost every evening this way. Later, when it grows warmer, the orchestra plays outdoors, near the closed gate. On the other side of the gate, groups of Ukrainians gather and perform their dances. This is a daily event in Treblinka. And as has been said before, we lacked only bread, lashes, death, and music. . . .17

  In accordance with Kurt Franz’s orders, a song in German was composed, and the prisoners were forced to memorize it and sing it during roll call and on their way to and from work. The melody was written by Artur Gold, and the song was nicknamed “The Anthem of Treblinka”:

  We look straight out at the world,

  The columns are marching off to their work.

  All we have left is Treblinka,

  It is our destiny.

  We heed the commandant’s voice,

  Obeying his every nod and sign.

  We march along together

  To do what duty demands.

  Work, obedience, and duty

  Must be our whole existence.

  Until we, too, will catch a glimpse at last

  Of a modest bit of luck.

  A most macabre phenomenon was the playing of the orchestra at the evening roll call, when the selections of the sick took place, or while prisoners were being whipped or ordered to engage in “sports activities.” The orchestra’s playing accompanied the yells of the beaten and the silence of the sick and weak who were removed from the rows and taken to the Lazarett. At the end of the roll call, the prisoners sang the “Treblinka Anthem” to the accompaniment of the orchestra.18

  In the last months of Treblinka’s existence, in the spring and summer of 1943, boxing matches were instituted among the prisoners. Kurt Franz, who was an amateur boxer and who used to keep in shape by hitting prisoners, was the initiator of these matches (see chapter 24). In the same period the number of transports decreased, and, as a result, the work pace had slackened a bit. Kurt Franz thought the mock performance of one Jew hitting another would be a pleasant way for the SS men and Ukrainians to pass the time. A few boxers were found in the transports from the Warsaw ghetto that arrived in the spring of 1943, and they became the nucleus of this sport in the camp. Franz also saw to it that there were boxing gloves in the camp. In the evenings one could see prisoners practicing boxing, holding contests, and hitting one another, while around them a group of observers enjoyed the scene. The pinnacle of these training sessions was the matches.

  In Roll-Call Square in the prisoners’ living area, a ring was set up for the matches held every two weeks on Saturday afternoon. At the front of the ring, chairs were arranged for the SS men, and on the side were benches for the capos, the work managers, and the women. On the other side of the ring was the section for the rest of the prisoners, who were forced to attend the matches. The matches were opened by Gold’s orchestra, which performed operas and operettas with the singers and choir. The “artistic” part of the program also included some humorous sketches, among them some jokes about the “Treblinka Rest Home.”

  The first matches boasted professional boxers of a high standard, but Kurt Franz was not satisfied with this. He forced into the ring barbers, tailors, Scheissmeisters, and prisoners who did not have any idea about boxing; he stuck gloves on their hands, and made them start hitting each other, to the yells and cries of encouragement of the SS men. The sports event would then be concluded by another performance by the orchestra and choir.19

  The establishment of a small orchestra in the extermination area was the result of the initiative of the capos after they found out about the existence of an orchestra in the Lower Camp. Authorization was granted by the SS men in charge of the extermination area. Jerzy Rajgrodzki, a member of the orchestra in the extermination area, writes:

  In the month of October, while I was put to work at removing corpses from the new gas chambers, a capo came and in his hand was a violin. He asked who knew how to play and I said that I knew. He excused me from transferring the bodies and ordered me to play in the yard, near the corpses. After a while the “camp elder” arrived and took me into the kitchen. There I played a number of works as he requested. From then on they put me to work in the kitchen at peeling potatoes. There were six prisoners doing this work. One was Fuchs, who played the clarinet and who had worked in the past for the Polish radio. . . . At first I played only with Fuchs—violin and clarinet—with no accompaniment. We played from time to time during the roll calls. . . . On New Year’s Eve we played in the kitchen. The “camp elder,” the capos, and others came. There were only men. They brought some vodka and danced. It was a sad New Year. . . .

  We heard that in Camp I there was an orchestra under the direction of Artur Gold. Camp II [extermination area] demanded an orchestra of its own. There was a need for a harmonica player, and we looked for one among the people in the transports. Who could count the number of harmonica players who were already in the pits! The “camp elder” was especially worried about the missing harmonica player, and he turned to the SS with this problem. Finally they found one in one of the transports; he was also a pianist and a well-known composer from Warsaw. From that time we were a trio. It became the custom during the roll calls. As the people fell into [rows of] fives for the roll calls, we stood at the side and played the Polish army march “We, the First Brigade” (“My Pierwsza Brygada”). After a while we substituted the march from the movie The World Laughs for the march “We, the First Brigade.” Sometimes we accompanied with melody the singing of the prisoners. The most popular song was “Tumbalalaika.” One of the prisoners would sing a verse, and the others would join in the chorus with “Tumbalalaika.” The words of the song reflected the lives of the prisoners in the camp with humor and criticism. The words of the song changed with time. In 1943 they stopped singing “Tumbalalaika” and more cultured songs were included in the repertoire. One of the prisoners composed a song in Yiddish to the tune of the foxtrot “The Girl from the Puszcza.” The words of the song spoke about a different world that existed outside of Camp II. . . .

