when l was already in Crematorium V,
a train from Byalistock arrived.
A prisoner on the ''special detail''
saw a woman in the ''undressing room'',
who was the wife of a friend of his.
He came right out and told her :
''You are going to be exterminated.
''ln 3 hours you'll be ashes''.
The woman believed him because she knew him.
She ran all over and
warned to the other women.
''We're going to be killed.
''We're going to be gassed''.
Mothers carrying their children
on their shoulders, didn't want to hear that.
They decided the woman was crazy.
They chased her away.
So she went to the men.
To no avail.
Not that they didn't believe her.
They'd heard rumors in the Byalistock ghetto,
or in Grodno, and elsewhere.
But who wanted to hear that!
When she saw that no one would listen,
she scratched her whole face.
Out of despair. ln shock.
Ans she started to scream.
So what happened?
Everyone was gassed. The woman was held back.
We had to line up in front of the oven.
First they tortured her horribly,
because she wouldn't betray him.
ln the end, she pointed to him.
He was taken out of the line and thrown alive into the oven.
We were told : ''Whoever tell anything will end like that!''
We, in the ''special detail'', kept trying to figure out
if there was a way
we could tell people
to inform them.
But
our experience, in several instances,
where we were able to tell people,
showed that it was of no use.
That it made their last moments
even harder to bear.
At most, we thought it might help...
Jews from Poland,
or Jews from Theresienstdat (the Czech family camp),
who'd already spent 6 months in Birkenau,
we thought it might have been of use in such cases
to tell people.
But imagine what it was like in other cases :
Jews from Greece, from from Hungary, from Corfu
who'd been traveling for 10 or 12 days,
starving,
without water for days dying of thirst,
they were half-crazed when they arrived.
They were dealt with differently.
They were only told :
''Get undressed, you'll soon get a mug of tea.''
These people were in such a state
because they'd been traveling so long,
that their only thought
was to quench their thirst.
And the SS executioners knew that very well.
lt was all preprogrammed
a calculated part of the extermination process
that if people were so weak,
and weren't given something to drink,
they'd rush into the gas-chamber.
But in fact,
all these people were already
being exterminated before reaching the gas-chambers.
Think of the children.
They begged their mothers, screaming :
''Mother, please, water, water!''
The adults, too, who'd spent days without water,
had the same obsession.
lnforming those people was quite pointless.
C ORFU
MOSHE MORDO
These are my nephews. They burned them in Birkenau.
Two of my brother's kids.
They took them to the crematorium with their Mom.
They were all burned in Birkenau.
My brother.
He was sick, and they put him in the oven,
in the crematorium, and burned him.
That was at Birkenau.
The oldest boy was 1 7,
the second was 15.
Two more kids ''kaput'' with their Mom.
Yes, 4 children l lost.
Your father too?
My Dad, him too.
How old was your father?
Dad was 85 years old.
He was
85 years old and he died in Auschwitz.
Auschwitz, that's right.
85 and he died at Birkenau.
My father.
Your father made the whole trip.
The whole family died.
First the gas-chamber, then the crematorium.
On Friday morning, June 9, 1944,
members of the Corfu Jewish community came,
very frightened,
and reported to the Germans.
This square was full of Gestapo men and police,
and we went forward.
There were even traitors, the Recanati brothers, Athens Jews.
After the war they were sentenced
to life imprisonment.
But they're already free.
We were ordered to go forward.
By the street?
Yes, by this street.
How many of you were there?
Exactly 1 ,650.
Quite a crowd?
A lot of people. Christians stopped there.
Christians, that's right. And they saw.
Where were the Christians?
At the street corner?
Yes. And on the balconies.
After we gathered here,
Gestapo men with machine-guns came up behind us.
What time was it?
lt was 6 a.m.
ln the morning.
A fine day?
Yes, the day was fine.
6 o'clock in the morning.
1 ,600. That's a lot of people in the street.
People gathered.
The Christians heard the Jews were being rounded up.
Why'd they come?
To see the show.
Let's hope it never happens again.
Were you scared?
Very scared. There were young people,
sick people, little children,
the old, the crazy, and so on.
When we saw they'd even brought the insane,
even the sick from the survival
we were frightened for the survival
of the whole community.
What were you told?
That we were to appear here at the fort
to be taken to work in Germany.
Poland.
Poland, that's right.
