by Nechama Tec
When talking about the Treblinka uprising, Glazar repeatedly emphasized the prisoners’ ties and their solidarity.
There was a group of rebels, resisters, about ten people, which in time became organized. These were the ten most important people; all of them had some kind of military skills. My friend Karl and I did not have any military training at all. Because my friend and I were not military men, we were not real members of the resistance group.
However, two other Czech men, Zelo Bloch and Rudi Masarek, were an integral part of this resistance. They would inform us about a lot of things. They would also use us to do all kinds of jobs for the underground. Not as a members of the group, but as marginal members.
Many people knew something, but we were very careful not to have much contact with the Germans. It was difficult not to accidentally give something away. The plan was to start the uprising in August, 1943. All the horrors that happened, that we felt were somehow a part of each of us, somehow were cancelled out by our uprising. This is a very interesting thing. Through this desperate rebellion, we regained our pride. We regained some autonomy, some independence. . . . And even though there were very few people who participated in planning this revolt, those who knew about it gained relief from it. It had a wonderful impact upon the rest of us just knowing about it. All of us knew something about it, and all of us somehow felt a part of it, even though many of us were not specifically involved with it. . . . It gave us the illusion of having some control over our destiny.
There were many helpers associated with this opposition. They were not told precisely what was happening, because it would have been dangerous for them. But they had a feeling that they were a part of something. Of course, everybody, in a sense, in some way, contributed to this uprising. You cannot do this without having full cooperation.56
I asked Glazar if he ever worried that an inmate might denounce him. “I told you before,” he replied, “that there were about three of those whom we did not really trust. Actually, even about these three, it wasn’t that we thought that they would denounce us, but we thought that they might not be strong enough if they were caught not to talk. There were no explicit denouncers of whom we might have been afraid.”
“Are you telling me that there was an overall solidarity among you all?” I asked.
“In a sense, yes. I am telling you that among those living there, among those slaves, yes. There was such solidarity. I think that solidarity was much stronger than in other camps because this was a death camp. But I only became aware of this distinction when I read about other camps.”
“I want to see if I understand what you are telling me. Are you saying that the solidarity which existed among the prisoners made you feel or gave you the possibility of feeling like a human being?”
“Definitely. Definitely. This was a way of telling them [the Germans] that they could not fully dehumanize us, that we shared this solidarity. This realization only occurred to me later on, as I looked back and discussed and read and thought about it.”57
I understood that Treblinka made bonding indispensable. In effect, on his own, Glazar emphasized that the more degraded life became in a camp, the greater became the need for mutual cooperation. In my research I have been finding the same thing again and again: the more dire the conditions under which one was forced to live, the greater the need for solidarity and compassion among those sharing them.
Although in some ways life-promoting, such supportive groups in and of themselves could not help people entirely to avert death. Most leaders of the Treblinka uprising did perish. Many others who died belonged to a variety of groups. Moreover, organized and armed Jewish resistance happened in at least five major concentration camps and in eighteen work camps.58 However, most were not as dramatic as the armed resistance that occurred in Treblinka. And yet, they all had shared some similar characteristics.
With the German occupation, Glazar’s parents had been convinced that their son’s transfer to a remote farm where he was engaged in heavy work would protect him from scrutiny. Contrary to this expectation, by 1942 the Germans traced Glazar to the farm on which he worked.
The Nazis sent him to Teresianstadt, where he stayed one month. “After the one month, I was notified that I was being moved to another ghetto. After a few days, about a thousand people were sent to Treblinka.” I asked him what he thought may have been responsible for his survival. He replied:
This question bothers me still. There are certain factors that are inherent, basic. Some are internal, some are external. Some of the external factors you have no influence over. The internal thing required us never to give up. At one point in Treblinka I had typhoid fever, and I was ready to give up. But in the end my friend and I, we ran away together, we never gave up the idea that somehow we would make it. . . . in Treblinka a person could not make it unless he or she belonged to a group—at least a group of two.
There was an underground, but it was not easy to understand it. Sereny wrote a book about it, but I doubt she understood it at all.
Glazar wanted me to understand the culture that emerged in Treblinka.
You must understand, those who came to the camp had probably brought some valuables with them . . . which the Germans were aware of, and they were determined to get to these valuables. Around [these circumstances] sprang up Mafia organizations. There was a possibility of terrific profiteering from these things. This created some special situations . . . the poor Jews who arrived; they would have some jewelry into which they had converted all of their savings. They always had with them some kind of valuables. They had sewn into the clothes dollars, and so on, perhaps for a passage to America or Palestine, which they had saved for all their lives.
What Glazar refers to as “Mafia organizations,” and the profiteering that grew out of this reality, were linked to the underground. For example, when Dr. Julian Chorazycki reached Treblinka in a transport of Polish Jews, he was assigned for work in the German dental office. Unlike some of the rest of the new arrivals, he was spared from being gassed upon arrival. The Treblinka Jewish underground was on the lookout for all such new arrivals. They could always use intelligent and energetic newcomers. In no time, the underground leaders pegged Dr. Chorazycki as an asset. The underground was busy with preparations for the August revolt. Dr. Chorazycki was suspected of being particularly gifted in the financial aspects of the resistance undertaking.
