FRANZ SUCHOMEL
What was the capacity of the new gas chambers?
There were 2 of them, right? - Yes.
But the old ones hadn't been demolished.
When there were a lot of trains, a lot of people,
the old ovens were put back into service.
And here... the Jews say there were 5 on each side.
I say there were 4,
but I'm not sure.
In any case, only the upper row,
on this side,
was in action.
Why not the other side?
Disposing of the bodies would have been too complicated.
- Too far? - Yes.
Up there, Wirth had built the death camp,
assigning a detail of Jewish workers to it.
The detail had a fixed number in it,
around 200 people,
who worked only in the death camp.
But what was the capacity of the new gas chambers?
The new gas chambers... Let's see...
They could finish off 3,000 people in two hours.
How many people at once in a single gas chamber?
I can't say exactly.
The Jews say 200.
- 200? - That's right, 200.
Imagine a room this size.
They put more in at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was a factory!
And Treblinka?
I'll give you my definition.
Keep this in mind:
Treblinka was a primitive,
but efficient production line of death.
- A production line? - Of death.
Understand? - Yes.
But primitive...? - Primitive, yes.
But it worked well, that production line of death.
Was Belzec even more rudimentary?
Belzec was the laboratory.
Wirth was camp commandant.
He tried everything imaginable there.
He got off on the wrong foot.
The pits were overflowing,
and the cesspool seeped out in front of the SS mess hall.
It stank...
in front of the mess-hall, in front of their barracks.
- Were you at Belzec? - No.
Wirlh with his own men.
With Franz, with Oberhauser
and Hackenhold...
he tried everything there.
Those 3 had to put the bodies in the pits themselves
so that Wirth could see how much space he needed.
And when they rebelled...
Franz refused...
Wirlh beat Franz with a whip.
He whipped Hackenhold, too. You see?
- Kurt Franz? - Kurt Franz.
That's how Wirth was.
Then, with that experience behind him,
he came to Treblinka.
Excuse me. How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?
You can't tell me?
I'd rather not. I have my reasons.
But why not?
Two Pilsners.
How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?
- Go on, tell him. - Tell him what?
Just tell him approximately.
How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?
400, 500 quarts.
- What? - 400, 500 quarts.
That's a lot!
Have you worked here long?
Around 20 years.
- Why are you hiding... - I have my reasons.
- Your face? - I have my reasons.
What reasons?
- Never mind. - Why not?
Do you recognize this man?
No?
Christian Wirlh?
Mr. Oberhauser!
Do you remember Belzec?
No memories of Belzec?
Of the overflowing graves?
You don't remember?
MUNICH
WUPPERTAL: ANTON SPIESS,
German state prosecutor at the Treblinka trial (Frankfurt, 1960)
When the Action itself first got under way,
it was almost totally improvised.
At Treblinka, for example,
the commandant, Dr. Eberl, let more trains come in
than the camp could handle.
It was a disaster!
Mountains of corpses!
Word of this foul-up
reached the head of the Reinhard Action,
Odilo Globocznik, in Lublin.
He went to Treblinka
to see what was happening.
There's a very concrete account of the trip
by his former driver, Oberhauser.
Globocznik arrived on a hot day in August.
The camp was permeated
with the stench of rotting flesh.
Globocznik didn't even bother to enter the camp.
He stopped here, before the commandant's office,
sent for Dr. Eberl
and greeted him with these words,
“How dare you accept so many every day
when you can only process 3,000?”
Operations were suspended,
Eberl was transferred and Wirth came,
followed immediately by Stangl,
and the camp was completely reorganized.
The Reinhard Action covered 3 extermination camps:
Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.
There's also talk of 3 death camps on the Bug River,
for they were all located on or near the Bug.
The gas chambers were the head of the camp.
They were built first,
in the woods, or in a field, as at Treblinka.
The gas chambers were the only stone buildings.
All the others were wooden sheds.
These camps weren't built to last.
Himmler was in a huny to begin the 'final solution. ”
The Germans had to capitalize on their eastward advance
and use this remote back-country
to carry out their mass murder as secretly as possible.
So at first they couldn't manage the perfection
they achieved 3 months later.
Near the end of March 1942,
sizeable groups of Jews were herded here,
groups of 50 to 100 people.
Several trains arrived
with sections of barracks, with posts, barbed wire, bricks...
and construction of the camp as such began.
The Jews unloaded these cars
and carted the sections of barracks to the camp.
