(Srebnik sings in Polish) ♪A little white house
♪ Lingers in my memory
♪ Of that little white house
♪ I dream each night
♪ The windows of that little house
♪ Beautifully shine in the sun
♪ As if someone's eyes
♪ Were filling with tears
♪ There was so much happiness in that little house
♪ And so many joyous days
♪ When I remember those blissful moments
♪ My heart trembles
♪ A little white house
♪ Lingers in my memory
♪ Of that little white house
♪ I dream each night ♪
(Man ♪ 1 speaking Polish)
(Female interpreter in French) He was 13 and a half years old.
He had a lovely singing voice and we heard him.
♪ A little white house
♪ Lingers in my memory
♪ Of that little white house
♪ I dream each night
♪ The windows of that little house
♪ Beautifully shine in the sun
♪ As if someone's eyes
♪ Were filling with tears ♪
(Man ♪3 speaking Polish)
(Interpreter) When I heard him again, my heart beat faster,
because what happened here... was a murder.
I really relived what happened.
(Sighs and coughs)
(In German) It's hard to recognise, but it was here.
They burned people here.
A lot of people were burned here.
Yes, this is the place.
(Crow caws)
No one ever left here again.
The gas vans came in here...
There were two huge ovens...
(Sighs)
...and after ward, the bodies were thrown
into these ovens,
and the flames reached to the sky.
- (Lanzmann in German) To the sky? - Ja.
It was terrible.
No one can describe it.
No one can...
recreate what happened here.
Impossible! And no one can understand it.
Even I, here, now.
I can't believe I'm here.
No, I just can't believe it.
It was always this peaceful here.
When they burned 2,000 people... Jews... every day,
it was just as peaceful.
No one shouted. Everyone went about his work.
It was silent. Peaceful.
Just as it is now.
(Srebnik singing in German)
(Cattle lowing)
♪ You, girl, don't you cry
♪ Don't be so sad
♪ For the dear summer is nearing
♪ And I'll return with it
♪ A mug of red wine, a slice of roast
♪ That's what the girls give their soldiers
♪ When the soldiers march along
♪ The girls open their doors and windows... ♪
(Man ♪ 1 speaking Polish)
(Interpreter in French) They thought the Germans made him sing on the river.
(Men speaking Polish)
(Interpreter) He was a toy to amuse them.
He had to do it.
He sang, but his heart wept.
(Lanzmann in French) Do their hearts weep thinking about that now?
- (Men reply) - (Interpreter) Certainly, very much so.
(Man ♪2 continues)
(Interpreter) They still talk about it around the family table.
(Man ♪2 continues)
It was public, so everyone knew of it.
(Speaks Polish)
He said that was true German irony...
...people were being killed, and he had to sing.
That's what I thought.
(Lanzmann) What died in him in Chelmno?
(Speaks Yiddish)
(Female Interpreter ♪2 in French) Everything died.
But he's only human, and he wants to live.
So he must forget.
The other survivor: MICHAEL PODCHLEBNIK - ISRAEL
(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)
He thanks God for what remains and that he can forget.
And let's not talk about that.
(Lanzmann) Does he think it's good to talk about it?
(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)
For me it's not good.
(Lanzmann) Then why is he talking about it?
(Speaking Yiddish)
Because you're insisting on it.
He was sent books on the Eichmann trial, where he was a witness,
and he didn't even read them.
(Lanzmann) He survived, but is he really alive, or...?
(Interpreter) At the time, he felt as if he were dead,
because he never thought he'd survive,
but... he's alive.
(Lanzmann) Why does he smile all the time?
(Interpreter) What do you want him to do, cry?
Sometimes you smile, sometimes you cry.
And if you're alive, it's better to smile.
(Lanzmann in French) Why was she so curious about this story?
(Female Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
(Speaking Hebrew)
HANNA ZAIDL - ISRAEL
DAUGHTER OF MOTKE ZAIDL, SURVIVOR OF VILNA (LITHUANIA)
(Interpreter ♪3 in French) It's a long story.
As a child, I had little contact with my father.
He went out to work, and I didn't see much of him.
Besides, he was a silent man, he didn't talk to me.
And when I grew up and was strong enough to face him,
I questioned him. I never stopped questioning him
until I got at the scraps oftruth he couldn't tell me.
It came out haltingly.
I had to tear the details out of him,
and finally, when Mr. Lanzmann came,
I heard the whole story for the second time.
MOTKE ZAIDL
BEN SHEMEN FOREST, ISRAEL
(Motke speaks Hebrew)
(Interpreter ♪3 in French) The place resembles Ponary: the forest, the ditches.
It's as if the bodies were burned here.
Except there were no stones in Ponary.
PONARY: FOREST WHERE MOST VILNA JEWS WERE MASSACRED
(Lanzmann) But the Lithuanian forests are denser than the Israeli forest, no?
(Interpreter ♪3 speaks Hebrew)
- (Motke replies) - Of course.
(Motke continues)
(Interpreter) The trees are similar, but taller and fuller in Lithuania.
FOREST OF THE EXTERMINATION CAMP AT SOBIBOR, POLAND
(Lanzmann in French) Is there still hunting here in Sobibor forest?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 speaks Polish)
(Man replies in Polish)
(Interpreter) Yes, there are lots of animals of all kinds.
(Lanzmann) Was there hunting then?
(Man replies in Polish)
(Interpreter) Only man hunting.
JAN PIWONSKI
(Speaks Polish)
(Interpreter) Some victims tried to escape.
But they didn't know the area.
At times people heard explosions in the minefield.
Sometimes they'd find a deer,
and sometimes a poor Jew who tried to escape.
(Piwonski continues)
That's the charm of our forests: the silence and beauty.
(Piwonski continues)
But it wasn't always so silent here.
There was a time when it was full of screams
and gunshots,
of dogs' barking.
(Piwonski continues)
And that period especially
is engraved on the minds of the people
who lived here then.
(Piwonski continues)
After the revolt, the Germans decided to liquidate the camp,
and early in the winter of 1943,
they planted pines that were three or four years old
to camouflage all the traces.
That screen of trees?
Yes.
(Lanzmann) That's where the mass graves were?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 speaks Polish)
Yes.
(Piwonski continues)
When he first came here in 1944,
you couldn't guess what had happened here,
that these trees were hiding the secret of a death camp.
(Lanzmann) How did he react, the first time he unloaded corpses,
when the gas van doors were opened?
(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)
What could he do? He cried.
The third day, he saw his wife and children.
He placed his wife in the grave and asked to be killed.
The Germans said he was strong enough to work,
that he wouldn't be killed yet.
(Lanzmann) Was the weather very cold?
(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)
(Podchlebnik replies)
It was in the winter of 1942, in early January.
(Lanzmann) At that time, the bodies weren't burned, just buried?
(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)
(Podchlebnik replies)
No, they were buried, and each row was covered with dirt.
They weren't being burned yet.
There were around four or five layers.
The ditches were funnel-shaped.
(Podchlebnik continues)
They dumped the bodies in these ditches,
and they had to lay them out like herrings, head to foot.
(Lanzmann) So it was they who dug up and burned all the Jews of Vilna?
Yes.
(Man speaks Hebrew)
(Interpreter ♪3 in French) In early January 1944,
we began digging up the bodies.
(Man continues)
When the last mass grave was opened,
I recognised my whole family.
(Lanzmann in French) Whom in his family did he recognise?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
Mum and my sisters. Three sisters with their kids.
They were all in there.
(Lanzmann) How could he recognise them?
ITZHAK DUGIN: SURVIVOR OF VILNA
They'd been in the earth 4 months,
and it was winter.
They were very well preserved.
I recognised their faces, their clothes too.
(Lanzmann) They'd been killed relatively recently?
(Interpreter ♪3 speaking Hebrew)
Yes.
(Lanzmann) And it was the last grave?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
- (Dugin replies) - Yes.
(Lanzmann) The Nazi plan was for them to open the graves
starting with the oldest?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
Yes.
The last graves were the newest,
and we started with the oldest, those of the first ghetto.
In the first grave, there were 24,000 bodies.
(Motke speaks Hebrew)
(Interpreter ♪3) The deeper you dug, the flatter the bodies were.
Each was almost a flat slab.
(Motke continues)
When you tried to grasp a body, it crumbled,
it was impossible to pick them up.
We had to open the graves, but without tools.
They said, "Get used to working with your hands."
(Lanzmann) With just their hands?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
Yes.
When we first opened the graves,
we couldn't help it, we all burst out sobbing.
But the Germans almost beat us to death.
We had to work at a killing pace for two days,
beaten all the time, and with no tools.
(Lanzmann) They all burst out sobbing?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
(Motke continues)
The Germans even forbade us
to use the words "corpse" or "victim."
The dead were blocks of wood, shit,
with absolutely no importance...
(Dugin speaks Hebrew)
Anyone who said "corpse" or "victim" was beaten.
(Dugin continues)
The Germans made us refer to the bodies as "Figuren,"
that is, as puppets, as dolls...
- Schmattes. - As "Schmattes," which means "rags."
(Lanzmann) Were they told at the start
how many "Figuren" there were in all the graves?
(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)
(Motke replies)
The head of the Vilna Gestapo told us,
"There are 90,000 people lying there,
and absolutely no trace must be left of them."
(In German) It was at the end of November 1942.
They chased us away from our work
and back to our barracks.
Suddenly,
from the part of the camp called
the death camp,
flames shot up very high.
In a flash, the whole countryside,
the whole camp seemed ablaze.
It was already dark.
We went into our barracks
and ate...
And from the window,
we kept on watching the fantastic backdrop of flames
of every imaginable colour,
red, yellow, green, purple.
And suddenly one of us stood up.
We knew he'd been an opera singer in Warsaw.
His name was Salve, and...
- (Lanzmann) Salve? - Salve.
Facing that curtain of fire,
he began chanting a song
I didn't know:
"My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken us?"
