[Train Clacking ]
[ Woman, In English] In Theresienstadt,
this time it reached us, the transport to the east.
[Train Whistle Blows]
We were loaded into these wagons for cattle.
RUTH ELIAS - ISRAEL Deported from Theresienstadt
[ Clacking Continues ]
And it went for two days...
[ Clacking Fades ]
and one night.
- [ Lanzmann ] In wintertime? - The second day...
It was December,
but it was warm inside
because we made the heat.
We heated it up with our temperature, body temperature.
One evening, the train came to a stop,
the next day in the evening,
and the doors were opened.
And there was a terrible screaming.
“Out! Out! Out! Out!”
We were shocked. We didn't know what's going on, where we are.
We saw only SS with dogs.
And we saw, in the distance, in symme... in symmetric lights there,
but we didn't know where we are,
what the lights, the thousands of lights, were meaning.
We only heard this shouting.
“Out! Out! Out!” And we... - [ Lanzmann ] “Raus!”
Yes, just exactly.
And, “ Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!”
Out we came of these wagons.
We had to line up.
And there were some people with striped uniforms.
We didn't know what the stripes are.
And I asked one in Czech, “Where are we?”
And it was a Polish who understood my Czech, and he told me, “Auschwitz,”
but it didn't mean anything to me.
What is Auschwitz?
I didn't know about Auschwitz anything.
We were /ed into a so-cal/ed family camp, Familienlager B Zwei B,
children, men and women together,
without any selection beforehand.
Men from the Ménnerlager,
they came in and told us
that Auschwitz is a Verriuzhtungsmtger,
where they are burning people,
and we didn't believe.
In this camp, there was already e transport'
who left Theresienstadt in September,
three months before us.
They didn't believe too, because we were all together,
and nobody was taken away, and nobody was burned.
We didn't believe it.
[ Vrba, In English] Those Czech Jews from Theresienstadt,
from the ghetto near Prague,
came into one particular part of the camp,
which was cal/ed “Bauabschnitt Zwei B,” ”ll B. ”
At that time, I was working as a registrar in II A.
The division between II A and II B was only one electrical fence,
through which nobody could climb, but you could speak through it.
In the morning, I could sort out the whole situation.
There were a number of surprising circumstances.
The families...
this means men, women and children...
were taken together,
and nobody was gassed.
They took with them their luggage into the camp,
and they were not sham.
Their hair was left.
So they were in a different position
than anything which I have seen until now.
I didn't know what to think about it, and nobody knew.
But in the main registrafs office,
it was known that all those people have got special cards,
which had a remark on them:
“SB mit sechsmonatiger Quaranténe.”
“SB we knew what it means:
“Sonderbehandmng which meant “gassing.”
And “Quaranténe also we knew what it means.
But it didn't make sense to us
that somebody should be kept in the camp for six months
in order to be gassed after six months.
Therefore, it was left open to interpretation
if “SB “Sonderbehancflung always means death in gas chamber
or if perhaps it has got a double meaning.
And the six months were supposed to elapse on March 7.
In December, and I think it was close to December 20,
another transport of... from Theresienstadt came,
also about 4,000 people strong,
which was added to the first transport into the camp B ll B.
Also, men, women and children were left together.
Families were not torn apart, old people, young people.
Everything was... remained intact.
And their hair was left, and their personal property was left.
They could wear civil clothes, whatever they had.
They were given a sort of a different treatment.
A school was arranged for the children in a special barrack.
The children soon made a theater there.
And also it was not really a very comfortable life, because they were cramped,
and, from the first 4,000 people during the first six months,
the mortality was about a thousand.
One thousand died. - [ Lanzmann ] Were they obliged to work?
Yes, they had to work, but only inside their camp.
They were making a new camp road,
and they were ornamenting the barracks.
They were induced to write letters,
induced to write letters by the SS,
uh, to their relatives in the Theresienstadt ghetto,
saying that they are all together, et cetera.
They had better conditions of food, for instance?
Definitely better conditions of food, better conditions of treatment.
I mean, the conditions were so good
that, within six months,
including the old people and children, only one quarter of them died.
I mean, this was a very unusually good condition in Auschwitz.
And, uh, to the children's theater,
the SS used to come there and play with the children.
Personal relationships were struck up.
And, of course, uh, one of my tasks as a registrar
was to find out the possibility of people who are resistance...
who have got a mind for resistance,
and to strike up with them a relationship
and contact, and...
- You were already a member of... - The Resistance. Yes, yes.
That was my job as a registrar,
that I had the possibility of moving a bit around under various pretexts,
to carry papers from my part of the camp into the central registry,
and, at that occasion, to meet other people and give them messages,
take messages from them.
And one of my tasks then was, because I was closest to this camp,
to find out if, among the members of this transport,
there are people who are suitable for organizing a Resistance nucleus.
We soon found several ex-members of the International Brigade in Spain.
And so, in no time, I had a list of about 40 people
who had a record from the past
of developing some sort of resistance against the Nazis.
A special figure emerged among this family camp,
a man called Fredy Hirsch.
He was a German Jew
who emigrated from Germany to Prague.
Fredy Hirsch showed a considerable amount of interest
for the education of the children who were there.
He knew each child by name.
And, by his upright behavior and obvious human dignity,
he became a sort of a spiritual leader
of this whole family camp.
Now, the March 7th started to near,
and this was supposed to give us the signal
of what is supposed to happen,
but, what, we did not know for sure.
CREMATORIUM V
[ MUIIer, In German] At the end of February,
I was in a night squad at Crematorium V.
Around midnight,
there appeared a man from the political section:
Oberscharfuhrer Hustek.
He handed Oberscharfuhrer Voss a note.
Voss was then in charge of the 4 crematoria.
I saw Voss unfold the note
and talk to himself, saying, “Sure, always Voss.
What'd they do without Voss? How can we do it?”
That's how he talked to himself.
Suddenly he told me, “Go get the kapos.”
I fetched the kapos, kapo Schloime,
and kapo Wacek.
They came in, and he asked them,
“How many pieces are left?”
By “pieces” he meant bodies.
They told him, “Around 500 pieces.”
He said, “By morning, those 500 pieces must be...
reduced to ashes.
You're sure it's 500?”
“Just about,” they said.
“Assholes! What do you mean, just about?”
Then he left
for the “undressing room” to see for himself.
[ Lanzmann ] Where the bodies were?
They were piled there:
At Crematorium V, the “undressing room” also served
as a warehouse for bodies.
[ Lanzmann ] After the gassing?
After the gassing the bodies were dragged there.
Voss went there to check.
He forgot the note, leaving it on the table.
I quickly scanned it
and was shocked by what I read.
BIRKENAU THE LAKE OF ASHES
The crematorium was to be gotten ready
for “special treatment” of the Czech family camp.
In the morning, when the day squad came on,
I ran into kapo Kaminski,
one of the Resistance leaders in the “special detail”
and told him the news.
He informed me
that Crematorium II was also being prepared.
That the ovens were ready there, too.
And he exhorted me,
“You have friends and fellow countrymen.
Go see them. They're locksmiths and can move around
so they can go to Camp B II B.
