Trains to Treblinka

  3. Galewski’s fate. Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 134.

  4. Bronka Sukno’s escape is truly miraculous. Out of the twenty-five women at the camp, there were only four or five women who escaped from Treblinka that day, and only three who survived the war (the other two women were Sonia Grabinski and Sonia Lewkowicz). The fact that they survived the initial screening and selection process, the months of terror while living at the camp, the revolt, the rest of the war, then living long enough to testify against the Nazi guards in the ’60s is nearly unfathomable.

  5. Another note about the women who escaped from Treblinka. In the book Into That Darkness, Gitta Sereny described a woman with the fictitious name of “Sabina,” who was the girlfriend of Kapo Kuba and was sent up to Camp 2 by Kuttner because of their forbidden relationship (INTO 205). It could be that this “Sabina” was Sonia Lewkowicz, who was forced to leave Camp 1 and work at Camp 2 on March 5, 1943. Perhaps because there was another Sonia (Grabinski), Sonia Lewkowicz took the nickname of Sabina while at the camp. Or another possibility is that Sereny purposefully protected her reputation with a pseudonym since Lewkowicz was still alive when Sereny published her book in 1974. Richard Glazar wrote a letter to Sereny describing how Kapo Kuba was a barracks elder and a known informer (INTO 240). A snippet of the Fedorenko trial transcripts with the Sonia Lewkowicz portion of testimony is available online at: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sonialewkowicz.html. Sonia Lewkowicz was the sole revolt escapee of the women who worked at Camp 2. Ms. Lewkowicz died in 2006.

  6. The end of the revolt (INTO 247)

  CHAPTER 29

  1. Karel and Richard’s escape (TRAP 146–150). “Look, this is a good sign. How do believers put it: the hand of the Lord is opened?” Ibid. 149.

  2. These two young men were both twenty-one when they arrived at Treblinka in 1942 (INTO 180).

  CHAPTER 30

  1. Stangl and Globocnik, Ibid. 249. For more information on Globocnik, see chapter 2, note #3.

  2. Shipping Treblinka survivors to Sobibor. Franciszek Zabecki, the rail-traffic controller, reported that it was October 20, 1943 when five railway cars left Treblinka for Sobibor with most of the residual Jewish workers. Immediately after the revolt Stangl gave the order that the remaining workers were not to be executed. Yet as soon as Stangl was reassigned, the Jews were killed either at Treblinka or Sobibor. At Sobibor, the Treblinka Jews arrived one week after the Sobibor uprising (which is another fascinating story), and they were tasked with dismantling the buildings. Himmler had ordered Globocnik to dissolve this Operation Reinhard death camp immediately after the Sobibor revolt (October 14, 1943) in an effort to mask it from the public. Sobibor trial transcripts report that in late November all of the remaining Jews (some from both Treblinka and Sobibor) were taken to Camp 3, forced to lie down side by side on the grilling racks, then shot.

  3. Killing the remaining Jews at Treblinka (ARAD 429, CAMP 315–316). Arad and other sources stated that just two females remained at the end (based on the Treblinka trial), but Suchomel (whose memory seemed flawless) told Sereny that there were three women left (INTO 250). Arad draws his account from the trial testimonies of Willi Mentz and Albert Rum but I gave precedence to Suchomel.

  4. Tchechia’s fate, Ibid. 195

  POSTSCRIPT

  1. The Dusseldorf trial. The Nuremberg trials and the Dusseldorf trial are helpful in a discussion of universal law and absolute truth. There had to be a type of law that represented civilized thought and superseded national law, whereby these defendants could be charged with crimes against humanity. At Nuremberg, a unique international war crimes court was created to deal with these crimes and render justice to the perpetrators of evil. The Nazis conducted business according to the laws of their country, and that was their defense. For the first time in history an international court formed to decree that there is a higher law—universal adherences to which all mankind are subject. Equality, decency, respect for other persons…all attributes of a fair and just society that constitute an authority that is absolute. National laws do not necessarily represent justice, but they do represent power. And Hitler wielded laws to execute and powerfully spread his evil will. For those who would propose that there is no absolute truth, then what should we have done with the Nazi war crimes defendants? Where do we even get this idea of what is just and what is unjust? Indeed, even the desire for retribution comes from something innate in us that betokens an absolute truth, and universal laws are the instruments by which we expect our courts to rule.

