FRANZ SUCHOMEL SS Unterscharführer
(Suchomel sings in German) ♪ Looking squarely ahead
♪ Brave and joyous
♪ At the world
♪ The squads march to work
♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka
♪ It is our destiny
♪ That's why we've become one with Treblinka
♪ In no time at all
♪ We know only the word of our Commander
♪ We know only obedience and duty
♪ We want to serve, to go on serving
♪ Until a little luck ends it all
♪ Hurray! ♪
(Lanzmann) Once more, but louder.
(Suchomel) We're laughing about it but it's so sad.
(Lanzmann) No one is laughing. (Suchomel) Don't be sore at me.
You want history, I'm giving you history.
Franz wrote the words.
The melody came from Buchenwald.
Camp Buchenwald, where Franz was a guard.
New Jews who arrived in the morning...
- (Lanzmann) New "Worker Jews"? - Yes.
They were taught the song,
and by evening all of them had to sing it.
- (Lanzmann) Sing it again. - All right.
(Lanzmann) It's very important. But loud.
♪ Looking squarely ahead, brave and joyous
♪ At the world
♪ The squads march to work
♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka
♪ It is our destiny
♪ That's why we've become one with Treblinka
♪ In no time at all
♪ We know only the word of our Commander
♪ We know only obedience and duty
♪ We want to serve, to go on serving
♪ Until a little luck ends it all
♪ Hurray! ♪
Satisfied?
That's unique. No Jews know that today.
(Train approaches)
(Lanzmann) How was it possible in Treblinka
in peak days...
...to "process" 18,000 people?
18,000 is too high.
- But I read that figure in court reports. - Sure.
To "process" 18,000 people.
To liquidate them.
Mr. Lanzmann, that's an exaggeration.
Believe me.
How many?
12,000 to 15,000.
But we had to spend halfthe night at it.
In January, the trains started arriving at 6:00am.
Yes?
- Always at 6:00am? - Not always.
- Often. - Yes.
- The schedules were erratic. - Yes.
Sometimes one came at 6:00am, then another at noon,
maybe another late in the evening.
- You see? - So a train arrived.
I'd like you to describe in detail
the whole process.
During the peak period.
(Suchomel) The trains left Malkinia station,
for Treblinka station.
(Lanzmann) How many miles from Malkinia to Treblinka?
(Suchomel) About six miles.
Treblinka was a village.
A small village.
As a station,
it gained in importance because of the transports of Jews.
There were at least 30 to 50 cars.
They were divided into sections of 10 or 15,
shunted into Treblinka Camp,
and brought to the ramp.
The other cars waited, loaded with people,
in Treblinka station.
The windows were closed off with barbed wire,
so no one could get out.
On the roofs were the "hellhounds,"
the Ukrainians or Latvians.
The Latvians were the worst.
On the ramp, for each car,
there stood two Jews from Blue Squad
to speed things up.
They said, "Get out, get out. Hurry, hurry!"
There were also Ukrainians and Germans.
(Lanzmann) How many Germans? (Suchomel) 3 to 5.
- (Lanzmann) No more? - No more. I can assure you.
- (Lanzmann) How many Ukrainians? - Ten.
(Lanzmann) 10 Ukrainians, 5 Germans...
Yes, yes.
2... 20 people from the Blue Squad.
Men from the Blue Squad were here and here.
They sent the people inside.
The Red Squad was here.
So the Red Squad was here.
(Lanzmann) What was the Red Squad's job?
(Suchomel) The Red Squad's job was the clothes,
to carry the clothes taken off by the men
and by the women
up here immediately.
(Lanzmann) How much time elapsed between unloading at the ramp
and the undressing,
how many minutes?
For the women,
let's say an hour in all.
An hour, an hour and a half.
A whole train took 2 hours.
In 2 hours, it was all over.
Between the time of arrival... and death.
- It was all over in 2 hours? - 2 and a half hours, 3 hours.
A whole train?
Yes, a whole train.
And for only one section, for 10 cars, how long?
I can't calculate that
because the sections came one after another,
and people flooded in constantly.
Understand?
Usually, the men waiting who sat there, or there,
were sent straight up via the "funnel."
The women were sent last.
At the end.
They had to go up there too, and often waited here.
5... at a time.
50 people.
60 women with children.
They had to wait here until there was room here.