Tell them to warn these people
of what' is" in store for them,
and say that if they defend themselves,
we'll reduce the crematoria to ashes.
And at Camp B H B,
they can immediately burn down their barracks.”
We were certain that the next night,
these people would be gassed.
But when no night squad went out, we were relieved.
The deadline had been postponed
for a few days.
But many prisoners,
including the Czechs in the family camp,
accused us of spreading panic,
of having...
of having circulated false reports.
[ Vrba, In English] Approximately by the end of February,
a rumor was spread by the Nazis
that the family transport will be moved
to a place called Heydebreck.
The first move was to separate the first family transport
from the second family transport
by transferring them overnight
into the quarantine camp B II A,
where I was a registrar.
So I could now speak with those people directly.
I talked to Fredy Hirsch specifically,
and I told him about the possibility that the transport has been...
his transport, the family transport of the Czechs...
has been transferred to the quarantine camp
because of the possibility
of them being predestined to be gassed on the March 7th.
He asked me if I know that for sure.
And I said, “I do not know it for sure, but it is a serious possibility,
because there is no record of any train going away
from Auschwitz.”
And, usually, the offices, the registrars,
where the Resistance movement had their people,
would get wind of such an information,
of a transport being prepared out from Auschwitz,
and there was no such information.
And I explained him the circumstances, and I explained him what it means.
And the possibility, then, would arise
that, for the first time, there are, in camp, people
who are relatively physically preserved,
who have some sort of a morale retained,
who are certain to go to die,
in other words, to be subject to the normal execution procedure,
anonymous major execution procedure, as usual,
and they will know it, they can't be just tricked,
and that this is perhaps the time to act.
And the action, of course,
will have to come out from them.
Because there are others whose death was imminent,
and those were the people from the Sonderkommando who worked in the crematorium,
which was periodically replaced.
And they showed a willingness,
that, if the Czechs, before the gassing, attack the SS,
they will join them.
F red y Hirsch objected.
He was very reasonable.
He said that it doesn't make sense to him
that the Germans would keep them for six months,
and feeding the children with milk and white bread,
in order to gas them after six months.
On the next day, I got the message, again from the Resistance,
that it is sure that they are going to be gassed,
that the Sonderkommando already received the coal
for burning the transport.
The Sonderkommando knew exactly
how many people are going to be gassed, what son of people,
because there were certain rules of work too.
So I called up again to Fredy and, uh, explained to him
that, as far as this transport is concerned, included him,
they are going to be gassed in the next 48 hours.
So, he suddenly started to worry.
He said, “What happens to the children if we start the uprising?”
He had a very close relationship with the children. - How many children?
Could be about 100.
Alive. - And how many people able to fight?
Uh, well, the nucleus was about 30,
and now it was not necessary to keep any precautions,
and this depends.
I mean, if it comes to fighting, even an old woman can pick up a stone.
Anybody can fight. I mean, this is difficult to predict.
But there, it was necessary to have a nucleus,
and it was necessary to have a leading personality.
You see, those are small details which are extremely important.
He said to me, “lf we make the uprising, what is going...
what is going to happen to the children?
Who is going to take care of them?”
I said, “The children? I cannot say you anything except that there is no way out for them.
They will die whatsoever.
That's... that's for sure.
This we cannot prevent.
The question what we can do is,
'Who is going to die with them, and how many SS are going to die with them,
and how will it impede the whole machinery?'
Plus, the possibility that a part, during the uprising,
will find their way out from the camp,”
which is possible in such a situation.
I mean, to break through the guards,
because, once the uprising starts, some weapons can be expected to be had.
And I explained to him that
there is absolutely no chance for him or for anybody from that transport,
to the best of my knowledge
and everybody else's knowledge whom I trust,
to survive the next 48 hours.
- This took place inside the block? - Inside the block, in my room.
And I told him also that the need of the personality,
and that he has been selected for that.
And, of course, he explained to me that he understands the situation,
that it is extremely difficult for him to make any decisions
because of the children,
and that he cannot see how he can leave those children just to their fate.
He was sort of their father.
I mean, he was only 30 at that time,
but the relationship between him and those children was very strong.
And he said to me that, of course, he can see the logic behind my argumentation,
and that he would like to think about it for an hour,
if I could leave him alone to think for an hour.
And because I had, at that time, a room of my own, as a registrar,
I left him in my room,
which was equipped with a table,
a chair and a bed
and some writing instrumentation,
and I told him that I will come, in an hour's time, back.
And I came back in an hour,
and I could see that he is laying on my bed,
and that he's dying.
He was cyanotic in the face.
He had froth around the mouth,
and I could see that he has poisoned himself.
He took poison,
but he was not dead.
And, because of him being so important, I...
I didn't know what sort of poison he took,
but I had, again, a connection to a man called Dr. Kleinman.
This Dr. Kleinman was of Polish origin and a French Jew
and medically qualified.
And I called Dr. Kleinman immediately to Hirsch
and asked Kleinman to do what he can
because this is an important man.
And Kleinman inspected Fredy Hirsch,
and he said that he thinks that he poisoned himself with a big dose of barbiturates,
that it might be perhaps possible to save his life,
but he won't be on his feet for a long time to come,
and he is going to be gassed within the next 48 hours, and he thinks...
Kleinman said it would be better to leave things as they are
and to do nothing.
Well, the story after the suicide of Fredy Hirsch developed very fast.
The first thing, I informed the rest of... of them, uh,
what I told to Hirsch.
Secondly, I moved to the camp ll D
to establish a contact with the Resistance there,
with the Resistance movement.
They gave me bread for the people...
bread, yes, bread and onions...
and said that I will get... they don't know any...
no decision has been made, and I should come later for... for instructions.
The moment I distributed the bread, something happened,
namely, a special curfew was made within the camp.
All administrative activities were stopped.
All guards were doubled.
Machine guns, et cetera, were spread around the quarantine camps,
and I was out of contact.
The transport, the Czech family transport, was then gassed in the evening.
They were put on trucks.
All of them knew.
They were put on trucks. They behaved very well.
We didn't know, of course, where the trucks are going.
They were being assured once more
that they are going to Heydebreck and not to be gassed.
And we knew that, if they are going out from the camp,
the trucks will turn right when they leave the camp.
And we knew that, if they turn left, there is only one way.
500 yards, and that's where the crematorium was.
[ Muller, In German] That night I was at Crematorium II.
As soon as the people got out of the vans,
they were blinded by floodlights
and forced through a corridor
to the stairs leading to the “undressing room.”
They were blinded, made to run.
Blows were rained on them.
Those who didn't run fast enough were beaten to death
by the SS.
The violence used against them was extraordinary.
And suddenly...
[ Lanzmann ] Without explanation?
Not a word.
As soon as they left the vans,
the beatings began.
When they entered the “undressing room,”
I was standing near the rear door,
and from there I witnessed the frightful scene.
The people were bloodied.
They knew then where they were.
They stared at the pillars
of the so-called “international Information Center” I've mentioned,
and that terrified them.
What they read didn't reassure them.
On the contrary, it panicked them.
They knew the score.
They'd learned at Camp B ll B what went on there.
They were in despair.