The Germans had put up
a proclamation on all the walls in Corfu.
lt said all Jews had to report.
And now that we were all rounded up, life would be
without us in Greece.
lt was signed by the police chiefs, by officials.
and by the mayors.
That it's better without Jews?
Yes. We found out after we came back,
right?
Was Corfu antisemitic?
Corfu's always had antisemitism?
lt existed, sure, but it wasn't
so strong in the years just before that.
Why not?
Because they didn't
think like that against the Jews.
ARMANDO AARON P resident of the Corfu Jewish commun ity
And now?
Now we're free.
How do you get on with the Christians now?
Very well.
What'd he say?
He asked me what you said.
He agrees our relations with the Christians are very good.
Did all the Jews live in the ghetto?
Most of them.
What happened after the Jews left?
They took all our possession all the gold we had with us.
They took the keys to our houses and stole everything.
To whom was all this given? Who stole it all?
By law, it was to go to the Greek government.
But the state got only a small part of it.
The rest was stolen, usurped.
By whom?
By everybody, and by the Germans.
Of the 1 ,700 people deported
around 122 were saved.
95% of them died.
Was it a long trip from Corfu to Auschwitz?
We were arrested here on June 9,
and finally arrived June 29.
Most were burned on the night of the 29th.
lt lasted from June 9 to 29?
We stayed here for around 5 days.
Here in the fort.
No one dared escape and leaved his father, mother, brothers.
Our solidarity was
on religious and family grounds.
The first group left on June 1 1 .
l went with the 2nd convoy on June 15.
What kind of a boat were you on?
A zattera. That's a boat
made of barrels and planks.
lt was towed by a small boat with Germans in it.
On our boat there were 1 , 2 or 3 guards,
not many Germans, but we were terrified.
You can understand, terror is the best of guards.
What the journey like?
Terrible! Terrible!
No water, nothing to eat.
90 cars that were good for only 20 animals,
all of us standing up.
A lot of us died.
Later they put the dead in another car in quicklime.
They burned them in Auschwitz, too.
Next figu re : WALTER STlER Ex-member of the Nazi party
Former head, Reich Railway s, Bu reau 33 (''Railroads of the Reich'')
You never saw a train?
No, never.
We had so much work, l never left my desk.
We worked day and night.
''G.E.D.O.B.''
''GEDOB'' means
''Head office of Eastbound Traffic''.
ln Jan. 1940, l was assigned to GEDOB Krakow.
ln mid-1943, l was moved to Warsaw.
l was made chief traffic planner.
Chief of the Traffic planning office.
But your duties were the same before and after 1943?
The only change :
l was promoted head of the department.
What were your specific duties
at GEDOB in Poland during the war?
The work was barely different
from the work in Germany :
preparing timetables, coordinating the movement of
special trains with regular trains.
There were several departments?
Yes.
Department 33 was in charge of special trains
and regular trains.
The special trains were handled by Dept. 33.
You were always in the Dept. of special trains?
Yes.
What's the difference between a special and a regular train?
A regular train maybe used by anyone
who purchases a ticket.
Say from Krakow to Warsaw.
Or from Krakow to Lemberg.
A special train has to be ordered.
The train is specially put together
and people pay group fares.
Are there still special trains now?
Of course.
Just as there were then.
For group vacations you can organize a special train?
Yes, for instance, for immigrant workers
returning home for the holidays
special trains are scheduled.
Or else one couldn't handle
the traffic.
You said after the war you handled
trains for visiting dignitaries.
After the war, yes.
lf a king visits Germany by train
that's a special train?
That's a special train.
But the procedure isn't the same
as for special trains
for group tours, and so on.
State visits are handled by the Foreign Service.
Right. May l ask you another question?
Why were there more special trains
during the war, than before or after?
l see what you're getting at.
You're referring to
the so-called ''Resettlement trains''.
''Resettlement''. That's it.
That's what they were called. Those trains
were ordered by
the Ministry of Transport of the Reich.
You needed an order from the Ministry
of Transport of the Reich
- ln Berlin? - Correct.
And as for
the implementation of those orders,
the Head Office of Eastbound Traffic
in Berlin dealt with it.
Yes, l understand.
- ls that clear? - Perfectly.
But mostly, at that time, who was being ''resettled''?
No! We didn't know that.
Only when we were fleeing from Warsaw ourselves,
did we learn that they could have been Jews
or criminals or similar people?