The Germans made them work extremely fast.
When we saw the pace they worked at...
It was extremely brutal.
When we saw the complex being built, and the fence,
which, after all, enclosed a vast space,
we realized that what the Germans were building
wasn't meant to aid mankind.
Early in June,
the first convoy arrived.
I'd say there were over 40 cars.
With the convoy were SS men in black uniforms.
It happened one afternoon. He had just finished work.
JAN PIWONSKI
But he got on his bicycle and went home.
Why?
I merely thought
these people had come to build the camp,
as the others had before them.
That convoy...
There was no way of knowing that it was...
the first earmarked for extermination.
Besides,
he couldn't have known that Sobibor
would be a place for the mass extermination of the Jews.
The next morning, when I came here to work,
the station was absolutely silent,
and we realized,
after talking with the Poles who worked at the station here,
that something utterly incomprehensible had happened.
First of all, when the camp was being built,
there were orders shouted in German,
there were screams,
Jews were working at the run, there were shots,
and here there was that silence,
no work crews,
a really total silence.
40 cars had arrived, and then... nothing.
It was all very strange.
It was the silence that tipped them off?
That's right.
Can he describe that silence?
It was a silence...
Nothing was going on in the camp. You heard nothing.
Nothing moved.
So then they began to wonder,
“Where have they put those Jews?”
Cell 13, Block 11 at Auschwitz 1,
is where the Special Work Detail was held.
The cell was underground, isolated.
For we were...
“bearers of secrets,”
we were reprieved dead men.
We weren't allowed to talk to anyone,
or contact any prisoner,
even the SS.
Only those in charge of the “Action.”
There was a window.
We heard what happened in the courtyard.
The executions,
the victims' cries, the screams,
but we couldn't see anything.
This went on for several days.
One night an SS man came
from the political section.
It was around 4 A.M.
The whole camp was still asleep.
There wasn't a sound in the camp.
We were again taken out of our cell
and led to the crematorium.
There, for the first time, I saw the procedure used
with those who came in alive.
We were lined up against a wall
and told, “No one may talk to those people. ”
Suddenly, the wooden door to the crematorium courtyard opened,
and 250 to 300 people filed in:
old people, and women.
They carried bundles, wore the Star of David.
Even from a distance, I could tell
they were Polish Jews,
probably from Upper Silesia,
from the Sosnowiec ghetto, some 20 miles from Auschwitz.
FILIP MULLER
I caught some of the things they said.
I heard “fachowitz,”
meaning “skilled worker.”
And “Malach-ha-Mavis,”
which means “the angel of death” in Yiddish.
Also, “harginnen”: “They're going to kill us.”
From what I could hear,
I clearly understood the struggle going on inside them.
Sometimes they spoke of work
probably hoping that they'd be put to work.
Or they spoke of “Malach-ha-Mavis,” the angel of death.
The conflicting words echoed the conflict in their feelings.
Then a sudden silence
fell over those gathered in the crematorium courtyard.
All eyes converged
on the flat roof of the crematorium.
Who was standing there?
Aumeyer, of the SS,
Grabner, the head of the political section,
and Hossler, the SS officer.
Aumeyer addressed the crowd,
“You're here to work,
for our soldiers fighting at the front.
Those who can work will be all right.”
It was obvious that hope flared in those people.
You could feel it clearly.
The executioners had gotten past the first obstacle.
They saw it was succeeding.
Then Grabner spoke up,
“We need masons, electricians,
all the trades.”
Next, Hossler took over.
He pointed to a short man in the crowd.
I can still see him.
“What's your trade?”
The man said,
“Mr. Officer, I'm a tailor.”
“A tailor? What kind of tailor?”
“A man's... No, for both men and women.”
“Wonderful! We need people like you in our workshops.”
Then he questioned a woman,
“Whafs your trade?”
“Nurse,” she replied.
“Splendid! We need nurses in our hospitals for our soldiers.
We need all of you! But first, undress.
You must be disinfected.
We want you healthy.”
I could see the people were calmer,
reassured by what they'd heard,
and they began to undress.
Even if they still had their doubts,
if you want to live, you must hope.
Their clothing remained in the courtyard,
scattered everywhere.
Aumeyer was beaming,
very proud of how he'd handled things.
He turned to some of the SS men and told them,
“You see? That's the way to do it!”
By this device,
a great leap forward had been made:
Now the clothing could be used.