Children clung to each other.
Their mothers,
their parents, the old people all cried,
overcome with misery.
Suddenly,
some SS officers appeared on the steps,
including the camp commandant, Schwarzhuber.
He'd given them his word as an SS officer
that they'd be transferred to Heydebreck.
So they all began to cry out, to beg,
shouting, “Heydebreck was a trick!
We were lied to! We want to live! We want to work!”
They looked their SS executioners in the eye,
but the SS men
remained impassive,
just staring at them.
There was a movement in the crowd.
They probably wanted to rush to the SS men
and tell them how they'd been lied to.
Then some guards surged forward,
wielding clubs,
and more people were injured.
In the “undressing room.”
The violence climaxed
when they tried to force the people to undress.
A few obeyed,
only a handful.
Most of them refused to follow the order.
Suddenly, as though in chorus,
like a chorus...
they all began to sing.
The whole “undressing room” rang
with the Czech national anthem,
and the “Hatikva.”
That moved me terribly, that...
Please stop!
That was happening to my countrymen,
and I realized
that my life had become meaningless.
Why go on living? For what?
So I went into the gas chamber with them,
resolved to die.
With them.
Suddenly, some who recognized me came up to me.
For my locksmith friends and I
had sometimes gone into the family camp.
A small group of women approached.
They looked at me and said right there in the gas chamber...
- You were inside the gas chamber? - [ Repeats Phrase, Agrees]
One of them said,
“So you want to die.
But that's senseless.
Your death won't give us back our lives.
That's no way.
You must get out of here alive,
you must bear witness to our suffering,
and to the injustice done to us.”
[ Vrba, In English] That's how it ended with the first Czech family transport.
And it was quite clear to me then
that the resistance in the camp
is not geared for an uprising, but for survival,
for the survival of the members of the Resistance.
I then decided to act,
what was called by the members of Resistance
as anarchic and individualistic activity,
like an escape and leaving the community
for which I am co-responsible by that time.
Rudolf Vrba and his friend Wetzler
escaped on April 7, 1944.
Several prisoners had previously tried to flee,
but all were caught.
The decision to escape,
in spite of the policy of the Resistance movement at that time,
uh, was formed immediately,
and I started to press on with the preparations for the escape
together with my friend Wetzler, who was extremely important in this matter.
And I... Before I left, I spoke with, uh, Hugo Lenek.
And Hugo Lenek was in command of the second...
of the Resistance group in the second family transport.
Yes, and I explained to him that,
from the Resistance movement, they can “explain” nothing now...
expect nothing but bread.
But when it comes to the dying, they should act on their own.
As for myself is concerned,
I think that if I successfully managed to break out from the camp
and bring the information to the right place, in the right time,
that this might be a help,
that I might manage, if I succeed, to bring help from outside.
And also it was a firm belief in me that all this was possible
because either the victims who came to Auschwitz
didn't know what is happening there,
or, if somebody had the knowledge outside,
that the knowledge was with...
I would say that they didn't know. That's it.
And I thought that, if this will be made known, by any means, within Europe,
and especially within Hungary,
from where a million Jews were supposed to be transported to Auschwitz immediately, in May,
and I knew about that,
that this might stir up the Resistance outside
and bring help from outside directly to Auschwitz.
And, thus, the escape plans were finally formulated,
and the escape took place on April 7.
[ Lanzmann ] And this is the main and the deep reason why you decided to escape?
Suddenly, at that moment, to press on with it.
In other words, not to delay anything,
but to escape as soon as possible.
To inform the world.
- About what was going on? - Right.
- In Auschwitz? - Right. Right.
[ Exhales]
[ In English] Now... now I go back
35 years.
No.
I don't go back, you know, as a matter of fact.
[Sobbing ]
I come back.
JAN KARSKY, University Professor (USA)
Former courier of the Polish government in exile
- [ Karsky] I am ready. - [ Lanzmann ] All right.
In the middle of 1942,
I was thinking to continue my service as a courier
between the Polish underground
and the Polish government in exile, in London.
The Jewish leaders in Warsaw learned about it.
A meeting was arranged outside of the ghetto.
There were two gentlemen.
They did not live in the ghetto.
They introduced themselves:
leader of Bund,
Zionist leader.
Now, what “transcribed,” what happened in our conversation,
first, I was not prepared for it.
I was relatively isolated in my work in Poland.
I did not see many things.
In 35 years after the war,
I don't go back.
I have been a teacher for 26 years.
I never mention the Jewish problem to my students.
I understand this film is for historical record,
so I will try to do it.
They described to me what is happening to the Jews.
Did I know about it?
No, I didn't.
They described to me first
that the Jews... Jewish problem is unprecedented,
cannot be compared with the Polish problem,
or the Russian, or any other problem.
Hitler will lose this war,
but he will exterminate all Jewish population.
Do I understand it?
The Allies fight for their people.
They fight for humanity.
The Allies cannot forget
that the Jews will be exterminated totally in Poland,
Polish and European Jews.
They were breaking down.
They paced the room.
They were whispering.
They were hissing.
It was a nightmare
for me.
Did they look in complete desperation?
Yes.
Yes, at various stages of the conversation,
they lost control of themselves.
I just sat in my chair.
I just listened.
I did not even react.
I didn't ask them questions.
I was just listening.
Well, and then they...
They wanted to convince you to convey...
They realized, I think...
They realized from the beginning that I don't know,
that I don't understand this problem.
Once I said I will take messages from them,
they wanted to inform me what is happening to the Jews.
And I didn't know this. I was never in a ghetto.
I never dealt with the Jewish matters.
Did you know yourself at the time
that most of the Jews of Warsaw had already been killed?
I did know, but I didn't see anything.
I had never heard any description what is happening over there.
I was never there.
It is one thing to know statistics.
There were hundreds of thousands of Poles also killed,
Russians, Serbs, Greeks.
We knew about it,
but it was a question of statistics.
But did they insist about the complete uniqueness of the...
of the situation of the Jews? - Yes, this was their problem:
to impress upon me,
and then it was my mission
to impress upon all people whom I am going to see,
that the Jewish situation is unprecedented in history.
Egyptians... Egyptian pharaohs did not do it.
Babylonians did not do it.
Now, for the first time in history,
actually, they came to the conclusion:
Unless the Allies take some unprecedented steps,
regardless of the outcome of the war,
the Jews will be totally exterminated.
And they cannot accept it.
This means that they asked for very specific measures for the...
Yes.
So then, excha... interchangeably,
at a certain point, the... the Bund leader,
at a certain point, the Zionist leader...
Then what do they want?
What message am I supposed to take?
Then they gave me messages,
various messages to the Allied governments, as such.
I was to see as many government officials as I could.
As I could, of course.
Then, to the Polish government.
Then to the president of the Polish Republic.
Then to the international Jewish leaders,
and to individual political leaders, leading intellectuals.
Approach as many people as possible.
And then they gave me segments:
To whom do I report what?
So now, in this nightmarish... - Excuse me.
Two meetings, I had with them,
nightmarish meetings.
Well, then, they presented their demands,
separate demands.
The message was:
“Hitler cannot be allowed to continue extermination.
Every day counts.”
