8. The motor utilized to create diesel exhaust fumes for the gas chamber was the engine of a Russian T-34 tank. It had been captured from the Russians, taken apart, and installed at Treblinka. Globocnik preferred carbon monoxide poisoning to Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide), which was used at Auschwitz-Birkenau, possibly because of the increased suffering. With the crystal pellets of Zyklon B its victims were killed after just a few breaths; with diesel exhaust it took twenty-five to thirty-five minutes (Camp 2 survivor Eliahu Rosenberg testimony). The comparative results were staggering; in Zyklon B chambers people died standing up, nearly in the same position as when they had entered, like they were frozen. With diesel exhaust people had time and energy to attempt to fight for air. The chambers would be filled with an entangled mound of individuals where the stronger ones had climbed to the top in a struggle for oxygen, a grisly display of the survival of the fittest. The workers at Camp 2 had to witness these images every time the door opened to the chamber. The Treblinka trial lead state prosecutor, Alfred Spiess, discussed this in an interview with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk television network, and he referenced the Gerstein Report.
9. The story of the ham is credited to Joe Siedlecki (INTO 190).
CHAPTER 7
1. Rudi’s father in the shirt business (INTO 182). “His family had owned one of the most exclusive men’s shirt shops in Prague.”
2. Dr. Chorazycki (CAMP 280–281, INTO 205–206, TRAP 100). His name is also referred to as Choronzycki (Sereny) or Chorandzicki (Bryant).
3. In Glazar’s book Trap with a Green Fence, there is a worker named Rybak who managed the sick bay. It seems he was Dr. Chorazycki’s replacement, though the timing for his service is varied in key Treblinka source material.
CHAPTER 8
1. Franz Stangl daily life (INTO 168–171)
2. Christian Wirth (CAMP 272–273). Every description of this Nazi is vile. After his work with the German euthanasia program in the late ’30s, he worked at Chelmno (an early, pre-Operation Reinhard death camp), then became the first Belzec kommandant. Wirth was instrumental in the transition from death vans (Chelmno) to death chambers (Belzec), where, instead of using the back of a vehicle, carbon monoxide from diesel fumes was pumped into a building with doors that could seal, thus greatly magnifying their ability for mass extinction. This is Wirth’s historical marker. Stangl described Wirth as having awful verbal crudity. Stangl’s friend Michel (at Sobibor) stated that Wirth acted like a lunatic and would whip his own men (ARAD 233, INTO 113–114). Wirth was killed in combat in the Trieste region on May 26, 1944. Stangl saw Wirth’s dead body and told Sereny that he was killed by his own men, Ibid. 262.
3. The gold Jews. The gold Jews, or goldjuden, were a specialized group of workers skilled in currencies, jewels, and precious metals. They assisted not only with the gold arriving from the transports but also the gold extracted from the teeth of the victims at Camp 2. Occasionally they would make requested items into gold for the SS.
CHAPTER 9
1. Zelo (CAMP 279, INTO 182–183, TRAP 22–23). Yitzhak Arad spelled his name Zialo. Gitta Sereny spelled his name Zhelo. I decided to throw in my lot with Richard Glazar, the man who knew Zelo best.
2. Revolt planning, Ibid. 69–72. There were multiple survivors who credited Zelo with strong leadership for the revolt, yet in my research I found testimony of others who had a central role. It is hard to know the precise nature of everyone who helped because in some instances the planning was purposely decentralized as a mask for suspected informers. One of the other strong leaders was Moshe Y. Lubling, and for learning this fact I am indebted to his grandson’s work, Twice Dead: Moshe Y. Lubling. The Ethics of Memory, and the Treblnika Revolt. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2007. Dr. Yoram Lubling used prima facie source material to place his grandfather at the center of the revolt planning (which the earliest Treblinka testimonies attested and had never been rebutted, just ignored). His book also exposed some of the flaws in early Holocaust research, perpetuating confusion even today. Although many of the stories of revolt leadership are fragmented, most mention Zelo. “The title of chief of staff must be given to Zelo,” wrote Stanislaw Kon (CAMP 226). Dr. Chorazycki was certainly the center of gravity for appropriating the currency and gold, and also purchasing items for the revolt, but Zelo was the leader of the military planning.