Jews, criminals?
Criminals. All kinds.
Special trains for criminals?
No, that was just an expression.
You couldn't talk about that.
Unless you were tired of life,
it was best not to mention that.
But you knew that the trains
to Treblinka or Auschwitz were...
Of course we knew.
l was the last district : without me, these trains
couldn't reach their destination.
For instance a train that started in Essen,
had to go through the district of Wuppertal,
Hannover, Magdeburg, Berlin,
Frankfurt/Oder, Posen, Warsaw, etc.
So l had to.
Did you know that Treblinka meant extermination?
Of course not!
You didn't know?
Good God, no! How could we know?
l never went to Treblinka. l stayed in
Krakow, in Warsaw, glued to my desk.
You were a...
l was strictly a bureaucrat!
l see.
But it's astonishing that people
in the department of special trains
never knew about the ''final solution''.
We were at war.
Because there were others
who worked for the railroads who knew.
Like the train conductors.
Yes, they saw it. They did.
But as to what happened, l didn't.
What was Treblinka for you? Treblinka or Auschwitz?
Yes, for us Treblinka, Belzec, and all that,
were concentration camps.
A destination.
Yes, that's all.
But not death.
No, no. People were put up there.
For instance, for a train coming Essen
or Cologne, or elsewhere, room had to be
made for them there.
Whith the war and the allies advancing everywhere,
those people had to be concentrated in camps.
When exactly did you find out?
Well, when
the word got around, when it was whispered.
lt was never said outright. Good God, no!
They'd have hauled you off at once! We heard things...
Rumors?
That's it, rumors.
During the war?
Towards the end of the war.
Not in 1942?
No! Good God, no! Not a word!
Towards the end of 1944, maybe.
End of 1944?
Not before?
What did you...?
lt was said that
people were being sent to camps, and those
who weren't in good healt probably wouldn't survive.
Extermination came to you as a big surprise?
Completely. Yes.
You had no idea.
Not the slightest. Like that camp, what was its name...?
lt was in the Oppeln district. l've got it : Auschwitz!
Yes.
Auschwitz was in the Oppeln district.
Right. Auschwitz wasn't far from Krakow.
That's true.
We never heard a word about that.
Auschwitz to Krakow is 40 miles.
That's noy very far.
And we knew nothing. Not a clue.
But you knew that the Nazis...
That Hitler didn't like the Jews.
That we did. lt was well-known,
it apparead in print. lt was no secret.
But as to their extermination,
that was news to us.
l mean, even today
people deny it. They say there couldn't
have been so many Jews. ls it true? l don't know.
That's what they say.
Anyway what was done was an outrage.
What?
The extermination.
Everyone condemns it. Every decent person.
But as for knowing about it, we didn't.
The Poles, for instance.
The Polish people knew everything.
That not surprising, Dr. Sorel.
They lived nearby, they heard,
they talked.
And they didn't have to keep quiet.
TREBLlNKA - the station
The ''special detail'''s life depended
on the trainloads due for extermination.
When a lot of them came in,
the ''special detail'' was enlarged.
They couldn't do without the detail,
so there was no weeding-out.
OSWlEClM (AUSCHWlTZ) the station today.
But when there were fewer trainloads,
it meant immediate extermination for us.
We, in the ''special detail'', knew
that a lack of trains
would lead to our liquidation.
- FlLlP MULLER - The ''special detail'' lived in a crisis situation .
Every day, we saw thousands
and thousands of innocent people
disappear up the chimney.
With our own eyes, we could truly fathom
what it means to be a human being.
There they came,
men, women, children, all innocent.
They suddenly vanished,
and the world said nothing!
We felt abandoned. By the world, by humanity.
But the situation taught us fully
what the possibility of survival meant.
For we could gauge
the infinite value of human life.
And we were convinced
that hope lingers in man as long as he lives.
Where there's life, hope must never be relinquished.
That's why we struggled through our lives of hardship,
day after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year,
hoping against hope to survive,
to escape that hell.
At that time,
in January, February,
March,
hardly any trains arrived.
Was Treblinka glum without the trains?
l wouldn't say the Jews were glum.
They became so when they realized...
l'll come to that later, it's a story in itself.
Yes, l know.
The Jews,
those in the work squads, thought at first
that they'd survive.