NEW YORK
“The Allies cannot treat this war
only from a purely military, strategic standpoint.
They will win the war
if they take such an attitude,
but what good will it do to us?
We will not survive this war.
The Allied governments cannot take such a stand.
We contributed to humanity.
We gave scientists for thousands of years.
We originated great religions.
We are humans.
Do you understand it? Do you understand it?
It never happened before in history, what is happening to our people now.
Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.
We understand we have no country of our own.
We have no government.
We have no voice in the Allied councils,
so we have to use services,
little people like you are.
Will you do it? Will you approach them?
Will you fulfill your mission,
approach the Allied leaders?”
WASHINGTON
“We want an official declaration
of the Allied nations
that, in addition
to the military strategy
which aims at securing victory,
military victory in this war,
extermination of the Jews
forms a separate chapter,
and the Allied nations
formally, publicly announce
that they will deal with this problem,
that it becomes a part!
of their overall strategy in this war.
Not only defeat of Germany,
but also saving the remaining Jewish population.
Once they make such an official declaration...
They have an air force.
They drop bombs on Germany,
why cannot they drop millions of leaflets
informing the German population
exactly what their government is doing to the Jews?
Perhaps they don't know it!
Now, let them make official declaration,
again, official, public declaration
that, if the German nation does not offer evidence
of trying to change the policy of their government,
German nation will have to be held responsible
for the crimes their government is committing.
And now, if there are not such an evidence,
to announce publicly, officially,
certain objects in Germany
will be bombed, destroyed,
as a retaliation
for what the German government is doing against the Jews.
That bombing which will take place
is not a part of the military strategy.
It deals only with the Jewish problem.
Let the German people know before bombing takes place
and after bombing takes place
that this was done and will continue to be done
because Jews are being exterminated in Poland.
Perhaps it will help.
They can do it.
This, they can do it.”
THE RUHR
This was one mission.
Next,
both of them,
particularly the Zionist leader...
He was again, like, whispering, hissing to me.
“Something is going to happen.
The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are talking about it.
Particularly young elements,
they will fight.
They speak about declaration of war against the Third Reich,
unique war in the world history.
Never such a war took place.
They want to die fighting.
We cannot deny them this kind of death.”
By the way, I didn't know at that time Jewish military organization emerged.
They didn't tell me about it,
only that, “Something is going to happen.
The Jews will fight.
They need arms.
We approached the commander of the Home Army,
the underground movement in Poland.
Those arms were denied, refused.
They cannot be denied arms
if such arms exist,
and we know you have arms.”
This message to the commander in chief, General Sikorski,
to issue orders
that those arms will be given to the Jews.
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
This was another part of the mission.
“There are international Jewish leaders.
Reach as many as possible.
Tell them this:
They are Jewish leaders.
Their people are dying.
There will be no Jews,
so what for do we need leaders?
We are going to die as well.
We don't try to escape. We stay here.
Let them go
to important offices
in London, wherever they are.
Let them demand for action.
If it is refused,
let them walk out,
stay in the street,
refuse food,
refuse drink.
Let them die
in view of all humanity.
Who knows? Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.”
Between those two Jewish leaders,
somehow... and this belongs to human relations...
I took, so to say, to the Bund leader,
probably because of his behavior.
He looked like a Polish nobleman,
a gentleman, straight,
beautiful gestures, dignified.
I think that he liked me, also personally.
Now, at a certain point, he suggested it.
He says, “Mr. Witold,
I know the Western world.
You are going to deal with the English.
Now, you will give them your oral reports.
I am sure it will strengthen your report
if you will be able to say, 'I saw it myself.”'
WARSAW
“We can organize for you to visit the Jewish ghetto.
Would you do it?
If you do,
to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, I will go with you,
so I will be sure
that you will be as safe as possible.”
A few days later, we established contact.
By that time,
Jewish ghetto, as it existed in 1942 until July,
did not exist anymore.
Out of approximately 400,000 Jews,
in the meantime, some 300,000 were already deported from the ghetto.
So within the outside walls,
practically, there were some four units.
The most important was the so-called “central ghetto.”
They were separated by some areas inhabited by the Aryans,
already some areas not inhabited by anybody.
There was some building.
This building was constructed in such a way
that the wall which separated the ghetto from the outside world
was a part of the back of the building.
So the front was facing the Aryan area.
There was some tunnel.
We went through this tunnel without any kind of difficulties.
What struck me: completely different man,
the Bund leader,
the Polish nobleman.
I go with him.
He is broken down,
curving, like a Jew from the ghetto,
as if he lived there all the time.
Apparently, this was his nature.
This was his world.
So we walked the streets.
He was on my left.
We didn't talk very much.
He led me.
Well, so what? So now comes the description of it, yes?
Well.
Naked bodies on the street.
I ask him, “Why are they here?”
- Corpses, you mean? - Corpses.
He says, “Well, they have a problem.
If J... a Jew dies,
and the family wants some burial,
they have to pay tax on it,
so they just throw them in the street.”
- Because they cannot pay the tax? - Yeah.
They cannot afford it.
So then they say, “Every rag counts,”
so they take their clothing.
And then, once the body, the corpse, is on the street,
the Judenrat has to take care of it.
Women with their babies,
publicly feeding their babies,
but they have no... no breast.
It's just flat.
Babies with some crazy eyes, looking.
Did it look like a complete strange world?
- What? - It was a world, I mean.
No, it was not a world.
That... That was not humanity.
Streets full.
Full.
Apparently, all of them lived in the street.
Exchange what... what was the most important.
Everybody offering something to sell.
“Three onions.”
“Buy onions.” “Some cookies?”
Selling.
Begging each other.
Crying, “I am hungry.”
Those horrible children.
Some children running by themselves,
or with their mothers, sitting.
It wasn't humanity.
It was some... some... some hell.
Now,
this part of the ghetto,
German officers were there, in the central ghetto.
If Gestapo released somebody, and the Gestapo officers,
they had to pass through the ghetto to get out of it.
So there were also Germans, German traffic.
Now, the Germans in uniform,
they were walking.
Silence.
Everybody frozen until he passed.
No movement, no begging, nothing.
Germans.
Contempt.
“This is those”... apparently... “dirty subhuman.”
“They are not human, this.”
Now, at a certain point,
some movement starts.
Jews are running from the street I was on.
We jumped into some house.
He just hits the door.
“Open the door! Open the door!”
They opened the door. We moved in.
Windows go... give to the back of the street.
We go to the opposite.
In the door. Some woman opened the door.
He says, “All right, all right. Don't be afraid.
We are Jews.”
He pushes me to the window.
“Now look at it. Look at it.”
[ Sighs ]
There were two boys,
nice-looking boys,
Hitler-Jugend unfiorms.
They walked.
Every step they made, Jews disappearing,
running away.
They were talking to each other.
At a certain point,
a boy gets into his pocket,
without even thinking,
shoots.
Some, “Aaah!”
Some broken glass.
Some shouting, “Aaah!”
The other boy says something, congratulating him.
They go back.
So I was paralyzed.
[Gasping 1
[Sobbing ]
So then the Jewish woman...