3. The time of “lights-out” varied at the different death camps. Lights-out usually occurred at 2100 hours at Treblinka, 2200 hours at Sobibor, and a half an hour after nightfall at Belzec (ARAD 255). “At nine o’clock all candles must be put out and everyone must be in his bed,” wrote Glazar (TRAP 27).
CHAPTER 10
1. Galewski (CAMP 281–282, TRAP 57). “All of us had great respect for Galewski” (INTO 183).
2. Jankiel Wiernik (CAMP 147–148). Also see Wiernik’s book A Year in Treblinka: An Inmate Who Escaped Tells the Day to Day Facts of One Year of His Torturous Experiences. New York: Normanby Press, 2015.
3. Whippings of escaped men (TRAP 41)
4. Escape attempts. Successful escapes prior to the revolt were critically important to the Jewish leaders in Warsaw, because some of the men returned to the ghetto and reported on the veracity of Treblinka being a death camp. A few of the men who escaped were actually sent back. Samuel Rajzman told a remarkable story about a man who escaped from Treblinka twice but was deported to Treblinka thrice. He was helpful to the Warsaw revolt planners in exchanging information, and he was helpful to those stuck in Treblinka because he delivered messages back and forth. It was not his intent to ever return to Treblinka after his first escape, just his misfortune. Rajzman said the man died in the uprising (CAMP 235).
CHAPTER 11
1. The Doll (CAMP 276–277, TRAP 47). Kurt Franz was the most notorious of the SS guards at the camp, and it seems as though every person who passed through Treblinka possessed wicked stories about the Doll…except for Sam Goldberg. As described in Karen Treiger’s recent book, her father-in-law Sam became the Doll’s preferred prisoner and the Doll went out of his way to help Sam stay alive. This is an aberration to what others testified about Franz, but it aligns with the Czech’s protégé theory. Treiger’s book is a great read, filled with impactful, reflective commentary. Treiger, Karen I. My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story. Seattle: Stare Lipke Press, 2018.
2. The Doll’s atrocities (EYE 78–82, INTO 202). Rajchman, Chil. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir. New York: Pegasus, 2011, 83. Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 102.
3. The Doll whips a man to death (TRAP 41)
4. Bari the dog (EYE 108). Webb, Chris & Chocholaty, Michal. The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance. Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2014. 116. Bari, a mongrel dog the size of a calf, is mentioned in nearly all Camp 1 testaments. Though the phrase “Boy, sic the dog!” seems backward, Kurt Franz used the phrase as an intentional derogatory inversion to humiliate his victims. After his time at Treblinka, Bari was known to be docile.
5. “You Jews started the war” (CAMP 240).
CHAPTER 12
1. Richard Glazar, the son of a financial consultant (INTO 172)
2. Kapo Rakowski. “He is the biggest speculator in the entire camp, a glutton, a boozer, a bellyacher. And he’s not looking out for anyone but himself,” wrote Richard Glazar (TRAP 99).
3. Selections of traitors, Ibid. 35–36
4. Tchechia and Rakowski. “Then there was Tchechia. She was in love with Rakowski, the former camp elder. And he, they said, was in love with her” (INTO 195, TRAP 100).
CHAPTER 13
1. Edek, Ibid. 30. Glazar explained Edek’s appearance at Treblinka: “His parents and siblings were sent into the pipeline immediately after their arrival. They had not played any musical instrument.”
2. The nighttime resistance (CAMP 190–191). Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The Histo
ry Press, 2010, 115.
3. The whippings of Kurt Franz (INTO 202). Joe Siedlecki told Gitta Sereny, “He’d give them fifty strokes. They’d be dead at the end. He’d be half dead himself, but he’d beat and beat.”
4. David and Richard’s conversation about the difference in treatment of Warsaw’s Jews compared to Czech Jews (TRAP 65).
5. December fires and Edek playing “Eli, Eli” (INTO 193). Glazar told Sereny the fires started in December. In his own book there is a reference to the fires in November (TRAP 29).
CHAPTER 14
1. Stangl and construction work (INTO 200)
2. The revolt known as plan H (TRAP 69–70)
3. Samuel Willenberg. Mr. Willenberg was nineteen years old when he arrived at Treblinka in October 1942. He was the last known survivor of the revolt and died on February 19, 2016 at the age of ninety-three. His daughter Orit Willenberg-Giladi was the architect who designed the Israeli embassy in Berlin. Mr. Willenberg’s memoir a great contribution to Holocaust history. Willenberg, Samuel. Surviving Treblinka. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishers, 1989. At his funeral, Israeli president Reuven Rivlin described him as “a symbol for an entire generation of heroic Holocaust survivors.” There is an outstanding film made about Willenberg’s life called Treblinka’s Last Witness, produced by Alan Tomlinson.