A coordinated anti-German attack called for a variety of gifts. The financial arrangements, in particular, demanded from the resistance leader very special skills. Chorazycki seemed to be a good choice; unobtrusively he collected funds for the forthcoming attack. All went well until an unexpected incident happened. One day, the SS officer and commander of Treblinka, Kurt Franz, stopped by Dr. Chorazycki’s office to pick up some medication. On impulse, Franz decided to find out what this Jewish prisoner might have in his bulging bag.
He had never expected to find 150,000 zlotys, wrapped up with dollars, and a wide range of valuable jewelry. When Chorazycki realized that the SS man had discovered the money and jewelry, he ran out of the room. According to one account, during his short escape, the doctor swallowed poison, something he always had handy for just such an eventuality. The German, who was stronger and younger, caught up with him and easily overpowered and beat up the now dying doctor.
Subsequently, Franz called for a special meeting that same afternoon. The audience consisted of prisoners who were forced to witness this event. In front of the crowd stood Franz, and next to him was a bloody bundle, which had once been Dr. Chorazycki. At that point, it looked like a massive package, here and there showing red blotches of blood. Franz proceeded to hit the shapeless bundle. Fuming, he continued to hit the package next to him, counting the lashes that he administered to the lifeless body. Only when the Nazi came to fifty did he stop counting. He finished his performance with an order, “Now to the infirmary to be shot!”59
Despite this horrifying experience, the prisoners were determine
d to continue with their plans. They knew that their uprising called for additional preparations, and proceeded to carry on with the next steps. Soon, however, Glazar and Karl Unger were both incapacitated by typhoid fever. Their comrades took care of them, while keeping them informed about the progress of the preparations. The leaders of the anti-German uprising were fully absorbed in their underground operations, and all agreed that access to adequate guns and ammunition was of outmost importance. The SS men were similarly aware of the importance of arms. Indeed, the ammunition depot was located in the sturdily built SS barracks, which also served as their living quarters and included the dining room, kitchen, and sleeping accommodations, along with the special areas for storing guns and ammunition. Unlike the SS, the underground leaders spread out their resources, thereby limiting the risks.
Although the underground leaders knew the location of the ammunition depot and the guns, this did not guarantee access. The first problem they had to solve was how to gain entry to the locked depot, the keys to which were in the hands of SS officers. The underground’s goal was to obtain a copy of these keys. And so, on a particular morning, one underground member slipped inconspicuously past the ammunition depot, sticking a small metal object into the lock and thereby jamming it. The SS men called on a locksmith, a Jewish inmate, to help them solve the problem. After an extensive examination, the locksmith informed them that he had to transfer the entire door to his workshop in order to fix the problem. The SS agreed, and while it was in his workshop the Jews made copies of the key.
It seems that at that time there were roughly 1,000 inmates in Treblinka. The aim of the uprising was to destroy the camp by setting it on fire, allowing prisoners to escape into the neighboring forests. To keep the preparations secret, the organizers did not involve Ukrainian guards or any potential helpers from the nearby town of Wlodawa. The leaders of the underground also felt that the uprising should take place when Kurt Franz and Kütner Miete, another experienced SS officer, were absent. Their expected leaves were to start on August 2, 1943.
At four in the afternoon on August 2, the Treblinka uprising began. A shot rang out, signaling that it had started. Most of the inmates were equipped with rakes, pitchforks, spades, and shovels. More effective weapons had to be obtained from the ammunition depot. Some prisoners were instructed to set fire to the entire building after they had removed the necessary weapons and ammunitions from the surrounding buildings. Another group was charged with the elimination of the Ukrainian guards.
Glazar and Unger managed to stay close to each other. They heard explosions coming from the Ukrainian barracks, followed by the sight of huge tongues of flames. They were herded through the fence by a prisoner whom Glazar later identified as “Lublink,” and ran to the nearby river, staying underwater as long as they could to escape the flames. Gradually they saw that the flames were becoming smaller and smaller.60 By this point the sun was beginning to set, and dusk allowed the two swimmers to venture out of the water. The bucolic surroundings and growing darkness gave them a feeling of calm, which they had not felt in a long time.
With the revolt behind them, these two young men reflected on the situation. Glazer wrote in his memoir that “the brave older fighters wanted us young prisoners to get out of Treblinka . . . they wanted us to live.” There was, for him, no other way to explain why this “Lublink” had herded them out through the fence. “And how strange that I never saw him after that . . . .”61
Indeed, the head of this revolt, the engineer Bernard Galewski, and all the others who assisted him—Zvi Kurland, Israel Sudouwicz, Simcha, the carpenter—did not survive. Galewski made it out of the camp but after a few kilometers decided he could go no further, took poison, and died. Why? Trying to understand, Glazar and Unger reached the conclusion that the organizers of the Treblinka revolt wanted to avenge the murders of their family members. They were united in their determination to destroy Treblinka. Some valued the destruction of the camp above all else, even their own lives. Perhaps the leaders of the revolt never intended to escape.