Probably she recognized me... I don't know... that I am not a Jew.
She embraced me. “Go, go. It doesn't do you any good.
Go, go.”
So we left the house.
Then we left the ghetto.
So then he said, “You didn't see everything. You didn't see too much.
Would you like to go again? I will go with you.
I want you to see everything.”
“I will.”
Next day, we went again.
The same house, the same way.
So then, again, now I was more conditioned,
so I felt the other things.
Stench.
Dirt, stench.
Everywhere. Suffocating.
Dirty streets.
Nervousness. Tension.
Some bedlam.
This was Platz Muranowski.
In a corner of it,
some children playing something with some rags.
They're throwing the rags to another.
He says, “They are playing, as you see.
Life goes on. Life goes on.”
So then I said,
“They are simulating playing. They don't play.”
It was a special place for playing?
In the corner of Platz Muranowski.
No, no, no. Open.
As I say, they are... - There were trees?
There were a few trees, rachitic trees.
So then we just walked the streets.
We didn't talk to anybody.
We walked probably one hour.
Sometimes, he would tell me,
“Look at this Jew,”
a Jew standing, without moving.
[ Indistinct]
I said, “Is he dead?”
He says, “No, no, no. He's alive.
Mr. Witold, remember, he's dying.
He's dying. Look at him.
Tell them over there.
You saw it. Don't forget.”
We walk again.
It's macabre.
Only from time to time, he would whisper,
“Remember this. Remember this.”
Or he would tell me, “Look at her.”
In very many cases,
I would say, “What are they doing here?”
His answer: “They are dying. That's all right. They are dying.”
And always, “But remember, remember.”
We spent more... perhaps one hour.
We left the ghetto.
Frankly, I couldn't take it anymore.
“Get me out of it.”
And then I never saw him again.
I was sick.
I don't... Even now, I don't want...
I understand your role. I am here.
I don't go back in my memory.
I couldn't take any more.
But I reported what I saw.
Yes, it was not a world. It was not a part of humanity.
I was not part of it.
I did not belong there.
I never saw such things. I never...
Nobody wrote about this kind of reality.
I never saw any theater... I never saw any movie...
This was not the world.
I was told that these are human beings.
They didn't look like human beings.
Then we left.
He embraced me then.
“Good luck. Good luck.”
I never saw him again.
WARSAW
Next figure: Dr FRANZ GRASSLER, deputy to Auerswald,
the Nazi Commissioner of the Warsaw ghetto
[ Lanzmann, In German] You don't remember those days?
[ Grassier, In German] Not much.
I recall more clearly my pre-war mountaineering trips
than the entire war period
and those days in Warsaw.
All in all, those were bad times.
It's a fact: we tend to forget,
thank God,
the bad times more easily than the good.
The bad times are repressed.
[ Lanzmann ] I'll help you remember...
In Warsaw, you were Dr. Auerswald's deputy.
[ Grassier ] Yes.
[ Lanzmann ] Dr. Auerswald was...
[ Grassier ] Commissioner of the “Jewish district” of Warsaw.
Dr. Grassier, this is Czerniakow's diary.
You're mentioned in it.
- It's been printed, it exists? - Ja, ja.
He kept a diary... - Mm-hmm. Ja.
That was recently published.
He wrote on July 7, 1941
July 7, 1941?
That's the first time I've relearned a date.
May I take notes?
After all... it interests me too.
So in July I was already there!
He wrote on July 7, 1941,
“Morning in the Community” - the Jewish Council HQ -
Ja, fa. Ja.
“and later with Auerswald, Schlosser...”
Schlosser was...
- “and Grassier”... - Ja.
“On routine matters.”
That's the first time...
- That my name is mentioned... - Ja, ja.
Yes, but there were 3 of us.
Schlosser... was in... the “economic department.”
I think he had to do with economics. - Ja. Ja, ja.
And the second time
was on July 22.
Czerniakow was president of the Warsaw Jewish Council
- He wrote every day? - Yes.
- Ja? Mm-hmm? - Yes, every day.
- [ Repeats Phrase] - it's quite amazing...
That the diary was saved.
It's amazing that it was saved.
BURLINGTON - VERMONT (USA)
[ Hilberg, In English] Adam Czerniakow began keeping a diary
the very first week of the war,
before the Germans entered Warsaw,
and before he took over the responsibility of leading the Jewish community,
and kept his diary in daily entries
until the afternoon of the day that he ended his life.
He left us a window
through which we can observe a Jewish community
in the terminal hours of its life.
A dying community, for it began dying from the beginning.
RAUL HILBERG
And, in that sense,
Adam Czerniakow, urn, did something very important.
He didn't save the Jews.
In that respect, he was like other Jewish leaders.
But he left a record of what had happened to them
in a day-by-day fashion.
And you could see that he did all this
on top of working a seven-day week,
for he was a man without vacations,
without any day off.
And yet every day,
almost every day,
he had an entry.
He might record the weather,
where he went in the morning,
and then all the things that happened,
but he never failed to write.
That was something that moved him, pushed him,
compelled him throughout the years,
almost three years of his life under the Germans.
And, in that sense, uh,
perhaps because he wrote in such a prosaic style,
we now know what went on in his mind,
how things were perceived,
recognized, reacted to.
We even know from what he didn't say
just what it is that went through this community.
There are constant references in the diary
to the end.
He talks in terms of Greek mythology,
and he refers to himself as wearing a poisoned cloak,
as Hercules once did.
He has, um, a feeling of doom
for the Jews of Warsaw.
And there are remarkable passages in the diary that illustrate what he meant.
He is, uh, sarcastic enough, if that is the word,
in December 1941, to remark that now the intelligentsia were dying also.
Up to this point, poor people were dying,
but, by December 1941, members of the intelligentsia were starving to death.
And he even has...
[ Lanzmann ] Why does he mention specifically the intelligentsia at this time?
He mentions it because there is a difference,
owing to the class structure within the ghetto,
in vulnerability to starvation.
The lower classes died first. The middle class died a little bit later.
Intelligentsia were, of course, at the top of the middle class,
and once they started dying, the situation was really very, very bad.
And that's the meaning of that.
Now we're dealing with a ghetto where the average consumption was about 1,200 calories, you see.
He mentions with... with approval, with approval, uh,
that one petitioner came to him for money
and said, “I want money,
not in order to eat.
I want money for the rent,
to pay the rent for my apartment,
because I don't want to die in the street.”
This is the kind of comment that Czerniakow writes down in his diary.
This meaning of dignity,
the approval of the...
You mean he received a petition from somebody...
- Yes. - who said, “Give me money”?
Yes, but not for food.
“Give me money so that I can pay the rent,
because I don't want to die in the street.”
There were people dropping dead in the street.
They were covered with newspaper.
Why was the housing more important to him than the food?
To this particular individual,
who wasn't eating enough to remain alive,
who didn't want to be dying of hunger while collapsing in the street.
This means that death was not avoidable,
but it was avoidable... - Death was not...
- to die either inside or outside? - To die... Well, of course. Of course.
It is a... It is a... one of these sardonic jokes,
of which he had quite a few.