RAUL H I LBERG, historian
FRANZ SCHALLING
First, explain to me...
how you came to Kulmhof, to Chelmno.
You were at Lodz, right?
In Lodz, yes.
In Litzmannstadt.
We were on permanent guard duty.
Protecting military objectives: mills,
the roads, when Hitler went to East Prussia.
It was dreary, and we were told,
“We're looking for men who want to break out of this routine.”
So we volunteered.
We were issued winter uniforms,
overcoats, fur hats, fur-lined boots,
and 2 or 3 days later we were told, “We're off!”
We were put aboard 2 or 3 trucks... I don't know...
They had benches,
and we rode and rode.
Finally we arrived.
The place was crawling with SS men and police.
Our first question was, “What goes on here?”
They said, “You?! find out!”
- You?! find out? - You'll find out.
- You weren't in the SS, you were... - Police.
- Which police? - Security guards.
We were ordered to report to the Deutsche Haus,
the only big stone building in the village.
We were taken into it.
An SS man immediately told us,
“This is a top secret mission!”
- Secret? - “A top secret mission.”
“Sign this!”
We each had to sign.
There was a form ready for each of us.
What did it say?
It was a pledge of secrecy.
We never even got to read it through.
You had to take an oath?
No, just sign,
promising to shut up about whatever we'd see.
- Shut up? - Not say a word.
After we'd signed, we were told,
“Final solution of the Jewish question.”
We didn't understand what that meant.
So someone said...
He told us what was going to happen there.
Someone said, “the final solution of the Jewish question.”
You'd be assigned to the “final solution”?
Yes, but what did that mean?
We'd never heard that before.
So it was explained to us.
Just when was this?
Let's see... when was it...?
In the winter of 1941-42.
Then we were assigned to our stations.
Our guard post was at the side of the road.
A sentry box in front of the castle.
So you were in the “castle detail”?
That's right.
Can you describe what you saw?
We could see. We were at the gatehouse.
When the Jews arrived, the way they looked:
half-frozen, starved, dirty, already half-dead.
Old people, children.
Think of it! The long trip here standing in a truck, packed in!
Who knows if they knew what was in store!
They didn't trust anyone, that's for sure.
After months in the ghetto, you can imagine!
I heard an SS man shout at them,
“You're going to be deloused
and have a bath.
You're going to work here.”
The Jews consented.
They said, “Yes, that's what we want to do.”
Was the castle big?
Pretty big, with huge front steps.
The SS man stood at the top of the steps.
Then what happened?
They were hustled into 2 or 3 big rooms on the first floor.
They had to undress, give up everything:
rings, gold, everything.
How long did the Jews stay there?
Long enough to undress.
Then, stark naked,
they had to run down more steps
to an underground corridor
that led back up to the ramp, where the gas van awaited them.
Did the Jews enter the van willingly?
No, they were beaten.
Blows fell everywhere, and the Jews understood.
They screamed.
It was frightful!
Frightful!
I know, because we went down to the cellar
when they were all in the van.
We opened the cells of the work detail,
the Jewish workers
who collected the things thrown out of the 1st-floor window into there.
Describe the gas vans.
Like moving vans.
Very big?
They stretched, say,
from here to the window.
Just big trucks,
like moving vans, with 2 rear doors.
What system was used?
How did they kill them?
- With exhaust fumes. - Exhaust fumes?
It went like this: A Pole yelled, “Gas!”
Then the driver got under the van to hook up the pipe
that fed the gas into the van.
- Yes, but how? - From the motor.
Yes, but through what?
A pipe... a tube.
He fiddled around under the truck.
I'm not sure how.
It was just exhaust gas?
That's all.
Who were the drivers?
SS men.
All those men were SS.
Were there many of these drivers?
I don't know.
Were there 2, 3, 5, 10?
Not that many. 2 or 3, that's all.
I think there were 2 vans,
one big, one smaller.
Did the driver sit in the cabin of the van?
- Mrs. Uwe? - No.
He climbed into the cabin after the doors were closed
and started the motor.
Did he race the motor?
I don't know.
Could you hear the sound of the motor?
Yes, from the gate we could hear it turn over.
Was it a loud noise?
The noise of a truck engine.
The van was stationary while the motor ran?
That's right.
Then it started moving.
We opened the gate, and it headed for the woods.
Were the people already dead?
I don't know.
It was quiet. No more screams.
No screams.
You couldn't hear anything as they drove by.
He recalls: It was 1941, 2 days before the new year.
They were routed out at night,
and in the morning they reached Chelmno.
There was a castle there.
When he entered the castle courtyard,
he knew something awful was going on.
He already understood.
THE SITE OF THE CASTLE
They saw clothes and shoes
scattered in the courtyard.
Yet they were alone there.
He knew his parents had been through there,
and there wasn't a Jew left.
They were taken down into a cellar.
On a wall was written, “No one leaves here alive.”
Graffiti in Yiddish.
There were lots of names.
He thinks it was the Jews from villages around Chelmno
who had come before him, who had written their names.
A few days after New Year's,
they heard people arrive in a truck one morning.
The people were taken out of the truck
and up to the first floor of the castle.
The Germans lied, saying they were to be deloused.
They were chased down the other side,
where a van was waiting.
The Germans pushed and beat them with their weapons
to hustle them into the trucks faster.
He heard people praying, “Shma Israel, ”
and he heard the van's rear doors being shut.
Their screams were heard,
becoming fainter and fainter,
and when there was total silence,
the van left.
He and the 4 others were brought out of the cellar.
They went upstairs
and gathered up the clothes remaining
outside the supposed baths.
Did he understand then how they'd died?
MICHAEL PODCHLEBNIK,
the survivor of the 1st period of extermination at Chelmno
(the castle period)
Yes, first because there had been rumors of it.
And when he went out, he saw the sealed vans,
so he knew.
He understood that people were gassed in the vans?
Yes, because he'd heard the screams
and heard how they weakened,
and later the vans were taken into the woods.
What were the vans like?
Like the ones that deliver cigarettes here.
They were enclosed, with double-leaf rear doors.
What color?
The color the Germans used, green, ordinary.
MARTHA MICHELSOHN
How many German families were there in Kulmhof (Chelmno)?
10 or 11, I'd say.
Germans from Volhynia and 2 families from the Reich,
the Bauers and us.
- And you? - Us, the Michelsohns.
How did you wind up in Kulmhof?
I was born in Laage,
and I was sent to Kulmhof.
They were looking for volunteer settlers,
and I signed up.
That's how I got there.
First in WarthbriJcken (Kolo),
then Chelmno... Kulmhof.
Directly from Laage?
No, I left from Munster.
Did you opt to go to Kulmhof?
No, I asked for Wartheland.
Why?
A pioneering spirit.
- You were young! - Oh, yes, I was young.
- You wanted to be useful? - Yes.
What was your first impression of Wartheland?
It was primitive. Super-primitive.
Meaning...?
Even worse,
worse than primitive.
Difficult to understand, right?
But why.,,?
The sanitary facilities were disastrous.
The only toilet was in WarthbriJcken, in the town.
You had to go there.
The rest was a disaster.
- Why a disaster? - There were no toilets at all!
There were privies.
I can't tell you
how primitive it was.
Astonishing!
Why did you choose such a primitive place?
I was young, you know.
You can't imagine such places exist.
You don't believe it. But that's how it was.
This was the whole village.
A very small village,
straggling along the road.
Just a few houses.
There was the church, the castle,
a store, I00,
the administrative building and the school.
The castle was next to the church,
with a high board fence around both.
How far was your house from the church?
It was just opposite... 150 feet.
Mrs. Michelsohn was the Nazi teacher's wife
Did you see the gas vans?
No...
Yes, from the outside. They shuttled back and forth.
I never looked inside... I didn't see Jews in them.
I only saw things from outside,
the Jews' arrival, their disposition,
how they were loaded aboard.
Since World War I,
the castle had been in ruins.
Only part of it could still be used.
That's where the Jews were taken.
This ruined castle was used...
For housing and delousing the Poles, and so on.
- The Jews! - Yes, the Jews.
Why do you call them “Poles” and not “Jews”?
Sometimes, I get them mixed up.
There's a difference between Poles and Jews?
Q“, yes!
What difference?
The Poles weren't exterminated,
and the Jews were.
That's the difference. An external difference, right?
And the inner difference?
I can't assess that.
I don't know enough about psychology and anthropology.
The difference between the Poles and the Jews?
Anyway, they couldn't stand each other.
On January 19, 1942,
the rabbi of Grabow, Jacob Schulmann,
wrote the following letter to his friends in Lodz:
“My very dear friends,
I didn't write sooner: I wasn't sure of what I'd heard.
