Making this film was a long and difficult battle. I could not have waged it without the support and the faith of a number of men and women, some of whom are now gone. This film is theirs as well.
I thank the members of my crew, those men and women who took part in the campaigns of research, reporting, filming. Especially Irène Steinfeldt-Lévi and Corinne Coulmas, who seconded me, even risking their personal safety in times of danger. And Ziva Postec, who worked beside me day after day for five years, on the editing of the film.
My gratitude also goes to Yehuda Bauer, Professor of Contemporary Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Raül Hilberg, Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont in Burlington (U.S.A.)
The story begins in the present at Chelmno, on the N#arew River, in Poland. Fifty miles northwest of Lodz, in the heart of a region that once had a large Jewish population, Chelmno was the place in Poland where Jews were first exterminated by gas. Extermination began on December 7, 1941.
At Chelmno 400 000 Jews were murdered in two separate periods : December 1941 - spring 1943 : June 1944 - January 1945. But the way in which death was administrated remained the same throughout : the gas vans.
Of the 400 000 men, women and children who went there, only two came out alive : Mordechai Podchlebnik and Simon Srebnik. Srebnik, a survivor of the last period, was a boy of thirteen when he was sent to Chelmno.
His father had been killed before his eyes in the ghetto in Lodz ; his mother died in a gas van in Chelmno. The SS placed him in one of the « Jewish work details », assigned to maintaining the extermination camps and that were in turn slated for death...
With the ankles in chain, like all his companions, the boy shuffled through the village of Chelmno each day. That he was kept alive longer than the others, he owed to his extreme agility, which made him the winner of jumping contests and speed races that the SS organized for the chained prisoners.
And, also, to his melodious voice : several times a week, when the rabbits kept in hutches by the SS needed fodder., young Srebnik rowed up the Narew, Chelmno's river, under guard, in a flat-bottomed boat, to the alfalfa fields at the edge of the village. He sang Polish folk tunes and in return the guard taught him Prussian military songs.
Everyone ln Chelmno knew him. The PoIish farm foIk and German civillan as weII, since this PoIish province was annexed to the Reich after the falI of Warsaw, germanized and renamed WartheIand. Chelmno was changed to Kulmhof, Lodz to Litzmannstadt, Kolo to Warthbrücken, etc... German coIonlsts had settIed every where in Wartheland, and there was even a German grade school in Chelmno itseIf.
During the night of January 18, 1945, two days before Soviet troops arrived, the Nazis killed all the remaining Jews in the « work details » with a bullet in the head. Simon Srebnik was among those executed. But the bullet missed his vital brain centers. When he came to, he crawled into a pigsty.
A polish farmer found him there. The boy was treated and healed by a Soviet Army doctor. A few months later Simon left for Tel Aviv along with other survivors of the death camps. I found him in lsrael and persuaded him to return to Chelmno with me. He was then forty-seven years old.
''A little white house...''
''Lingers in my memory...''
''Of that little white house...''
''l dream each night...''
He was 13 1/2 years old. He had a lovely singing voice
and we heard him.
When l heard him again, my heart beat faster,
because what happened here... was a murder.
l really re-lived what happened.
lt's hard to recognize, but it was here.
They burned people here.
A lot of people were burnt here.
Yes, this is the place.
No one ever left here again.
The gas vans came in here...
There were two huge ovens,
and afterward, the bodies were thrown
into these ovens, and the flames reached to the sky.
To the sky?
Yes.
lt was terrible.
No one can describe it.
No one can
recreate what happened here.
lmpossible ! And no one can understand it.
Even l, here, now,
l can't believe l'm here.
No, l just can't believe it.
lt was always this peaceful here. Always.
When they burnt 2,000 people -- Jews -- every day,
it was just as peaceful.
No one shouted. Everyone went about his work.
lt was silent. Peaceful.
Just as it is now.
''You, girl, don't you cry.''
''Don't be so sad.''
''For the dear summer is nearing...''
''and l'll return with it.''
''A mug of red wine, a slice of roast,''
''that's what the girls give their soldiers.''
''When the soldiers march along,''
''the girls open their doors and windows.''
They bought the Germans made him sing on the river.