4. Standa Lichtblau. A professional mechanic by trade from Moravian Ostrow, Standa was also a Czech and became a useful coconspirator of the revolt planners. Glazar declared that Standa’s work blowing up the gas tank might have been the most important part of the revolt (TRAP 72, 148, also in INTO 246).
5. Dropping like flies to typhus (TRAP 72)
CHAPTER 15
1. Suchomel working with T4 (INTO 56–57)
2. Bronka’s story about Suchomel (EYE 111). This was not the only death attributed to Suchomel. At the Dusseldorf trial another Treblinka survivor, Sigmund Strawczynski, testified that Suchomel shot a small child as it walked crying to the gas chamber with its mother, Ibid. 118.
CHAPTER 16
1. Zelo and Adasch transferring to Camp 2 (INTO 210–211, TRAP 80–82)
2. Hans Freund: “We aren’t human beings anymore!” (INTO 211, TRAP 82). The long-haired man from religion class refers to the Old Testament figure of Samson from the book of Judges.
3. Trains from Bulgaria, feasting, and workers fighting (INTO 213, TRAP 94–95)
CHAPTER 17
1. The hands of the clock on the side of the tower. Some references state six and one resource states three. I used the predominant testimony. “Up on the gable there is an oversized clock face. Its hands always show six o’clock” (TRAP 141). From Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 113,” A painted clock with numerals permanently reading six o’clock adorned its façade.” Also, Samuel Willenberg discussed the clock during an interview with his wife Ada that is in the Yad Vashem library, https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/interviews/willenberg.html.
2. Trains arriving with corpses, Wiernik, Jankiel. A Year in Treblinka: An Inmate Who Escaped Tells the Day to Day Facts of One Year of His Torturous Experiences. New York: Normanby Press, 2015, Ch. 3.
CHAPTER 18
1. Dr. Chorazycki’s death (INTO 206, TRAP 101–102)
2. The story about the gold Jews (INTO 206). For more information on the gold Jews, see chapter 8, Note #3.
3. Rakowski’s fate (TRAP 113)
4. The Doll’s speech about Rakowski (CAMP 217)
CHAPTER 19
1. Gas chambers, Rajchman, Chil. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir. New York: Pegasus, 2011, 65.
2. “Ivan, water!” (TRAP 12). This was a reference to Ivan Marchenko (Ivan the Terrible). An interesting case, Ivan Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian guard, was thought to be Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka and was convicted on April 18, 1988 then sentenced to death by hanging. While on death row, on July 29, 1993, a five-judge panel of the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction on appeal. New documents opened up after the fall of the Berlin Wall based on the testimony of twenty-three guards who were convicted of war crimes in the Soviet Union showed that it was Ivan Marchenko, not Ivan Demjanjuk, who was Ivan the Terrible. However, on May 12, 2011, at the age of ninety-one, Demjanjuk was convicted of accessory to murder of 27,900 Jews at Sobibor, where he worked as a guard. He was sentenced to five years in prison but died within a year of his conviction.
3. Camp 2 work, Rajchman, Chil. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir. New York: Pegasus, 2011, 47–51. Also, it is discussed in detail in Wiernik’s book A Year in Treblinka: An Inmate Who Escaped Tells the Day to Day Facts of One Year of His Torturous Experiences. New York: Normanby Press, 2015.
CHAPTER 20
1. The Doll’s concert plans (TRAP 122–125)
2. Arthur Gold (ARAD 252, 281; CAMP 306; TRAP 122). Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010. 269.
3. There was also an orchestra in Camp 2, written about by survivor Jerzy Rajgrodzki (ARAD 283), Webb, Chris & Chocholaty, Michal. The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance. Stuttgart: Ibidem Press, 2014. 112.
CHAPTER 21
1. Exchanging money for weapons with the peasants (CAMP 215). The camouflage patrol who went into the woods to bring back branches were given license to wander away a little bit, and this was when the transaction would take place. It was Tanhum Grinberg who chronicled this story about peasants holding up fingers for how much money they wanted in exchange for a pistol. In a bewildering twist of fate, Grinberg survived the revolt and testified at Dusseldorf, but then was killed in an automobile accident in 1976. Glazar confirmed the speculating with the peasants while with the camouflage unit (TRAP 127–132).