Alas, to our great grief, we now know all.
I've spoken to an eyewitness who managed to escape.
He told me everything.
They're exterminated in Chelmno, near Dombie,
and they're all buried in the nearby Rzeszow forest.
The Jews are killed in 2 ways: by shooting or gas.
It's just happened to thousands of Lodz Jews.
Do not think that this is being written by a madman.
Alas, it is the tragic, horrible truth.
Horror, horror. Man, shed thy clothes,
cover thy head with ashes, run in the streets
and dance in thy madness.
I am so weary that my pen can no longer write.
Creator of the universe, help us!”
The creator did not help the Jews of Grabow.
With their rabbi, they all died in the gas van at Chelmno
a few weeks later.
Chelmno is only 12 miles from Grabow.
Were there a lot of Jews here in Grabow?
A lot, quite a few.
They were sent to Chelmno.
Has she always lived near the synagogue?
- Yes. - The Polish word is “Buzinica,” not synagogue.
She says it's now a furniture warehouse
but they didn't harm it from a religious point of view.
It hasn't been... desecrated.
Does she remember the rabbi at the synagogue?
THE SYNAGOGUE IN GRABOW
She says she's 80 now, and her memory isn't too good,
and the Jews have been gone for 40 years.
Barbara, tell this couple they live in a lovely house.
Do they agree? Do they think it's a lovely house?
Tell me about the decoration of this house, the doors,
what's it mean?
People used to do carvings like that.
Did they decorate it that way?
- No, it was the Jews again. - The Jews did it!
The door's a good century old.
Did Jews own this house?
Yes, all these houses.
All these houses on the square were Jewish?
Jews lived in all the ones in front, on the street.
Where did the Poles live?
In the courtyards, where the privies were.
There used to be a store here.
What kind?
A food store.
Owned by Jews?
Yes.
So the Jews lived in the front,
and the Poles in the courtyard with the privies.
How long have these two lived here?
15 years.
Where'd they live before?
In a courtyard across the square.
They've gotten rich.
- Them? - Yes.
Yes.
How did they get rich?
They worked.
How old is the gentleman?
He's 70.
He looks young and healthy.
Do they remember the Jews of Grabow?
Yes.
And when they were deported, too.
They recall the deportation of the Grabow Jews?
He says he speaks “Jew” well.
He speaks “Jew”?
As a kid he played with Jews so he speaks “Jew.”
First, they grouped them there, where that restaurant is,
or in this square,
and took their gold.
An elder among the Jews collected the gold
and turned it over to the police.
That done, the Jews were put in the Catholic church.
A lot of gold?
Yes, the Jews had gold
and some handsome candelabras.
Did the Poles know the Jews would be killed at Chelmno?
Yes, they knew.
The Jews knew it, too.
Did the Jews try to do something about it,
to rebel, to escape?
The young tried to run away.
But the Germans caught them
and maybe killed them even more savagely.
In every town and village, 2 or 3 streets were closed,
and the Jews were kept under guard.
They couldn't leave there.
Then they were locked in the Polish church here in Grabow
and later taken to Chelmno.
BACKGROUND, THE SYNAGOGUE
The Germans threw children as small as these
into the trucks by the legs.
She saw that?
- Old folks too. - Threw kids into the trucks.
The Poles knew the Jews would be gassed in Chelmno?
Did this gentleman know?
Does he recall the Jews' deportation from Grabow?
At that time, he worked in the mill.
- There, opposite? - Yes, and they saw it all.
What did he think of it? Was it a sad sight?
Yes, it was...
Yes. How could you see that without sadness?
What trades were the Jews in?
They were tanners, tradesmen,
tailors.
They sold things... eggs, chickens, butter.
There were a lot of tailors,
tradesmen, too.
But most were tanners.
- They had beards and side locks. - Yes.
He says they weren't pretty.
They weren't pretty?
- They stank, too. - They stank?
Why did they stink?
Because they were tanners, and the hides stink.
The Jewish women were beautiful.
The Poles liked to make love with them.
Are Polish women glad there are no Jewesses left?
What'd she say?
That the women who are her age now
also liked to make love.
So the Jewish women were competitors?
It's crazy how the Poles liked the little Jewesses!
Do the Poles miss the little Jewesses?
Naturally, such beautiful women!
Why? What made them so beautiful?
Because they did nothing. Polish women worked.
Jewish women only thought of their beauty and clothes.
So Jewesses did no work!
