Trains to Treblinka

by Charles Causey

  Chapter 16

  Zelo Bloch’s severe case of typhus finally turned its course and he was released from the sick bay. But as soon as he rejoined his comrades, Robert fell victim to the flu and was admitted to the care of Dr. Chorazycki. It was maddening for the conspirators because it would again delay their planning. It seemed as if the day for the revolt kept getting pushed back for one reason or another.

  Zelo told his friends of a gift he had secretly received from Suchomel via Dr. Chorazycki: an unrotten orange with a soft peel. Suchomel also delivered a cup of soup to him from the German mess. Rudi thought of his conversation with Bronka and knew the other SS guards would have never acted with such kindness. However, her points were still valid.

  Even though Robert would be in the sick bay for a while, Zelo was ready to start planning again in earnest with the rest of them, and he was anxious to find out what preparations the group had made in his absence. As soon as the Czech men began to update Zelo, there was a whistle from someone on lookout.

  In a flash, Kiewe flew into the barracks with a whip in hand and a face red with fury. He was dressed in a dark-green uniform and there was drool visible in one corner of his mouth. For some reason he suspected wrongdoing. He ordered the men to count the bundles of shirts that still remained at Treblinka. He had a hand receipt from Zelo, the foreman, which stated there should be 205 bundles of shirts, packed ten to a bundle.

  “You have reported 205 bundles, Mr. Foreman, so 205 bundles there better be!” Kiewe said mockingly.

  When the men who were sent to count returned, they reported only 132 bundles of men’s shirts were present.

  “Did you count twice?” asked Kiewe.

  An affirmative reply.

  Staff Sergeant Kuttner clicked his heels and said, “The two supervisors from Barracks A, forward.”

  Zelo and a fellow supervisor named Adasch came to the front. The other men froze. Richard, Hans, Rudi, and Karel stood erect, hands at their side, wondering what was about to happen. Would this be the time to take action and start the revolt? They would wait and follow Zelo’s lead.

  Zelo and Adasch stood resolutely in front of a scorning Kuttner.

  “You already knew, didn’t you?” Kiewe asked. “I can tell by your faces that you two foremen are the guilty parties here. I should shoot both of you right now.” Kiewe looked over the heads of men to Galewski, who was standing near the back of the group. “Camp elder, come forward.”

  Galewski walked through the nervous bodies to stand before Kuttner.

  “Camp elder, remove the supervisor armbands from these men. They will no longer be supervisors. In fact, as punishment, they will be sent to Camp 2 as common laborers. Once your armbands are removed, I want you two men to grab your bedrolls. I will be escorting you to Camp 2.”

  While Sergeant Kuttner issued his orders, Kurt Franz walked into the barracks and shouted, “What is all this chaos? What is going on?”

  Kiewe shouted, “Camp 1, attention! We have a discrepancy in their reports, Camp Deputy. They have been lying about how many shirt bundles they have. They are short seventy-three bundles of men’s shirts. I knew they were not being honest and I am making amends for this.”

  The Doll and Kiewe decided to make up for the short bundles by having all the men to strip off their shirts and place them in bundles of ten.

  “If I see one man here wearing a shirt, he will be shot,” Kiewe raged while flashing his whip. “There are 734 men here, so there will be 734 shirts on this pile—immediately!”

  Once all the shirts were on the floor, bundles were created and stacked against the wall.

  “Now you have 205 bundles,” asserted Kiewe before he left. “And I better not see a shirt on any one of you until the next train comes in.”

  All of the now half-dressed men opened a path for the Doll and Kiewe, who were escorting Zelo and Adasch out of the barracks up to Camp 2. Those remaining knew that they would probably never see them again.

  They are going to the death camp over a few missing lice-infested shirts? Richard wondered. Zelo will be dead to us. The uprising plan is over. Without Zelo there will be no leadership! Hopelessness set in faster than darkness flooding a room when a candle is snuffed, and their faces could not hide the despair.

  Richard decided to make his way over to the sick bay to inform Robert. While all the Czech men had formed tight friendships with each other, Robert and Zelo were especially close. Zelo would make great plans, and then Robert—the theorist—would explain scientifically why they had to work. Now Robert was sick, and Richard needed to deliver some devastating news to him.

  Richard walked through the sick room and found the bunks holding Robert. He climbed up and knelt down besides his friend. “They’ve taken Zelo to Camp 2, Robert. Zelo has left us.” Richard could smell the fever on Robert. After explaining what happened, Richard descended from the bunk, leaving Robert quietly weeping at the news.

  That evening, as the men were settling into their bunks and a contemplative stillness filled the room, Hans spoke the words bound up in everyone’s heart. “It serves us right! We kept waiting and discussing. Each one of us is man enough to do what needs to be done; we could’ve made heads roll, but instead we just stood there, like sheep. They’ve gotten to us. Their work is complete. We aren’t human beings anymore. I can’t even believe in myself.”

  No one else said anything and Hans continued speaking out loud. “All I keep thinking about is my wife and curly haired son. You know, when he was a baby he had such delicate little cheeks, so soft, like the skin on his bottom. We stood there and waved at each other that first day, and do you know what I was thinking? I was hoping he would not catch a cold. A cold!

  “That first day and night after I heard what happened to them, I didn’t feel anything. It didn’t register. I just ran back and forth with bundles on my shoulders. But a few days later it hit. My chest and throat and brain were burning. It was like I was filled with acid. All I wanted to do was to tear down everything, like that long-haired man they told us about in religion class who pushed over the pillars. Then I knew I was going crazy. Pull it together, I told myself. But you know what? Now they’ve gotten to us all, even the Ukrainians. What good is reason here? What we need is one of the mad long-haired men who tore down the pillars and brought everything crashing to the ground.”

  None of the Czech men said anything after that. Rudi thought about his own wife and the last time he saw her on the unloading platform. Richard and Karel were unmarried, but they thought about their parents and siblings. Karel knew his family’s fate since they had arrived with him at Treblinka, but Richard still had no idea, though he assumed they were probably gone.

  Everyone thought of Zelo, wondering how long he would last at Camp 2. They guessed the survival rate was much worse there because prisoners from Camp 1 were constantly being recruited to replace workers at Camp 2. It had to have a high mortality rate. They knew that Camp 2 was a true work camp, where every day men worked hard with little time to rest. Zelo would have to survive, and they would have to execute the revolt plan without his leadership.

  Robert was released from the sick bay and sent back to Barracks A. He was then given a complete report of what happened with Zelo and an update on the revolt plan. Rudi had taken over the leadership of the military operation, but he was wary of whom he could trust. The Jewish workers were always eyeing each other in order to identify those who might have sided with the Nazis. Despite the efforts of the kapos to weed out the bad eggs, there were still several informers among the men in Barracks A, and routinely they had to be “taken out” by creative means.

  Thankfully Dr. Chorazycki was one of the most dependable, diehard conspirators in the camp. When an informer was brought to him, he knew exactly what to do to put the person out of his misery permanently, and without bringing any attention to the SS.

  An additional incident hampered Rudi’s planning shortly after he took his position as lead revolt planner: camp elder
Galewski caught a severe case of typhus. Galewski was smart, straightforward, and one hundred percent trustworthy. The Nazis needed an acting camp elder and the Doll replaced Galewski with the much younger Kapo Rakowski, someone with whom Rudi was not familiar because they had not spent much time together.

  Rakowski was very different than Galewski, not only in age, but in experience, people skills, work ethic, tact, and diplomacy. Trading goods and making bribes with the Ukrainian police was called speculating, and Rakowski was the largest speculator in the camp. He was constantly bargaining for hams and other foodstuffs, not only to share them with Tchechia, but to barter the items with the other Jewish workers. Speculators always walked a fine line with the Ukrainians because the guards could take the merchandise by force, without paying. Or worse, they could report the scheming worker to the SS guards. The Ukrainians were not honest brokers.