He always had the...
strange, strange description
of a band playing in front of a funeral parlor,
of a hearse with drunken drivers,
and a dead child running around the grounds.
He had... He had rather sardonic comments about death.
He lived with death.
[ Pages Turning ]
[ Lanzmann, In German] Did you go into the ghetto?
Seldom. When I had to visit Czerniakow.
What were the conditions like?
Awful.
Yes a ' Ppall' ' Yes? mg
I never went back when I saw what it was like.
Unless I had to.
In the whole period I think I only went once or twice.
We, at the Commission, tried
to maintain the ghetto for its labor force,
and especially to prevent epidemic, like typhus.
That was the big danger.
- Yes. - Yes?
Can you tell us about typhus?
I'm not a doctor.
I only know that typhus is a very dangerous epidemic
that wipes people out like the plague,
and that it can't be confined to a ghetto.
If typhus had broken out...
I don't think it did,
but there was fear that it might...
it would have killed the Poles and the Germans.
Why was there typhus in the ghetto?
I don't know if there was,
but there was a danger, because of the famine.
People didn't get enough to eat.
That's what was so awful.
We, at the Commission,
did our best to feed the ghetto,
so it wouldn't become an incubator of epidemics.
Aside from humanitarian factors, that's what mattered.
If typhus had broken out... and it didn't...
it wouldn't have stopped at the ghetto.
Czerniakow also wrote that
one of the reasons the ghetto was walled in
was because of this German fear.
- Yes, absolutely! - Fear of typhus.
[ Repeats Phrase]
He says Germans always associated Jews with typhus.
Maybe.
I'm not sure if there were grounds for it.
But imagine that mass of people packed in the ghetto...
There weren't only the Warsaw Jews,
but others who came later.
The danger kept on growing.
[ Hilberg, In English] There was a lady somewhere in Warsaw,
in love with a man.
And the man was hit,
grievously wounded,
with his insides coming out.
This woman stufied the insides back with her own hands.
She carried the man to a first-aid station. He died.
He was buried in a mass grave.
She disinterred him and buried him.
This, to Czerniakow, this simple episode,
was the ultimate of virtue.
[ Lanzmann ] He is never revolted?
He doesn't bother, or he doesn't express the revolt.
He doesn't express the disgust except with other Jews,
Jews who either deserted the community
by emigrating early,
or Jews who, like Gancwajch, are collaborating with the Germans.
And, for the Germans, he doesn't have words of disgust.
I think he is beyond such words.
He hasn't any criticism of the Germans themselves
and only seldom allows himself to make a remark
which indicates that he opposed something by arguing.
He very seldom argues with the Germans.
He pleads, he appeals, but he doesn't argue with them.
He does argue when he's forced, not only to build the wall,
but to pay for it.
And he says that, if the wall is being put up as a hygienic measure
to prevent Jewish epidemics from engulfing the Polish or German population outside,
then why is it...
why is it that the Jews have to pay for it?
The people who get the protection should be paying for the medicine.
If the wall is medicine, let the Germans pay.
And Auerswald, the ghetto Kommissar, says that's a very nice argument
that he, Czerniakow, might bring up at an international conference some day,
but, for now, he'll pay for the wall.
Czerniakow writes all this down,
including Auerswald's reply to his own argument.
And that's about the most he ever allows himself to say in criticism
of what the Germans are doing.
So he takes for granted, he assumes, he anticipates
everything that is happening to the Jews,
including the worst.
[ Lanzmann, In German] The Germans had a policy on the Warsaw ghetto.
What was that policy?
Ja.
You're asking more than I know.
The policy that wound up with extermination...
- Ja. - the Final Solution...
we knew nothing about it.
Our job was to maintain the ghetto,
and try to preserve the Jews as a work force.
The Commission's goal,
in fact, was very different
from the one that later led to extermination.
Yes, but do you know how many people died
in the ghetto each month in 1941? - Nein.
I don't know now... if I ever knew it.
But you did know. There are exact figures.
I probably knew...
Yes: 5,000 a month.
- 5,000 a month? Yes, well... - Ja.
That's a lot. - That's a lot, of course.
But there were far too many people in the ghetto.
That was it. Far too many. - [ Repeats Phrase]
Far too many.
[ Lanzmann ] My question is philosophical.
What does a ghetto mean, in your opinion?
[ Grassier ] History's full of ghettos,
going back centuries, for all I know.
Persecution of the Jews wasn't a German in vention,
and it didn't start with World War II.
The Poles persecuted them too.
[ Lanzmann ] But a ghetto like Warsaw's,
in a great capital,
in the heart of the city.
[ Grassier ] That was unusual.
You say you wanted to maintain the ghetto.
Our mission wasn't to annihilate the ghetto,
but to keep it alive, to maintain it.
What does “alive” mean in such...
- That was the problem. - Ja.
That was the whole problem...
The problem needed to be resolved. I knew that.
But people were dying in the streets.
There were bodies everywhere. - Yes.
- Nee?
That was the paradox.
- You see it as a paradox? - I'm sure of it.
Why?
Can you explain? - No.
Why not?
Explain what?
But the fact is...
Jews were being exterminated daily in the ghetto.
Czerniakow wrote... - Ja. Ja.
To maintain it properly,
we'd have needed more substantial rations,
and less crowding.
Why weren't the rations more humane?
Why weren't they?
That was a German decision, no?
There was no real decision to starve the ghetto.
The big decision to exterminate came much later.
[ Lanzmann] That's right, later. In 1942.
- Precisely! - Ja.
3 years later. - Just so.
Our mission, as I recall it,
was to manage the ghetto,
and, naturally, with those inadequate rations,
and the overcrowding,
a high, even excessive death rate was inevitable.
- Yes. - Nee?
What does “maintain” the ghetto mean in such conditions...
the food, sanitation, etc.?
What could the Jews do against such measures?
They couldn't do anything.
[ Lanzmann, In English] Czerniakow saw a film before the war
where the captain of a sinking ship
gives order to the orchestra to play jazz.
In the entry of July 8, 1942,
not even two weeks before his death,
he identifies himself to this captain of the sinking ship.
Yes.
Of course, there is no jazz,
but there is a kind of children's festival.
There are chess tournaments, yes.
There's theater. There is a children's festival.
There's everything going on until the last moment.
But, more importantly, these are symbols.
These outward cultural activities, these festivals,
uh, they're not simply morale-building devices,
which is what Czerniakow identifies them to be.
Rather, they are symbolic of the entire posture of the ghetto,
which is in the process of healing, or trying to heal, sick people
who are soon going to be gassed,
which is trying to educate youngsters who will never be growing up,
which is in the process of trying to find work for people and increase employment
in a situation which is doomed to failure.
They are going on as though life will continue.
They have an official faith in the survivability of the ghetto,
even after all indications are to the contrary.
The strategy continues to be:
“We must continue, for this is the only strategy that is left.
We must minimize the injury, minimize the damage, minimize the losses,
but we must continue.”
And continuity is the only thing, in all of this.
But, obviously, when he compares himself to this captain of a sinking ship,
he knows that everything is sinking. - He knows. He knows.
I... I think he knew or he sensed or he believed the end was corning
perhaps as early as October 1941,
when he has a note about alarming rumors
as to the fate of Warsaw Jewry in the spring.