  The songs served a revolutionary purpose for us. They encouraged us to continue our struggle to live and find ways to salvation. For the SS men and in order to note where we were living, a composition of Treblinka, “Lager zwei is unzer leben, ay, ay, ay “ (“Camp II is our life, ay, ay, ay”), was composed. The chorus was sung by a professional singer, Spiegel, who had appeared in the Prague theater. . . .

  In the spring, when the warm days came, the SS men would come to our camp early. The one who stuck out the most was the one whose nickname was “the black one” (der Schwartzer). He would sit himself down
on a chair near the well and order us to play for him. While the other prisoners were still dressing or eating their breakfast and preparing for work, we would put the chairs in front of the hut, sit down, and begin the morning concert. Sometimes they would bring us cigarettes, chocolate, or other valuable items. We also performed concerts as per the wishes of the Ukrainian guards—in the afternoon, after work, when the prisoners were locked up. We would stand near the fence and play for the Ukrainians dozens of Soviet songs. Ivan [Demaniuk] and Nikolai loved these songs, and they made a big impression on them. During that time they did not beat or torture the prisoners, except when they committed some unusual crime.20

  In the summer of 1943, in June and July, the work of burning the bodies commenced at four in the morning and continued until twelve noon. In the afternoon, the prisoners were locked in their huts with nothing to do. To keep the prisoners busy, the SS decided that the prisoners would prepare a play. Preparations got underway, and even actors were located. One of them, Spiegel, was a professional actor. The orchestra and women also took part in the play. The “camp elder” was the director; the tailors in the extermination area sewed costumes for the players. Rehearsals were held in the corridors of the gas chambers. The participants learned how to dance the minuet and the czardas. Preparations for the performance went on for a few weeks. In the square where the roll calls were held, a stage was built and seats were set up in preparation for the play, which was to be held one Sunday. In the front row sat a few SS men, and all around were Ukrainian guard units, which had been enlarged for the event. But the play went on without any hitches. Jerzy Rajgrodzki writes about the prisoners’ feelings during the performance, with the SS men sitting in front of them:

  Most of us felt that we had had enough of this disgrace and we were ready to get even with the murderers. If only to throw a knife at one of them and kill him. Many of us had feelings of this sort. But we did not plan anything—an act of this sort would have ended in disaster. The guards outside had been strengthened then, even though they [the Germans] did not even suspect that this “garbage” could even think of such a thing.21

  In the tragic reality of Treblinka, there were also love affairs between the men and women prisoners. Usually the people in the more privileged group of prisoners were the ones involved in these affairs; for example, the capos, the “barrack elders,” and those with other special positions in the camp. The living conditions of the more privileged prisoners allowed them to come into contact with the women, and their work, which was relatively easier than that of the others, allowed them greater freedom of movement about the camp. The SS men usually were inclined to allow this phenomenon, especially in the last months of the camp’s existence, and they permitted visits in the evening hours to the women’s living quarters.

  The women, most of whom were young girls with little experience, whose physical and spiritual ability to survive in the camp was to no small degree conditional on any help with food or aid in time of illness, were in part amenable to the flirting of prisoners from this group. These were the people in a position to provide them with more food, medicine, or clothing.

  But besides these relationships of convenience, there were also true love affairs that developed into deep emotional attachments between two people who knew their days were numbered. Despite the horribly overcrowded conditions in the living barracks, despite the nonavailability of any private place, and despite the prohibition of sleeping in any but one’s assigned place, couples in love found a way and places to be together secretly in order to carry on an intimate relationship.