- (Lanzmann) Naked? - Naked.
In summer and winter.
- (Lanzmann) In winter? - In winter.
(Lanzmann) Winter in Treblinka can be very cold.
(Suchomel) Well, in winter, in December, anyway after Christmas.
But even before Christmas it was cold as hell.
Between 15 and minus 4.
I know. At first it was cold as hell for us, too.
We didn't have suitable uniforms.
It was cold for us too.
But it was colder for...
- For those poor people. - In the "funnel."
In the "funnel," it was very, very cold.
Very, very cold.
Can you...
Can you describe this "funnel" precisely?
- What was it like? How wide? - Yes...
How was it for the people in this "funnel"?
It was about 13 feet wide.
As wide as this room.
Wide as this room.
On each side were walls this high or this high.
- Walls? - No, barbed wire.
Woven into the barbed wire...
...were branches of pine trees.
You understand?
It was known as "camouflage."
There was a "Camouflage Squad" of 20 Jews.
They brought in new branches every day.
- From the woods? - That's right.
So everything was screened.
People couldn't see anything to the left or right.
Nothing.
- You couldn't see through it. - Impossible?
It was impossible.
Here and here too.
Here, too.
And here.
Impossible to see through.
THE CAMP TODAY
(Lanzmann) Treblinka, where so many people were exterminated,
wasn't big, right?
(Suchomel) It wasn't big.
1600 feet at the widest point.
It wasn't a rectangle, more like a rhomboid.
You must realise that here the ground was flat,
and here it began to rise.
And at the top of the slope was the gas chamber.
You had to climb up to it.
(Lanzmann) The "funnel" was called the "Road to Heaven," right?
The Jews called it the "Ascension."
Also "The Last Road."
I only heard those two names for it.
(Lanzmann) I need to see it.
The people go into the "funnel." Then what happens?
- They're totally naked? - Totally naked.
Here...
...stood two Ukrainian guards.
Mainly for the men.
If the men wouldn't go in,
they were beaten with whips.
Here too. Even here.
The men were "driven" along. Not the women.
- Not the women? - No, they weren't beaten.
Why such humanity?
I didn't see it.
Maybe they were beaten too.
Why not?
Why not? They were about to die anyway, no?
Why not?
Hmm?
At the entrance to the gas chambers,
undoubtedly.
ABRAHAM BOMBA ISRAEL
(Lanzmann) Abraham, can you tell me how did it happen?
How were you chosen?
(Bomba) There came an order
from the Germans
to take out the barbers they could get.
And they needed them for a certain job.
What kind of job they needed it for, we didn't know at that time.
But we gathered together as many barbers as we could.
How long did it happen after your arrival in Treblinka?
I would say that happened to me about four weeks after I was in Treblinka.
When was it? It was in the morning, in the...
That was in the morning.
It was around 10:00
when a transport came to Treblinka,
and the women went into the gas chambers.
And they chose some people
from the working people over there,
and they asked the question: Who was a barber, and who was not a barber?
I was a barber for quite a number of years.
Some of them, they knew me,
like people from Czestochowa and from other places.
So, naturally, they chose me,
and I selected some more barbers which I know of them,
and we got it together.
- Professional barbers? - Professional, yes.
We got it together, and we were waiting for the order.
And the order came to go with them,
with the Germans.
They took us into the gas chamber,
to the second... part of the camp in Treblinka.
It was far from the first part?
It was not too far, but it was all covered
with gates, barbed wire
and trees covering the gate,
that nobody should see there is a gate,
or there is a place going into the gas chambers.
Is it what the Germans called the 'Schlauch"?
No, the Germans, what they called it, they called...
Like going to...
"Road to the Heaven."
- "Himmelweg?" - "Himmel"... "Himmelweg", yeah.
"The Road to the Heaven."
And we knew about it because we worked for quite a time
before we went in to work in the gas chamber.
Going in over there, they put in some benches
where the women could sit
and not to have the idea
that this is their last way,
or that it is the last time they're going to live
or they're going to breathe,
or they're going to know what is going on.
How long did it last that the barbers cut the hair inside the gas chamber,
because it was not always the case?
We worked inside the gas chamber for about a week or 10 days.
After that,
they decided that we will cut the hair in the undressing barrack.
- How did it look, the gas chamber? - It was a room, not a big room.
The room was, I would say, the size by feet, around...
...12 by 12.
But in that room,
they pushed in a lot of women,
almost one on top of the other one.
But, like I mentioned before,
when we came in, we didn't know what we're going to do.
And then, one of the kapos, he came in and he said,
"Barbers, you have to do a job,
"to make to believe all those women that came in
"that they are just taking a haircut
"and going in to take a shower,
"and, from there, they go out from this place."
But we knew already that there is no way going out from this room.
Because this room is the last place where they went in alive,
and they will never go out alive again.
Can you describe precisely?
Precisely, to describe, is...
When the transport came in...
Waiting there until the transport came in.
The transport came in.
Women with children.
And pushing into that place.
We, the barbers, started to cut the hair,
and some of them, I would say all of them,
some of them, they knew already what's going to happen to them.
We tried to do the best what we could...
- (Lanzmann) No, no, no. - ...the most human being what we could.
(Lanzmann) Excuse me. How did it happen?
When the women came into the gas chamber,
were you yourself already in the gas chamber
or did you come after wards?
I said we were already in the gas chamber,
because we were waiting over there for the transport to come in.
- You were inside? - Inside, yes.
Inside the gas chamber. We were already in.
And suddenly you saw the women come in?
Yes, they came in.
How were they?
They were undressed, all naked, without clothes, without anything else.
- All of them completely naked? - Completely naked.
All the women and all the children.
- All the children too? - The children too.
Because they came from the undressing barracks.
There was a barracks before going into the gas chamber
where they had undressed themselves.
What did you feel the first time
that it happened that you saw all these naked women coming?
Well, I felt that,
accordingly, I got to do what they told me:
to cut the hair in a way
that it should look like a barber is doing his job,
like he's doing a job for a woman,
a nice haircut to give them,
but to take off as much hair as we could,
because they needed the women's hair
to be transported to Germany.
This means that you didn't shave them?
No, we did not shave them.
We just cut their hair to make them believe
that they're getting a nice haircut.
- But you cut with what? With scissors? - With scissors, yes.
With scissors and with a comb, without any clippers.
Just like a...
a man's haircut, I would say.
Not a "baldy" one to take out... to take off all the hair,
but just to have the imagination
that they're getting a nice haircut.
- There were no mirrors, no? - No, there were no mirrors.
There were just benches, not chairs,
but just benches where we worked, about 16, 17 barbers,
and we had a lot of women in.
Every haircut, it took about two minutes,
no more than that,
because there was a lot of women to come in
and to get rid of their hair.
Can you imitate now how did you do?
Well, how we did it...
We did it as fast as we could,
because we were quite a number of professional barbers.
And the way we did it, we just stopped this and this...
...and we cut...
And we just cut this like this, here and there and there,
and this side and this side and the hair was all finished.
- With big movements? - With big...
Naturally, with big movements, because we could not waste any time.
The other party was waiting already outside,
coming in to do the same thing, the same job, the same procedure.
- You said that you were 16 barbers? - Yes.
This means you cut the hair of how many women in one batch?
In one batch, there was about... I would say,
going into that place,
between 60 and 70 women
in the same room at one time.
After wards, the doors of the gas chamber were closed?
After that, we were finished with this party, another party came in.
It was around about 140, 150 women.
They all were already taken care of.
They told us to leave the gas chamber
for a few minutes, about five minutes,
while they put in the gas and they choked them to death.
- Where did you wait? - Outside the gas chamber.
And, on the other side, where...
On this side, the women went in.
On the other side was a group of working people,
which they took out already the dead bodies.
Some of them, they were not exactly dead.
They took them out,
and in two minutes...
Not even two minutes. In one minute, everything was clear.
And it was clean to take in the other party of the other women
to go through the same thing what the first one, they went through.
These women, they had long hair?
Most of them, they had long hair, they had short hair,
but we had to do the job to get rid of the hair.
Like I mentioned, the Germans, they needed the hair for their purposes.
But I asked you, and you didn't answer:
What was your impression
the first time you saw arriving these naked women with children?
What did you feel?
I tell you something. To have a feeling over there...
It was very hard to feel anything or to have a feeling,
because, working there day and night between dead people,
between bodies, men and women,
your feeling disappeared.
You were dead with your feeling. You had no feeling at all.