But in January, when they stopped
receiving food, for Wirth had decreed
that there were too many of them,
there were a good 500 to 600 of them in Camp l.
Up there?
Yes.
To keep them from rebelling,
they weren't shot or gassed,
but starved. Then an epidemic broke out,
a kind of typhus.
The Jews stopped believing they'd make it.
They were left to die. They dropped like flies.
lt was all over.
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
They'd stopped believing.
lt was all very well to say... We kept on insisting :
''You're going to live!'' We almost believed it ourselves.
lf you lie enough, you believe your own lies.
Yes.
But they replied to me :
''No, chief, we're just reprieved corpses''.
The ''dead season'', as it was called
began in February 1943,
after the big trainloads came in from Grodno and Bialystok.
Absolute quiet.
lt quieted in late January, February and into March.
Nothing. Not one trainload.
The whole camp was empty,
and suddenly, everywhere, there was hunger.
lt kept increasing.
And one day when the famine was at its peak,
Oberscharfuhrer Kurt Franz
appeared before us
and told us :
''The trains will be coming in again, starting tomorrow.''
We didn't say anything.
We just looked at each other,
and each of us thought,
''Tomorrow
''the hunger will end.''
At that period,
we were actively planning the rebellion.
We all wanted to survive until the rebellion.
The trainloads came from an assembly camp in Salonika.
They'd brought in Jews from Bulgaria, Macedonia.
These were rich people : the passenger cars bulged with
possessions. Then an awful feeling gripped us,
all of us, my companions as well as myself,
a feeling of helplessness, of shame.
For the threw ourselves on their food.
A detail brought a crate full
of crackers,
another full of jam.
They deliberately dropped the crates,
falling over each other, filling
their mouths with crackers
and jam.
The trainloads from the Balkans brought us
to a terrible realization :
RlCHARD GLAZAR
we were the workers in the Treblinka factory,
and our lives depended
on the whole manufacturing process,
that is, the slaughtering process at Treblinka.
This realization came suddenly
with the fresh trainloads?
Maybe it wasn't so sudden,
but it was only with the Balkans trainloads
that it became so stark to us,
unadorned.
Why?
24,000 people,
probably with not a sick person among them,
not an invalid, all healthy and robust! l recall
our watching them from our barracks.
They were already naked, milling among their baggage.
And David. David Bratt. said to me :
''Maccabbees!
''The Maccabees have arrived in Treblinka!''
Sturdy, physically strong people,
unlike the others.
Fighters!
Yes, they could have been fighters.
lt was staggering for us,
for these men and women, all splendid, were
wholly unaware of what was in store for them.
Wholly unaware.
Never before had things gone
so smoothly and quickly. Never.
We felt ashamed, and also that this couldn't
go on, that something had to happen.
Not just a few people acting
but all of us.
The idea was almost ripe back in November 1942.
Beginning in November '42
we'd noticed
that we were being ''spared'',
in quotes.
We noticed it and we also learned
that Stangl, the commandant, wanted,
for efficiency's sake, to hang on to men
who were already trained specialists in the various
sorters, corpse-haulers,
barbers who cut the women's hair, and so on.
This in fact is what later gave us the chance
to prepare
to organize the uprising.
We had a plan
worked out in January 1943,
code-named ''The Time''.
At a set time, we were
to attack the SS everywhere,
seize their weapons and attack the Kommandantur.
But we couldn't do it
because things were at a standstill in the camp,
and because typhus had already broken out.
ln the fall of 1943,
when it was clear to all of us
that no one would help us
unless we helped ourselves,
a key question faced us all :
for us in the ''special detail'', was there
any chance to halt this wave
of extermination and still save our lives?
We could see only one :
armed rebellion.
We thought
that if we could get hold of a few weapons
and secure the participation
of all the inmates
throughout the camp, there was a chance of success.
That was the essential thing
That's why our liaison men
contacted the leaders of the Resistance movement,
first in Birkenau,
then in Auschwitz l,
so the revolt could be coordinated everywhere.
FlLlP MULLER
The answer came that the Resistance command
in Auschwitz l agreed
with our plan and would join with us.
Unfortunately, among the Resistance leaders
there were very few Jews.
Most were political prisoners
whose lives weren't at stake,
and for whom each day of life lived through
increased their chances
of survival.
For us in the ''special detail'', it was the opposite.
RUDOLF VRBA
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU