The SS Men wore black uniforms with a skeleton's head on their hats, indicating their commitment to Hitler to the death. The motto Unsere Ehre heisst Treue ("My honor is called loyalty") was inscribed on their belts and their symbol was the double S-rune. They had sworn eternal faith to Adolf Hitler and they were his most ruthless henchmen, men often seen as the very personification of evil. A violent group, these SS men, who rose to power in a democracy and established the institutions of legitimized terror. Each SS soldier carried a whip, wore a German Luger pistol on his belt, and carried a machine gun. There were no restrictions on how they would treat the Jewish prisoners. They could whip them at will, shoot them at will, and exterminate them at will. They could steal from the Jews—what little the Jews had left when they arrived at the train platform—they could rape the women and girls, and they could make a line out of the living and pry the gold from their teeth with their spring knives. The gold would then be melted-down by the dentists, and formed by the machinists into rings, necklaces, and other baubles for the wives and mistresses of the SS. The women knew the source of the gold and often were thrilled at the notion, for they too had been taught early on to hate the Jews. An SS officer would have it no other way in his home.
As for Janich Heiss, he had in his safe more gold than he could carry and Marta would attend galas at the death camp just a barbed wire fence away from the very Jews whose dental fillings she now wore on her fingers and around her neck in heavy gold links. With the other women, and with the men listening in and sniggering, they would make jokes about their desire to cross through the fence and prove to the Jews the great use to which their gold had been put.
Franz Stangl, who was the former commander of the Sobibor death camp, commanded the death camp at Treblinka. One hundred SS men assisted Oberstgruppenführer Franz Stangl along with one hundred and twenty Ukrainian guards. The Ukrainians were Soviet prisoners of war who had seen the error of their ways and volunteered to serve the Germans rather than languish in one of the death camps themselves. Some of these men were of German extraction and from among their ranks there would be appointments made of platoon and squad commanders.
When the killing machine at Treblinka was fully underway, 1000 Jewish inmates performed manual labor and a hundred others attended to the personal needs of the SS staff and their wives. The prisoners were selected for labor from the never-ending trains. After three days they were killed and replaced by new arrivals so any threats that might arise from familiarity, such as escape plans, were quashed on the front end. The incoming deportation trains generally consisted of 50-60 cattle wagons containing six to seven thousand people in total. After passing through Malkinia Gorna junction, the trains crossed the Bug River and came to a halt at Treblinka village station.
Among the Jewish prisoners, Stangl arranged them into four commands. First, there were those who had to unload the trains, and they were known as the Station Command. Next, there were those tasked with undressing the new arrivals, and they were known as the Undressing Command. The next command was the Sorting Square Command, where the unending piles of Jewish clothing were sorted and recycled. The final command was the actual Death Command, responsible for loading and unloading the gas chambers and filling the mass graves. Barbers and dentists worked with this latter group.
Other specialists were used from among the Jews to run the heavy equipment necessary to dig the mass graves, bring down the pine trees and replant pine posts to help fence in the prisoners. Other specialists cooked the meals, constructed the barracks and chambers, and maintained and operated the automobile engines used to create the poisonous gas responsible for the nearly 1,000,000 deaths Treblinka would accomplish during its operation. The SS living quarters were made as pleasant as possible with the addition of the zoo and a beer garden, all courtesy of dead Jews.
Janich Heiss double-timed downstairs for breakfast. The Jewish kitchen staff had fresh eggs, ham, toast and orange juice waiting. Alongside his plate was arranged a neat stack of lesser officers' reports. As he dined—noisily chewing a mouthful of ham steak—he read line-by-line through the reports and learned yesterday his Death Squad Command had gassed seven thousand forty-four men, women, and children; overnight two more trains had arrived, presenting another eleven thousand Jews to the camp, two thousand five hundred of whom had already been fed into the showers even before the captain's breakfast was cooking, and the bodies were at that very moment being transported to the mass graves and buried; there had been but two escape attempts, both bodies left nude and entangled in the razor wire for other like-minded prisoners to view; eight basins of gold teeth were currently being processed by the dentists; and nineteen of the permanent staff had been recycled. Forty-liters of petrol would be consumed by the carbon-monoxide producing automobile engines over the next twenty-four hours, down 1.5 liters from the previous week's daily average.
He nodded, a pleased look on his face, as he chewed and read. When the last report was read and signed, he gave orders to the sergeant waiting just outside the dining room to take the reports to Oberstgruppenführer Stangl. He was sure Stangl would be delighted and he was sure every day this continued his numbers were being recorded in his offizielle Armee Rekord. He expected another promotion and higher pay grade in the next sixty days, and planned to keep the hammer down and the numbers climbing as a way of proving him promotion-worthy. The sergeant responded, received the reports, clicked his heels, and hurried off to the commandant's offices.
He straightened his coat and spat into the kitchen sink without bothering to run the water after.
In the front hall he admired himself in the mirror, slipped into his winter field jacket, strapped on his utility belt and Luger pistol, and opened the door.