RICHARD GLAZAR - BASEL, SWITZERLAND
"We have been thrust into the fire before,
but we have never denied Thy Holy Law."
He sang in Yiddish,
while, behind him,
blazed the pyres
on which they had begun then, in November 1942,
to burn the bodies in Treblinka.
That was the first time it happened.
We knew that night
that the dead would no longer be buried,
they'd be burned.
TREBLINKA
(Interpreter) When things were ready, they poured on fuel
and touched off the fire.
They waited for a high wind.
The pyres usually burned for 7 or 8 days.
(Srebnik) There was a concrete platform some distance away,
and the bones that hadn't burned,
the big bones of the feet, for example,
we took...
There was a chest with two handles.
We carried the bones there,
where others had to crush them.
It was very fine,
that powdered bone.
Then it was put into sacks,
and when there were enough sacks,
we went to a bridge on the Narew river
and dumped the powder.
The current carried it off.
It drifted downstream.
(♪Srebnik sings in Polish: "Little White House")
(Lanzmann in English) You never returned to Poland since?
(Woman) No.
I wanted many times.
But what will I see?
How can I face it?
My grandparents are buried in Lodz.
And, at one point, I heard from somebody that visited Poland
that they want to level off the cemetery,
do away with the cemetery.
Now how can I return to that, to visit?
(Lanzmann) When did they die, your grandparents?
- My grandparents? - Mm-hmm.
My grandparents died in the ghetto, quickly.
They were elderly, and within a couple years...
Within a year, my grandfather died. And my grandmother the next year.
In the ghetto, yes.
PAULA BIREN - CINCINNATI, USA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ
THE JEWISH CEMETERY IN LODZ TODAY
(Crows cawing)
(Church bells ringing)
AUSCHWITZ: THE TOWN
(Lanzmann in French) Mrs. Pietyra, you live in Auschwitz?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Pietyra speak in Polish)
(Interpreter in French) Yes, I was born here.
(Lanzmann) And you've never left Auschwitz?
(Speaking Polish)
No, never.
(Lanzmann) Were there Jews in Auschwitz before the war?
(Interpreter) They made up 80% of the population.
(Speaking Polish)
They even had a synagogue here.
(Lanzmann) Just one?
- Just one, I think. - (Lanzmann) Does it still exist?
No, it was wrecked.
There's something else there now.
(Lanzmann) Was there a Jewish cemetery in Auschwitz?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 speaking Polish)
It still exists. It's closed now.
- It still exists? - Yes.
(Lanzmann) Closed? What does that mean?
They don't bury there now.
(♪Congregation sings Polish hymn)
(Lanzmann in French) Was there a synagogue in Wlodawa?
(Speaking Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Yes, and it's very beautiful.
(Speaking Polish)
When Poland was ruled by the czars,
that synagogue already existed.
It's even older than the Catholic church.
(Continues in Polish)
It's no longer used.
(Man continues)
There's no one to go to it.
(Lanzmann in French) These buildings haven't changed?
(Speaking Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Not at all. There were barrels of herrings here,
and the Jews sold fish.
There were stalls, small shops,
Jewish business, as the gentleman says.
- (Man continues) - That's Barenholz's house.
- (Man continues) - He sold wood.
(Man continues)
Lipschitz's store was there. He sold cloth.
(Lanzmann) This was Lichtenstein's.
(Interpreter ♪ 1) Lichtenstein, yes.
(Lanzmann) What was there, opposite?
A food store.
(Lanzmann) A Jewish store?
(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.
There was a notions shop here,
it sold thread, needles, odds and ends,
and there were also three barbers.
PAN FILIPOWICZ
- (Lanzmann) Was that fine house Jewish? - (Interpreter ♪ 1) It's Jewish.
- And this small one? - Also.
- And the one behind it? - These were all Jewish.
- This one on the left, too? - That one too.
(Lanzmann) Who lived in it? Borenstein? (Filipowicz) Borenstein.
- (Filipowicz continues) - He was in the cement business.
He was very handsome, and cultivated.
(Filipowicz continues)
Here there was a blacksmith named Tepper.
It was a Jewish house.
A shoemaker lived here.
(Lanzmann) What was his name? (Filipowicz) Yankel.
(Lanzmann) You get the feeling Wlodawa was a Jewish city.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
- (Filipowicz replies) - Yes, because it's true.
(Filipowicz continues)
The Poles lived farther out, the centre was wholly Jewish.
(Lanzmann in French) What happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Pietyra speak Polish)
They were expelled and resettled,
but I don't know where.
(Lanzmann) What year was that?
(Pietyra replies)
It began in 1940, which was when I moved here.
This apartment also belonged to Jews.
(Lanzmann) According to our information,
the Auschwitz Jews were "resettled," as they say,
nearby, in Benzin and Sosnowiec, in Upper Silesia.
(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes, because those were Jewish towns.
(Lanzmann) Does she know what happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
I think they all ended up in the camp.
(Lanzmann) That is, they returned to Auschwitz?
Yes.
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
(Pietyra continues)
All kinds of people from everywhere were sent here.
All the Jews came here... to die.
(Lanzmann) What did they think
when Wlodawa's Jews were all deported to Sobibor?
(Speaking Polish)
WLODAWA - SOBIBOR: 10 MILES
(In French) What could we think?
That it was the end of them, but they had foreseen that.
(Lanzmann) How so?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Even before the war, when you talked to the Jews,
they foresaw their doom.
He doesn't know how.
Even before the war, they had a premonition.
(Lanzmann) How were they taken to Sobibor? On foot?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Filipowicz replies)
It was frightful. He watched it himself.
(Filipowicz continues)
They were herded on foot to a station called Orkrobek.
(Train clacking)
(Filipowicz continues)
There, they put the old people first into waiting cattle cars...
...then the younger Jews...
...and finally the kids.
That was the worst: They threw them on top of the others.
(Lanzmann) Were there a lot of Jews in Kolo?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) A great many.
- (Man continues) - More Jews than Poles.
(Lanzmann) And what happened to the Kolo Jews?
Was he an eyewitness?
PAN FALBORSKI
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes. It was frightful.
Frightful to see.
Even the Germans hid, they couldn't see that.
When the Jews were herded to the station, they were beaten,
some were even killed.
A cart followed the convoy to pick up the corpses.
(Lanzmann) Those who couldn't walk, the slain?
Yes, those who'd fallen.
Where did this happen?
(Speaks Polish)
The Jews were collected in the Kolo synagogue.
Then they were herded to the station,
where the narrow-gauge railway went to Chelmno.
(Lanzmann) It happened to all the Jews in the area, not just in Kolo?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Falborski replies)
Absolutely.
- Everywhere. - (Falborski continues)
Jews were also murdered in the forests
near Kalisz, not far from here.
(Locomotive chugging)
(Train whistle blows)
(Man in English) There was a sign.
There was a small sign on the station of Treblinka.
I don't know if we were at the station or if we did not go up to the station.
ABRAHAM BOMBA - TEL AVIV, ISRAEL SURVIVOR OF TREBLINKA
On the line over there where we stayed,
there was a small sign, very small sign, which say "Treblinka."
That was the first time in my life I heard about that name "Treblinka,"
because nobody know.
It is not a place. There is not a city.
Or it is not even a small village.
TREBLINKA BY ROAD
Jewish people always dreamed,
and that was part of their life.
It was part of their messiah,
to dream that someday they're going to be free.
That dream was mostly true in the ghetto.
Every day, every single night,
I dreamed about a thing that's going to be good.
Not only the dream,
but the hope conserved in a dream.
The first transport from Czestochowa
was sent away at the day of the Yom Kippur.
The day before Sukkoth, there was the second transport.
I was together with them.
I know, only in my heart I know, that there's something that is not good,
because, if they take children,
if they take old people and they send them away,
that means it is not good.
What they said is they'd take them away to a place where they would be working.
But, on the other hand,
an old woman or a little child from a week or four weeks or five years,
what is he going to work?
That was a foolish thing, but, still, we had no choice.
We believed in that.
(Man speaks Polish) (Interpreter) He was born here...
in 1923...
and has been here ever since.
(Lanzmann in French) He lived at this very spot?
(Interpreter) Right here.
(Lanzmann) Then he had a front-row seat for what happened.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
- (Man replies) - Naturally.
(Man continues)
You could go up close or watch from a distance.
CZESLAW BOROWI
They had land on the far side of the station.
To work it, he had to cross the track,
so he could see everything.
(Lanzmann) Does he remember the first convoy of Jews from Warsaw
on July 22, 1942?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Borowi speaks in Polish)
He recalls the first convoy very well...
...and when all those Jews were brought here.
People wondered, "What's to be done with them?"
Clearly, they'd be killed, but no one yet knew how.
When people began to understand what was happening,
they were appalled,
and they commented privately that since the world began,
no one had ever murdered so many people that way.
(Lanzmann) While all this was happening before their eyes,
normal life went on?
- They worked their fields? - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Borowi replies)
Certainly they worked,
but not as willingly as usual.
They had to work,
but when they saw all this, they thought,
"What if our house is surrounded and we're arrested?"
(Lanzmann) Were they afraid for the Jews, too?
Well, he says it's this way...
If I cut my finger, it doesn't hurt him.
They saw what happened to the Jews,
the convoy came in and then went to the camp,
and the people vanished.
(Speak Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1) He had a field less than 100 yards from the camp.
He also worked during the German occupation.
(Lanzmann) He worked his field? (Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.
He saw how they were asphyxiated,
he heard them scream, he saw that.
There's a small hill. He could see quite a bit.
- (Laughter) - (Lanzmann) What did he say?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
They couldn't stop and watch.
It was forbidden. The Ukrainians shot at them.
(Lanzmann) But they could work a field 100 yards from the camp?
They could.
So occasionally he could steal a glance,
if the Ukrainians weren't looking.
(Lanzmann) He worked with his eyes lowered?
Yes.
(Speaks Polish)
He worked by the barbed wire and heard awful screams.
