by Chris Webb
Reder continued by describing how a typical working day started and continued:
At three-thirty in the morning, the askar sentry who walked around the barracks at night was already pounding on the door and shouting ‘Auf Heraus!’—before we could get out of bed, the thug Schmidt burst in and chased us out of the barracks with his riding crop. We ran out holding one shoe in our hands or barefoot. We usually hadn’t undressed, and we even slept in our shoes because we couldn’t have managed to get dressed in the morning.
At twelve noon we received a meal. We filed past two small windows. At the first one we got mugs, and at the second a half a litre of barley soup, in other words water, sometimes with a potato. Before dinner we had to sing songs; we also had to sing before the evening coffee.[102]
A typical working day ended thus:
In the evening the lights burned for half an hour. Then they were turned off. The Oberzugsführer prowled around the barracks with a whip and didn’t allow people to talk. We spoke very quietly with our neighbours. The crew was mostly made up of people whose wives, children and parents had been gassed. Many had managed to get a tallith and tefillin from the warehouse, and when the barracks was locked for the night, in the bunks we heard the murmur of the Kaddish prayer. We were saying prayers for the dead. Then it was quiet.[103]
He recalled how women workers were treated in Belzec:
In October a transport of Czech Jewish women arrived from Zamosc. There were several dozen women whose husbands worked in the death crew. A decision had been made to keep several dozen women from that last transport.
Forty were assigned to work in the kitchen, laundry and stitching workshop. They were not allowed any contact with their husbands. In the kitchen they peeled potatoes, washed pots and carried water. I don’t know what became of them. They surely shared the common fate. These were all educated women. They’d arrived with luggage. Some of them had portions of butter with them, they gave us whatever they had.
And they helped everyone who worked in the kitchen or near the kitchen. They lived in a small separate barracks and had a Zugsführerka over them. During work—I fixed stoves everywhere and went all around the camp—I saw how these women spoke with each other. They were not as mistreated as we were. Their work ended at dusk and they lined up in twos for soup and coffee. Like us they’d not had their own clothing taken away or been given striped uniforms.[104]
Chapter IX
Transports of Death:
Eyewitness Accounts
In this chapter, a number of people from all sides of the story will give their accounts. From one of the Polish locomotive drivers, to German railroad personnel, from Jews who escaped from the death trains, Wehrmacht officers and members of the Schutzpolizei, who guarded the transports and Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, and others who witnessed the transports to the Belzec death camp.
Stefan Kirsz, a Polish locomotive driver for the Ostbahn, who lived in Belzec testified after the war:
As a co-driver of a locomotive, I led the Jewish transports from the station of Rawa Ruska to Belzec many times. These transports were divided in Belzec into three parts. Each part, which consisted of twenty freight cars pushed by the locomotive, and stopped near the former border wall of 1939 / 40.
Immediately after the freight cars stopped inside the camp, they were emptied of the Jews. Within 3–5 minutes the twenty cars were empty of Jews and their luggage. I saw that in addition to the living, corpses were taken out. The Germans did not allow us to watch the camp, but I was able to see it when I approached the camp and deceptively pretended that I must put the coal closer to the entrance gate.[105]
Mieczyslaw Kudyba testified on October 14, 1945, in Belzec:
The Germans also took about 30 people to the death camp in a big black vehicle. Some of the Jews of Tomaszow Lubelski were taken to the death camp in this vehicle. According to my reckoning, about 450 people could be put into the gas chambers which we had built near the railway siding.
The transports were lined up on the siding and then shunted into the area of the death camp. In March 1942, when I was going along the road from Lubycza to Belzec, I saw that the Jews brought in were already undressed and that each one was carrying the clothing to the wagons. At that time about 5 cm of snow lay on the ground.
The undressed children, women and men were screaming. I had a good view of this through the camouflaged trellis of branches, at the moment the wagons were rolled back from the siding. The 2nd and 3rd barracks, of which I spoke at the beginning of my statement, were about 50 metres from the siding. During the time the camp was in operation the Germans built a whole row of barracks on the part of the camp near the siding. There could have been about 30 barracks.[106]
Georg Hölzel, deputy station master at Zwierzyniec station in the Lublin district, was frequently at the Belzec station, and had this to say about the Belzec and transports to the death camp in his interrogation in 1962:
In Belzec the SS-men lived in small farm houses directly opposite the station. I in no way had any point of contact with the SS-men. During my duty in Belzec I came across one SS-man in particular who always went around with a riding-whip. I noticed that he definitely wore four stars on his collar. I am not familiar with SS ranks.
I once saw how a transport of Jews was shunted into the Belzec camp. It happened like this: that in the station area the engine was changed from the front to the rear of the train, and then shunted it into the camp. The engine was then uncoupled and eventually the camp was locked. At this point the train personnel had to leave the station. Whether the trains were then handled exclusively by German personnel, I cannot say. To my knowledge Polish personnel were used.
I know only from heresay that in the critical times three transports a day rolled into Belzec. These trains also ran on Sundays. I remember such transports. I cannot give numbers. One experience made an impression on me. It was one Sunday afternoon about 1:30 p.m. A transport of Jews was reported from Zawada.
At our station in Zwierzyniec, engines took on water. This happened also with the above mentioned train. A little Jewish girl was squeezed out of the stationary train who I estimate was ten-twelve years old. She came to me clutching a 5 mark note in her hand—for water. I gave my Polish station master instructions that he could take my water tumbler and hand the girl some water.
I told the girl that she should put her money away. While the girl was drinking, the SS transport leader, who wore four stars as badges of rank appeared suddenly behind me. He then knocked the glass out of the girl’s hand with his riding-whip and then dealt the child several more blows. The girl’s father squeezed out of the wagon and on his knees begged the SS-Officer to leave her alone.
The SS-Officer drew his pistol and shot the father in the back of the neck. The girl was thrown back into the wagon. The same happened with the dead man. The SS-Officer told me it was a disgrace and not worthy of a German official to be a Jew’s slave. When in this connection I am asked the name of this SS-Officer, I can only say that he presumably came from Lublin.
In my opinion, the management of Belzec station came under Zwierzyniec, SS-Rottenführer Schuette belonged to this management. To my knowledge he came from the area of Gelsenkirchen or Hamm.[107]
Oskar Diegelmann, a Reichsbahn Oberinspektor (Senior Inspector) based in Lublin recalled:
As a controller I was responsible for ensuring the track was in good condition and in particular that the trains ran smoothly. During a visit to the station at Belzec the supervisor, a Secretary or Senior Secretary from Thüringen, informed me that he was having a lot of problems with the SS, who were stationed near the wood.
Some time later I myself saw and had a word with a number of SS people in the waiting-room at Belzec. When I inquired, they told me that they were not members of the SS but they had merely been given these uniforms. As they described it, most of them came from lunatic asylums or nursing homes in the Reich, where they had been involved in the killing of the mentally ill.
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I would like to say that one day the full significance of Belzec camp became clear to me when I saw mountains of clothes of all types behind our locomotive shed. There was also a large number of shoes there, as well as jewellery and other valuables. The SS had piled these things up there. Petrol was poured over items of clothing that were no longer wearable and they were then burnt.
There were a lot of rumours that valuable items were trafficked by the camp staff in the surrounding area. So it was not surprising that women of easy virtue, in particular, were attracted to the area surrounding Belzec, where they set themselves up in business. There were apparently a lot of orgies at that time.[108]
Fajga Kanner made a statement regarding early transports of Jews to Belzec:
On March 25, 1942, the transports from Rawa Ruska to Belzec began. At first we were still not aware what Belzec was but, afraid of deportation, we never undressed from March 1942 to January 1943, to be prepared to flee at any moment. We built bunkers.
Transports of Jews, 70 or 80 railroad cars, passed all summer, twice a day. We could hear the moans and crying of smothered children from the cars. The majority did not know where they were headed; they were sure that they were being sent to work. Later transports already knew that they were on their way to the gas. Some jumped from the trains and others were so dispirited that they did not take advantage of possible opportunities to save themselves. Heaps of the corpses of those who had jumped unsuccessfully lay near the tracks and embankments.[109]
Maria Daniel, who lived next to the railway line near Belzec station, testified on October 16, 1945, in Belzec:
What happened inside the death camp I do not know. I can only state that after the arrival of the wagons inside the camp terrible human cries could be heard, like; “People if you believe in God, rescue us!” This lasted about 5–10 minutes, then silence prevailed.
The empty wagons came out of the camp again and the next lot was shunted in. Then the screams were repeated afresh from inside the camp. Several times I saw naked Jews inside the wagons being conveyed into the camp.
In the summer of 1942 I was a witness when a naked woman lept out of a wagon; she was immediately caught by the ‘Blacks’ and, naked, taken into the camp.... in 1942, as I travelled on the road from Rawa Ruska to Belzec, I saw Germans bringing 2 lorries full of gypsies; the gypsies were on their knees, pleading to be released.[110]
On August 30, 1942, a Wehrmacht Non Commissioned Officer (NCO) Wilhelm Cornides was in Rzeszow on his way to Cholm (Chelm) in the Generalgouvernement by train. In his diary, he recorded that a railway policeman in Rzeszow had told him that a marble plaque with golden letters was to be erected on September 1, because by then the city would be free of Jews.
The railway policemen also told him: “That trains filled with Jews pass almost daily through the shunting yards, are dispatched immediately on their way and return swept clean most often the same evening. Some 6,000 Jews from Jaroslaw were recently killed in one day.”
Wilhelm Cornides then took the regular passenger train from Rzeszow to Cholm, reaching Rawa Ruska, an important rail junction, on August 31. Cornides stayed in the Deutsches Haus (German House), which was located in the Sokol prewar building in the centre of Rawa Ruska. He recorded what he saw in his diary:
At ten minutes past noon I saw a transport train run into the station. On the roof and running boards sat guards with rifles. One could see from a distance that the cars were jammed full of people. I turned and walked along the whole train. It consisted of thirty –five cattle cars and one passenger car.
In each of the cars there were at least sixty Jews—in the case of the enlisted men’s or prisoner transports these wagons would hold forty men, however, the benches had been removed and one could see that those who were locked in here had to stand pressed together. Some of the doors were opened a crack, the windows criss-crossed with barbed-wire. Among the people locked in there were a few men and most of them were old, everyone else was women, girls and children. Many children crowded at the windows and the narrow door openings. The youngest were surely not more than two years old.
As soon as the train halted, the Jews attempted to pass out bottles in order to get water. The train, ain however, was surrounded by SS guards, so that no-one could come near. At that moment a train arrived from the direction of Jaroslaw, the travellers streamed toward the exit without bothering about the transport. A few Jews who were busy loading a car for the armed forces waved their caps to the people locked in.
I talked to a policeman on duty at the railway station. Upon my question as to where the Jews came from he answered; “Those are probably the last ones from Lvov. That has been going on now for three weeks without interruption. In Jaroslaw they only let eight remain, no-one knows why”.
I asked; “How far are they going?” Then he said; “To Belzec”. And then? “Poison. I asked, “Gas”. He shrugged his shoulders, then he said; “At the beginning they always shot them I believe.
Here in the Deutsches Haus I just talked with two soldiers from the front-line Prisoner of War Camp 325. They said these transports had lately passed through every day, mostly at night. Yesterday a 70-car one is supposed to have gone through.
From Rawa Ruska Cornides took the afternoon train to Cholm. The things he learned on this journey were so extraordinary that he made three separate entries in his diary within an hour. The first entry was at five-thirty p.m.
When we boarded at Four-Forty p.m. an empty transport had just arrived. I walked along the train twice and counted fifty-six cars. On the doors had been written in chalk sixty, seventy, once ninety, occasionally forty—obviously the number of Jews inside the cattle cars.
In my compartment I spoke with a railway policenan’s wife who was visiting her husband here. She says these transports are now passing through daily; sometimes also with German Jews. Yesterday six children’s bodies were found along the tracks. The woman thinks that the Jews themselves had killed these children—but they must have succumbed during the trip. The railway policeman who was escorting the train joined us in our compartment. He confirmed the woman’s statement about the children’s bodies which were found along the track yesterday. I asked, “Do the Jews know what is happening to them?”
The woman answered; “Those who come from far wont know anything, but here in the vicinity they know already. They attempt to run away, if they notice that someone is coming for them. So for example, most recently in Cholm, three were shot on their way through the city. In the railway documents these trains run under the name of resettlement transports, remarked the railway policeman. He then said; “That after the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, several transports containing Czechs had passed through.”
Cornides continued his account:
Camp Belzec is supposed to be located right on the railway line and the woman promised to show it to me , when we pass it. Five –forty p.m.—a short halt. Opposite us a transport again stops. I speak with the policeman in front of the compartment we ride in. I ask; “Are you going back home to the Reich?” Grinning he says, “You probably know where we are coming from. Well for us the work is never finished.” Then the transport opposite us moves away, thiry-five empty and cleaned wagons. In all probability this was the train that I had seen at One p.m. in Rawa Ruska station.
Six-twenty p.m.—we passed Camp Belzec. Before then, we travelled for some time through a tall pine forest. When the woman called, “Now it comes.” One could see a high hedge of fir trees. A strong sweetish odour could be made out distinctly. “But they are stinking already,” says the woman. “Oh nonsense, its only the gas,” the railway policeman said laughing. Meanwhile we had gone about 200 meters—the sweetish odour was transformed into a strong smell of something burning. “That is from the crematory,” said the policeman.
A short distance further on the fence stopped. In front of it one could see a guard house with an SS post. A double track led into the camp. One track branched off from the main line over a turnta
ble from the camp to a row of sheds some 250 meters away. A freight car happened to stand on the turntable. Several Jews were busy turning the turntable—SS guards, rifles under their arms stood by. One of the sheds was open, one could distinctly see that it was filled to the ceiling with bundles of clothes.
As we went on, I looked back one more time—the fence was too high to see anything at all. The woman says, “That sometimes, while going by one could see smoke rising from the camp,” but I did not notice anything of the sort. My estimate is that the camp measures about 800 meters by 400 meters.
In his diary, Cornides recorded conversations he had with other witnesses. A policeman in the town hall restaurant in Cholm on September 1, 1942, said:
The policemen who escort the Jewish trains are not allowed into the camp. The only ones who get in are the SS and the Ukrainian Special Services. But these people are doing a good business over there. Recently a Ukrainian visited us, and he had a whole stack of money in notes and watches and gold and all kinds of things. They find all of that when they put together the clohing and load it.
Upon the question, as to how these Jews were actually being killed, the policeman answered, “They are told that they must get rid of their lice, and then they must take off their clothes and then they come into a room, where first off they get a hot blast of air, which is already mixed with a small dose of gas. That is enough to make them unconscious. The rest comes after, and then they are burned immediately.[111]
A member of the Schutzpolizei in Lvov, Josef Jacklein—a Zugwachtmeister—wrote a report concerning a transport from Kolomea to Belzec dated September 14, 1942:
On 9 September 1942 I received orders to take over command of the Jewish resettlement train which was leaving Kolomea for Belzec on 10 September 1942. On 10 September 1942 at 19.30 hours in accordance with my orders, I took over command of the train together with an escort unit consisting of one officer and nine men at the railway yard in Kolomea. The resettlement train was handed over to me by the Schutzpolizei Hauptwachtmeister Zitzmann. When it was handed over to me the train was already in a highly unsatisfactory state. Hptw. Zitzmann had informed me of this fact when he handed it over to me.