- None at all. - Why not?
They were rich.
The Poles had to serve them and work.
I heard her use the word “capital.”
The capital was in the hands of the Jews.
Yes... You didn't translate that.
Ask her again. So the capital was in the Jews' hands?
All Poland was in the Jews' hands.
Are they glad there are no more Jews here, or sad?
It doesn't bother them.
As you know, Jews and Germans ran all Polish industry before the war.
Did they like them on the whole?
Not much. Above all, they were dishonest.
Was life in Grabow more fun when the Jews were here?
He'd rather not say.
Why does he call them dishonest?
They exploited the Poles. That's what they lived off.
How did they exploit them?
By imposing their prices.
Ask her if she likes her house.
Yes,
but her children live in much better houses.
In modern houses!
They've all gone to college.
Great! That's progress!
Her children are the best educated in the village.
Very good, Madam! Long live education!
Isn't this a very old house?
Yes, Jews lived here before.
So Jews used to live here. Did she know them?
Yes.
What was their name?
She doesn't know.
What was their trade?
Benkel, their name was.
And what was their trade?
They had a butcher shop.
A butcher shop. Why is she laughing?
Because the gentleman said it was...
a butcher shop where you could buy cheap meat. Beef!
What does he think about them being gassed in trucks?
He says he doesn't like that at all.
If they'd gone to Israel of their own free will,
he might have been glad.
But killing them was unpleasant.
Does he miss the Jews?
Yes, because there were some beautiful Jewesses.
For the young, it was... fine.
Are they sorry the Jews are no longer here or pleased?
How can I tell? I never went to school.
I can only think of how I am now. Now I'm fine.
Is she better off?
Before the war, she picked potatoes.
Now she sells eggs, and she's much better off.
Because the Jews are gone or because of socialism?
She doesn't care, she's happy because she's doing well now.
How did he feel about losing his classmates?
It still upsets him.
Does he miss the Jews?
Certainly.
They were good Jews, Madam says.
GRABOW IN WINTER
The Jews came in trucks,
and later there was a narrow-gauge railway
that they arrived on.
They were packed tightly in the trucks,
or in the cars of the narrow-gauge railway.
Lots of women and children.
Men too, but most of them were old.
The strongest were put in work details.
They walked with chains on their legs.
In the morning, they fetched water,
looked for food, and so on.
These weren't killed right away.
That was done later.
I don't know what became of them.
They didn't survive, anyway.
Two of them did.
Only two.
They were in chains?
- On the legs. - All of them?
The workers, yes. The others were killed at once.
The Jewish work squad went through the village in chains.
Yes.
Could people speak to them?
No, that was impossible.
Why?
No one dared.
- What? - No one dared.
Understand?
Yes... No one dared.
Why, was it dangerous?
Yes, there were guards.
Anyway, people wanted nothing to do with all that.
Do you see?
Gets on your nerves, seeing that every day.
You can? force a whole village to watch such distress.
When the Jews arrived,
when they were pushed into the church or the castle...
And the screams!
It was frightful! Depressing.
Day after day, the same spectacle!
It was terrible! A sad spectacle!
They screamed. They knew what was happening.
At first, the Jews thought they were going to be deloused.
But they soon understood.
Their screams grew wilder and wilder.
Horrifying screams. Screams of terror.
Because they knew what was happening to them.
Do you know how many Jews were exterminated there?
Four something, 400,000... 40.000...
400,000.
400,000, yes. I knew it had a 4 in it.
Sad, sad, sad!
When the soldiers march,
the girls open their windows and doors...
Do you remember a Jewish child, a boy of 13?
He was in the work squad.
He sang on the river.
- On the Narew River? - Yes.
- Is he still alive? - Yes, he's alive.
He sang a German song
that the SS in Chelmno taught him.
“When the soldiers march,
the girls open their windows and doors...”
SIMON SREBNIK,
the survivor of the 2nd period of extermination at Chelmno
(the church period)
So it's a holiday in Chelmno!
What holiday? What's being celebrated?
The birth of the Virgin Mary. it's her birthday.
It's a huge crowd, isn't it?
But the weather's bad... it's raining.
Ask them if they're glad to see Srebnik again.
Very. it's a great pleasure.
Why?
They're glad to see him again,
because they know all he's lived through.
Seeing him as he is now, they're very pleased.
They're pleased?
Why does the whole village remember him?
They remember him well
because he walked with chains on his ankles,
and he sang on the river.