(Lanzmann) His field was there?
(Interpreter) Yes, right up close.
It wasn't forbidden to work there.
(Lanzmann) So he worked, he farmed there?
(Interpreter) Yes.
Where the camp is now was partly his field.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
It was off limits, but they heard everything.
(Lanzmann) It didn't bother him to work so near those screams?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
At first it was unbearable. Then you got used to it.
(Lanzmann) You get used to anything?
Yes.
Now he thinks... it's impossible.
Yet it was true.
(Speaking in Polish)
So he saw the convoys arriving.
There were 60 to 80 cars in each convoy,
and there were two locomotives
that took the convoys into the camp,
taking 20 cars at a time.
And the cars came back empty?
(Speaking Polish)
- Yes. - Does he remember...?
Here's how it happened.
The locomotive picked up 20 cars
and took them to the camp.
That took maybe an hour,
and the empty cars came back here.
Then the next 20 cars were taken,
and meanwhile, the people in the first 20 were already dead.
(Man speaks Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1) They waited, they wept...
...they asked for water, they died.
Sometimes they were naked in the cars, up to 170 people.
(Interpreter) This is where they gave the Jews water, he says.
(Lanzmann) Where was that?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Here. When the convoys arrived, they gave water to the Jews.
(Lanzmann) Who gave the Jews water?
We did, the Poles.
There was a tiny well, we took a bottle and...
(Lanzmann) Wasn't it dangerous to give them water?
Very dangerous.
You could be killed for giving a glass of water.
But we gave them water anyway.
(Lanzmann) Is it very cold here in winter?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 and man speak Polish)
It depends.
It can get to minus 15, minus 20.
(Lanzmann) Which was harder on the Jews, summer or winter?
- Waiting here, I mean. - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Man replies)
He thinks winter, because they were very cold.
(Man continues)
They were so packed in the cars, maybe they weren't cold.
In summer they stifled, it was very hot.
The Jews were very thirsty. They tried to get out.
(Lanzmann) Were there corpses in the cars on arrival?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Obviously.
Yes.
They were so packed in
that even those still alive sat on corpses for lack of space.
(Lanzmann) Didn't people here who went by the trains
look through the cracks in the cars?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes, they could look in sometimes as they went by.
When they were allowed, they gave them water, too.
(Lanzmann) Yes. How did the Jews try to get out?
The doors weren't opened. How'd they get out?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Through the windows.
They removed the barbed wire. Yes.
And came out of the windows. They jumped, of course.
Sometimes they just deliberately sat down on the ground,
and the guards came and shot them in the head.
(Speaking Polish)
They jumped from the cars. What a sight!
Jumping from the windows.
There was a mother and child.
- (Lanzmann) Jewish? - Yes.
She tried to run away,
and they shot her in the heart.
- Shot who? The mother? - Yes, the mother.
This gentleman has lived here a long time, he can't forget.
He says that now he can't understand
how a man can do that to another human being.
It's inconceivable, beyond understanding.
Once when the Jews asked for water, a Ukrainian went by
and forbade giving any.
The Jewish woman that had asked for water
threw her pot at his head.
The Ukrainian moved back,
maybe ten yards, and opened fire on the car.
Blood and brains were all over the place.
(Borowi speaks Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1) Lots of people opened the doors...
...or escaped through the windows.
Sometimes the Ukrainians fired through the car walls.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
It happened chiefly at night.
When the Jews talked to each other, as he showed us,
the Ukrainians wanted things quiet,
and they asked... yes, asked them to shut up.
So the Jews shut up and the guard moved off.
Then the Jews started talking again in their language,
as he says, Ra-Ra-Ra, and so on.
What's he mean, la-la-la? What's he trying to imitate?
- Their language. - No, ask him.
Was the Jews' noise something special?
They spoke Jew.
Yes.
Does Mr. Borowi understand "Jew"?
No.
(Bomba) We were in that wagon.
The wagon was rolling, rolling in the direction east.
A funny thing happened right there.
Maybe it's not nice to say, but I will say it.
Most of the people, not only most, but 99% of the Polish people,
when they saw the train going through...
We looked really like animals in that wagon,
just our eyes looked outside.
And they were laughing, and they were all...
They had a joy, because they took the Jewish people away.
What was going on in the wagon between the people,
and the pushing and the screaming...
"Where is my child?" and, "Where is my this?"
and "A little bit of water!"
And people were not only starving, but they were choking.
It was hot. It happened... Just it happened...
The Jewish luck...
in September, at that time, usually when it is rainy, when it is cool,
that it was hot like hell.
We had nothing inside.
For a child, you know, like my own child about the age of three weeks,
there was not a drop of water.
There wasn't a drop of water for the mother,
there wasn't a drop of water for anybody else.
(Whistle blows)
(Lanzmann in French) Did he hear screams behind his locomotive?
(Whistle blows)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Man replies)
Obviously, since the locomotive was next to the camp.
They screamed, asked for water.
The screams from the cars closest to the locomotive
could be heard very well.
(Lanzmann) Can one get used to that?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Man replies)
No.
It was extremely distressing to him.
He knew that the people behind him were human, like him.
(Whistle blows)
The Germans gave him and the other workers vodka to drink.
Without drinking, they couldn't have done it.
(Man continues)
There was a bonus...
...that they were paid not in money, but in liquor.
(Man continues)
Those who worked on other trains didn't get this bonus.
(Whistle blows)
HENRIK GAWKOWSKI
(Interpreter) He drank every drop he got,
because without liquor he couldn't stand the stench
when he got here.
They even bought more liquor on their own
to get drunk on.
(Bomba) We arrived in the morning.
We arrived, I would say, about 6:00, maybe 6:30.
On the other side of the tracks,
I saw more trains standing there,
and I was watching through...
I saw about 18, 20, maybe more, wagons going away.
And after about an hour or so,
I saw the wagons coming back, but without the people.
My train stayed there until about 12:00.
(Lanzmann) From the station to the unloading ramp in the camp,
how many miles?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Four.
(Bomba) While we stayed there, at that station over there,
waiting to go in Treblinka camp,
some of those German SS, they came around,
and they were asking us what we have.
So we said, "We got... Some of the people, they have... gold.
"They have diamonds.
"But we want water."
So they said, "Good.
"Give us the diamonds, we bring you water."
Yeah, they took them away and they didn't bring any water at all.
(Lanzmann) How long did last the trip?
The trip lasted from Czestochowa to Treblinka
about 24 hours,
with interruption waiting in Warsaw
and also waiting at Treblinka to go into Treblinka.
ABRAHAM BOMBA
At the last train, we went in over there.
But, like I mentioned before,
I saw many trains coming back,
but the trains were without the people.
So I said to myself, "What happened to the people?
We don't see any people, just trains coming back."
(Train clacking)
(Glazar in German) We travelled for two days.
On the morning of the second day,
we saw that we had left Czechoslovakia
and were heading east.
(Train whistle blows)
It wasn't the SS guarding us,
but the Schutzpolizei,
the police, in green uniforms.
We were in ordinary passenger cars.
All the seats were filled.
You couldn't choose.
They were all numbered and assigned.
In my compartment there was an elderly couple.
I still remember...
The good man was always hungry and his wife scolded him,
saying they'd have no food left for the future.
RICHARD GLAZAR
(Whistle blows)
Then, on the second day,
I saw a sign for Malkinia.
We went on a little farther.
Then, very slowly,
the train turned off the main track
and rolled at a walking pace through a wood.
While he looked out,
we'd been able to open a window.
The old man in our compartment saw a boy...
Cows were grazing...
And he asked the boy in signs,
"Where are we?"
And the kid made a funny gesture. This!
Across the throat.
- (Lanzmann) A Pole? - A Pole.
Where was this? At the station?
It was where the train had stopped.
On one side was the wood,
and on the other were fields.
And there was a farmer in a field?
We saw cows
which were watched over by a young man,
a farmhand.
And one of you questioned him?
Not in words, but in signs, we asked, "What's going on here?"
And he made that gesture. Like this.
We didn't really pay much attention to him.
We couldn't figure out what he meant.
(Dogs barking)
(Man speaks Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Once there were foreign Jews...
- They were this fat. - (Lanzmann) This fat?
Riding in passenger cars.
There was a dining car, they could drink and walk around too.
They said they were going to a factory.
On arrival, they saw what kind of a factory it was.
(Men speaking Polish)
(Interpreter) We'd gesture... (Lanzmann) Gesture how?
(Interpreter) That they'd be killed. (Lanzmann) They made that sign?
He says the Jews didn't believe it.
(Lanzmann) But what does that gesture mean?
That death awaited them.
The people who had a chance to get near the Jews
did that to warn them...
- (Lanzmann) He did it too? - That they'd be hanged, killed, slain.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes.
Even foreign Jews from Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
from France too, surely.
And from Holland...
These didn't know,
but the Polish Jews knew.
In the small cities in the area,
it was talked about.
So the Polish Jews were forewarned, but not the others.
Who'd they warn, Polish Jews or the others?
All the Jews.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
He says the foreign Jews arrived here in passenger cars,
they were well dressed, in white shirts,
there were flowers in the cars, and they played cards.
(Lanzmann in French) From what I know, that was very rare,
Jews shipped in passenger cars.
Most arrived in cattle cars.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
It's not true.
(Lanzmann) It's not true?
(Woman speaks Polish)
(Lanzmann) What did Mrs. Gawkowska say?
(Interpreter ♪ 1) She said he may not have seen everything.
(Interpreter ♪ 1) He says he did.
Once, at the Malkinia station, for example,
a foreign Jew left the train
to buy something at the bar.
The train pulled out and he ran after it.
(Lanzmann) To catch up to it? (Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.
So he went past these "Pullmans," as he calls them,
those Jews who were calm, unsuspecting,
and he made that gesture to them.
(Speaks Polish)
Yes.
To all the Jews, in principle.
He just went along the platform? Ask him.
