Everything is ready. Our excitement is running high, but so is our fear that the murderers might find out something and shoot us. We fall out for the midday meal. The latest news from Camp 1 is that everything is ready. Our only concern is that something might happen once again to spoil our plans. We have seen to it that at every point, such as the ovens, there will still be people at work so that we will not be shut up in the barracks. We claim that the fires need attention, that they are not burning well. In the kitchen we supposedly haven’t drawn enough water so we have to send several people back to get more. These are in fact three good soldiers. Their task, the moment the revolt begins, will be to cut the throats of the Ukrainian guards and seize their weapons.
The midday rations are being distributed. We are all hungry, as always, but none of us is able to eat anything. No-one asks for seconds of soup. Dozens of comrades do not touch the food.
Afterwards all of us go back to work filled with happiness. We say to one another: — Ha-yom, ha-yom!”(Hebrew: The Day, the Day!) The work goes quickly. The murderers are pleased that the work is humming along. We avoid speaking to one another so that no-one will notice anything. Our tools are hidden in the appropriate places.
Our comrade Adolf, using various pretexts, tries to check every position. Despite all our preparations, there are still many among us who have no idea what is supposed to happen. The time passes with extraordinary slowness. The fear that something may go wrong is unbearable.
The clock strikes 3.30.
We hear two gunshots from the direction of Camp 1 — a sign that the revolt has started. A few minutes later we receive the order to quit working. Everyone hurries to his post. A few seconds after that, flames engulf the gas chambers. They have been set on fire. The Ukrainian standing guard next to the barracks lies on the ground like a stuck pig, blood flowing from him. His weapon is already being used by our comrade Zelo.
Shots are heard from all sides. The Ukrainians, whom our comrades have lured from the watchtowers, lie dead. Two S.S. excavator operators are dead. We head for the barbed wire shouting: — Revolyutsya v Berline! (Russian: Revolution in Berlin!) Several of the Ukrainians become disorientated and put up their hands.
Their weapons are taken from them. We cut the wires one after the other. We are already at the third barbed-wire fence.
I am near the barracks. Many comrades have become confused and out of fear are hiding inside. I and several others urge them out, shouting: — Comrades, come out to freedom, faster, faster!
All are now outside. The third fence has been cut. Fifty metres further on there are trestles thickly interwoven with barbed wire.
We try to cut these as well.
The firing of the murderers’ machine guns can be heard now.
Some of them have succeeded in getting hold of their weapons.
At the trestles lie many of our comrades who became entangled in the wires and were unable to escape.
I am among the last to go. I am already outside. Next to me is Comrade Kruk, from Płock. He falls into my arms: — Comrade, we are free. We kiss one another. I manage to run a few dozen metres when I see that the murderers are coming after us with machine guns. An automobile is bearing down on us. On the roof is a machine gun shooting in all directions. Many fall down dead.
There are dead bodies at every step. I change direction and run to the left off the road. The car continues along that Polish road and soon it is ahead of me. We run in various directions. The murderers pursue us from all sides.
I notice that the peasants working the fields and the shepherds are running away out of fear. Finally, having run about 3 kilometres, we find ourselves in a small woodland. We decide that there is no point in running further and hide in the dense brush. We number some twenty people. The group is too big, and we divide into two groups of ten men each. The groups are separated by about 150 metres.
We lie there for several minutes and suddenly see that Ukrainians with several S.S. men have surrounded the wood and are entering it. They encounter the second group and all of them are immediately shot.
Among us is a Czech called Masaryk, a nephew of the former Czech president Masaryk. His wife was Jewish and he accompanied her to Treblinka. When he sees that the murderers are closing in on us, he takes a razor blade from his pocket and slits his wrists. Blood spurts from his wrists. I try to stop him, but he cannot be dissuaded, out of fear of falling yet again into the hands of the murderers.
We lie quietly for a brief time. Fortunately, they have not noticed us and have left the wood. I bind Masaryk’s wrists with a bit of linen and succeed in stanching the flow of blood. We lie there for a time, then notice that civilians have entered the wood.
They apparently have noticed us and have turned back towards us. We decide to run away quickly. We run for several hundred metres and come to another wood. Evening falls and it grows dark. At midnight we proceed further, not knowing where we are going.
Masaryk, a former officer, is able to orientate himself at night by the stars. With him leading the way, we move on. We walk all night. At sunrise we find ourselves in a big, dense forest. We decide to stay there. We are exhausted and very hungry.
We lie there a whole day. We take turns every few hours to make sure that no-one snores loudly if he falls asleep since every rustle resounds in the forest.
17
We knock at a peasant’s door. The murderers look for us. I head for Warsaw. I meet a man… They want to hand me over to the police. I arrive in Warsaw.
At midnight we set off and leave the forest. The night is clear, and we realize that we are not very far from… Treblinka. We roam around, then return to the forest where we walk till morning.
On the way we come to a muddy stream. Our comrade Masaryk crouches on all fours and drinks the muddy water. We do the same.
After three days of wandering, tired and hungry, we decide that we have to take a chance and go to a peasant’s house to find out where we are and ask for something to eat.
I and my comrade Kalman, the one who set the gas chambers on fire, knock at a peasant’s gate. The others remain hidden in the forest, afraid that we might encounter unfriendly people.
The peasant opens the gate but will not let us in. He tells us that Germans in automobiles and on bicycles have been looking for us all day long. At the same time we learn that the mayor has let it be known that any peasant who turns over a Jew to him or to the police will receive a big reward.
The peasant gives us a loaf of bread and some milk, asking for gold in exchange. We give him two watches. We learn that we are 15 kilometres from Treblinka. We want to find out if he knows where there are partisan units. He doesn’t know, but he informs us that there are big forests 5 kilometres from here. We head in that direction and wander around for fourteen days. But we do not encounter any partisans. It often happens that when we knock at the gates of a peasant house, they refuse to open or to answer our questions. We are so weakened by hunger and thirst that we can hardly stand. We pull up potatoes and beets in the fields and eat them raw. Our situation is desperate. By day we are afraid to show ourselves since everyone we meet tells us that there are round-ups going on.
After a fortnight in the forests, seeing no way out, I propose that we take a chance and travel to Warsaw. Several of us have acquaintances there, and perhaps we will succeed in saving ourselves. My proposal is rejected out of fear that along the way we might fall into the hands of the murderers.
Seeing that it is impossible for me to remain, I decide to leave for Warsaw by myself. It is painful for me to take leave of my friends. Still, I start on my way. We embrace each other and express our wish that we may meet again.
After walking several kilometres I come to a village. It is evening. I enter a peasant’s house. He is afraid to talk to me. He hands me a piece of bread and tells me that Warsaw is 99 kilometres away. As I stand there, I suddenly hear the sound of shooting in the distance. The peasant runs back into the house and shouts to me to
run away at once. I run into the potato fields and hide there. I hear more shots. Night has fallen. Heavy rain begins to fall and continues all night. I lie there for twelve hours until dawn. I feel I will not be able get up, but with my last ounce of strength I get back on my feet. After walking a few kilometres, I see a man approaching me. By now indifferent to everything, I keep going. The man comes closer. I see from his clothes that he is a peasant and ask him the way. He thinks about it for a little while then asks me: — Are you one of those who fled Treblinka?
Seeing that he feels compassion for me, I tell him that I am indeed one of those who fled and ask him for help. He tells me that he has to go to the mill to buy flour for tomorrow’s holiday.
But he turns back with me towards his house, some 2 kilometres away. He leads the way and I follow.
When I enter his house I see a woman with a child in her arms.
I embrace the little child and kiss it. The woman looks at me in astonishment and I tell her: — Dear lady, it is a whole year since I have seen a living child… The woman and I cry together. She gives me food, and, seeing that I am soaked through, she gives me a shirt of her husband’s to put on. She mentions that it is her husband’s last shirt.
I see that these people want to help me. Weeping, the woman says to me: — I would very much like to help you, but I am afraid of my neighbours. After all, I have a small child…
After spending half an hour with them, I thank them warmly and want to say goodbye. The peasant points through the window to a barn standing in the middle of the fields not far from us. The barn belongs to a rich peasant and no-one ever goes there. He advises me to hide there and come to him in the evenings, when he will give me food. I thank them and head for the barn. I burrow deep into the straw so that no-one can see me. A real stroke of luck.
When evening falls I crawl out of the straw and head for my friends’ house. They receive me in a very friendly fashion. After I have been sitting there for a few minutes, a neighbour suddenly enters, and without so much as saying hello slaps me hard twice on the face. He screams: — Yid, come with me!
Unfortunately I am helpless. The woman, seeing what he means to do to me, begs him to let go of me and allow me to escape. But he refuses to budge. The woman kisses him and begs him: — Franek, what do you want with that man? Do you even know him?
He screams at her for defending me: — Don’t you know that these bandits set fire to Treblinka? I’ll get a reward for him!
Her entreaties and tears are in vain. Seeing that she cannot change his mind, she goes over to him, grabs him from behind and shouts to me to escape. I tear myself away and dash out of the house. I cross the garden and run a couple of hundred steps and lie down in the field. I decide not to run away since it would be a shame to lose such good people. When it is clear to me that Franek has gone, I crawl back towards my friends on all fours, go into the barn and lie down again. In the morning the peasant comes in and when he sees me he greets me warmly. He is afraid that I will be caught because the neighbours all around are very bad people. He brings me food several times a day, and in the evening I hide in the barn in the middle of the fields.
I spend about two weeks that way. Every evening I come to the house of these good people and they hand me food through the window. But then the owner of the barn arrives and unloads some grain there. I suspect that he has seen me and therefore decide to leave my hiding place for Warsaw come what may.
That evening I go to my friends and tell them of my decision.
They try to dissuade me out of fear that I may fall into the hands of the police patrolling the roads. But I cannot be talked out of it and bid them goodbye. The peasant tells me that the nearest railway station is Kostki, about 7 kilometres away.
The trip is a difficult one, as the trains are full of police. Nevertheless I am able to get to Warsaw without incident, and thence to Piastów, where my friend Jarosz, a Pole, resides. At first he does not recognize me and tries to give me 5 zlotys. Then, when he realizes who I am, he is happy to see me and helps me with necessities. He also provides Aryan papers for me.
After spending several days with him, I break down physically and spiritually. I lose my appetite and am convinced that I have no right to be alive after all I have seen and experienced. My friends care for me and try to convince me that there are few witnesses left like me and that I need to live in order to tell it all.
Yes, I lived for a year in Treblinka under the most difficult conditions. After the revolt I wandered for two months, lived for a year as a Pole with false papers, then after the Warsaw Uprising I hid in a bunker for three and a half months until I was liberated on 17 January, 1945.
Yes, I remained alive and find myself among free people. But why, I often ask myself. Is it so that I might tell the world about the millions of innocent murdered victims, to be a witness to the innocent blood that was spilled by the hands of the murderers?
Yes, I remained alive to bear witness against the slaughterhouse of Treblinka!
THE HELL OF TREBLINKA
by Vasily Grossman
1
To the east of Warsaw, along the Western Bug, lie sands and swamps, and thick evergreen and deciduous forests. These places are gloomy and deserted; there are few villages. Travellers try to avoid the narrow roads, where walking is difficult and cartwheels sink up to the axle in the deep sand.
Here, on the branch line to Siedlce, stands the remote station of Treblinka. It is a little over sixty kilometres from Warsaw and not far from the junction station of Malkinia, where the lines from Warsaw, Białystok, Siedlce and Łomza all meet.
Many of those who were brought to Treblinka in 1942 may have had reason to pass this way in peaceful times. Gazing abstractedly at the dull landscape — pines, sand, sand and more pines, heather and dry shrubs, dismal station buildings and the intersections of tracks — bored passengers may have let their gaze settle for a moment on a single-track line running from the station into the middle of the dense pine forest around it. This spur led to a quarry where gravel was extracted for industrial and municipal construction projects.
This quarry is about four kilometres from the station, in a stretch of wilderness surrounded on all sides by pine forest. The soil here is poor and barren, and the peasants do not cultivate it.
And so the wilderness has remained wilderness. The ground is partly covered by moss, with thin pines here and there. Now and then a jackdaw flies by, or a bright-coloured crested hoopoe. This miserable wilderness was the place chosen by some official, and approved by S.S. Reichsführer Himmler, for the construction of a vast executioner’s block — an executioner’s block such as the human race has never seen, from the time of primitive barbarism to our own cruel days. An executioner’s block, probably, such as the entire universe has never seen. This was the site of the S.S.’s main killing ground, which surpassed those of Sobibór, Majdanek, Bełżec and Auschwitz.[1]
There were two camps at Treblinka: Treblinka I, a penal camp for prisoners of various nationalities, chiefly Poles; and Treblinka II, the Jewish camp.
Treblinka I, a labour or penal camp, was located next to the quarry, not far from the edge of the forest. It was an ordinary camp, one of the hundreds and thousands of such camps that the Gestapo established in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. It appeared in 1941. Many different traits of the German character, distorted by the terrible mirror of Hitler’s regime, find expression in this camp. Thus the delirious ravings occasioned by fever are an ugly, distorted reflection of what the patient thought and felt before he was ill. Thus the acts and thoughts of a madman are a distorted reflection of the acts and thoughts of a normal person. Thus a criminal commits an act of violence; his hammer blow to the bridge of his victim’s nose requires not only a sub-human cold-bloodedness but also the keen eye and firm grip of an experienced foundry worker.
Thrift, precision, calculation and pedantic cleanliness are qualities common to many Germans, and they are not bad qualities in themselves
. They yield valuable results when applied to agriculture or industry. Hitler’s regime, however, harnessed these qualities for a crime against humanity. In this Polish labour camp the S.S. acted as if they were doing something no more out of the ordinary than growing cauliflowers or potatoes.
The camp was laid out in neat uniform rectangles; the barracks were built in straight rows; birch trees lined the sand-covered paths. Asters and dahlias grew in the fertilized soil.
There were concrete ponds for the ducks and geese; there were small pools, with convenient steps, where the staff could do their laundry. There were services for the German personnel: an excellent bakery, a barber’s, a garage, a petrol pump with a glass ball on top, stores. The Majdanek camp outside Lublin was organized along the same principles — as were dozens of other labour camps in eastern Poland where the S.S. and the Gestapo intended to settle in for a long time; there were the same little gardens, the same drinking fountains, the same concrete roads.
Efficiency, precise calculation, a pedantic concern for order, a love of detailed charts and schedules — all these German qualities were reflected in the layout and organization of these camps.
People were sent to the labour camp for various periods of time, sometimes as little as four to six months. There were Poles who had infringed the laws of the General Government — usually this was a matter of minor infringements, since the penalty for major infringements was immediate death. A slip of the tongue, a word overheard on the street, a failure to make some delivery, someone else’s random denunciation, a refusal to hand over a cart or a horse to a German, a young girl being so bold as to refuse the advances of a member of the S.S., the merest unproven hint of suspicion of being involved in some act of sabotage at a factory, these were the offences that brought thousands of Polish workers, peasants and intellectuals — the old and the young, mothers, men and young girls — to this penal camp. Altogether, about fifty thousand people passed through its gates. Jews ended up in this camp only if they were unusually skilled craftsmen: bakers, cobblers, cabinet-makers, stonemasons, tailors. There were all kinds of workshops in the camp, including a substantial furniture workshop that supplied the headquarters of German armies with tables, upright chairs and armchairs.
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