And matter off act, I want to tell you something what had happened.
At the gas chamber,
when I was chosen in over there to work as a barber,
some of the women, they came in
from a transport from my town, from Czestochowa.
And from the women, from the number of women,
I knew a lot of people.
- You knew them? - I knew them.
I lived with them in my town.
I lived with them in my street.
And some of them, they were my close friends.
And when they saw me, all of them started hugging me.
"Abe!" This and that.
"What are you doing here? What's going to happen with us?"
What could you tell them?
What could you tell?
A friend of mine, he worked as a barber.
He was also a good barber in my hometown.
When his wife and his sister...
...came into the gas chamber...
I cannot.
(Lanzmann) Go on, Abe. You must.
You have to.
I can't do it.
- It's too horrible. - Please.
We have to do it. You know it.
I won't be able to do it.
You have to do it. I know it's very hard.
I know, and I apologise.
Don't keep me long with that, please.
Please. You must go on.
I told you, today it's going to be very hard.
It was taken in with bags,
and it was transported to Germany.
(Murmuring in Yiddish)
(Yiddish)
Okay, go ahead.
Yes, what did he answer...
...when his wife and sister came?
They tried to talk to him
and the husband,
also from his sister.
They could not tell them
that is the last time they stay alive,
because behind them was the German Nazis,
the SS men,
and they knew, the minute they will say a word,
not only the wife and the women, which they are dead already,
but also they will share the same path with them.
But, in a way, they tried to do the best for them,
to stay with them a second longer, a minute longer,
just to hug them and just to kiss them,
because they knew they will never see them again.
(Suchomel) In the "funnel" the women had to wait.
They heard the motors of the gas chamber.
Maybe they also heard people screaming and imploring.
As they waited, "death-panic" overwhelmed them.
"Death-panic" makes people let go.
They empty themselves, from the front or the rear.
So often, where the women stood,
there were 5 or 6 rows of excrement.
They stood?
They could squat or do it standing.
I didn't see them do it.
I only saw the faeces.
Only women?
Not the men, only the women.
The men were chased through the "funnel."
The women had to wait...
...until a gas chamber was empty.
- And the men? - No, they were whipped in first.
- Ah, yes? - You understand?
The men were always first?
Yes, they always went first.
- They didn't have to wait. - They weren't given time to wait, no.
No?
And this "death-panic"...
When this "death-panic" sets in...
...one lets go.
It's well-known when someone's terrified and knows he's about to die.
It can happen in bed.
My mother was kneeling by her bed.
- Your mother? - Yes. Then there was a big pile.
- Yes. - That's a fact.
It's been medically... proven.
Since you wanted to know,
as soon as they were unloaded,
if they'd been loaded in Warsaw, or elsewhere,
they'd already been beaten.
Beaten hard, worse than in Treblinka,
I can assure you.
Then during the train journey,
standing in cars,
no toilets,
nothing, hardly any water.
Fear.
Then the doors opened and it started again,
"Bremze, bremze!"
"Szybciej, szybciej!"
I can't pronounce it, I have false teeth.
It's Polish. "Bremze" or "szybciej."
What does 'bremze" mean?
It's a Ukrainian word. It means "faster."
Again the chase... a hail of whiplashes.
The SS man Kuttner's whip was this long.
Women to the left, men to the right.
And always more blows.
No respite?
None.
Go in there, strip. Hurry, hurry!
- Always running. - Always running.
Running and screaming.
That's how they were finished off.
- That was the technique? - Yes, the technique.
You must remember, it had to go fast.
And the Blue Squad also had the task
of leading the sick and the aged...
...to the "Infirmary,"
so as not to delay the flow of the people to the gas chambers.
Old people would have slowed it down.
Assignment to the "Infirmary"
was decided by Germans.
- The Jews of the Blue Squad... - Yes.
Only implemented the decision,
leading the people there,
or carrying them on stretchers.
Old women, sick children,
children whose mother was sick,
or whose grandmother was very old,
were sent along with the grandma
because she didn't know about the "Infirmary."
It had a white flag with a red cross.
A passage led to it.
Until they reached the end, they saw nothing.
Then they'd see the dead in the pit.
They were forced to strip,
to sit on a sandbank,
and were killed with a shot in the neck.
They fell into the pit.
There was always a fire in the pit.