  2. Abraham Kolski story (EYE 116). I thank the author of Eyewitness to Genocide, Michael S. Bryant, for his very detailed research explaining the death-camp workers’ testimonies at the Operation Reinhard trials.

  3. Here are the September 3rd verdicts:

  Kurt Franz (the Doll)

  Life imprisonment

  Otto Horn

  Acquitted

  Kurt Kuttner (Kiewe)

  Died before trial

  Erwin Lambert

  Four years

  Heinrich Matthes

  Life imprisonment

  Willi Mentz

  Life imprisonment

  August Miete

  Life imprisonment

  Gustav Munzberger

  Twelve years

  Albert Rum

  Three years

  Otto Stadie

  Six years

  Franz Stangl

  Life imprisonment (at a later trial)

  Franz Suchomel

  Seven years

  Although the verdicts at the Treblinka trial far outshined the Belzec trial (with its one conviction of four and a half years), the majority of SS men and Ukrainian guards who served at Treblinka were never brought to trial.

  4. Kurt Franz, the best years of my life (CAMP 277). Interestingly, during the trial it seemed that Kurt Franz (the Doll) was more concerned about some of the particular crimes attributed to him rather than his all-embracing complicity with the magnitude of incriminating evidence from Treblinka. It would be a fascinating study for psychiatrists to see why one death of an infant, or of the camp doctor, was an assault on Franz’s conscience more than the murder in concert of hundreds of thousands. It could be that these individual events somehow made the crime real to him; that he would be guilty of an offense that demanded punishment. In effect, one or two deaths—attested to by survivors—would put blood on his innocent hands (his perspective). For the first time in his life the light of truth attempted to pierce the impenetrable black abyss of his heart, whereby Franz could have addressed his moral corruption. But it did not happen. He supposed it would have commenced an unmasking too unbearable for him to endure. Before the trial, Franz spoke of the atrocities as if he was describing fiction—something impossible for him to have had any responsibility. At the trial, when questioned on matters whereby the eyewitness evidence unquestionably connected him to murder, it was at this point if he had admitted something then he would have had to truly feel for the victims. However, all through the trial the victims remained numbers, not names, and simply a consequence of Nazi war crimes, not his own. His alarming separation of actions with corresponding feelings remained intact. His perversion was complete.

  5. When trying to decide on the number of deaths at Treblinka, survivor Samuel Rajzman told Alexander Donat that he was present when the Nazis celebrated their one-millionth victim, and it was long before operations were over (CAMP 14). Richard Glazar believed that Treblinka had executed one million people by the end of March 1943, four full months before the revolt (INTO 213–214). This is why I think Franciszek Zabecki might be the closest to the truth, with 1.2 million, Ibid. 250.

  6. Another note on the numbers, in Richard Glazar’s letter to Steiner (Yad Vashem Archives) he wrote that one day alone they processed eighteen thousand prisoners through the tube. If the Nazis murdered an average of one-third of that number for only half o
f the days of just one year (the camp was “active” for sixteen months), it would put the number around 1.1 million, the same number of people who perished at Auschwitz. In Yitzhak Arad’s book The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, he reported that in just one five-week period of July 23, 1942 to August 28, 1942, 312,500 were killed at Treblinka (ARAD 124). Cesarani repeated this number in his tome and stated that two hundred thousand were specifically from Warsaw. Cesarani, David. The Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933–1949. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016, 507.