  Speculator Rakowski, in essence, was now in charge of the camp, and Rudi was trying to ascertain how much planning he should do with Rakowski, knowing that at any moment he could be caught and tortured for speculating. Who knows what kind of information Rakowski would reveal to the Nazis under torture?

  Things did not feel quite right in the camp, and to make matters worse, the trains had ceased coming altogether, not even a trickle. This weighed heavily on everyone. Without work to do, the Jews knew they were not useful to the SS and could be exterminated in the gassing chambers any day.

  The Czech contingent eventually received an update on Zelo through carpenter Jankiel Wiernik. Their leader was surviving, and more interested than ever to get the revolt planned. Zelo now had a group of conspirators in the upper camp with whom he began meeting, but the uprising must be planned and executed initially from Camp 1, and Rudi was acutely aware of this.

  Things were getting desperate. On top of the lack of work due to the cessation of transports, the inmates were forced to drink the gruel from the camp provisions, something they despised and would work around at all costs. It was now a necessity; people were starving and it was the only nourishment afforded to them.

  All of the confiscated items still lying around in piles were packaged and shipped out. The large mountains of eyeglasses and shoes were cleaned up and removed. There was no more clothing, no more pots and pans. Everything had been sent out. Rudi and Bronka had no more fabric stars to remove. The only work available to them was if a Nazi wanted a coat tailored. They all knew that life could not be sustained on the meager rations. There was near panic in the camp.

  Just when they all feared Treblinka would close and gassing was inevitable, trains from Bulgaria arrived. The Nazis found out the night before. Stangl received a phone call to be prepared to receive thousands of Jews from the Balkans. The Doll decided to relay the news to the Jewish workers. He slipped into the barracks unannounced and told Rakowski in front of everyone the trains were going to be coming again starting the following day.

  “Hurrah, hurrah!” the men screamed. It was not lost on them that it meant certain destruction for those being transported, but it signaled that they would get to live another few days. Death for others meant life for them. It was quite a relief.

  For the next few days, the Jewish workers processed men, women, and children from Bulgaria totaling twenty-four thousand. Especially gratifying was that the Bulgarians came from surplus, and not from the Warsaw ghetto. There were train cars full of supplies: enormous cheese rounds, crates of jam, tea cookies, and large packages of meat. The Jewish workers would accidentally drop a crate here and there to plunder the provisions from the Ukrainian guards patrolling the operations. When the crates broke open, food poured out onto the ground. They happily endured the whips for one large mouthful of fresh food.

  The Bulgarians themselves were heavy people, with dark hair and dark eyes. They could have easily resisted the guards on the platform if they had the slightest suspicion that Treblinka was not a work farm. They dutifully undressed and carried their clothes over to the proper piles. Then they waited in line inside the tube, which led to the mock shower room.

  Occasionally an arriving Jew would ask one of the Jews with red bands in the sorting barracks, “Keep an eye on my stuff for me, will you?”

  The reply was always a nod, not with a smile, but with an attempt at assurance. In a few days all twenty-four thousand had perished, their clothes and other valuables separated in large mounds in the sorting yard—pyramids of remembrance to be crudely bundled and shipped out by the grateful souls still alive in the camp.

  During their momentary abundance, Hans became ill-tempered at some of the Polish Jews for enjoying their current feast. They were eating containers of fish, cookies with plum butter on them, cornbread covered with cheese, and biscuits with jam.

  “Good grief!” exclaimed Hans. “What is the matter with you people? Can’t you stop and take a breath?” He yelled at two men who had continued to feast in their bunks after lights-out while others tried to rest.

  “What’s it to you, Hans?” they replied in Polish. “Why do you care?”

  “I do care. Because you two have been stuffing your faces and giggling like girls all night. I can no longer stand the sight of you.”

  “Remember, we’re in Treblinka, so how about some consideration?” the Polish men responded.

  “Who cares?” bellowed Hans. “We’re all in Treblinka. You don’t see the rest of us acting like animals!”