  In the Lower Camp, the known love affairs were between Rakowski, the “camp elder” during the typhus epidemic, and a young girl, and between the “barrack elder” Kuba and another young girl. In the extermination area an affair between the one in charge of the kitchen, Heller, and a girl whose name is unknown was common knowledge. Rajgrodzki writes about a wedding that took place in the extermination area:

  The groom was a mechanic who worked near the motors that provided the gas, and the bride was one of the young girls. They made them a nice wedding, according to the law of Moses and Israel. Even some SS men came to the reception that was in the evening in the kitchen. . . . We played at the wedding, and the young people were escorted to the bridal canopy. There was one who knew how to write the tnaim [terms of the marriage contract] and to read the prayers. The guests in uniform left. Those invited from the prisoners had a bit of fun. Then they left and the young couple remained alone. A double bed had been prepared for them on a pallet in the kitchen.22

  In addition to these known incidents, in the camp there were love affairs and amorous relationships between anonymous men and women prisoners who did not receive mention in the testimonies. Their secret was kept during their affairs, and their secret went with them to the grave. In the shadow of death, love thrived.

  Creative Writing

  Among the prisoners there were quite a few who decided to put into writing all the horrible things they had witnessed, in the hope that the description of the events in writing would be. preserved even after the writers were no longer alive.

  In Treblinka, the capo of the Lazarett, Ze’ev Korland, a Jew of about fifty from Warsaw, who saw the killings that were carried out in the Lazarett every day and helped the sick undress and comforted them in their final minutes, recorded these tragic experiences. Korland used to read aloud from his work to his friends at night—poetry, parts of a play, descriptions of things that had happened—but everything referred to the Lazarett.

  In the extermination area of Treblinka, there was a dentist (whose name is not known) who used to write down what had happened there every day. He also wrote poetry and read some of his works aloud to his friends. The works that were written in Treblinka were not found; they were either lost or destroyed when the camp was demolished.23

  There were probably other prisoners who wrote in the various camps, but their work has not been mentioned in the testimonies, nor has it been recovered.

  PART THREE

  ESCAPE AND RESISTANCE

  30

  The Cognizance and Reaction of the Victims in Occupied Poland

  First Phase: March-August 1942

  The smooth execution of the deportations from the ghettos depended on the passive behavior of the Jews. The Germans employed ruse and deception as far as the aim and destination of the deportations were concerned and kept the very existence of the death camps top secret. And, indeed, during the first six months of the deportations, until August/September 1942, there was an almost total unawareness of the true aim of the deportations among the large majority of Jews in the ghettos of occupied Poland.

  On the eve of a deportation, the Jews in the ghettos were told that they were being sent to the East, to labor camps somewhere in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, mainly the Ukraine. The fact that many of the weak and sick who were unable to walk to the railway station were shot on the spot merely encouraged the belief that the others would be sent to work. The deception was further strengthened by rumors spread in the ghettos that deported Jews had been seen by some non-Jews somewhere in the East and that letters had even arrived from them.

  The extent to which the fabrication was successful can be seen in the example of Lublin. Although the Jewish Council had itself cooperated with the German authorities in the deportations, it was no more privy to the true situation than was anyone else. Twelve of its twenty-four members, along with thirty-five Jewish ghetto policemen, were deported to Belzec at the beginning of April 1942.1 They did not know, of course, that they were being sent to their death. The Jews of Lvov did not know that 15,000 from their city who had been deported in March 1942 had been sent to Belzec and murdered there. Rabbi David Kahana, who witnessed this Aktion, wrote in his wartime diary:

  A few days after this Aktion, the Jews began to inquire as to where the miserable deportees had been taken. Rumors spread again, as before the Aktion. . . . They had been taken to Belzec
. It was confirmed by railway workers who had brought them to the railway station there What had been done to the Jews there? Until now, no Jew had escaped from Belzec. Even none of the local non-Jews had been inside the camp.2

  A Pole, Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who was permitted by the Germans to keep his pharmacy inside the Cracow ghetto, witnessed the deportations at the beginning of June 1942, and wrote in his memoirs:

  There are rumors that the deported were sent to the Ukraine, where they will work in agriculture. Some German railway workers told us that they personally saw there a large number of barracks with Jews from all over Europe. The Jews are kept there in good conditions; they work hard, but have everything they need, and receive food and clothes. Naturally they are under a strong guard. Surrounded with barbed wire and nobody can come close to them. They are forbidden to write letters, therefore there is no news from them. . . .3

  But even during that first period, the Germans were unable to shroud Belzec in total secrecy. Two Jewish women who had been deported to Belzec at the end of March 1942, from Zolkiew in the Lvov district, a town close to the camp, escaped and returned to their home town. An eyewitness from Zolkiew wrote: “After a few days, two Jewish women, Mina Astman and Malka Talenfeld, came back from the Aktion. After they had calmed down from their terrible experience, they secretly told some of their friends what they had been through. . . .”4 But in spite of such stories, the truth about what was going on in Belzec and the real purpose of the deportations reached only a limited number of Jews, even in Zolkiew.