by Yitzhak Arad
The fact that the transport that had resisted was from the area of Bialystok-Grodno is not incidental. In the ghettos and camps in this area there was an organized youth underground. They hoarded arms, and quite a few young people left for the forests and the partisans. The youths who resisted evidently were organized; they had knives and, according to one testimony, a grenade. When their situation became clear, they began their revolt.
In yet another transport a group of young women resisted entering the gas chambers. An eyewitness to this event states:
I shall not forget the construction work of the stores. While on the roof I could see a terrible picture: a group of naked women were standing near the gas chambers and refused to enter. The SS men and Ukrainians were beating them brutally with sticks and butts. Some of them were killed on the spot. . . .12
In Sobibor also there were some attempts at resistance, among the transports that arrived from the Wlodawa ghetto. The people in this ghetto, which was only 8 km. from Sobibor, had received some information as to what was going on in the nearby camp. A transport with the last 2,000 Jews from Wlodawa arrived in Sobibor on April 30, 1943. When they disembarked from the train and were driven to the gas chambers, they attacked the Germans and Ukrainians and started running. A prisoner from the Bahnhof kommando testified: “When I was working in the Bahnhof kommando, I witnessed two resistance attempts by two transports from Wlodawa. To the second transport we said quietly to the people: ‘You are being taken to your death, attack the Germans.’ Indeed, they wounded a few Germans.”13 Another prisoner testified that he saw the people of Wlodawa running from the direction of Camp III and that they destroyed a wall close to the gas chambers. They were caught and killed.14
Another case of resistance happened in a transport that was brought to Sobibor on October 11, 1943. During these last days of Sobibor’s existence, some transports arrived from Minsk. Alexander Pechersky, the commander of the uprising in Sobibor, wrote about this:
In the morning we suddenly heard horrible screams and shooting from automatic rifles. Soon thereafter came a command that no one was to leave the workshops. The gates of Camp I were shut. The number of guards was increased everywhere. The screaming and the shooting were heard more frequently. . . . It lasted for some time. Then it grew quiet. It was not until five in the evening that we learned what had happened. A new transport had arrived. When the people were already undressed, they realized where they were being taken and began to run, naked. But where was there to run? They were already in the camp and fenced in on all sides. So they ran toward the barbed-wire fence. There they were met by a hail of bullets from automatic rifles. Many fell dead on the spot. The rest were led away to the gas chambers.15
There were additional attempts of resistance in Sobibor, but no detailed testimonies are left.
The authorities in command in Treblinka and Sobibor were aware that the transports arriving from the General Government or from Ostland in the last months of the camps’ activities may stage acts of resistance. Therefore stronger security measures and precautions were taken in anticipation of their arrival. More SS men and Ukrainian guards were at the station and along the route to the gas chambers. In some cases not all the freight cars were opened simultaneously, and the transport was liquidated in groups. On other occasions, the young men were taken first to the gas chambers, before they realized what was going on.16
All these acts of spontaneous resistance were carried out by small groups of victims and had no chance of success. Since they were already in the closed, heavily guarded camp, the Jews of the transports were doomed to extermination, and these unorganized acts could in no way change that situation at the very last moment.
A spontaneous act of resistance and escape was staged in Belzec by a group of prisoners who worked in the removal of corpses from the gas chambers, on June 13, 1942. The Polish underground reported:
The revolt in the camp, probably the first one, took place on June 13th, when Jews were summoned to remove the corpses of murdered women and children: at the horrible sight (they were standing in the gas chamber holding each others’ waists and necks, presumably in the prenatal reflexes), they attacked the “Wachmannschaft” [the guards], which resulted in a struggle in which 4-6 Germans and nearly all the Jews died; several Jews managed to escape.17
This event is not mentioned in any other source. The transports liquidated in Belzec in those days came from the Cracow district. A few days after this event the killing operations in Belzec stopped for about a month; they were resumed in the middle of July 1942 (see Chapter 9). It may well be that the month’s pause in the killing was caused not only by the need for the construction of larger gas chambers, but also by this act of resistance.
32
Escapes from the Camps
The prisoners in the death camps understood that they were being kept alive only as long as they were able to work and be of use in the extermination process. Every day they faced a selection and possible death in the Lazarett or gas chambers as punishment or in retaliation by any SS man in the camp. Almost all of them knew that as soon as the purpose for which the camp had been built—annihilation—had been achieved, they would all be killed. Their fate was sealed both because they were Jews and because the Germans had no desire to leave witnesses to their crimes. Most of the prisoners were convinced that the only way to survive was by escape. However, while the thought and the desire to implement this conviction were widespread among the prisoners, the obstacles and dangers involved in any attempt to escape were overwhelming. Among these were the security measures and precautions taken by the camp authorities and guards; the limited opportunities to find help and hiding places among the local population after the escape; and the severe retaliation against the prisoners who remained in the camp. In reality there was little chance for a successful escape. Nevertheless, attempts by individuals or groups of prisoners to get away from the camps continued during the entire period.