  “Who cares?” The men mocked Hans. “Look, boys, we have someone of importance here. A cultured Czech Jew. He doesn’t act like an animal. It’s amazing he ever ended up in Treblinka!”

  At this point the anger in Hans boiled over. “I hate you all! Do you hear me? I hate every one of you disgusting Poles!” Hans took the whip he used as a section leader ever since Zelo departed and began to crack it into the darkness beyond his bunk. “The Doll is right: you like to wallow in your own crap!”

  The Polish men were not bettered. “You German dupe! Jew hater! You’re no better than a Nazi!”

  Robert moved over to Hans and stuck a thermometer in him. It was as he suspected—Hans was burning with a fever.

  Chapter 17

  Tchechia was given a red armband and tasked with helping in the large wooden barracks to process the thousands of women and children that week. There was a flurry of activity and Tchechia went from person to person, assisting with their buttons and helping them with their socks. She did not yell at the new arrivals like the kapos; Tchechia spoke softly and assuredly to the bewildered travelers. Several of them asked why she wore the band, because her looks were so obviously not someone of Jewish origin. Tchechia always smiled in appreciation but reaffirmed that she was a Jewess, just like them.

  Tchechia especially loved the children she helped. As much as the Nazis were rife with a coldness toward the youngest Jews, Tchechia was filled with compassion. The children looked to her for guidance to get through the ordeal. Many mothers had their hands full helping all of their little ones undress and remain calm, not to mention getting undressed themselves, then putting all of their garments into the correct piles. Tchechia noticed how the children looked at their mothers in wonder, watching them undress in front of all the other people. Tchechia tried to reassure everyone to continue to move so the guards would not get upset. She told them it was better to comply and leave the clothing behind than it was to argue and resist.

  Though it seemed like years since she had seen her father and mother, and almost like an alternative life, Tchechia reflected it was not that long ago when she was happily in their company. She recalled their love for her, and for each other. She remembered her father constantly reminding her of how strong she was, yet she did not feel strong now.

  At the time, it was not hard for Tchechia to say goodbye, something she currently felt guilty about because now she missed them fiercely. She wondered if they were still alive, or if Belzec was a camp like this one. She knew that her parents would not be pulled out of line for their youth and strength—they were middle-age
d and looked like all the other people who ended up in the tube. She did not hear much about the other camps except one called Auschwitz. Word had gotten out that many Jews were sent right to the gas chambers there. She was thankful her parents were not sent to Treblinka or to Auschwitz, but she had no idea what kind of camp Belzec was.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tchechia noticed an older woman, still fully clothed and sitting on a pile of shoes. She would soon be beaten if Tchechia did not help her. She made her way through multiple naked bodies of women and children, several of whom were screaming. Before she arrived at the older woman a young boy grabbed Tchechia’s hand.

  “I’m so thirsty,” the boy said to Tchechia.

  Tchechia stopped, looked into his dark eyes, and knew he would never have another drink. She could not lie to him. She would not. The guards often told the new arrivals that they could drink in the showers and their thirst would be quenched, but their phony gesture was only meant to amuse themselves. Tchechia could not deceive others this way. That kind of humor was not funny to her.

  Keeping the older woman in her peripheral vision, Tchechia knelt down beside the boy, straightened his tousled bangs with her thumb, and grabbed his cold hand before saying, “You know, when I’m thirsty, I usually try to think of something else to keep me from thinking about how thirsty I am.”

  “Like what?” the boy asked.

  “Well, like what happened on my last birthday.”

  The boy thought for a moment, then looked mournfully at Tchechia and said, “I’m still thirsty.”

  Tchechia smiled at him, patted him on the head, and asked him what his name was.

  “Jakub,” the little boy responded. “What is yours?”

  “You have a nice name, Jakub. My name is Tchechia. Is that your mom standing there?” Tchechia asked him while pointing to a woman nearby.

  “Yes, and she is not happy right now.”

  “Well, would you please go stand by her? It looks like she is looking for you.”