With rubbish, paper and gasoline,
people burn very well.
RICHARD GLAZAR SWITZERLAND
(In German) The "Infirmary" was a narrow site
very close to the ramp
to which the aged were led.
I had to do this too.
This execution site wasn't covered,
just an open place with a roof,
but screened by a fence,
so no one could see in.
The way in was a narrow passage,
very short, but somewhat similar to the "funnel."
Yes, a sort of tiny labyrinth.
In the middle of it, there was a pit.
And to the left as one came in,
there was a little booth,
with a kind of wooden plank in it,
like a springboard.
If people were too weak to stand on it,
they'd have to sit on it,
and then,
as the saying went in Treblinka jargon...
...SS man Miete would
"cure each one with a single pill",
a shot in the neck.
In the peak periods,
that happened daily.
In those days, the pit...
it was at least
10 to 12 feet deep,
it was full of corpses.
There were also cases
of children who for some reason arrived alone
or got separated from their parents.
These children were led to the "Infirmary"
and shot there.
The "Infirmary" was also for us,
the Treblinka slaves,
the last stop.
Not the gas chamber.
We always ended up in the "Infirmary."
AUSCHWITZ TODAY THE SORTING STATION
(Vrba) There was always an amount of people
who could not get out from the wagons.
There were those who died on the road,
or people who were sick to such a degree
that even a persuasion with violent beating
wouldn't get them moving fast enough.
So those people remained in the wagons.
RUDOLF VRBA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ
So our first job was to get into the wagons
to get out the dead bodies or the dying
and transport them "im Laufs Chritt", as the Germans like to say.
This means "running."
Laufs chritt, yeah. Never, never walking, or something.
Everything had to be done im Laufs chritt.
- Immer laufen? - Lmmer laufen.
So... Very sporty, they are a sporty nation, you see?
And, er... we had to get out those bodies
and, on the ramp, running, to get them on a truck,
which was at the head of the ramp.
There were already trucks prepared. Trucks were ready.
Say, the trucks were five, six sometimes standing there, sometimes more.
There was no iron rule.
But the first truck was for the dead and the dying.
There was not much, er...
medical care taken to establish who is dead and who feigns to be dead.
I mean, you know, who is only simulating.
So they were put on the truck, and these trucks went to...
Then, once this was finished, then this was the first truck which move off,
and it went straight to the crematorium,
which was about two kilometres to the left from the ramp.
At the time, it was two kilometres. It was before the construction of...
Before the construction of the new ramp.
THE OLD RAMP
(Vrba) This was the old ramp.
Through that old ramp,
the first one and three-quarters of a million people went.
Through that old ramp.
I mean the majority.
The new ramp was only built
for the expected murder,
in a very short time,
of one million Jews from Hungary.
THE NEW RAMP BUILT IN EARLY 1944
(Vrba) The whole murder machinery could work
only on one principle:
that the people came to Auschwitz
and didn't know where they were going and for what purpose.
The new arrivals were supposed to be kept without panic
and orderly marching into the gas chamber.
Especially, the panic was dangerous from women with small children.
So, it was important for the Nazis
that none of us give some sort of a message
which could cause a panic even in the last moment.
And anybody who tried to get in touch with newcomers
was either clubbed to death
or taken behind the wagon and shot.
Because, if a panic would have broken out,
and a massacre would have taken place on the spot, on the ramp,
it would already be a hitch in the machinery.
You can't bring in the next transport with dead bodies and blood around,
because this will only increase the panic.
The Nazis were concentrated upon one thing:
it should go in an orderly fashion,
so that it goes unimpeded.
One doesn't lose time.
(Muller, in German) Before each gassing operation,
the SS took stern precautions.
The crematorium was surrounded by SS men.
Many SS men patrolled the court
with dogs and machine-guns.
To the right were the steps
that led underground to the "undressing room."
In Birkenau, there were 4 crematoria,
Crematoria II, III and IV, V.
Crematorium II was similar to III.
In Crematoria II and III,
the "undressing room" and the gas chambers were underground.
A large "undressing room"
of about 3000 square feet
and a large gas chamber...
...where one could...
...gas up to 3000 people at a time.
Crematoria IV and V were of a different type
in that they weren't located underground.
Everything was at ground level.
In IV and V, there were 3 gas chambers
with a total capacity
of at most 1800 to 2000 people at a time.
AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM MODEL OF CREMATORIA II AND III
ELEVATORS HOISTED BODIES TO THE OVENS
Crematoria II and III had 15 ovens each.
Crematoria IV and V had 8 ovens each.
As people reached the crematorium,
they saw everything...
this horribly violent scene.
The whole area was ringed with SS men.
Dogs barked.
Machine-guns.
They all, mainly the Polish Jews, had misgivings.
They knew something was seriously amiss.
But none of them had the faintest of notions
that in 3 or 4 hours they'd be reduced to ashes.
When they reached the "undressing room,"
they saw
that it looked like an International Information Centre!
On the walls were...
...hooks.
And each hook had a number.
Beneath the hooks were...
...wooden benches.
So people could undress "more comfortably," it was said.
And on the numerous pillars
that held up this underground "undressing room,"
there were signs with slogans
in several languages:
"Clean is good!"
"Lice can kill!"
"Wash yourself!"
"To the disinfection area."
All those signs
were only there
to lure people into the gas chambers already undressed.
And to the left,
at a right-angle, was the gas chamber...
...with its massive door.
CREMATORIUM III: THE UNDRESSING ROOM
THE GAS CHAMBER
In Crematoria II and III, Zyklon gas crystals were poured in
by a so-called "SS disinfection squad,"
through the ceiling,
and in Crematoria IV and V through side openings.
With 5 or 6 canisters of gas,
they could kill around 2000 people.
This so-called "disinfection squad"
arrived in a truck marked with a red cross
and escorted people along
to make them believe they were being led to take a bath.
But the red cross was only a mark
to hide the canisters of Zyklon gas and the hammers to open them.
The gas took about 10 to 15 minutes to kill.
The most horrible thing was,
once the doors of the gas chambers were opened,
the unbearable sight.
People were packed together like basalt,
like blocks of stone.
How they tumbled out of the gas chamber!
I saw that several times.
That was the toughest thing to take.
You could never get used to that.
It was impossible.
CREMATORIUM IV
(Lanzmann) Impossible...
Yes.
You see, once the gas was poured in, it worked like this:
it rose from the ground upwards.
And in the terrible struggle that followed,
because it was a struggle,
the lights were switched off in the gas chambers.
It was dark, no one could see.
So the strongest people tried to climb higher.
Because they probably realised
that the higher they got,
the more air there was.
They could breathe better.
Yes? That caused the struggle.
Secondly, most people tried to push their way to the door.
It was psychological.
They knew where the door was,
so maybe they could force their way.
It was instinctive,
a death struggle.
Which is why children
and weaker people and the aged
always wound up at the bottom.
The strongest were on top.
Because in the death struggle...
...a father didn't realise his son lay...
...beneath him.
And when the doors were opened?
They fell out.
People fell out like blocks of stone,
like rocks falling out of a truck.
But near the Zyklon gas, there was a void.
There was no one where the gas crystals went in.
An empty space.
Probably the victims realised that...
...the gas worked strongest there.
And the people were...?
The people were battered.
They struggled and fought in the darkness.
They were covered in excrement...
...in blood,
from ears and noses.
One also sometimes saw
that the people lying on the ground,
because of the pressure of the others,
were unrecognisable.
Children had their skulls crushed.
- Yes. - What?
It was awful.
People had... vomited.
Blood from the ears and noses.
Probably even menstrual fluid... sure of it.
There was everything in that struggle for life,
that death struggle.
It was terrible to see. That was the toughest part.
FILIP MULLER CZECH JEW
SURVIVOR OF FIVE LIQUIDATIONS OF AUSCHWITZ "SPECIAL DETAIL"
(Muller) It was pointless
to tell the truth to anyone
who crossed the threshold of the crematorium.
You couldn't save anyone there.
It was impossible to save people.
One day, in 1943,
when I was already in Crematorium V,
a train from Bialystok arrived.
A prisoner on the "special detail"
saw a woman in the "undressing room,"
who was the wife of a friend of his.
He came right out and told her,
"You are going to be exterminated.
"In 3 hours, you'll be ashes."
The woman believed him because she knew him.
She ran all over
and warned the other women.
"We're going to be killed.
"We're going to be gassed."
Mothers carrying their children on their shoulders
didn't want to hear that.
They decided the woman was crazy.