He was a toy to amuse them.
He had to do it.
He sang, but his heart wept.
Do ''their'' hearts weep thinking about that now ?
Certainly, very much so.
They still talk about it around the family table.
it was public, so everyone knew of it.
He said that was true german irony,
people were being killed, and he had to sing.
That's what l thought.
What died in him in Chelmo?
Everything died.
But he's only human, and he wants to live.
So he must forget.
The other survivor : MORDECHAl PODCHLEBNlK
He thanks God for what remain and that he can forget.
And let's not talk about that.
Does he think it's good to talk about it?
For me it's not good.
Then why is he talking about it?
Because you're insisting on it.
He was sent books on the Eichmann trial, where he was
and he didn't even read them.
He survived, but is he really alive, or...?
At the time, he felt as if he were dead,
because he never thought he'd survive,
but... he's alive.
Why does he smile all the time?
What do you want him to do... cry?
Sometimes you smile, sometimes you cry.
And if you're alive, it's better to smile.
Why was she so curious about this story?
HANNA SAlDL - lSRAEL -
Daughter of MOTKE SAlDL, survivor of VlLNA (LlTHUANlA)
lt's a long story.
As a child, l had little contact with my father.
He went out to work and l didn't see much of him.
Besides, he was a silent man he didn't talk to me.
And when l grew up and was strong enough to face him,
l questioned him. l never stopped questioning him,
until l got at the scraps of truth he couldn't tell me.
lt came out haltingly.
l had to tear the details out of him,
and finally, when Mr. Lanzmann came,
l heard the whole story for the second time.
The place resembles Ponari : the forest, the ditches.
lt's as if the bodies has been burned here.
Except there were no stones in Ponari.
PONARl : forest where most of the Vilna Jews were massacred.
But the Lithuanian forests
are denser than the lsraeli Forest, no?
Of course.
The trees are similar, but taller and fuller in Lithuania.
ls there still hunting here in Sobibor forest ?
Yes, there are lots of animals of all kinds.
Was there hunting then?
Only manhunting.
JAN PlWONSKl
Somes victims tried to escape.
But they didn't know the area.
At times people heard explosions in the minefield,
sometimes they'd find a deer
and sometimes a poor Jew who tried to escape.
That's the charm of our forests : silence and beauty.
But it wasn't always so silent here.
There was a time when it was full of screams
and gunshots,
of dogs' barking,
and that period especially
.is engraved on the minds of the people
who lived here then.
After the revolt, the Germans decided to liquidate the camp
and early in the winter of 1943,
they planted pines that were three or four years old,
to camouflage all the traces.
That screen of trees?
Yes.
That's where the mass graves were?
When he first came here in 1944,
you couldn't guess what had happened here,
that these trees hidden the secret of a death camp.
How did he react, the first time he unloades corpses,
when the gas van doors were opened?
What could he do? He cried.
The 3rd day, he saw his wife and children.
He placed his wife in the gravs and asked to be killed.
The Germans said he was strong enough to work,
that he wouldn't be killed yet.
Was the weather very cold?
lt was in the winter of 1942, in early January.
At that time, the bodies weren't burned, just buried?
No, they were buried and each row was covered with dirt.
They weren't being burned yet.
There were around four or five layers.
The ditches were funnel-shaped.
They dumped the bodies in theses ditches
and they had to lay them out like herrings, head to foot.
So it was they who dug up and burned
all the Jews of Vilna?
Yes.
ln early Jan. 1944, we began digging up the bodies.
When the last mass grave opened,
l recognized my whole family.
Who in his family did he recognize?
Mom and my sisters. 3 sisters with their kids.
They were all in there.
How could he recognize them?
YlTZHAK DUGlN : survivor of VlLNA
They'd been in the earth 4 months
and it was winter.
They were very well preserved.
l recognized their faces, their clothes too.
They'd been killed relativerly recently?
And it was the last grave?
The Nazi plan was for them to open the graves
starting with the oldest?
The last graves were the newest
and we started with the oldest those of the first ghetto.
ln the first grave there were 24,000 bodies.
The deeper you dug, the flatter the bodies were.
Each was almost a flat slab.