  7. Sixty-seven survivors. According to Donat there were actually eighty-six survivors (and the Muzeum Treblinka in Poland reiterated Donat’s number). Some online sources even report ninety-seven survivors. The reason my number is lower is because I only include those who survived the war due to the revolt. Donat and others include those who had escaped previously (in the months leading up to the revolt, such as Abraham Bomba), thus the higher number.

  8. Absences of witnesses at Belzec (EYE 123)

  9. Albert Speer was one of Hitler’s closest confidantes. His official title was Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production.

  10. David Brat saying that Richard must survive (INTO 181)

  11. Stangl’s guilt and death, Ibid. 364–5

  12. Kurt Franz. The attorney for Franz at Dusseldorf did not allow him to testify, but in the mid-nineties Franz gave a rare post-prison interview. He maintained that when he arrived at Belzec (his first death-camp assignment), he did not know what was going to happen, and did not know why they were digging pits. He claimed that he was outraged at the gassings and pleaded for a new assignment. He stated that he was still really mad at Suchomel for incriminating him at the trial. At the end of the interview he was asked repeatedly why the Jews were murdered and if they had committed any crime deserving punishment. He said that he did not believe that they had, then declared that he personally did not have any trouble with Jews, and that two of his friends were Jews. The gist of the interview is that Franz continued to deflect his role and responsibility, and never owned up to the fact that he had materially participated in the Holocaust. It was as if the whole mess was an inconvenience to his life alone. From Franz’s own words: “If I knew then, what was in store for me, when I transferred from the armed forces to the SS, I would have never joined the SS. Just because I can’t bear what I have experienced, this Treblinka and this Belzec.”

  13. Karl Ludwig (ARAD 245, INTO 188). Joe Siedlecki: “There was an SS man, Karl Ludwig. He was a good man. If I would meet him today I would give him everything he might need.” Ada Lichtman (on Ludwig): “More than once he took people from the lines. In this way he saved two doctors.” Also, Jankiel Wiernik reported that an SS man at Treblinka, Erwin Herman Lambert, frequently brought him food from the German kitchen.

  14. Rapaport and his pregnant wife (EYE 104–105)

  15. Abraham Bomba. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has videos of Bomba describing his experiences at Treblinka. He was transported to Treblinka on September 25, 1942. An amazingly heroic feat, Bomba escaped with two other men months before the revolt (ARAD 308).

  16. Hershl Sperling’s death, Smith, Mark S. Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling. Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2010, 11–19. Sperling departed his home to take his life on Tuesday, September 26, 1989, exactly forty-seven years after he arrived at Treblinka. He had survived seven Nazi concentration camps.

  17. Richard Glazar’s death. Glazar’s testimony provided incontrovertible proof of Holocaust death camps, yet Richard somehow couldn’t reconcile his own existence. He committed suicide on December 20, 1997. At the conclusion of his book, the date is May 8, 1945, which is Victory Europe Day and Glazar wrote about the war being over: “As soon as the sun sets everyone rips the blackout shades out of the windows. Their own light will stream out into this new sky. From beyond the Rhine one of the searchlights is sweeping back and forth across the sky from one end to the other, and I am fascinated. I know what the boy beyond the horizon is signaling to the whole world: ‘I will not be killed—I will not be slaughtered—I will live—love—live.’” Glazar took his own life five years after his book Trap with a Green Fence was published.

  18. The full verse of what David Brat shared with Glazar: “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).

  Questions for Classroom Students and Book Clubs

  1. What was Kommandant Franz Stangl’s motivation for telling his staff not to treat the workers so harshly? Do you think he was an effective leader?

  [Your Response Here]

  2. What leadership traits did Tchechia display even though she was not in an official leadership role?

  [Your Response Here]

  3. What was it about Zelo that made him an effective leader? How did he use his leadership to inspire others?

  [Your Response Here]

  4. In the discussion between Bronka and Rudi about their supervisor Suchomel on whether he was a kind man or not, would you agree more with Bronka or with Rudi?