He was young,
he was skinny,
he looked ready for his coffin.
Ripe for a coffin!
Did he seem happy or sad?
Even the lady,
when she saw that child,
she told the German, “Let that child go!”
He asked her, “Where to?”
“To his father and mother.”
Looking at the sky, he said, “He'll soon go to them.”
The German said that?
They remember when the Jews were locked in this church?
Yes, they do.
They brought them to the church in trucks.
At what time of day?
All day long and into the night.
What happened? Can they describe it in detail?
At first, the Jews were taken to the castle.
Only later were they put into the church.
The second phase, right!
In the morning, they were taken into the woods.
How were they taken into the woods?
In very big armored vans.
The gas came through the bottom.
Then they were carried in gas vans, right?
Yes, in gas vans.
Where did the vans pick them up?
- The Jews? - Yes.
Here, at the church door.
The trucks pulled up where they are now?
No, they went right to the door.
The vans came to the church door?
And they all knew these were death vans?
Yes, they couldn't help knowing.
They heard screams at night?
The Jews moaned, they were hungry.
They were shut in and starved.
Did they have any food?
You couldn't look there. You couldn't talk to a Jew.
Even going by on the road, you couldn't look there.
Did they look anyway?
Yes, vans came,
and the Jews were moved farther off.
You could see them, but on the sly.
- In sidelong glances. - That's right.
That's right, in sidelong glances.
What kind of cries and moans were heard at night?
They called on Jesus and Mary and God,
sometimes in German, as she puts it.
The Jews called on Jesus, Mary and God!
The presbytery was full of suitcases.
The Jews' suitcases?
Yes, and there was gold.
How does she know there was gold?
The procession! We'll stop now.
Were there as many Jews in the church
as there were Christians today?
Almost.
How many gas vans were needed to empty it out?
An average of 50.
It took 50 vans to empty it!
In a steady stream?
Yes.
The lady said before
that the Jews' suitcases were dumped in the house opposite.
What was in this baggage?
Pots with false bottoms.
What was in the false bottoms?
Valuables... objects of value.
They also had gold in their clothes.
When given food, the Jews sometimes threw them valuables
or sometimes money.
They said before it was forbidden to talk to Jews.
Absolutely forbidden.
Ask them if they miss the Jews.
Of course.
We wept too, Madam says.
And Mr. Kantarowski gave them bread and cucumbers.
Why do they think all this happened to the Jews?
Because they were the richest!
Many Poles were also exterminated.
Even priests.
Mr. Kantarowski...
will tell us what a friend told him.
It happened in Myndjewyce, near Warsaw.
Go on.
The Jews were gathered in a square.
The rabbi asked an SS man, “Can I talk to them?”
The guard said yes.
So the rabbi said that around 2,000 years ago,
the Jews condemned the innocent Christ to death.
And when they did that, they cried out,
“Let his blood fall on our heads and on our sons' heads.”
Then the rabbi told them,
“Perhaps the time has come for that, so let us do nothing.
Let us go, let us do as we're asked.”
He thinks the Jews expiated the death of Christ?
He doesn't think so, or even that Christ sought revenge.
He didn't say that. The rabbi said it.
It was God's will, that's all!
- What'd she say? - So Pilate washed his hands
and said, “Christ is innocent,” he sent Barabbas.
But the Jews cried out,
“Let his blood fall on our heads.”
That's all. Now you know!
Was the road between Chelmno, the village
and the woods where the pits were,
was it asphalted as it is now?
The road was narrower then, but it was asphalted.
How many feet were the pits from the road?
They were around 1,600 feet,
maybe 1,900 or 2,200 feet away.
So even from the road, you couldn't see them.
How fast did the vans go?
PAN FALBORSKI
At moderate speed, kind of slow.
It was a calculated speed
because they had to kill the people inside on the way.
When they went too fast,
the people weren't quite dead on arrival in the woods.
By going slower, they had time to kill the people inside.
Once a van skidded on a curve.
Half an hour later, I arrived
at the hut of a forest warden named Senajak.
He told me, “Too bad you were late.
You could have seen a van that skidded.
The rear of the van opened,
and the Jews fell out on the road.
They were still alive.
Seeing those Jews crawling, a Gestapo man
took out his revolver and shot them.
He finished them all off.
Then they brought Jews who were working in the woods.
They righted the van
and put the bodies back inside.”
This was the road
the gas vans used.