Escapes from Treblinka
In the disorder and confusion that prevailed in Treblinka in the first month of its existence, there were many attempted escapes from the camp—some of which were successful. The first escapes were individual initiatives and were carried out by using the freight cars in which the victims’ belongings were shipped out of the camp. Jews were taken from the transports and employed at loading the belongings on the cars; after a few days they were killed. The escapees hid in the piles of clothes and sometimes were helped by their fellow workers, who piled more belongings over their hiding places. After the train left the camp and was already some distance away, the escapees jumped from the train. Many were shot at the moment of their escape by the train guards, but others succeeded in getting away. Simcha Laski, who was taken from Warsaw to Treblinka at the end of July, escaped after four days. He tells of his escape:
After about three days in the camp, only 17 men out of the 800 were left of those picked for work. . . . On the fourth day a train came with empty cars. We loaded the cars with packages of clothes and underwear. I decided to hide in one of the cars. As I stepped into the car with a package of clothing, I burrowed under a pile of clothes. I heard how they closed and locked the cars . . . I took a chance and stuck my head out of the pile so that I could breath a little air. To my great surprise, I saw another head stick out from the piles of clothes. We exchanged a few words. It was a boy from the provinces. Later we discovered another two boys in the car. One was my friend Moshe Boorstein. They had all chosen this particular car because the small aperture was not barred. . . . We traveled for a few hours without even knowing in which direction. Only as we neared Lublin did we realize in which direction we were traveling. We decided to jump from the speeding train because if we reached Lublin or Warsaw they would catch us as they unloaded and would shoot us.
Near Lukov two of the friends jumped . . . and immediately after we heard shots. I was already apathetic to the idea of being shot. . . . I left the car and hung on the window sill. I pushed off f
rom the train and jumped. As a result of the fall I fractured my leg and scratched my face. Again a machine-gun round was heard. On the roof of the last car I saw a machine gun and the shots were coming from there. I was not wounded from the bullets. I went to look for my friends who had jumped before me. After a short time I met Boorstein and, after continuing a bit more near the track, we found the other two, who were no longer alive. After two weeks of wandering we reached Warsaw. It was the day of the “Children’s Aktion.”1
In a similar way, Abraham Kszepicki also escaped from the camp. He ran away after eighteen days in Treblinka, in the middle of September 1942. He hid in a freight car full of clothing, together with three other people, but alone succeeded in reaching the Warsaw ghetto.
Oskar Berger testified to an escape in a freight car of belongings. Berger succeeded in escaping from Treblinka with a young boy in September 1942.2
People also escaped under cover of darkness through the camp fences, which were not electrified and did not contain any special alarm system. The sorting group workers found a unique way of escaping. Throughout the day, as they sorted the clothes and prepared the piles of belongings for transport, the ones who were planning escape also prepared hiding places for themselves in the tremendous piles of clothing. Toward the end of the workday, before the scheduled return to the barrack and the lockup for the night, the escapees crept into their hiding places. Friends who were not among those planning to escape covered the entrance to the hiding place with additional piles of belongings. At night, the escapees crawled out from under the piles of clothing, crept over the fence at the end of the sorting yard, and ran away.
Abraham Bomba tells about the plan and implementation of such an escape:
. . . On Saturday, during the entire workday, Yechiel Berkowicz, Yechezkel Cooperman, and I prepared a “bunker” [a nickname for a hiding place under the piles of clothing] in a way that by the evening roll call it would be ready. Before the roll call, we noticed that someone was loitering in the vicinity of our “bunker”. . . . We decided to put off hiding in the “bunker” till the next day. On Sunday we worked all day and at night we hid in the “bunker.” After the roll call the Ukrainians and the SS began searching for prisoners and, from our hiding place, we could see how they stabbed at the piles of clothing with their bayonets to see whether anyone was hiding there. After a while they left the yard, and we breathed a small sigh of relief. We lay in the hiding place another few hours until we decided to get out. The direction of escape was through the Lazarett; the fire in the pit lit up everything around it. On the other side was the watchtower with the searchlight. We reached the barbed wire. The first to go over was Berkowicz. I went after him, and Cooperman last. We crawled several hundred meters and then we got up and started running. After a few hours of running, we suddenly heard a conversation in Ukrainian. We realized that we were still near the camp, near the Ukrainian barracks. It seems that for hours we had run in a semicircle and had made no distance from the camp. We began running in the opposite direction and after a while we reached the Bug River. We were about six kilometers from the camp. The time was five in the morning and soon the day would begin. . . .3
Bomba received help from a few farmers, reached Warsaw, from there went to Czestochowa, and was able to remain hidden until the liberation.