Yes. The road was as it is now.
When the guard wasn't looking,
he made that gesture.
(Lanzmann) Ask Mr. Gawkowski why he looks so sad.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Because I saw men marching to their death.
(Lanzmann) Precisely where are we now?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
It's not far, a mile and a halffrom here.
- (Lanzmann) What, the camp? - Yes.
Yes.
(Lanzmann) What's that dirt road he's indicating?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
That's where the rail line into the camp was.
(Lanzmann) Did Mr. Gawkowski, aside from the trains of deportees
that he drove from Warsaw or Bialystok to Treblinka station,
did he ever drive the deportee cars
into the camp from Treblinka station?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes.
- (Lanzmann) Did he do it often? - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Two or three times a week.
(Lanzmann) Over how long a period?
Around a year and a half.
(Lanzmann) That is, throughout the camp's existence?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes.
- (Lanzmann) This is the ramp. - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Here he is, he goes to the end with his locomotive,
and he has the 20 cars behind him.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
No, they're in front of him.
He pushed them?
That's right, he pushed them.
(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.
(Piwonski speaks Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1) In February 1942,
I began working here as an assistant switchman.
(Lanzmann) The station building, the rails, the platforms
are just as they were in 1942?
- Nothing's changed? - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Nothing.
Exactly where did the camp begin?
JAN PIWONSKI
I'll show you exactly.
Here,
there was a fence that ran to those trees you see there.
(Lanzmann) Yes.
And another fence that ran to those trees over there.
So I'm standing inside the camp perimeter, right?
That's right.
Where I am now is 50 feet from the station,
and I'm already outside the camp.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Piwonski speak Polish)
Yes.
So this is the Polish part, and over there was death?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Yes.
(Piwonski continues)
On German orders, Polish railmen split up the trains.
So the locomotive took 20 cars
and headed toward Chelm.
When it reached a switch...
...it pushed the cars into the camp on the other track we can see.
The ramp began there.
So here we're outside the camp,
and back here we enter it.
Unlike Treblinka, the station here is part of the camp.
Yes...
And at this point, we are inside the camp.
(Interpreter ♪ 1) This track was inside the camp.
And it's exactly as it was? Hmm?
Yes, the same track.
It hasn't changed since then.
Where we are now is what was called the ramp, right?
Yes, those to be exterminated were unloaded here.
So where we're standing
is where 250,000 Jews were unloaded before being gassed?
Yes.
(Lanzmann) Did foreign Jews arrive here in passenger cars, too?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
Not always.
(Piwonski continues)
Often the richest Jews...
...from Belgium, Holland, France...
...arrived in passenger cars...
...sometimes even in 1st class.
They were usually better treated by the guards.
Especially the convoys of Western European Jews
waiting their turn here,
Polish railmen saw the women putting on make-up, combing their hair,
wholly unaware of what awaited them minutes later.
Yes.
They dolled up.
And the Poles couldn't tell them anything,
the guards forbade contact with the future victims.
(Lanzmann) I suppose there were fine days like today.
(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Piwonski in Polish)
Unfortunately, some were even finer.
RUDOLF VRBA - NEW YORK, USA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ
(Vrba) There was a place called the ramp,
where the trains with the Jews were coming in, in Auschwitz.
They were coming in day or night,
and sometimes one per day, and sometimes five per day,
from all sorts of places in the world.
I worked there from August 18, 1942
until June 7, 1943.
I saw those transports rolling one after the other,
and I am sure that I have seen at least two hundred of them, in this position.
I have seen it so many times that it became a routine.
Constantly, people from the heart of Europe were disappearing,
and they were arriving to the same place
with the same ignorance of the fate of the previous transports.
And that people in this mass...
And I knew, of course, that within a couple of hours after they arrived there,
90% of them will be gassed, or something like that. I knew that.
And somehow, in my thinking, it... I could...
it was difficult for me to comprehend that people can disappear in this way,
and nothing is going to happen,
and then there comes the next transport,
and they don't know anything about what happened to the previous transport,
and this is going on for months and months, on and on.
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
So what happened was the following:
say, a transport of Jews was announced to come at 2:00.
So when the transport arrived to close stations from Auschwitz,
the announcement came to the SS.
Now, one SS man came and woke us up.
We had to get up and move to the ramp.
We immediately got an escort in the night,
and we were escorted to the ramp.
Say, we were about 200 men.
And lights went on.
There was a ramp.
Around the ramp were lights,
and under those lights were the cordon of the SS.
There was one every 10 yards, with a gun in the hand.
So, we were in the middle, the prisoners,
and we were waiting,
waiting for the train, waiting for the next order.
Now, when all this was done, everybody was there,
the transport was rolled in.
This means in a very slow fashion.
The locomotive, which was always at the front,
was coming to the ramp,
and that was the end of the railway line.
That was the end of the line for everybody who was on the train.
And, now, the train stopped, and...
the gangster elite marched on the ramp.
And in front of every second or every third wagon,
and sometimes in front of every wagon,
one of those Unterscharführers...
...was standing with a key
and opened the locks,
because the wagons were locked.
Now, inside, there were people, of course,
and you could see the people looking through the windows,
because they didn't know what's happening.
They had many stops on their journey.
Some of them were 10 days on the journey.
Some were two days on the journey.
And they didn't know what this particular stop means.
Now, the door was opened.
And the first order they were given was,
"Alle heraus!" "Everybody out!"
In order to make it quite clear,
they usually started with those walking sticks
to hit the first, the second, the third, who were...
They were... They were...
They were like sardines in those cars.
If they expected on that day four, five, six transports,
the pressure of getting out from the wagons was high.
Then they used sticks, clubs, cursing, et cetera, et cetera.
Sometimes, the SS, if it was good weather,
they used to deal with it differently.
I mean, I was not surprised if they were in a different mood and...
and exhibited a lot of humour,
like saying, "Good morning, Madam,"
and, "Will you please walk out?"
- (Lanzmann) It happened? - Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
And, "How nice that you arrived.
"We are so sorry that it wasn't too convenient,
"but now things will become different."
(Bomba) When we came into Treblinka,
we didn't know who the people were.
Some of them, they had armbands, some of them red.
Some of them, they had blue, Jewish kommando.
Falling out from the train
and pushing out each other
and, over there, losing each other,
and the... and the... and the crying and the hollering.
And, coming out,
we started on one way to the right, one to the left,
the women to the left and the men on the right.
And...
we had no time to even look at each other,
because they start hitting over the head
with all kinds of things.
And...
it is very, very...
Painful, it was.
You didn't know what had happened.
You had no time to think.
All you heard is crying.
And all you heard, all the time, was the hollering of the people.
(In German) And suddenly it started,
the yelling and screaming.
"All out, everybody out!"
All those shouts, the uproar, the tumult!
"Out! Get out!
"Leave the baggage!"
We got out, stepping on each other.
We saw men wearing blue armbands.
Some carried whips.
We saw some SS men.
Green uniforms,
black uniforms...
We were a mass...
And the mass swept us along.
It was irresistible. It had to move to another place.
I saw the others undressing.
And I heard, "Get undressed! You're to be disinfected!"
As I waited, already naked,
I noticed the SS men separating out some people.
These were told to get dressed.
A passing SS man suddenly stopped in front of me,
looked me over, and said,
"Yes, you too, quick, join the others, get dressed.
"You're going to work here, and if you're good,
"you can be a kapo, a squad leader."
(Bomba) At my transport, I was waiting, already naked.
A man came over and asked, "You, you, you, step out."
We stepped out,
and they took us a little bit to the side.
Some of the people from the transport,
they had an idea what is going on,
and they know already that they will not stay alive.
Pushing the people, they didn't want to go,
or they knew already where they go,
to that big door.
The hollering and the crying and the shouting
what was going over there on,
it was impossible.
The cries and the hollers was in your ears and in your mind
for days and days,
and, at night, the same thing.
From that hollering, you could not even sleep a couple nights of that.
All of a sudden, at one time, everything stopped,
like by a command.
It was all quiet,
the place where the people went in.
Just like on a command.
Like everything was dead.
Then, they told us to make clean the whole place.
It was about 2,000 people
which they undressed on the outside.
To take the whole thing away and to clear up the place,
and that has to be done in minutes.
Some of the Germans, some of the other people that were there,
the Ukrainians or the other ones,
they start shouting and hitting us that we should do it faster,
to carry the bundles on our backs faster to the main place,
where it was big places of clothes,
of shoes, of other things.
In no time, this was clean,
just like it never happened,
that never was people on that place again.
There was no trace, not at all.
Like a magic thing, everything disappeared.
BIRKENAU: THE RAMP
(Vrba) Whenever a new transport came,
the ramp was cleaned absolutely to zero point.
No trace from the previous transport was allowed to remain.
Not one trace.
(Glazar in German) We were taken to the barracks.
The whole place stank.
Piled about five feet high
in a jumbled mass,
were all the things people could conceivably have brought.
Clothes, suitcases,
everything stacked in a solid mass.
On top of it, jumping around like demons,
people were making bundles
and carrying them outside.
I was turned over to one of these men.
His armband said, "Squad Leader."
He shouted,
and I understood that I was also to pick up clothing, bundle it,
and take it somewhere.
As I worked, I asked him,
"What's going on? The undressed ones, where are they?"
And he replied, "Dead! All dead!"
But it still hadn't sunk in, I didn't believe it.
He'd used the Yiddish word.
It was the first time I'd heard Yiddish spoken.
He didn't say it very loud,
and I saw he had tears in his eyes.
Suddenly he started shouting
and raised his whip.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw an SS man coming.
And I understood that I was to ask no more questions,
but just to rush outside with the package.
(Bomba) At that time, we start working
in that place which they call Treblinka.
And still, I couldn't believe what had happened
over there on the other side of the gate,
where the people went in, disappeared,
or everything got quiet.
But in a minute, we find out,
when we start to ask the people which they worked before us
what had happened with them.