This is also when Bischoff, the head of the Transferstelle, tells him
that, after all, a ghetto is only a temporary device,
without specifying for what.
He knows, because in January he... he... he has premonitions or reports and rumors
about Lithuanians coming.
He is concerned when Auerswald disappears and is going to Berlin
right around January 20, 1942,
which we now know to have been the date of the Final Solution Conference in Berlin,
the Wannsee Conference.
The Final Solution Conference was held here
And even though Czerniakow, in Warsaw, behind the walls,
has no idea of such a conference going on in Berlin,
yet he is concerned that Auerswald, the ghetto Komnfvssar, is going to Berlin.
He can't imagine why,
unless it is for a purpose that bodes no good.
And so, in February, there are more rumors.
In March, the rumors are becoming even more specific.
He now begins to record
the departure of Jews from the Lublin ghetto,
or Mielec,
or Krakow
and L wow.
And he recognizes
that something may well be in the offing for Warsaw itself.
And every subsequent entry is replete
with the anxiety that he feels.
BELZEC SITE OF THE EXTERMINATION CAMP
[ Lanzmann ] When Czerniakow hears rumors
about the depo/Tations from Lublin, Lwow and Krakow
around March 1942,
and we know now that the transports went to Belzec,
does he ask in his diary where they are shipped,
what happens to them?
[ Hilberg ] No. He never does.
And he never mentions any destination.
But we cannot really decide
that he had no knowledge whatsoever
about these camps.
All we know is that he didn't mention them in the diary.
And we also know, of course, from other sources,
that the existence of death camps was already known in Warsaw,
certainly by June.
[ Lanzmann, In German] Why did Czerniakow commit suicide?
Because he realized there was no future for the ghetto.
He probably saw before I did that the Jews would be killed.
I suppose the Jews already had their excellent secret services.
They were too well informed,
better than we were.
- Think so? - Yes, I do.
- The Jews knew more than you? - I'm convinced of it!
- It's hard to believe. - Doch, doch.
The German administration was never informed
of what would happen to the Jews.
When was the first deportation to Treblinka?
Before Auerswald's suicide, I think.
- Auerswald's? - I mean Czerniakow's. Sorry.
July 22.
Those are dates...
So the deportations began July 22, 1942.
Yes.
To... Treblinka.
And Czerniakow killed himself July 23.
Yes, that is...
- The next day. - The next day.
So that was it, he'd realized
that his idea...
it was his idea, I think, of working in good faith with the Germans,
in the Jews' best interests.
He'd realized this idea, this dream was destroyed.
- That the idea was a dream. - Yes.
And when the dream faded, he took the logical way out.
[ Lanzmann, In English] The last entry takes place how long before his suicide?
[ Hilberg] The last entry precedes his death by a few hours.
[ Lanzmann ] And what does he write?
“It is 3200.
So far, 4,000 are ready to go.
The orders are that there must be 9,000 by 4:00.”
This is the last entry of a man on the afternoon
of the day that he commits suicide.
[ Lanzmann] The first transport of the Jews of Warsaw for Treblinka
was the 22nd of July, 1942.
And he commits suicide the day after? - That's right.
In other words, on the 22nd, you see,
on the 22nd, he is called in by SturmbannfiJhrer Hofle,
who is in charge of the resettlement staff,
who has come in there for the express purpose of taking the Jews out of Warsaw.
Hofle tells him, on the 22nd...
And, here, incidentally, is another fascinating point.
Czerniakow is so agitated
that he doesn't put the date down correctly.
Instead of saying, “July 22, 1942,” he says, “July 22, 1940.”
[ Clicks Tongue ]
Hofle calls him in at 10:00,
disconnects the telephones.
Children are removed from the playground opposite the community building.
And then he is told that all Jews, irrespective of sex and age,
with certain exceptions, will be deported to the east.
To the east.
Again, the east.
And by 4:00 p.m. today, a contingent of 6,000 people must be provided,
and this, at the minimum, will be the daily quota.
Now, he's told that at 10:00 in the morning of July 22, 1942.
He then goes on. He keeps appealing.
He... He wants certain exemptions.
He wants the Council staff to be exempt.
He wants the staff of the welfare organizations to be exempt,
and he's terribly worried that the orphans will be deported,
and he repeatedly brings up the orphans.
And, on the next day, he still doesn't have assurance
that the orphans are going to be saved.
Now, if he cannot be the caretaker of the orphanage,
then he has lost his war,
he has lost his struggle.
But why the orphans?
They are the most helpless element in the community.
They are the little children, its future, who have lost their parents.
They cannot possibly do anything on their own.
If the orphans do not have exemption, if he doesn't even get the promise,
the words spoken by a German SS officer,
not even assurances, which, as he knows, cannot be counted on,
if he cannot even get the words,
what can he think?
If he cannot take care of the children, what else can he do?
Some people report that
he wrote a note, after he closed the book, on the diary,
in which he said,
“They want me to kill the children with my own hands.”
[ Lanzmann, In German] Did you think this idea of a ghetto was a good one?
A sort of self-management, right?
- That's right. - A mini-State?
- It worked well. - But it was self-management for death, no?
We know that now. But at the time...
- Even then! - No!
Czerniakow wrote,
“We're puppets, we have no power.” - Yes.
- No power. - Sure... that was...
- You Germans were the overlords. - Yes.
The overlords. The masters.
Obviously.
- Czerniakow was merely a tool. - [ Repeats Phrase] Ja.
Yes, but a good tool.
Jewish self-management worked well, I can tell you.
It worked well for 3 years,
1941, 1942, 1943... 2 1/2 years... and in the end...
In the end...
“Worked well” for what?
To what end?
For self-preservation.
No! For death!
- Yes, but... - Self-management, self-preservation...
That's easy to say now.
- You admitted the conditions were inhuman. - Ja.
[ Lanzmann ] Atrocious... horrible!
So it was clear even then...
No! Extermination wasn't clear.
Now we see the result. - Extermination isn't so simple.
One step was taken,
then another, and another, and another... - Yes.
But to understand the process, one must...
I repeat: extermination did not take place in the ghetto, not at first.
Only with the evacuations.
Otherwise, in the ghetto, we would have...
Evacuations?
The evacuations to Treblinka.
The ghetto could have been wiped out with weapons...
Nein? - Ja.
as it was finally done, after the rebellion.
After I'd left. But at the start...
Mr. Lanzmann, this is getting us nowhere.
We're reaching no new conclusions.
- I don't think we can. - Nein.
I didn't know then what I know now.
You weren't a nonentity.
- But I was! - You were important.
- You overestimate my role. - No.
- Nein? - Nein.
You were 2nd to the Commissioner of the Warsaw “Jewish district.”
- But I had no power. - It was something.
You were part of the vast German power structure.
Correct. But a small part.
You overestimate the authority of a deputy of 28 then.
- You were 30. - 28.
- At 30, you were... - [ Laughs]
Nein. - Das ist...
[ In French ] you were mature. [ Repeats In German]
Yes, but for a lawyer who got his degree at 27,
it's just a beginning.
Ja.