When you tried to grasp a body, it crumbled,
it was impossible to pick up them.
We had to open the graves, but without tools.
They said : ''Get used to working with your hands''.
With just their hands?
When we first opened the graves,
we couldn't help it, we all burst out sobbing.
But the Germans almost beat us to death.
We had to work at a killing pace for two days,
beaten all the time, and with no tools.
They all burst out sobbing?
The Germans even forbade us to use
the words ''corpse'' or ''victim''.
The dead were blocks of wood, shit,
with absolutely no importance...
Anyone who said ''corpse'' or ''victim'' was beaten.
The Germans made us refer to the bodies
as ''Figuren'', that is
as puppets, as dolls,
or as ''Schmattes'', which means ''rags''.
Were they told at the start
how many ''Figuren'' there were in all the graves?
The head of the Vilna Gestapo told us :
''There are 90,000 people lying there,
''and absolutely no trace must be left of them.''
lt was at the end of November 1942.
They chased us away from our work,
and back to our barracks. Suddenly,
from the part of the camp called
the death camp,
flames shot up. Very high.
ln a flash, the whole countryside,
the whole camp seemed ablaze.
lt was already dark.
We went into our barracks,
and ate...
And from the window, we kept on watching
the fantastic backdrop of flames
of every imaginable color,
red, yellow, green, purple.
And suddenly one of us stood up.
We knew
he'd been an opera singer in Warsaw.
His name was Salve, and...
facing that curtain of fire, he began
chanting a song
l didn't know :
''My God, my God,
''why hast Thou forsaken us?
RlCHARD GLAZAR - BASEL (SWlTZERLAND)
''We have been thrust into the fire before,
''but we have never denied Thy Holy Law.''
He sang in Yiddish,
while, behind him, blazed
the pyres
on which
they had begun then, in November 1942,
to burn the bodies in Treblinka.
That was the first time it happened.
We knew that night
that the dead would no longer be buried,
they'd be burned.
TREBLlNKA
When things were ready, they poured on fuel,
and touched off the fire.
They waited for a high wind.
The pyres usually burned for 7 or 8 days.
There was a concrete platform some distance away,
and the bones that hadn't burned,
the big bones of the feet, for example,
we took...
There was a chest with two handles,
we carried the bones there,
where others
had to crush them. lt was very fine,
that powdered bone.
Then it was put into sacks
and when there were enough sacks,
we went to a bridge on the Narew river,
and dumped the powder. The current carried it off.
lt drifted downstream.
PAULA BlREN - ClNClNNATl U.S.A. survivor of AUSCHWlTZ
The Jewish cemetery is LODZ today
AUSCHWlTZ : the town
Mrs. Pietryra, you live in Auschwitz?
Yes, l was born here.
And you've never left Auschwitz?
No, never.
Were there Jews in Auschwitz before the war?
They made up 80% of the population.
They even had a synagogue here.
Just one?
Just one, l think.
Does it still exist?
No, it was wrecked.
There's something else there now.
Was there a Jewish cemetery in Auschwitz?
it still exists. lt's closed now.
lt still exists?
Yes.
Closed? What does that mean?
The don't bury there now.
Was there a synagogue in Wlodawa?
Yes, and it's very beautiful.
When Poland was ruled by the csars,
that synagogue already existed.
lt's even older than Catholic church.
lt's no longer used.
There's no one to go to it.
These buildings haven't changed?
Not at all. There were barrels of herrings here,
and the Jews sold fish.
There were stalls, small shops,
Jewish business, as the gentleman says.
That's Barenholz's house.
He sold wood.
Lipschitz's store was there. He sold cloth.
This was Lichtenstein's.
What was there, opposite?
A food store.
A Jewish store ?
There was a notions shop here,
it sold thread, needles, odds and ends,
and there were also three barbers.
PAN FlLlPWlCZ
- Was that fine house Jewish? - lt's Jewish.
And this small one?
Also.
And the one behind it?
These were all Jewish.
This one on the left, too?
That one too.
Who lived in it? Borenstein?
He was in the cement business.
He was very handsome, and cultivated.
Here there was a blacksmith named Tepper.
lt was a Jewish house.