They said, "What do you mean, what happened? Don't you know that?
"They're all gassed. They're all killed."
It was impossible to say something
because we were just like stones.
We couldn't mention what had happened to the wife,
what had happened to the kid.
"What do you mean, wife? What do you mean, kid?
"Nobody is anymore alive!"
"What do you mean, they're not alive? How could they...?
"How could they kill, how could they gas so many people at once?"
But they had their way how to do it.
(Glazar) All I could think of then was my friend Carel Unger.
He'd been at the rear of the train,
in a section that had been uncoupled and left outside.
I needed someone. Near me. With me.
Then I saw him. He was in the 2nd group.
He'd been spared too.
On the way, somehow, he had learned, he already knew.
He looked at me,
all he said was, "Richard, my father, mother, brother..."
He had learned on the way there.
(Lanzmann) Your meeting with Carel,
how long after your arrival did it happen?
It was... around 20 minutes after we reached Treblinka.
Then I left the barracks
and had my first look at the vast space
that I soon learned was called "the sorting place."
It was buried under mountains of objects of all kinds.
Mountains of shoes, of clothes, 30 feet high.
I thought about it and said to Carel,
"It's a hurricane, a raging sea.
"We're shipwrecked. And we're still alive.
"We must do nothing
"but watch for every new wave,
"float on it,
"get ready for the next wave,
"and ride the wave at all costs.
"And nothing else."
That's how the day went through,
without anything.
No drinking.
We were 24 hours without water, without anything.
We couldn't drink.
We couldn't have anything taken into our mouths,
because it was impossible.
Just the meaning that before...
a minute, an hour before,
you were part of a family,
you were part of a wife or a husband,
and now, all of a sudden, everything is dead.
We went into a special barrack,
where I was sleeping right next to the wall.
And over there, that night,
it was the most horrible night for all the people,
because the memory of all those things,
what people went through with each other,
all the joys and the happiness,
and the births and the weddings and other things,
and all of a sudden, in one second,
to cut that through without anything,
and without any guilt of the people,
because the people were not guilty at all.
The only guilt from them was because they were Jewish people.
Most of us, we were all up at night,
trying to talk to each other, which was not allowed.
The commandant was sleeping in the same barrack.
We were not allowed to talk to each other
or to express our view or our minds to each other
until the morning, at 5:00,
we start going out from the barracks.
In the morning,
when they had an Appelle to go out from the barracks,
from our group,
I would say at least four or five were dead.
I don't know how the thing happened that, what?
They must have with them some kind of... some kind of poison
in which they poisoned themselves.
Some of them there,
I would say at least of them were my friends,
two of my close friends.
They didn't say anything.
We didn't even know that they have with them poison.
(Glazar in German) Greenery, sand everywhere else.
At night, we were put into barracks.
It just had a sand floor.
Nothing else.
Each of us simply dropped where he stood.
Half asleep, I heard some men hang themselves.
We didn't react then. It was almost normal.
Just as it was normal
that for everyone behind whom the gate of Treblinka closed,
there was death, had to be death,
for no one was supposed to be left to bear witness.
I already knew that,
three hours after arriving at Treblinka.
(♪ Man sings in German: "Mandolinen um Mitternacht")
BERLIN
(Woman) This is no longer home, you see?
And, especially, it's no longer home
when they start telling me that they didn't know, they didn't know.
They say they didn't see.
"Yes, there were Jews living in our house.
"One day, they were no longer there.
"We didn't know what happened."
They couldn't help seeing it. It was not a matter of one action.
These were actions that were taking place over almost two years.
There was always... Every fortnight people were torn out of the houses.
How could they escape it? How could they not see it?
I remember that day on which they made Berlin judenrein.
The people hastened in the streets. They didn't want to be in the street.
You could see the streets were absolutely empty.
They didn't want to look, you know?
They sort of hastened to buy what they had to buy.
It was Saturday, and they had to buy something for the Sunday, you see?
So they went shopping and hastened back into their houses.
And I remember this day very vividly,
because we saw police cars
rushing through the streets of Berlin,
taking people out of the houses.
They had herded together from factories, from the houses,
wherever they could find the Jews,
and had put them into something that was called Klu.
Klu was a dance restaurant, a very big one.
From there, they were deported in various transports.
They were going off not far from here,
on one of the tracks of the Bahnhof Grunewald.
And this was a day when I felt so...
suddenly so utterly alone,
so utterly left alone...
...because now I knew we would be one of the very few people left.
I didn't know how many more would be underground.
And this was a day when I felt very guilty that I didn't go myself,
that I tried to escape a fate that the others could not escape.
There was no more warmth around, no more soul akin to us, you understand?
And we talked about this.
"What happened to Elsa, and what happened to Hans?"
"Where is he, and where is she? Do you know this?"
"My God, what happened to the child?"
You know, these were our talks on that horrible day.
This feeling of being terribly alone and terribly guilty that we did not go...
- (Lanzmann) Guilty? - That we did not go with them.
(Man shouting in German)
Why did we try? Why? Why?
What made us do this,
to escape a fate that was really our destiny
or the destiny of our people?
INGE DEUTSCHKRON BORN IN BERLIN
LIVED THERE THROUGH THE WAR
IN HIDING BEGINNING IN FEBRUARY 1943
NOW LIVES IN ISRAEL
FRANZ SUCHOMEL: SS Unterscharführer
(Lanzmann in German) Are you ready? (Suchomel in German) Yes.
- (Lanzmann) Then we can... - We can begin.
(Lanzmann) We can begin.
(Lanzmann) How's your heart? Is everything in order?
(Suchomel) Oh, my heart... For the moment, it's all right.
If I have any pain, I'll tell you.
- We'll have to break off. - (Lanzmann) Of course.
But your health, in general, is...
(Suchomel) The weather today suits me fine.
The barometric pressure is high. That's good for me.
(Lanzmann) You look to be in good shape, anyway.
- Let's begin with Treblinka. - Certainly.
(Lanzmann) I think that's best.
If you could give us...
...a description of Treblinka.
How did it look when you arrived?
- I believe you got there in August? - Mid-August.
- Was it August 20 or 24? - 18th.
- The 18th? - I don't know exactly.
Around August 20.
(Lanzmann) Yes.
(Suchomel) I arrived there with seven other men.
- (Lanzmann) From Berlin? - From Berlin.
(Lanzmann) From Lublin?
(Suchomel) From Berlin to Warsaw, from Warsaw to Lublin,
from Lublin back to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Treblinka.
(Lanzmann) What was Treblinka like then?
Treblinka then was operating at full capacity.
- Full capacity? - Full capacity.
Trains arrived...
The Warsaw ghetto was being emptied then.
Yes.
Three trains arrived in two days...
...each with three, four, five thousand people aboard,
all from Warsaw.
But at the same time, other trains came in
from Kielce and other places.
So three trains arrived,
and since the offensive against Stalingrad was in fear,
the trainloads of Jews were left on a station siding.
What's more, the cars were French,
made of steel.
So that while 5,000 Jews arrived in Treblinka,
3,000 were dead.
In the cars.
They had slashed their wrists,
or just died.
The ones we unloaded were half-dead
and... half-mad.
In the other trains from Kielce
and elsewhere,
at least halfwere dead.
We stacked them here, here,
here and here.
Thousands of people
piled one on top of another.
- (Lanzmann) On the ramp? - On the ramp.
Stacked like wood.
In addition,
other Jews, still alive, waited there for two days.
The small gas chambers could no longer handle the number.
They functioned day and night in that period.
Can you please describe, very precisely,
your first impression of Treblinka?
Very precisely. It's very important.
My first impression of Treblinka,
and that of some of the other men, was catastrophic.
For we had not been told
how and what... that people were being killed there.
They hadn't told us.
- You didn't know? - No.
That's incredible.
But true. I didn't want to go.
- That was proved at my trial. - Yes.
I was told,
"Mr. Suchomel,
"there are big workshops there for tailors and shoemakers,
"and you'll be guarding them."
- Yes. - Nothing more.
But you knew it was a camp?
Yes, we were told,
"The Führer ordered a resettlement program.
"That's an order from the Führer."
- Understand? - Resettlement program...
A resettlement program.
No one ever spoke of killing.
(Lanzmann) I understand.
Mr. Suchomel, we're not discussing you,
only Treblinka.
You are a very important eyewitness,
and you can explain what Treblinka was.
- (Suchomel) But don't use my name. - No, I promise.
(Suchomel mutters)
(Lanzmann) All right, you've arrived at Treblinka.
(Suchomel) So Stadie, the sarge, showed us the camp
From end to end.
Just as we went by,
they were opening the gas chamber doors,
and people fell out like potatoes.
Naturally, that horrified and appalled us.
We went back and sat down on our suitcases
and cried like old women.
Each day, 100 Jews were chosen
to drag the corpses to the mass graves.
In the evening, the Ukrainians drove those Jews into the gas chambers
or shot them.
Every day.
It was in the hottest days of August.
The ground undulated like waves
because of the gas.
- (Lanzmann) From the bodies? - Yes.
Bear in mind, the graves were maybe 18, 20 feet deep.
All crammed with bodies.
A thin layer of sand and the heat. You see?
It was hell up there.
- (Lanzmann) You saw that? - Yes, just once, the first day.
We puked and wept.
- You wept? - We wept too, yes.
- The smell was infernal. - Infernal?
Yes, because gas was constantly escaping.
It stank horribly, for miles around.
- Miles? - Miles!
- You could smell it all around? - All around!
Not just in the camp?
Everywhere. It depended on the wind.
The stink was carried on the wind.
Understand?
(Suchomel) More people kept coming, always more,
whom we hadn't the facilities to kill.
Those gents were in a rush to clean out the Warsaw ghetto.
The gas chambers couldn't handle the load.
The small gas chambers.
The Jews had to wait their turn
for a day, 2 days, 3 days.
They foresaw what was coming.
They foresaw it.