Stepping out on the front porch he was greeted at once by the fetid smell of burnt flesh, a sign that the ovens were coming online. The graves were filling up far faster than he had predicted and so he had commissioned four German plumbers to build giant ovens in which to "burn away the chaff"—meaning, of course, the deceased Jews proceeding in an endless stream from the showers. Burning seemed to Heiss a reasonable answer to the overcrowding problem in the graves. While he was receiving complaints from the officers' wives about the malodorous odor, so far the commandant had given the process his stamp of approval. In fact, Stangl had been impressed enough with Heiss' inventiveness that he had placed a commendatory letter in his Rekord and forwarded a copy to the Führer himself. A commendatory letter from Himmler had immediately been received and Stangl was encouraged in his handling of the Jewish problem.
From his front porch, Hauptsturmführer Heiss surveyed the extermination area where the mass murders were carried out. The area itself was approximately 200 x 250 meters and was completely isolated from the rest of the camp by fifty wire fence interlaced with the green branches stripped from trees in the surrounding forest. In this manner, the camp’s other inhabitants and personnel never saw what went on there. It was inside the fifty wire where Heiss spent his days and he knew every inch of the place, even in the dark, for he roamed there often, listening silently at the locked doors to the barracks for any sound inside, peering through the barred windows, and giving orders to his underlings and staff to randomly shoot this prisoner or that prisoner in order to instill fear and compliance in the audience.
He commenced walking into the camp through a pathway ninety meters long and four meters wide. The Germans called it Himmelfahrtstrasse ("The Road to Heaven") and it opened onto the rail platform, continued behind the women's undressing barracks, and continued east and then south to the gas chambers. The pathway had been sanded over that morning to cover the previous travelers' excretions as they ran from the train platform to the barracks and gas chambers. His jackboots were sinking easily into the mess and he cursed the Jews violently. But all was well. That night his Jewish valet would polish and shine the boots while Heiss slept and they would again be gleaming by morning.
He detoured up and through the women's und
ressing barracks, barking orders to immediately remove the remaining clothes of the vermin who had shed them there. Frightened Ukrainians jumped to and staggered from the barracks laden with discarded clothing and made their way to the sorting buildings. At the far door he paused beside the body of an ancient, nude woman who evidently had died of fright.
"Why has no one removed this prize?" he barked at a sergeant.
No one dared answer, but the truth was she hadn't been there more than ten minutes when the other women rushed out, charging into the chambers.
Heiss toed the dead body with his boot.
"Disgusting. Remove this sow at once!"
A Ukrainian sergeant seized the woman by the feet and dragged her out the door. He disappeared with her down the path and around to the larger path where the ladders were carried loaded with corpses. He would commandeer one of those and force them to load up another passenger.
Captain Heiss exited the barracks and continued thirty meters down the path to the first of three gas chambers. He removed a medical mask from his jacket pocket, tied it around face and nose, and entered the chamber. It was a bare room, brick walls and cement floors sloping from the walls inward, down the middle of which ran a small sluice for carrying away excrement, urine, and blood. The floors were hosed down by Jewish Death Camp workers after each gassing, so the next group to enter would believe, like all previous groups, they were actually taking hygienic showers before being transported to work farms. At least this was the lie Captain Heiss and his men were ordered to tell everyone passing through their command. It was easier this way.
Apparently satisfied with the appearance of the showers, he exited the far end of the long, narrow room. Making his appearance in chambers two and three, he issued orders, mostly pertaining to cleanup, and, at the far end of three, tore the stinking mask from his face and tossed it into a burning barrel kept flaming day and night for just that purpose. Typhoid stalked the masses in World War II and the Germans took every precaution to beat it down in the prison camps: not for the benefit of the inmates, but for the benefit of the German overseers and their families. Burning barrels were thus common all over the camp and were kept fueled with sappy pine logs day and night.
Always nearby Captain Heiss was Oberscharführer (sergeant) Heinz Reitzer, an enlisted man from Austria who had participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He had been disqualified but still bore the stamp of approval for representing the Austrians during the games. Reitzer was Heiss' go-to man who turned orders into action. He was thrifty, forever organized and organizing, and demanding of the forces. He was straightforward and no one under his command ever had any doubt about what was being asked. Reitzer caught up to him now.
“Captain Heiss," said Reitzer. He held out a stamped letter.
Heiss took it from him. It was opened, as Reitzer opened all official mail addressed to his captain.
"What is it?" asked Heiss.
"Himmler requests you meet him in Warsaw Monday next."
"Ah," said Heiss, his eyes gleaming. "Does Stangl know about this?"
"He does not. He wouldn't see your mail marked CONFIDENTIAL."
Heiss read through the letter, refolded it, and reinserted it in the envelope.
"Show General Stangl at once. Tell him I request his guidance."
Reitzer took the envelope and saluted. "Very good, sir. I'm on my way over there at once."
"Good enough."
Heiss spun on his heel and continued his inspection. Inside, his heart was soaring. He had been selected to meet Himmler himself! Only a meeting with Hitler could surpass that prize.
Southeast of the gas chambers, two combined barracks enclosed by a barbed wire fence were erected for the Sonderkommando or work detail. The barracks included a kitchen, and toilet, and a laundry. Heiss proceeded there, banged open the door, and peered inside.
"Anybody on sick call?" he cried.
There was no answer. He closed the door and headed back to the train platform. It was time to remove the hysterical mass of humanity from the waiting fifty-five cattle cars. Their cries and pleas could be heard wafting over the camp, even from this distance. Two sergeants whose tasks had just completed at the graves now walked behind.
“Captain Heiss," they said in unison. "Good morning."
"Come with me," snapped Heiss. "You can hear them bawling clear from here. It's going to scare the others," he added, referring to those in the cars further back down the track who couldn't peer out and see the platform. They could only peer out and see a forest and had no idea they had arrived at the camp. They were simply waiting and talking among themselves.
On the trains the Jews invariably picked a corner in which it was agreed they would relieve themselves. When the doors slid open the smell was overwhelming to the Nazis and Ukrainians waiting below.
"My great God," cried Heiss, and he clasped a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. "Get those animals down and undressed. Already they've ruined most of their clothing just with the stench of it!"
The terrified Jews hit the platform running as fast as they could. Whips lashed overhead and they immediately found the long, narrow platform crowded to capacity. They looked among themselves and saw many neighbors and acquaintances. There was a huge dust cloud hanging ominously over the camp as the giant shovels opened the earth to receive more bodies. Intermingled in the dusty air was the smoke and stench of the burning bodies. The incoming Jews cried out and clasped hands and wrists over their nose and mouth. A dozen or more threw up. The smell left no doubt in anyone’s mind. Something beyond horror was happening here and they were now part of it.
Just then, the dense mass of new arrivals was pushed through a gate. The men were ordered to the right and told to undress, the women were told to go to the left. The men were told to remove all clothing and run. The women and children were told to run. They would undress in the women's undressing barracks as the Nazis had learned the women would resist undressing in the open in view of everyone. So it was all made to look and sound as if a shower for hygiene would be had and then the trip would continue on the train. As they undressed, men and women, they were told to turn over all valuables for safekeeping and it was explained it would all be returned after the showers.
Captain Heiss watched the disembarkation and mad race down the path dispassionately. He had seen this literally hundreds of times before and he no longer even noticed the faces. Except now his attention was caught by one of his sergeants, who pointed out a woman with her suckling infant. The woman was refusing to leave the platform despite the beleaguered Ukrainians who were whipping her and kicking at her. Evidently she had guessed what was going on and had dug in her heels. A small crowd of supporters—women, mostly elderly—clustered around her and shouted their encouragement.
Heiss immediately sized up the situation, strode up to the balking woman, and drew his Luger pistol. He placed the muzzle against the top of the infant's skull and pulled the trigger. As he did this, his eyes never unlocked from the mother's eyes. The child's skull and brain matter skittered across the platform from the shock of the gunshot. Immediately the woman fell to her knees, covering her child and weeping. Heiss merely walked up to her, shot her in the heart, and waved his gun menacingly at the other recalcitrant onlookers. In a herd they scattered down the path, screaming and weeping as they ran.
"Oh, that was too perfect," shouted Sergeant Kapul. "Look at those brains!"
"Jews don't have brains," Heiss replied. "It is nothing."
Using his handkerchief he wiped down the barrel of his gun as he always did after shooting a Jew. He felt the gun tarnished after undertaking such a loathsome task as interacting with a Jew. He always wiped the barrel and then his hands. He slipped the gun back into its shiny black holster and straightened his field jacket.
"Now," he said to those around him. "Who is ready for coffee?"
The two sergeants stepped forward.
"Very well. The rest of you clean up this mess. Afterward, send the
Jews into the train with the hoses. We don't want to scare off our next guests. Finish unloading. Two hours. Begin now!"
He checked his watch. 8:25 a.m. They would all be dead by noon and he would have broken his previous record of forty-five hundred. Five thousand Jews by noon straight up was an astonishing piece of work.
Surely Stangl would notice.
And Himmler. What of Himmler and the meeting?
His pulse quickened. It was going to be a great day.
Chapter Six
Hauptsturmführer Janich Heiss was admired by his SS superiors for his creativity and his Nazi wit. His girl-party stories would regale them for many months back in Berlin, in 1942.
In late December of 1942, Heiss gathered together all the young girls from a trainload of five thousand souls from eastern Poland. The passengers had been plucked from town, city, and farm as the train slowly made its way toward Treblinka through heavy snows and blinding ice storms. For the most part these people had never been more than five kilometers from their homes and farms. To be kidnapped by Nazi thugs was something which had only been rumored. Until it came to their town or farm. Many had children. Many were daughters. They were the ones Hauptsturmführer Heiss summoned to his party.
The girls were chosen according to height. Heiss drew his aide's long knife and cut a line into a train platform support post, approximately 1.5 meters high.
"All girls below this height shall be gathered together," he ordered the workers. "Bring them to Barracks Eight."
Lodzi and several of his co-workers measured the girls in long lines to see whether they passed beneath the mark. If they did, they were sent down the path to Barracks Eight. If not, they were pushed to the side and told to remain with the other train passengers.
Unspeakable Prayers: WW II to Present Day (Thaddeus Murfee Series of Legal Thrillers) Page 5