You had a doctorate.
The title proves nothing.
- Did Auerswald have one too? - No.
But the title's irrelevant.
Doctor of Law...
What did you do after the war? - Aber...
I was with a mountaineering publishing house.
- That so? - Ja, ja.
I wrote and published mountain guidebooks.
I published a climbers' magazine.
Is climbing your main interest?
- Yes.
The mountains, the air... - Yes.
The sun, the pure air...
Not like the ghetto air.
[ Women Singing In Yiddish] y The words, the words that I write to you y
J' Are not written with ink, but with tears J'
p The best years are ending now p
J' Are not written with ink, but with tears J'
p The best years are ending now p
p And are gone, not to return y
,r It is difficult to fix that which is shattered y
g And it is difficult to unite our love J'
J' Oh, show your tears J'
J' The fault is not mine J'
g Because it must be so J'
g It must be so It must be so g
g We must both separate g
g It must be so It must be so g
J' The love that ends for both of us g
g Do you remember when I left you? J'
g My fate dictated I must leave you J'
g Because in this way I will never again be bothered g
NEW YORK GERTRUDE SCHNEIDER AND HER MOTHER
g Because it must be so J'
LOHAME HAGHETTAOT KIBBUTZ MUSEUM
GHETTO FIGHTERS' KIBBUTZ, ISRAEL
The Jewish Combat Organization (J.C.O.) in the Warsaw ghetto
was officially formed on July 28, 1942.
After the first mass deportation to Treblinka,
which was interrupted on September 30,
some 60,000 Jews remained in the ghetto.
On January 18, 1943, the deportations were resumed.
Despite a severe lack of weapons,
the members of the J.C.O. called for resistance,
and started fighting, to the Germans' total surprise.
It lasted 3 days.
The Nazis withdrew with losses,
abandoning weapons the Jews grabbed.
The deportations were stopped.
The Germans now knew
they had to fight to conquer the ghetto.
The battle began on the evening of April 19, 1943,
the eve of Pessach Passover.
It had to be a fight to the death.
SIMHA ROTTEM, known as “Kajik”
ITZHAK ZUCKERMANN, known as “Antek,” 2nd in command of the J.C.O.
[ Antek Speaking Hebrew]
[ Interpreter #3, In French] I began drinking after the war.
[ Antek Speaking Hebrew]
It was very difficult.
[ Antek Speaking Hebrew]
Claude, you asked for my impression.
If you could lick my heart,
it would poison you.
At the request of Mordechai Anielewicz,
commander-in-chief of the J.C.O.,
Antek had left the ghetto 6 days before the German attack.
His mission:
To ask Polish Resistance leaders to arm the Jews.
They refused.
[Speaking Hebrew]
[ Interpreter #3, In French] I don't think the human tongue can describe
the horror we went through in the ghetto.
In the streets, if you can call them that,
for nothing was left of the streets,
we had to step over heaps of corpses.
There was no room to pass beside them.
Besides fighting the Germans, we fought hunger
and thirst.
We had no contact with the outside world,
we were completely isolated, cut off from the world.
[ Interpreter #3, In French] We were in such a state
that we could no longer understand
the very meaning of why we went on fighting.
[ Kajik Continues ]
We thought of attempting a breakout
to the Aryan part of Warsaw, outside the ghetto.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Just before May 1,
Sigmund and I were sent
to try to contact Antek in Aryan Warsaw.
[ Interpreter #3, In French] We found a tunnel under Bonifrateska Street
that led out into Aryan Warsaw.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Early in the morning,
we suddenly emerged into a street in broad daylight.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Imagine us on that sunny May 1,
stunned to find ourselves in the street, among normal people.
We'd come from another planet.
[ Kajik Continues ]
People immediately jumped on us
because we certainly looked exhausted,
skinny, in rags.
Around the ghetto, there were always suspicious Poles
who grabbed Jews.
[ Kajik Continues ]
By a miracle, we escaped them.
[ Kajik Continues ]
In Aryan Warsaw,
life went on as naturally and normally as before.
[ Kajik Continues ]
The cafes operated normally,
the restaurants, buses, streetcars...
The movies were open.
[ Kajik Continues ]
The ghetto was an isolated island amid normal life.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Our job was to contact Itzhak Zuckermann
to try to mount' a rescue operation,
to try to save the few fighters
who might still be alive in the ghetto.
[ Kajik Continues ]
We managed to contact Zuckermann.
[ Kajik Continues ]
We found two sewer workers.
[ Kajik Continues ]
On the night of May 8-9,
we decided to return to the ghetto
with another buddy, Riszek, and the 2 sewer workers.
After the curfew, we entered the sewers.
[ Kajik Continues ]
We were entirely at the mercy of the two workmen,
since only they knew the ghettds underground layout.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Halfway there, they decided to turn back,
they tried to drop us, and we had to threaten them with our guns.
[ Kajik Continues ]
We went on through the sewers...
[ Kajik Continues ]
until one of the workmen told us we were under the ghetto.
[ Kajik Continues ]
Riszek guarded them so they couldn't escape.
MILA 18. J.C.O. BUNKER HEADQUARTERS
[ Kajik Continues ]
I raised the manhole cover
to go up into the ghetto.
[ Kajik Continues ]
At bunker Mila 18, I missed them by a day.
[ Kajik Continues ]
I had returned the night of May 8-9.
The Germans found the bunker on the morning of the 8th.
WARSAW - THE MONUMENT TO THE GHETTO FIGHTERS
[ Kajik Continues ]
Most of its survivors committed suicide,
or succumbed to gas in the bunkers.
THE REPLICA OF THE MONUMENT TO THE GHETTO FIGHTERS
JERUSALEM
[ Kajik Continues ]
I went to bunker Franciszkanska 22.
There was no answer when I yelled the password,
so I had to go on through the ghetto.
I suddenly heard a woman calling from the ruins.
It was darkest night, no lights, you saw nothing.
All the houses were in ruins, and I heard only one voice.
I thought some evil spell had been cast on me,
a woman's voice talking from the rubble.
I circled the ruins.
I didn't look at my watch,
but I must have spent a half hour exploring,
trying to find the woman whose voice guided me,
but, unfortunately, I didn't find her.
[ Lanzmann, In French] Were there fires?
[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]
Strictly speaking, no, for the flames had died down,
but there was still smoke,
and that awful smell of charred flesh
of people who had surely been burned alive.
I continued on my way,
going to other bunkers in search of fighting units,
but it was the same everywhere.
I'd give the password: “Jan.”
[ Lanzmann, In French] That's a Polish first name, Jan.
[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]
Right. And I got no answer.
I went from bunker to bunker,
and after walking for hours in the ghetto,
I went back toward the sewers.
- Was he alone then? - [ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]
Yes, I was alone all the time.
[ Interpreter #3 ] Oui...
Except for that woman's voice,
and a man I met as I came out of the sewers,
I was alone throughout my tour of the ghetto.
I didn't meet a living soul.
At one point, I recall
feeling a kind of peace, or serenity,
when I said to myself, “I'm the last Jew.
I'll wait for morning and for the Germans.”
[ Train Clacking Continues]
[ Clacking Fades ]