They may not have been certain, but many knew.
There were Jewish women
who slashed their daughters' wrists at night,
then cut their own.
Others poisoned themselves.
They heard the engine feeding the gas chamber.
A tank engine was used in that gas chamber.
At Treblinka, the only gas used was engine exhaust.
Zyklon gas, that was Auschwitz.
Because of the delay,
Eberl, the camp commandant,
phoned Lublin and said,
"We can't go on this way. I can't do it any longer.
"We have to break off."
Overnight, Wirth arrived.
He inspected everything and then left.
He returned with people from Belzec,
experts.
Wirth arranged to suspend the trains.
The corpses lying there were cleared away.
That was the period of the old gas chambers.
Because there were so many dead
that couldn't be gotten rid of,
for days and days,
the bodies piled up around the gas chambers.
Under this pile of bodies was a cesspool,
three inches deep, full of blood, worms...
...and shit.
- Where? - In front of the gas chamber.
No one wanted to clean it out.
The Jews preferred to be shot
rather than work there.
- Preferred to be shot? - To be shot.
It was awful. Burying their own people, seeing it all...
The dead flesh came off in their hands.
So Wirth went there himself
with a few Germans
and he had long belts rigged up
that were wrapped around the dead torsos to pull them.
- Who did that? - The SS men.
- Wirth? - SS men and Jews.
- SS men and Jews? - And Jews.
- But Jews too? - Jews too!
What did the Germans do?
They forced the Jews to...
They beat them?
Or they themselves helped with the clean-up.
Which Germans did that?
Some of our guards who were assigned up there.
- The Germans themselves? - They had to.
They were in command.
They were in command, but they were also commanded.
(Lanzmann) I think the Jews did it.
In that case, the Germans had to lend a hand.
THE BLACK EXECUTION WALL IN THE COURTYARD OF BLOCK II
AT AUSCHWITZ I, THE ORIGINAL CAMP
(Lanzmann in German) Filip, on that Sunday in May 71942,
when you first entered the Auschwitz crematorium,
how old were you?
(Filip) Twenty.
It was a Sunday in May.
We were locked in an underground cell in Block 11.
We were held in secret.
Then some SS men appeared
and marched us along a street in the camp.
We went through a gate,
and around 300 feet away,
300 feet from the gate,
I suddenly saw a building.
It had a flat roof, and a smokestack.
I saw a door in the rear.
I thought they were taking us to be shot.
FILIP MULLER - CZECH JEW
SURVIVOR OF FIVE LIQUIDATIONS OF AUSCHWITZ "SPECIAL DETAIL"
Suddenly, before a door,
under a lamp in the middle of this building,
a young SS man told us,
"Inside, filthy swine!"
We entered a corridor.
They drove us along it.
Right away, the stench, the smoke choked me.
They kept on chasing us,
and then I made out the shapes
of the first two ovens.
Between the ovens, some Jewish prisoners were working.
We were in the crematorium's incineration chamber
in Camp I at Auschwitz.
From there,
they herded us to another big room,
and told us to undress the corpses.
I looked around me.
There were hundreds of bodies,
all dressed.
Piled with the corpses
were suitcases, bundles
and, scattered everywhere,
strange, bluish-purple crystals.
I couldn't understand any of it.
It was like a blow to the head, as if you'd been stunned.
I didn't even know where I was.
Above all, I couldn't understand
how they managed to kill so many people at once.
When we undressed some of them,
the order was given to feed the ovens.
Suddenly, an SS man rushed up and told me,
"Get out of here! Go and stir the bodies!"
What did he mean, "Stir the bodies"?
I entered the cremation chamber.
There was a Jewish prisoner,
Fischel, who later became a squad leader.
He looked at me,
and I watched him poke the fire with a long rod.
He told me, "Do as I'm doing
"or the SS will kill you."
I picked up a poker
and did as he was doing.
(Lanzmann) A poker?
A steel poker.
I obeyed Fischel's order.
At that point, I was in shock as if I'd been hypnotised,
and ready to do
whatever I was told.
I was so mindless, so horrified,
that I did everything Fischel told me.
So the ovens were fed,
but we were so inexperienced
that we left the fans on too long.
- The fans? - Yes.
There were fans to make the fire hotter.
They worked too long...
The firebrick suddenly exploded,
blocking the pipes
linking the Auschwitz crematorium
with the smokestack.
Cremation was interrupted.
The ovens were out of action.
That evening, some trucks came,
and we had to load the rest,
some 300 bodies,
into the trucks.
Then we were taken...
I still don't know where,
but probably to a field at Birkenau.
We were ordered to unload the bodies
and put them in a pit.
There was a ditch, an artificial pit.
Suddenly, water gushed up from underground
and swept the bodies down.
When night came, we had to stop that horrible work.
We were loaded into the trucks
and returned to Auschwitz.
The next day,
we were taken to the same place.
But the water had risen.
Some SS men came with a fire truck
and pumped out the water.
We had to go down into that muddy pit
to stack up the bodies.
But they were slimy.
For example, I grasped a woman,
but her hands...
Her hand was slippery, slimy.
I tried to pull her,
but I fell over backward, into the water, the mud.
It was the same for all of us.
Up above, at the edge of the pit, Aumeyer and Grabner yelled,
"Get cracking, you filth, you bastards!
"We'll show you, you bunch of shits!"
These were the names they were calling us.
And in these...
How shall I say? ...circumstances,
two of my friends couldn't take any more.
One was a French student.
- Jews? - All Jews. They were exhausted.
They just lay there...
in the mud.
Aumeyer called one of his SS men.
"Go on, finish off those swine!"
They were exhausted. And they were shot in the pit.
(Lanzmann) There was no crematorium at Birkenau then?
(Muller) No, there weren't any there yet.
Birkenau still wasn't completely set up.
Only Camp B 1, which was the late women is camp, existed.
It wasn't until the spring of 1943
that skilled workmen and unskilled labourers, all Jews,
must have gone to work here
and built the four crematoria.
Each crematorium had 15 ovens,
a big undressing room, around 3,000 square feet,
and a big gas chamber
where up to 3,000 people at once could be gassed.
TREBLINKA
(Suchomel) The new gas chambers were built in September 1942.
(Lanzmann) Who built them?
Hackenhold and Lambert supervised the Jews who did the work,
the bricklaying, at least.
Ukrainian carpenters made the doors.
The gas chamber doors themselves
were armoured bunker doors.
I think they were brought from Bialystok,
from some Russian bunkers.
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
What was the capacity of the new gas chambers?
- There were two 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 five on each side.
I say there were four,
but I'm not sure.
In any case, only the upper row,
on this side,
was in action.
(Lanzmann) Why not the other side?
(Suchomel) 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.
(Lanzmann speaks German)
(Suchomel) ...who worked only in the death camp.
(Lanzmann) 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.
(Lanzmann) 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.
(Lanzmann) They put more in at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was a factory!
(Lanzmann) 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.
Wirth with his own men.
With Franz, with Oberhauser
and Hackenhold,
he tried everything there.
Those three 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.
Wirth 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.
(People chatting in German)
(Glasses clinking)
(Woman speaks German)
(Lanzmann) Excuse me. How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?
You can't tell me?
(Man) I'd rather not. I have my reasons.
- But why not? - Yes.
(Man) Two Pilsners.
Yes.
(Lanzmann) 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.
Here.
That's a lot.
(Indistinct German)
Have you worked here long?
- Around 20 years. - 20 years?
Yes.
- Why are you hiding...? - I have my reasons.
- ...your face? - I have my reasons.
What reasons?
- Never mind. - Why not?
(Lanzmann) Do you recognise this man?
No?
Christian Wirth?
Mr. Oberhauser.
Do you remember Belzec?
No memories of Belzec?
No?
Of the overflowing graves?
You don't remember?
MUNICH
WUPPERTAL ANTON SPIESS
GERMAN STATE PROSECUTOR AT TREBLINKA TRIAL, FRANKFURT 1960
(Spiess in German) When the Action it selffirst 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 reorganised.
The Reinhard Action covered three extermination camps:
Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.
There's also talk of three death camps on the Bug River,
for they were all located on or near the Bug.
The gas chambers were the heart 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 hurry to begin the 'final solution'.
The Germans had to capitalise 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 three months later.
(Piwonski speaks Polish)
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Near the end of March 1942...
(Piwonski continues)
...sizeable groups of Jews were herded here,
groups of 50 to 100 people.
(Piwonski continues)
Several trains arrived...
...with sections of barracks, with posts, barbed wire, bricks...
...and construction of the camp as such began.
(Train whistle blows)
(Piwonski continues in Polish)
(Interpreter) 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...
(Piwonski continues)
...we realised that what the Germans were building
wasn't meant to aid mankind.
(Birds chirping)
(Piwonski continues)
(Interpreter) 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.
(Lanzmann) Why?
I merely thought
that 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.
And besides... he couldn't have known that Sobibor...
(Piwonski continues)
...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 realised,
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.
(Lanzmann) It was the silence that tipped them off?
(Interpreter) That's right.
Can he describe that silence?
(Piwonski speaks Polish)
It was a silence.
Nothing was going on in the camp. You heard nothing.
Nothing moved.
(Piwonski continues)
So then they began to wonder...
"Where have they put those Jews?"
(Muller in German) 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 4:00am.
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
that 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 got 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 men's... No, for both men and women."
"Wonderful! We need people like you in our workshops."
Then he questioned a woman,
"What's 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 HILBERG HISTORIAN
In all of my work, I have never begun by asking the big questions,
because I was always afraid that I would come up with small answers,
and I have preferred, therefore, to address these things,
which are minutiae or detail,
in order that I might then be able to put together
in a gestalt,
a picture, which...
...if not an explanation, is at least a description,
a more full description, of what transpired.
And, in that sense, I look also upon the bureaucratic destruction process,
for this is what it was,
as a series of minute steps taken in logical order
and relying above all, as much as possible,
on experience, past experience.