  [Your Response Here]

  5. Why was the loss of Zelo so impactful to the revolt organizers in Camp 1? How did they display their frustration?

  [Your Response Here]

  6. How did the gold Jews survive their interrogation from the Doll the day Dr. Chorazycki died? What lesson can be gained from them, if any?

  [Your Response Here]

  7. Was it helpful to the revolt organizers for Zelo to be transferred to Camp 2? Why, or why not?

  [Your Response Here]

  8. Did any of the Nazi guards have good qualities? Is it even possible to think in those terms considering their brutality? Why, or why not?

  [Your Response Here]

  9. How would you describe Tchechia’s philosophy in life? How could it be advantageous or disadvantageous in a place like Treblinka?

  [Your Response Here]

  10. As explained in this book, sometimes the Jewish workers would have sympathizers (those loyal to the Nazis who were informers) dealt with. Do you think this clandestine behavior of the workers was ethical in this circumstance? How is it different from the killings the Nazis were performing?

  [Your Response Here]

  11. What was Jankiel Wiernik’s role? How was he helpful to the revolt effort? Could the revolt have been pulled off without him? Why, or why not?

  [Your Response Here]

  12. How did camp elder Galewski contribute toward the revolt? Was he an effective leader?

  [Your Response Here]

  13. How did Tchechia handle herself during the revolt compared to Bronka?

  [Your Response Here]

  14. When Stangl departed Treblinka he decided to shake hands with the workers. Was this appropriate? Why do you think he did so?

  [Your Response Here]

  15. Who was your favorite character?

  [Your Response Here]

  16. What do you think is the main lesson of Treblinka?

  [Your Response Here]

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to

  The Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance

  The Holocaust Historical Society, the United Kingdom

  The Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York

  The Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom in Treblinka, Poland

  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.

  Yad Vashem (Document Archives and the Shoah Victims’ Names Database)

  First, I thank the various authors who supplied the above references. Without the careful work documenting survivors’ experiences (along with the trial transcripts), we would have never known the truth about Treblinka. I also extend a warm thank you to Rabbi Bonnie Koppell for her eloquent foreword. We have been friends and professional colleagues for many years and I greatly appreciate her partnering with me on this project.

  I am very grateful to
the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance in Vienna, specifically Dr. Elisabeth Klamper, for authorizing the use of the cover photo. I thank the Museum of Jewish Heritage, specifically Elizabeth Edelstein, for her warm reception and eager help to assist with remaining questions I had about Treblinka. I also thank the Treblinka Museum director, Edward Kopówka, for his hospitality when I performed my on-site research in Poland. He was very helpful with instructing me on the latest research at Treblinka and was receptive to my work. Also, a special thanks to Chris Webb at the Holocaust Historical Society in London for his persistent responsiveness, and to the librarians and reference technicians at USHMM and Yad Vashem for their professionalism in providing requested information.

  Next, I thank my kind and patient editor Vicki Zimmer for her hours of tedious sentence reconstructing. She also edited The Lion and the Lamb and I am grateful for her superb work on both projects. Vicki and her husband Mark are two of my closest friends from college, and they are wonderful people.

  A warm thank you to Henry Foster, my friend and mentor in Columbia, SC, who graciously provided a painting for this book. A special thanks to Lauri and Madison Causey for reading an early version of the manuscript and offering constructive feedback. Lauri also performed some helpful editing for me along the way. She is amazing. Thanks to Todd Canfield for his friendship and hospitality over the final months before publication. Thank you Elm Hill team for your efforts in making Trains to Treblinka a reality for seeing my vision for Trains to Treblinka. Thank you to Julia Marie Edeler-Slinker for her help with German translation. Thank you to my beta readers (Janice Bertilson, Alan Cole, Virginia Emery, Beth Funk, Mark Jenkins, Cindy Rietema, and Joanne Teasdale), who gave me very helpful feedback. And last but not least, I thank Charlie Yost for proofreading the manuscript during one of his busier summers. This is the third book he has helped me edit. A mere thank you doesn’t cut it. All of the people mentioned above are true friends who have graciously given of their time to make this project successful.