Among those who escaped from Treblinka were other people from Czestochowa. One was Aron Gelberd, who escaped from the camp on October 21. When he was 8 kilometers from Treblinka, he was caught by Ukrainian farmers. They stripped him of his outer clothing and left him, but somehow he got back to Czestochowa and remained there until the liquidation of the “small ghetto.”4
There is an anonymous testimony on the escape from Treblinka of a Jew from Czestochowa who was brought to the camp on September 24 and escaped after six days. He was taken to work under guard outside the camp with five other men to gather branches. The Ukrainian guard got drunk and fell asleep and the Jew from Czestochowa was able to escape. There are no further details as to his identity or what happened to him afterward. Another testimony tells of an escapee from Treblinka whose name was Richter. This man returned to the “small ghetto” in Czestochowa and told of what was happening in Treblinka. On the day that the ghetto was liquidated, at the beginning of October 1942, Richter tried to kill the German officer Rohn, who commanded the expulsion Aktion.5
A few escapees from Treblinka reached the “small ghetto” that continued to exist in Siedlce until the end of November 1942. They related what was happening in Treblinka, but with the final liquidation of the ghetto they, too, were taken once again to the camp for extermination.
The Treblinka escapees who reached the Warsaw ghetto are mentioned in various sources. Among them were David Novodvorski, who returned to the Warsaw ghetto in August 1942, and the journalist Jacob Rabinowicz. As a result of Rabinowicz’s report on the extermination in Treblinka, the Jewish Labor party Bund, which was active in the Underground in the Warsaw ghetto, sent a few emissaries to Kosov and to Sokolow-Podlaski in the area of Treblinka to test the veracity of the report. In Sokolow-Podlaski the Bund emissaries met with another escapee from Treblinka by the name of Azriel Wallach and from him they received verification of Rabinowicz’s report. Following the reports of the escapees who reached Warsaw, there was no longer any doubt among the organizations and parties in the ghetto that the Jews who were sent to Treblinka were killed there. This information was one of the decisive factors in establishing the “Jewish Fighting Organization” in the Warsaw ghetto and in preparing for resistance and revolt.6
A great number of people escaped from Treblinka in the summer of 1942. Most reached the nearby ghettos that still had Jews living in them, but were later sent again to extermination when these ghettos were liquidated. When they came to Treblinka for the second time, a small number were able to join the prisoners and in this way save themselves from the gas chambers.7
The prisoners in the camp covered up for the escapees. So as not to arouse the attention of the SS men to the escapes, during the daily roll calls the “camp elder” Galewski, with the help of other prisoners, succeeded in removing a few people from the latest transports and have them join the workers. This was done in such a way that the absence of the escapees was not noticeable during the roll call. In spite of this, the escapes could not be hidden from the Germans and Ukrainians for long, as they discovered the holes in the camp fences. That the Jews escaped from the camp did not bother the Germans to any great extent, because they were certain that sooner or later most of them would be recaptured. However, they did want to ensure that the fate of the Jews who were brought to Treblinka would not be made public knowledge, and therefore they employed sundry ways and means of persuasion and threats. Strawczinski relates:
At first they wanted to persuade us with nice words. An important person from Lublin came to the camp, gathered us together and spoke to us. We were told that a “Jewish city” was being established and that the Jews would be granted full autonomy there, and if we would work with dedication and earn their trust we would receive leadership positions in the Jewish city. When the nice words did not help, they began to threaten us. They announced that if the escape attempts continued, they would strip us and we would have to work naked, and that attempted escape would be punished by death by torture, because we had violated the trust that had been placed in us. To demonstrate that these were not idle threats, the next day two young boys were stopped and accused of having planned an escape from the camp. In the center of the roll-call square, a gallows was built and all the prisoners were gathered around it. The commander gave a short speech on the punishment of the escapees, and the two boys were hung naked by their feet. The Germans whipped their swinging bodies for about half an hour, until one of the Germans pulled a gun and shot them. . . .8
Another witness writes that while they were still alive, hanging by their feet and repeatedly beaten, the boys called out to the prisoners: “Jews, escape, because death awaits you also. P
ay no attention to the fact that meanwhile you have something to eat. Our fate today is your fate tomorrow.” The two youngsters were shot by SS Scharführer Josef Hirtreiter.9
Despite the severe punishments, escapes from the camp did not cease as long as the killing of the prisoner work staff continued. The prisoners were aware of what was going on in Treblinka and knew that they were marked for death within a few days. In the second half of September 1942, with the cessation of the murder of the prisoner work staff and the institution of a cadre of working prisoners in the camp, the number of escapes decreased. The concentration of the Jews in the living area and the intensification of the supervision and security also resulted in a reduction in the number of escapees.
Yet improvements in the living conditions of the prisoners, stricter supervision in the camp, and the inauguration of severe punishments did not completely eliminate further attempts at escape. At the end of November/beginning of December, seven “blues,” who worked on the platform, attempted escape. They were caught, taken by the deputy commander, Kurt Franz, to the Lazarett, and shot there. Franz ordered a roll call and announced that if there were further attempted escapes, and especially if prisoners succeeded in escaping, ten prisoners would be shot for every escapee.10