This goes not only, incidentally, for the administrative steps taken,
but also the psychological arguments,
even the propaganda.
Amazingly little was newly invented
until, of course, the moment came when one had to go beyond
that which had already been established by precedent,
and one had to gas these people,
or, in some sense, annihilate them on a large scale.
Then, these bureaucrats became inventors.
But like all inventors of institutions,
they did not copyright or patent their achievements,
and they preferred obscurity.
(Lanzmann) What did they get from the past, the Nazis?
They got the actual content of measures which they took.
For example, the barring of Jews from office,
the prohibition of intermarriages,
the employment in Jewish homes of female persons under the age of45,
the various marking decrees, especially the Jewish star,
the compulsory ghetto,
the voidance of any will executed by a Jew
that might work in such a way
as to prevent inheritance of his property by someone who was a Christian.
Many such measures had been worked out
over the course of more than a thousand years
by authorities of the Church
and by secular governments that followed in those footsteps.
And the experience gathered over that time
became a reservoir that could be used
and which indeed was used to an amazing extent.
You mean that one can compare...
- One can actually compare... - Each measure?
One can compare a rather large number of German laws and decrees
with their counterparts in the past
and find complete parallels,
even in detail,
as if they were a memory
which automatically extended to the period of 1933
and 1935 and 1939 and beyond.
In such respect, they didn't invent anything?
They invented very little,
and they did not invent the portrait of the Jew,
which also was taken over, lock, stock and barrel,
from writings going back to the 16th century.
So, even the propaganda,
the realm of the imagination and invention,
even there, they were remarkably in the footsteps
of those who preceded them,
from Martin Luther to the 19th century.
And, here again, they were not inventive.
They had to become inventive with the 'final solution'.
That was their great invention,
and that is what made this entire process different
from all others that had preceded that event.
And, in this respect,
what transpired when the final solution was... adopted,
or, to be more precise,
when the bureaucracy moved into it,
was a turning point in history.
Even here, I would suggest a logical progression,
one which came to fruition
in what might be called closure,
because, from the earliest days,
from the fourth century, fifth century, sixth century,
the missionaries of Christianity had said, in effect, to the Jews,
"You may not live among us as Jews."
The secular rulers who followed them,
from the late Middle Ages, had then decided,
"You may not live among us,"
and the Nazis finally decreed,
"You may not live."
This means that the three steps were... The first one was conversion.
- Conversion, followed by... - The second one, ghettoisation.
- Expulsion. - Or expulsion.
Expulsion.
And the third was the territorial solution,
which was, of course, the solution carried out
within the territories under German command,
excluding emigration:
death...
The final solution.
And the "final solution," you see, is really final,
because people who are converted can yet be, in secret, Jews,
people who are expelled can yet return,
but people who are dead will not reappear.
In such a respect, in the last stage, they were really pioneers and inventors?
This was something unprecedented, and this was something new.
How can one figure...
give some ideas about the complete newness of this,
because I think that it was new for themselves too?
Yes, it was new,
and this... I think, for this reason that one cannot find a specific document,
a specific plan, outline or blueprint
which states, "Now, the Jews will be killed."
Everything is left to inference from general words.
- Inference from...? - General wording.
The very wording "final solution" or "total solution",
or "territorial solution",
leaves something to the bureaucrat that he must infer.
He cannot read that document.
One cannot even read Goring's famous letter to Heydrich,
at the end of July 1941,
charging him in two paragraphs to proceed with the final solution.
And taking that document aside, everything is clarified?
Far from it.
- Far from it? - Far from it.
It was an authorisation to invent.
It was an authorisation to begin something
that was not as yet capable of being put into words.
I think it... I think of it that way.
It was a case for every agency, as a matter off act.
Absolutely, for every agency.
In every aspect of this operation, invention was necessary.
Certainly at this point,
because every problem was unprecedented:
not just how to kill the Jews, but what to do with their property thereafter,
and, not only that,
but how to deal with the problem
of not letting the world know what had happened.
All of these multitudes of problems were new.
(Children shouting)
(Van door closes)
FRANZ SCHALLING
(Lanzmann in German) First, explain to me...
how you came to Kulmhof, to Chelmno.
You were at Lodz, right?
- (Schalling) In Lodz, yes. - Litzmannstadt?
(Schalling) In Litzmannstadt, yes.
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'll find out!"
- (Lanzmann) You'll find out? - You'll find out.
(Lanzmann) Yes.
- 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.
Yes.
We were taken into it.
An SS man immediately told us,
"This is a top secret mission."
- Secret? - "A top secret mission."
- Yes. - "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... - Yes.
Promising to shut up about whatever we'd see.
- Shut up? - Not say a word.
Yes.
After we'd signed, we were told,
"Final solution to 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 to 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.
(Lanzmann) So you were in the "castle detail"?
(Schalling) That's right.
(Lanzmann) Can you describe what you saw?
We could see. We were at the gatehouse.
Yes?
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!
Yes?
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."
(Lanzmann) Was the castle big?
Pretty big, with huge front steps.
The SS man stood at the top of the steps.
(Lanzmann) 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.
(Lanzmann) How long did the Jews stay there?
- Long enough to undress. - Yes.
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.
(Lanzmann) 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.
(Lanzmann) Describe the gas vans.
(Schalling) 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.
(Lanzmann) Yes.
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.
Yes?
Did the driver sit in the cabin of the van?
- Mrs. Uwe? - (Woman) 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.
Yes.
The van was stationary while the motor ran?
- That's right. - Yes.
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.
(Podchlebnik speaks Yiddish)
(Interpreter ♪2 in French) He recalls it was 1941,
two days before the new year.
(Podchlebnik continues)
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
(Podchlebnik continues)
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.
(Podchlebnik continues)
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.
- (Podchlebnik continues) - 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.
(Podchlebnik continues)
The Germans pushed and beat them with their weapons
to hustle them into the trucks faster.
(Podchlebnik continues)
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.
(Podchlebnik continues)
He and the 4 others were brought out of the cellar.
They went upstairs...
...and gathered up the clothes remaining
outside the supposed baths.
(Lanzmann) Did he understand then how they'd died?
(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)
MICHAEL PODCHLEBNIK
SURVIVOR OF 1ST PERIOD OF EXTERMINATION AT CHELMNO
THE CASTLE PERIOD
(Interpreter) Yes, first because there had been rumours of it.
And when he went out, he saw the sealed vans,
so he knew.
(Lanzmann) He understood that people were gassed in the vans?
(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)
Yes, because he'd heard the screams
and heard how they weakened,
and later the vans were taken into the woods.
(Lanzmann) What were the vans like?
(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)
Like the ones that deliver cigarettes here.
They were enclosed, with double-leaf rear doors.
(Lanzmann) What colour?
The colour the Germans used, green, ordinary.
MARTHA MICHELSOHN
(Lanzmann) How many German families were there in Kulmhof, Chelmno?
(Speaks German) Ten or eleven, I'd say.
Germans from Volhynia and two 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 Warthbrucken, Kolo,
then Chelmno... Kulmhof.
Directly from Laage?
- No, I left from Munster. - Yes?
- Did you opt to go to Kulmhof? - Yes.
No, I asked for Wartheland.
Why?
(Murmurs In German)
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... - Even worse?
Worse than primitive.
Difficult to understand, right?
Yes.
But why...?
The sanitary facilities were disastrous.
The only toilet was in Warthbrucken, in the town.
You had to go there.
The rest was a disaster.
- Why a disaster? - There were no toilets at all!
Yes?
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.
(Michelsohn) 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, too,
the administrative building and the school.
The castle was next to the church,
with a high board fence around both.
(Lanzmann) Yes.
How far was your house from the church?
(Michelsohn) It was just opposite... 150 feet.
MRS. MICHELSOHN WAS THE NAZI TEACHER'S WIFE
(Lanzmann) 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. - Yes.
There's a difference between Poles and Jews?
Oh, yes! Oh, yes!
What's the difference?
(Laughs)
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.
(In French) 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.
(Cockerel crowing)
(Lanzmann) Were there a lot of Jews here in Grabow?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
- (Woman speaks Polish) - A lot, quite a few.
(Interpreter) They were sent to Chelmno.
(Lanzmann) Has she always lived near the synagogue?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
The Polish word is "Buzinica" not synagogue.
(Chatting in Polish)
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?
(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)
(Woman speaks Polish)
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.
(Speaks Polish)
Do they agree? Do they think it's a lovely house?
Yes.
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.
- 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.
Yes. Where did the Poles live?
In the courtyards, where the privies were.
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.
Yes.
How long have these two lived here?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
15 years.
(Lanzmann) Where did they live before?
(Wife replies)
In a courtyard across the square.
(Lanzmann) They've got rich.
- Them? - Yes.
- (Laughter)
(Lanzmann) How did they get rich?
They worked.
- How old is the gentleman? - He's 70.
He looks young and healthy.
(Barbara laughs)
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"? - Yes.
As a kid he played with Jews so he speaks "Jew".
(Husband continues)
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.
(Lanzmann) A lot of gold?
Yes, the Jews had gold...
(Wife replies)
...and some handsome candelabras.
(Lanzmann) Did the Poles know the Jews would be killed at Chelmno?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
Yes, they knew.
The Jews knew it, too.
(Lanzmann) Did the Jews try to do something about it,
to rebel, to escape?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
The young tried to run away...
...but the Germans caught them
and maybe killed them even more savagely.
(Man continues)
In every town and village, 2 or 3 streets were closed,
and the Jews were kept under guard.
They couldn't leave there.
(Man continues)
Then they were locked in the Polish church here in Grabow
and later taken to Chelmno.
THE SYNAGOGUE IN THE BACKGROUND
(People chatting in Polish)
The Germans threw children as small as these...
- Yes? - ...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?
- (Lanzmann) Yes? - Yes.
(Lanzmann) Does he recall the Jews' deportation from Grabow?
(Barbara) Yes.