A shoemaker lived here.
What was his name?
Yankel?
Yes.
You get the feeling Wlodawa was a Jewish city.
Yes, because it's true.
The Poles lived farther out the center was wholly Jewish
What happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?
They were expelled and resettled,
but l don't know where.
What year was that?
lt began in 1940, which was when l moved here.
This apartment also belonged to Jews.
According to our information,
the Auschwitz Jews were ''resettled'', as they say,
nearby, in Benzin and Sosnowiecze, in Upper Silesi.
Yes, because those were Jewish towns.
Does she know what happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?
l think they all ended up in the camp.
That is, they returned to Auschwitz?
AUSCHWlTZ - BlRKENAU
All kinds of people from everywhere
were sent here.
All the Jews came here... to die.
What's they think when Wlodawa's Jews
were all deported to Sobibor?
WLODAWA - Sobibor : 10 miles
What could we think?
That it was the end of them, but they had foreseen that.
How so?
Even before the war, when you talked to the Jews,
they foresaw their doom, he doesn't know how.
Even before the war they had a premonition.
How were they taken to Sobibor? On foot?
lt was frightful. He watched it himself.
They were herded on foot to a station called Orkrobek.
There they put the old people first
into waiting cattle cars,
then the younger Jews,
and finally the kids.
That was the worst : they threw them on top of the others.
Were there a lot of Jews in Kolo?
A great many.
More Jews than Poles.
And what happened with the Kolo Jews?
Was he an eye-witness?
PAN FALBORSKl
Yes. lt was frightful.
Frightful to see. Even the Germans hid, they couldn't see that.
When the Jews were herded to the station, they were beated,
some were even killed.
A cart followed the convoy to pick up the corpses.
Those who couldn't walk, the slain?
Yes, those who'd fallen.
Where did this happen?
The Jews were collected in the Kolo synagogue.
Then they were herded to the station,
where the narrow-gauge railroad wen to Chelmno.
lt happened to all the Jews in the area, not just in Kolo.
Absolutely. Everywhere.
Jews were also murdered in the forests
near Kalisz, not far from here.
ABRAHAM BOMBA, survivor of TREBLlNKA - TEL-AVlV
TREBLlNKA by road
He was born here
in 1923,
and has been here even since.
He lived at this very spot?
Right here.
Then he had a front-row seat for what happened.
Naturally.
You could go up close or watch from a distance.
CZESLAW BOROWl
They had land on the far side of the station.
To work it, he had to cross the track,
so he could see everything.
Does he remember the first convoy of Jews
from Warsaw on July 22, 1942?
Yes.
He recalls the first convoy very well,
and when all those Jews were brought here,
people wondered, ''what's to be done with them?''
Clearly, they'd be killed, but no one yet knew how.
When people began to understand what was happening
they were appalled, and they commented privately
that since the world began,
no one had ever murdered so many people that way.
While all this was happening before their eyes,
normal life went on? They worked their fields?
Certainly they worked, but not
as willingly as usual.
They had to work,
but when they saw all this, they bought,
what if our house is surrounded and we're arrested.
Were they afraid for the Jews, too?
Well, he says, it's this way :
if l cut my finger, it doesn't hurt him.
They saw that happened to the Jews : the convoy came in
and then went to the camp, and
the people vanished.
He had a field under 100 yards from the camp.
He also worked during the German occupation.
He worked his field?
Yes.
He saw how they were asphyxiated,
he heard them scream, he saw that.
There's a small hill : he could see quite a bit.
What did he say?
They couln't stop and watch.
lt was forbidden. The Ukrainians shot at them.
But they could work a field 100 yards from the camp?
They could.
So occasionally he could steal a glance,
if the Ukrainians weren't looking.
He worked with his eyes lowered?
Yes.
He worked by the barbed wire and heard awful screams.
His field was there?
Yes, right up close.
lt wasn't forbidden to work there.
So he worked, he farmed there?
Yes. Where the camp is now,
was partly his field.
lt was off limits, but they heard everything.
lt didn't bother him to work so near those screams?
At first is was unbearable. Then you got used to it.
You get used to anything?
Yes.
Now he thinks... impossible.