Soon, surrounded by darkness, Glazar and Unger came upon a hut and introduced themselves to its inhabitants as Czech prisoners of war who had escaped from a camp. Over the next few days, as they roamed the countryside, they dared to enter an empty barn. Rest calmed them. Occasionally, they found scraps of food. Sometimes the scraps left them feeling ill. They tried to move in the direction of their former homes in Czechoslovakia. Later they ran into American soldiers. Somehow it did not occur to them to admit that they were Jewish. Strangely enough, after a while they felt almost relaxed with the Americans, who nudged them toward life.
When the war ended, Glazar felt an obligation to testify at some of the Holocaust trials. Specifically, he wanted to join the fifty-four Treblinka survivors who periodically came to testify at a variety of trials. As one of the fifty-four witnesses, he waited for a German witness to appear, one who would have the courage to declare that he or she participated in the murder of Jews. He longed to encounter such a German witness, but one never materialized at any of the Treblinka trials. Glazar waited in vain.62
Treblinka was not widely known until years after the war was over. Another little-known death camp, Sobibor, was located in the eastern part of Poland, between the cities of Chelmno and Wlodawa. Over the course of the war, Sobibor claimed the lives of a quarter million Jews. A brief look at Sobibor offers insights into the life and death of its wartime inmates.
In 1983, Karl August Frenzel, an SS officer who had been a high-ranking commander at Sobibor, asked for a meeting with Thomas “Toivi” Blatt, one of the few survivors of the camp. Frenzel had encountered Blatt at several of his postwar trials. Intrigued, Blatt agreed to meet Frenzel. As the two men faced each other after nearly forty years, Blatt asked, “Why do you want to speak with me?”63
“I would like to apologize to you,” was the reply.64
When in the course of their conversation Blatt had the opportunity to repeat his question, Frenzel replied, “I can only say it again, with tears. Not only am I beside myself now, but back then too, I was greatly bothered by it all.”65 Blatt tried to engage this German in a broader conversation about guilt, but Frenzel denied any responsibility, saying: “We had to do our duty. . . . I condemn that time.”66
Sobibor operated from May 1941 until November 1943. Its prisoners came from Poland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Austria, and the USSR. Most were gassed on arrival. The basic core of prisoners amounted to 600. They were assigned to a variety of duties.
There was a great deal of solidarity among these Sobibor inmates, despite their differences. The more established inmates were known to share food with the new arrivals, particularly the starving Dutch prisoners. Similarly, some of the old-timers were known for their efforts to keep up the spirits of the newcomers, offering not just food but survival tips, including the benefits of singing. Most of this was for naught, since the vast majority of these prisoners were almost immediately gassed.
As in most death camps, Sobibor newcomers gravitated toward and were kept in special groups, and their behavior was governed by the principle of collective responsibility. A wrong move by one inevitably led to the punishment of the entire group. All resistance was quickly and severely squelched. Despite the oppressive measures, most Sobibor prisoners were nonetheless committed to an underground. Standing out among them were such figures as Leon Feldhendler, a shoemaker; Boris Cylenski; and Shlomo Lejtman. They called their organization the Secret Arms Organization, or for short, TOB.
Together, the underground came up with a plan to destroy the camp. It also aimed at saving prisoners and eliminating collaborators. As in other camps, underground meetings in Sobibor were conducted at night. As a rule its participants were those who were most respected for their integrity and dedication.
Over time the prisoners pursued a range of plans. Early on they thought about collectively poisoning all the Germans, but this plan was soon dismissed as too difficult. Another
idea was to burn the entire camp down. This, too, was abandoned as impractical. Another plan aimed at building a tunnel that would lead them to forests and partisans. This proposal was also set aside.
At first those involved in resistance worked to establish contacts with partisans. Caught with some plans outlining cooperative efforts, several prisoners were promptly tortured. Before their public executions—in front of the entire prison population—the accused called on all prisoners to avenge their deaths. They had refused to name any of their co-conspirators.
The prisoners searched for new means of resistance. Those who sorted through Jewish belongings concentrated on destroying items, such as jewelry, which were of greatest value. Some of the inmates expressed their opposition by praying nonstop, which gave some comfort to them and to other inmates.
With time, transports to Sobibor became less frequent. The prisoners had no illusions about what this meant. No transports translated into no work. No work meant hunger and death. Toward the end of September 1942, the basic core of the 600 prisoners was still intact. The majority were Polish Jews. These inmates were supervised by twenty-five SS men and 160 guards. From June 1943 on, substantial parts of Sobibor camp were mined. The authorities must have sensed that some prisoners were eager and ready to revolt.
In the summer of 1943, a large group of prisoners, somewhere around 2,000, arrived from Minsk. Of these new arrivals, eighty were retained and added to the core group of 600 prisoners. The rest was gassed. Among these new arrivals there were some former members of the Soviet military, including a high proportion of Jewish Soviet POWs, who were well-disciplined and eager to fight. Their presence improved the morale of the rest of prisoners. In this new group the Sobibor resistance saw an opportunity to restructure and improve the effectiveness of the underground.