2. Edek, the lock, and the grenades, Ibid. 109–110. Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 122.
CHAPTER 22
1. The need to burn the bodies, Wiernik, Jankiel. A Year in Treblinka: An Inmate Who Escaped Tells the Day to Day Facts of One Year of His Torturous Experiences. New York: Normanby Press, 2015, Ch. 9.
2. The Katyn forest massacre, Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 120.
3. The Artist. He was described by all those who escaped from Camp 2 and wrote about their experience. His actual name was most likely Herbert Floss, brought in to help with the disposal of the bodies after Himmler’s visit (EYE 79).
CHAPTER 23
1. Confrontation of Stangl and Tchechia (INTO 203–204)
2. One thought-provoking part of this story is that Stangl did not remember Tchechia’s name. In fact, he could not remember any of the Jewish names except for a Viennese man named Blau, whom he spoiled. And Blau, in quid pro quo, became a Nazi loyalist and informer, Ibid. 207–209. It was Suchomel who identified Tchechia as the girl Stangl spoke about.
CHAPTER 24
1. Cleaning the pits, Rajchman, Chil. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir. New York: Pegasus, 2011, 91.
2. Over sixty thousand bodies burning, Ibid. 91–92. Mr. Rajchman put the number much higher, at nearly a quarter of a million bodies. A trial transcript stated that at least one of the pits contained no less than eighty thousand corpses (CAMP 301). This figure in no way contradicts Mr. Rajchman’s account; it verifies the magnitude of the exhumation work. At the second Treblinka trial Stangl told prosecutor Alfred Spiess that there were mass graves with one hundred thousand bodies in them.
3. The work of exhumation and the story of the women from Warsaw, Wiernik, Jankiel. A Year in Treblinka: An Inmate Who Escaped Tells the Day to Day Facts of One Year of His Torturous Experiences. New York: Normanby Press, 2015. Ch. 10. “Time and time again children were snatched from their mother’s arms and tossed into the flames alive, while their tormentors laughed, urging the mothers to be brave and jump into the fire after their children and moc
king the women for being cowards.”
4. Carpenter Jankiel Wiernik and Chil Rajchman are the two chief sources on information about Camp 2. Sonia Lewkowicz is another source. Unfortunately Zelo was not able to write about it.
CHAPTER 25
1. Camouflage unit (INTO 220–221)
2. Paulinka (ARAD 152, INTO 247)
CHAPTER 26
1. Revolt day, August 2, 1943. Interestingly Reitlinger had the date wrong in his book and mistakenly named September 2, 1943 as the day of the uprising. This is the only source I have found with that error. Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939–1945. London: Sphere Books Limited, 1961, 152.
2. “Ha-yom, ha-yom!” (“The day, the day!”) Rajchman, Chil. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir. New York: Pegasus, 2011, 126.
3. Richard Glazar, “Not a cloud in the sky…” (TRAP 140).
4. David Brat tells Richard the verse about the shadow of death, Ibid. 139. The full verse is, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4, KJV).
5. Kurt “Kiewe” Kuttner was wounded but did not actually die that day.
CHAPTER 27
1. The uprising (ARAD 334–343, CAMP 220–223, INTO 236–240, TRAP 138–146). Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 130–144.
2. One of the main objectives of the revolt was to kill as many of the SS as possible. Unfortunately this goal was not accomplished. As mentioned above, even though Kiewe and Mentz were fired upon, they somehow survived with minor wounds. Kiewe lived for another twenty-one years and Mentz lived until 1978.
3. The fate of Paulinka (INTO 247)
CHAPTER 28
1. Eight hundred meters of a flower-lined street, Ibid. 239
2. Stangl’s pride in his creation. Alfred Spiess reported that there were no official maps of Treblinka, not even a sketch. The court had to create a map based on witness testimony and the statements of the accused. Then later, in 1970, when Stangl was extradited to West Germany, Spiess showed the map to Stangl to see what he thought of it, since Stangl was the man who designed the camp to his perfection. Spiess reported that Stangl studied it for almost fifteen minutes, then looked up with surprise and admiration and said, “Mr. Prosecutor, the sketch is absolutely correct!”
Trains to Treblinka Page 18