There were 80 people in each van.
When they arrived, the SS said,
“Open the doors!”
We opened them. The bodies tumbled right out.
An SS man said, “2 men inside!”
These 2 men worked at the ovens. They were experienced.
Another SS man screamed,
“Hurry up! The other van's coming!”
We worked until the whole shipment was burned.
That's how it went, all daylong. So it went.
I remember that once they were still alive.
The ovens were full,
and the people lay on the ground.
They were all moving,
they were coming back to life,
and when they were thrown into the ovens,
they were all conscious. Alive.
They could feel the fire burn them.
When we built the ovens, I wondered what they were for.
An SS man told me,
“To make charcoal. For laundry irons.”
That's what he told me. I didn't know.
When the ovens were completed,
the logs put in
and the gasoline poured on and lighted,
and when the first gas van arrived,
then we knew why the ovens were built.
When I saw all that, it didn't affect me.
Neither did the 2nd or 3rd shipment.
I was only 13,
and all I'd ever seen until then
were dead bodies.
Maybe I didn't understand.
Maybe if I'd been older I'd have understood,
but the fact is, I didn't.
I'd never seen anything else.
In the ghetto, I saw... in the ghetto in Lodz,
that as soon as anyone took a step, he fell dead.
I thought that was the way things had to be.
It was normal.
I'd walk the streets of Lodz,
maybe 100 yards, and there'd be 200 bodies.
People were hungry.
They went into the street and they fell, they fell...
Sons took their fathers' bread,
fathers took their sons'.
Everyone wanted to stay alive.
So when I came here, to Chelmno,
I was already...
I didn't care about anything.
I thought, if I survive,
I just want one thing:
5 loaves of bread to eat.
That's all.
That's what I thought.
But I dreamed, too,
that if I survived, I'd be the only one left in the world,
not another soul. Just me. One.
Only me left in the world, if! get out of here.
THE RUHR
“Geheime Reichssache, ” secret Reich business.
“Berlin, June 5, 1942.
Changes to be made to special vehicles now in service
at Kulmhof (Chelmno)
and to those now being built.
Since December 1941,
97,000 have been processed (verarbeitet in German)
by the 3 vehicles in service, with no major incident.
In light of observations made so far, however,
the following technical changes are needed:
First,
the van is" normal load is usually .9 to 70 per square yard.
In Saurer vehicles, which are very spacious,
maximum use of space is impossible,
not because of any possible overload,
but because loading to full capacity
would affect the vehicle's stability.
So reduction of the load space seems necessary.
It must absolutely be reduced by a yard,
instead of trying to solve the problem, as hitherto,
by reducing the number of pieces loaded.
Besides, this extends the operating time,
as the empty void must also be filled with carbon monoxide.
On the other hand, if the load space is reduced
and the vehicle is packed solid,
the operating time can be considerably shortened.
The manufacturers told us during a discussion,
that reducing the size of the van's rear
would throw it badly off balance.
The front axle, they claim, would be overloaded.
In fact, the balance is automatically restored
because the merchandise aboard
displays, during the operation,
a natural tendency to rush to the rear doors,
and are mainly found lying there at the end of the operation.
So the front axle is not overloaded.
Secondly:
The lighting must be better protected than now.
The lamps must be enclosed in a steel grid
to prevent their being damaged.
Lights could be eliminated,
since they apparently are never used.
However, it has been observed
that when the doors are shut,
the load always presses hard against them
(against the doors)
as soon as darkness sets in.
This is because the load
naturally rushes toward the light
when darkness sets in,
which makes closing the doors difficult.
Also, because of the alarming nature of darkness,
screaming always occurs when the doors are closed.
It would therefore be useful to light the lamp
before and during the first moments of the operation.
Third:
For easy cleaning of the vehicle,
there must be a sealed drain in the middle of the floor.
The drainage hole's cover, 8 to 12 inches in diameter,
would be equipped with a slanting trap,
so that fluid liquids
can drain off during the operation.
During cleaning,
the drain can be used to evacuate large pieces of dirt.
The aforementioned technical changes
are to be made to vehicles in service
only when they come in for repairs.
As for the 10 vehicles ordered from Saurer,
they must be equipped with all innovations and changes
shown by use and experience to be necessary.
Submitted for decision to Gruppenleiter H D,
SS-Obersturmbannfiihrer Walter Rauff.
Signed Just.”
END OF THE FIRST ERA