They chased her away.
So she went to the men.
To no avail.
Not that they didn't believe her.
They'd heard rumours in the Bialystok ghetto,
or in Grodno, and elsewhere.
But who wanted to hear that?
When she saw that no one would listen,
she scratched her whole face.
Out of despair, in shock.
And she started to scream.
So what happened?
Everyone was gassed, but the woman was held back.
We had to line up in front of the oven.
First, they tortured her horribly,
because she wouldn't betray him.
In the end, she pointed to him.
He was taken out of the line and thrown alive into the oven.
We were told, "Whoever says anything will end like that!"
We, in the "special detail," kept trying to figure out
if there was a way
we could tell people
to inform them.
But our experience,
in several instances where we were able to tell people,
showed that it was of no use.
That it made their last moments even harder to bear.
At most, we thought it might help
the Jews from Poland,
or Jews from There sienstadt, the Czech family camp,
who'd already spent 6 months in Birkenau.
We thought it might have been of use in such cases
to tell people.
But imagine what it was like in other cases,
Jews from Greece, from Hungary, from Corfu,
who'd been travelling for 10 or 12 days,
starving,
without water for days, dying of thirst,
they were half-crazed when they arrived.
They were dealt with differently.
They were only told,
"Get undressed, you'll soon get a mug of tea."
These people were in such a state
because they'd been travelling so long,
that their only thought
was to quench their thirst.
And the SS executioners knew that very well.
It was all preprogrammed,
a calculated part of the extermination process
that if people were so weak
and weren't given something to drink,
they'd rush into the gas chamber.
But in fact,
all these people were already being exterminated
before reaching the gas chambers.
Think of the children.
They begged their mothers, screaming,
"Mother, please, water, water!"
The adults, too, who'd spent days without water,
had the same obsession.
Informing those people was quite pointless.
CORFU
(Bellsjingling)
(Metal banging)
(Banging intensifies)
(People chat in Greek)
(Metal banging)
- Grab it from there. - Yes, grab it from there.
- Put it right there. - Okay.
- Right there. - Okay, yes.
Okay, be careful. Wait.
- You'll come and pick it up later? - Yes.
- Put it down. - In a second.
Hold on a second.
Just hold on a second.
Maybe if you removed this?
Got it? That's how you'll load it.
Come and pick it up next week.
Understood? Now move the cart away from here.
Move the cart.
Yes, let's make some space.
(Man) So you're an actor now!
Let's finish this.
MOSHE MORDO
(Man, in Italian) These are my nephews.
They burned them in Birkenau.
Two of my brother's kids.
They took them to the crematorium with their mum.
They were all burned in Birkenau.
- My brother. - (Lanzmann) Yes?
He was sick,
and they put him in the oven, in the crematorium, and burned him.
That was at Birkenau.
(Mordo, In Italian) The oldest boy was 17,
the second was 15.
Two more kids "kaput" with their mum.
Yes, 4 children I lost.
- (Woman) Your brother? - No.
(Women chat in Greek)
(Lanzmann, In Italian) Your father too?
My dad, him too.
- (Lanzmann) How old was your father? - Dad was 85 years old.
- 85 years old and died in Auschwitz? - Yes.
Auschwitz, that's right.
85 and he died at Birkenau.
My father.
- Your father made the whole trip? - Yes.
(Mordo) The whole family died.
First the gas chamber, then the crematorium.
(♪ Man sings in Hebrew)
(♪ Mordo sings in Hebrew)
(♪Singing ends)
(In French) On Friday morning, June 9, 1944,
members of the Corfu Jewish community came, very frightened,
and reported to the Germans.
This square was full of Gestapo men and police,
and we went forward.
There were even traitors, the Recanati brothers, Athens Jews.
After the war they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
But they're already free.
We were ordered to go forward.
- (Lanzmann) By the street? - Yes, by this street.
- How many of you were there? - Exactly 1,650.
(Speaking Greek)
- Quite a crowd? - A lot of people.
Christians stopped there.
Christians, that's right. And they saw.
- Where were the Christians? - There.
- At the street corner? - Yes.
And on the balconies.
After we gathered here,
Gestapo men with machine-guns came up behind us.
What time was it?
- It was 6:00am. - In the morning.
- A fine day? - Yes, the day was fine.
6:00 in the morning.