Yet it was true.
So he was the convoys arriving.
There were 60 to 80 cars in each convoy
and there were two locomotives
.that took the convoys into the camp,
taking 20 cars at a time.
And the cars came back empty?
Yes.
Does he remember...?
Here's how it happened :
the locomotive picked up 20 cars and took them to the camp
That took maybe an hour,
and the empty cars came back here.
Then the next 20 cars were taken, and meanwhile,
the people in the first 20 were already dead.
They waited, they wept,
they asked for water, they died.
Sometimes they were naked in the cars, up to 1 70 people.
This is where they gave the Jews water, he says.
Where was that?
Here. When the convoys arrived, they gave water to
Who gave the Jews water?
We did, the Poles.
There was a tiny well, we took a bottle and...
Wasn't it dangerous to give them water?
Very dangerous.
You could be killed for giving a glass of water.
But we gave them water anyway.
ls it very cold here in winter?
lt depends.
lt can get to minus 15, minus 20.
Which was harder on the Jews, summer or winter?
Waiting here, l mean.
He thinks winter, because they were very cold.
They were so packed in the cars, maybe they weren't cold.
ln summer they stifled : it was very hot.
The Jews were very thirsty. They tried to get out.
Were there corpses in the cars on arrival?
Obviously.
They were so packed in that even those still alive
sat on corpses for lack of space.
Didn't people here who went by the trains
look through the cracks in the cars?
Yes, they could look in sometimes as they went by.
When they were allowed, they gave them water, too.
How did the Jews try to get out?
The doors weren't opened. How'd they get out?
Through the windows.
They removed the barbed wire
and came out of the windows.
They jumped, of course.
Sometimes they just deliberately
sat down on the ground,
and the guards came and shot them in the head.
They jumped from the cars... What a sight!
Jumping from the windows.
There was a mother and child.
- Jewish? - Yes.
She tried to run away
and they shot her in the heart.
Shot who... the mother?
Yes, the mother.
This gentleman has lived here a long time, he can't forget.
He says that now he can't understand how a man
can do that to another human being.
lt's inconceivable, beyond understanding.
Once when the Jews asked for water, a Ukrainian went by,
and forbade giving any.
The Jewish woman had asked for water...
threw her pot at his head.
The Ukrainian moved back,
maybe ten yards, and opened fire on the car.
Blood and brains were all over the place.
Lots of people opened the doors,
or escaped through the windows.
Sometimes the Ukrainians fired through the car walls.
lt happened chiefly at night.
When the Jews talked to each other, as he showed us,
the Ukrainians wanted things quiet,
and they asked... yes, asked them to shut up.
So the Jews shut up and the guard moved off.
Then the Jews started talking again, in their language,
as he says, ra-ra-ra, and so on.
What's he mean, la-la-la, what's he trying to imitate?
Their language.
No, ask him :
was the Jews' noise something special ?
They spoke Jew.
Does Mr. Borowi understand ''Jew'' ?
No.
Did he hear screams behind his locomotive ?
Obviously, since the locomotive was next to the camp.
They screamed, asked for water.
The screams from the cars closest to the locomotive
could be heard very well.
Can one get used to that ?
- No. -
lt was extremely distressing to him.
He knew that the people behind him where human, like him.
The Germans gave him and the other workers
vodka to drink.
Without drinking, they couldn't have done it.
There was a bonus
that they were paid not in money, but in liquor.
Those who worked on other trains didn't get this bonus.
HENRlK GAWKOWSKY
He drank every drop he got because without liquor
he couldn't stand the stench when he got here.
They even bought more liquor on their own,
to get drunk on.
From the station to the unloading ramp in the camp,
how many miles ?
Four.
ABRAHAM BOMBA
We traveled for two days.
On the morning of the second day we saw
that we had left Czechoslovakia
and were heading east.
lt wasn't the SS guarding us,
but the Schutzpolizei,
the police, in green uniforms.
We were in ordinary passenger cars.
All the seats were filled.
You couldn't choose.
There were all numbered and assigned.
ln my compartment there was an elderly couple.
l still remember : the good man
was always hungry and his wife scolded him,
saying they'd have no food left
for the future.