(Man continues)
At that time, he worked in the mill.
- (Lanzmann) There, opposite? - Yes, and they saw it all.
What did he think of it? Was it a sad sight?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
Yes, it was...
Yes.
Yes. How could you see that without sadness?
(Hoof beats)
What trades were the Jews in?
They were tanners, tradesmen...
...tailors.
They sold things... eggs, chickens, butter.
(Barbara) There were a lot of tailors...
...tradesmen, too.
(Man continues)
But most were tanners.
- They had beards and side locks. - (Lanzmann) Yes.
He says they weren't pretty.
(Lanzmann) They weren't pretty?
- They stank, too. - They stank?
- Yes. - Yes?
Why did they stink?
Because they were tanners, and the hides stink.
(Chatting in Polish)
The Jewish women were beautiful.
The Poles liked to make love with them.
Are Polish women glad there are no Jewesses left?
(Woman continues in Polish)
(Lanzmann) What did she say?
(Barbara) The women who are her age now
also liked to make love.
(Lanzmann) So the Jewish women were competitors?
(Barbara) It's crazy how the Poles liked the little Jewesses!
Do the Poles miss the little Jewesses?
(Barbara) Naturally, such beautiful women!
Why? What made them so beautiful?
(Barbara) Because they did nothing. Polish women worked.
Jewish women only thought of their beauty and clothes.
(Lanzmann) So Jewesses did no work?
- None at all. - Why not?
- They were rich. - (Women continue speaking)
The Poles had to serve them and work.
(Lanzmann) I heard her use the word "capital."
(Barbara) The capital was in the hands of the Jews.
(Lanzmann) Yes... You didn't translate that.
Ask her again. So the capital was in the Jews' hands?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
All Poland was in the Jews' hands.
Are they glad there are no more Jews here, or sad?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
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?
(Barbara speaks Polish)
(Man replies)
Not much. Above all, they were dishonest.
Was life in Grabow more fun when the Jews were here?
(Barbara in Polish)
He'd rather not say.
Why does he call them dishonest?
(Barbara in Polish)
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. - (Speaking Polish)
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? - (Barbara in Polish)
- She doesn't know. - What was their trade?
Benkel, their name was. Benkel.
- And what was their trade? - (Barbara in Polish)
(Man speaks Polish)
They had a butcher's shop.
(Lanzmann) A butcher's shop. Why is she laughing?
Because the gentleman said it was...
a butcher's shop where you could buy cheap meat.
What does he think about them being gassed in trucks?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Man replies)
He says he doesn't like that at all.
(Man continues)
If they'd gone to Israel of their own free will,
he might have been glad.
But killing them was unpleasant.
(Lanzmann) Does he miss the Jews?
(Barbara in Polish)
Yes, because there were some beautiful Jewesses.
For the young, it was fine.
(Lanzmann) Are they sorry the Jews are no longer here or pleased?
(Barbara in Polish)
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? - (Barbara in Polish)
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?
(Barbara in Polish)
She doesn't care, she's happy because she's doing well now.
How did he feel about losing his classmates?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Wife Replies)
It still upsets him.
- Does he miss the Jews? - (Barbara in Polish)
Certainly.
- They were good Jews, Madam says. - (Lanzmann) Yes?
GRABOW IN WINTER
(Michelsohn) 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.
- (Lanzmann) On work detail? - Jews on work detail.
These weren't killed right away.
That was done later.
I don't know what became of them.
They didn't survive, anyway.
(Lanzmann) Two of them did.
- Only two. - Yes.
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? - Mm-hmm.
Could people speak to them?
No, that was impossible.
Why?
No one dared.
- What? - No one dared.
- Yes. - Understand?
Yes... No one dared.
Why, was it dangerous?
- Yes, there were guards. - Yes.
Anyway, people wanted nothing to do with all that.
- You see? - Yes.
Gets on your nerves, seeing that every day.
You can't 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.
(Lanzmann) Do you know how many Jews were exterminated there?
(Michelsohn) Four something, 400,000 or 40,000...
(Lanzmann) 400,000.
(Michelsohn) 400,000, yes. I knew it had a 4 in it.
Sad, sad, sad!
(Srebnik sings in German) ♪When the soldiers march
♪ The girls open their windows and doors... ♪
(Lanzmann) Do you remember a Jewish child, a boy of 13?
He was in the work squad.
He sang on the river.
- (Michelsohn) On the Narew River? - Yes.
- Is he still alive? - Yes, he is alive.
(Lanzmann) He sang a German song
that the SS in Chelmno taught him.
"When the soldiers march...
(Michelsohn) "The girls open their windows and doors..."
(Continues singing)
SIMON SREBNIK
SURVIVOR OF 2ND PERIOD OF EXTERMINATION AT CHELMNO
THE CHURCH PERIOD
(♪Organ plays)
(♪Sings Polish hymn)
(♪Congregation joins in)
(Lanzmann) So it's a holiday in Chelmno?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Together) Yes.
(Lanzmann) What holiday? What's being celebrated?
(Barbara) The birth of the Virgin Mary. It's her birthday.
- (Lanzmann) Birth of the Virgin Mary? - Yes.
(Lanzmann) It's a huge crowd, isn't it?
(Barbara in Polish)
But the weather's bad... it's raining.
(Lanzmann) Ask them if they're glad to see Srebnik again.
(Barbara in Polish)
- Very, it's a great pleasure. - (Lanzmann) Why?
(Barbara in Polish)
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? - Yes.
Why does the whole village remember him?
(Barbara in Polish)
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.
(Lanzmann) Ripe for a coffin!
- Did he seem happy or sad? - (Barbara in Polish)
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? - Yes.
They remember when the Jews were locked in this church?
(Barbara in Polish)
Yes, they do.
They brought them to the church in trucks.
- At what time of day? - (Barbara in Polish)
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.
(Lanzmann) The second phase, right.
(Barbara) In the morning, they were taken into the woods.
(Lanzmann) How were they taken into the woods?
(Barbara in Polish)
In very big armoured vans.
The gas came through the bottom.
Then they were carried in gas vans, right?
(Barbara in Polish)
Yes, in gas vans.
Where did the vans pick them up?
- The Jews? - Yes.
(Barbara in Polish)
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?
(Barbara in Polish)
Yes, they couldn't help knowing.
They heard screams at night?
(Barbara in Polish)
The Jews moaned, they were hungry.
(Lanzmann) They were hungry?
They were shut in and starved.
- Did they have any food? - (Barbara in Polish)
You couldn't look there. You couldn't talk to a Jew.
(Chatting in Polish)
(Barbara) Even going by on the road, you couldn't look there.
(Lanzmann) Did they look anyway?
(Barbara) Yes, vans came,
and the Jews were moved farther off.
You could see them, but on the sly.
- (Lanzmann) In sidelong glances. - That's right.
(Barbara in Polish)
That's right, in sidelong glances.
What kind of cries and moans were heard at night?
(Barbara in Polish)
They called on Jesus and Mary and God,
sometimes in German, as she puts it.
(Lanzmann) The Jews called on Jesus, Mary and God?
(Chatting in Polish continues)
(Barbara) The presbytery was full of suitcases.
(Lanzmann) The Jews' suitcases?
(Barbara) Yes, and there was gold.
(Church bells ringing)
How does she know there was gold?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Lanzmann) The procession! We'll stop now.
(Bells continue)
(Horse whinnies)
(Bells cease)
(Lanzmann) Were there as many Jews in the church
as there were Christians today?
(Barbara in Polish)
Almost.
How many gas vans were needed to empty it out?
(Barbara in Polish)
An average of 50.
(Lanzmann) It took 50 vans to empty it.
In a steady stream?
(Barbara in Polish)
Yes.
(Lanzmann) The lady said before
that the Jews' suitcases were dumped in the house opposite.
(Barbara in Polish)
(Lanzmann) What was in this baggage?
(Barbara) Pots with false bottoms.
What was in the false bottoms?
(Barbara in Polish)
- Valuables... objects of value. - Ah, yes?
(Woman continues in Polish)
They also had gold in their clothes.
(Woman continues)
When given food, the Jews sometimes threw them valuables
or sometimes money.
(Lanzmann) They said before it was forbidden to talk to Jews.
(Barbara in Polish)
Absolutely forbidden.
(Lanzmann) Ask them if they miss the Jews.
(Barbara in Polish)
- (Woman replies) - Of course.
(Woman continues)
We wept too, Madam says.
(Lanzmann) Yes. Of course.
And Mr. Kantarowski gave them bread and cucumbers.
(Lanzmann) Why do they think all this happened to the Jews?
(Barbara in Polish)
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.
(Lanzmann) Go on.
(Speaks in Polish)
(Barbara) 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."
(Barbara) 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."
(Lanzmann) He thinks the Jews expiated the death of Christ?
(Barbara in Polish)
He doesn't think so, or even that Christ sought revenge.
He didn't say that. The rabbi said it.
(Barbara) It was God's will, that's all!
- (Lanzmann) 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!
(Voices fade)
(Lanzmann) Was the road between Chelmno, the village
and the woods where the pits were,
was it asphalted as it is now?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Falborski speaks in Polish)
The road was narrower then, but it was asphalted.
(Lanzmann) How many feet were the pits from the road?
(Barbara in Polish)
(Falborski speaks in Polish)
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?
(Barbara in Polish)
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.
(Falborski continues)
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."
(Falborski continues)
They were still alive.
Seeing those Jews crawling, a Gestapo man
took out his revolver and shot them.
(Falborski continues)
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.
(Srebnik) This was the road
that 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, "Two men inside!"
These two 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 day long. 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:
five 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 I get out of here.
THE RUHR
(Lanzmann) "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 three vehicles in service, with no major incident.
In light of observations made so far, however,
the following technical changes are needed:
First,
the van's normal load is usually 9 to 10 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 oftrying 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 detritus.
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 II D,
SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff.
Signed Just.
END OF THE FIRST ERA