1,600. That's a lot of people in the street.
People gathered.
The Christians heard the Jews were being rounded up.
- Why'd they come? - To see the show.
Let's hope it never happens again.
- Were you scared? - Very scared.
There were young people,
sick people, little children,
the old, the crazy, and so on.
When we saw they'd even brought the insane,
even the sick from the hospital,
we were frightened
for the survival of the whole community.
What were you told?
That we were to appear here at the fort
to be taken to work in Germany.
- Poland. - Poland, that's right.
The Germans had put up a proclamation on all the walls in Corfu.
It said all Jews had to report.
And once we were all rounded up,
life would be better without us in Greece.
It was signed by the police chiefs, by officials and by the mayors.
- That it's better without Jews? - Yes.
We found out after we came back.
Was Corfu anti-Semitic?
Corfu's always had anti-Semitism?
It existed, sure,
but it wasn't so strong in the years just before that.
Why not?
Because they didn't think like that against the Jews.
ARMANDO AARON - President of the Corfu Jewish community
- And now? - Now we're free.
How do you get on with the Christians now?
Very well.
- (Man speaks Greek) - Hmm?
Very well.
- What did he say? - He asked me what you said.
He agrees our relations with the Christians are very good.
(Man ♪2 speaks Greek)
- Did all the Jews live in the ghetto? - Most of them.
What happened after the Jews left?
They took all our possessions, all the gold we had with us.
They took the keys to our houses and stole everything.
To whom was all this given? Who stole it all?
By law, it was to go to the Greek government.
But the state got only a small part of it.
The rest was stolen, usurped.
- By whom? - By everybody, and by the Germans.
(Lanzmann) Of the 1,700 people deported...
(Aaron) Around 122 were saved.
95% of them died.
Was it a long trip from Corfu to Auschwitz?
We were arrested here on June 9,
and finally arrived June 29.
Most were burned on the night of the 29th.
It lasted from June 9 to 29?
(Speaks Greek)
We stayed here for around 5 days.
Here in the fort.
No one dared escape and leave his father, mother, brothers.
Our solidarity was on religious and family grounds.
The first group left on June 11.
I went with the 2nd convoy, on June 15.
What kind of a boat were you on?
A zattera. That's a boat made of barrels and planks.
It was towed by a small boat with Germans in it.
On our boat there were 1, 2 or 3 guards,
not many Germans, but we were terrified.
You can understand, terror is the best of guards.
- What was the journey like? - Terrible! Terrible!
No water, nothing to eat.
90 cars that were good for only 20 animals,
all of us standing up.
A lot of us died.
Later, they put the dead in another car in quicklime.
They burned them in Auschwitz, too.
(Whistle blows)
Next figure: WALTER STIER Ex-member of the Nazi party
FORMER HEAD, REICH RAILWAYS, BUREAU 33
"RAILROADS OF THE REICH"
(Lanzmann, in German) You never saw a train?
(Stier) No, never.
We had so much work, I never left my desk.
We worked day and night.
(Lanzmann) "G.E.D.O.B."
"GEDOB" means "Head Office of Eastbound Traffic."
(Stier) In January 1940, I was assigned to GEDOB Krakow.
In mid-1943, I was moved to Warsaw.
I was made chief traffic planner.
Chief of the traffic planning office.
(Lanzmann) But your duties were the same before and after 1943?
(Stier) The only change: I was promoted to head of the department.
What were your specific duties at GEDOB in Poland during the war?
(Stier) The work was barely different from the work in Germany:
preparing timetables,
coordinating the movement of special trains with regular trains.
- There were several departments? - Yes.
Department 33 was in charge of special trains
and regular trains.
The special trains were handled by Department 33.
You were always in the Department of Special Trains?
Yes.
What's the difference between a special and a regular train?
A regular train may be used
by anyone who purchases a ticket.
Say from Krakow to Warsaw.
Or from Krakow to Lemberg.
A special train has to be ordered.
The train is specially put together
and people pay...
...group fares.
Are there still special trains now?
- Of course. - Yes?
Just as there were then.
For group vacations, you can or ganise a special train?
Yes, for instance,
for immigrant workers returning home for the holidays...
(Clears throat)
...special trains are scheduled.
Or else one couldn't handle the traffic.
You said after the war you handled trains for visiting dignitaries.
After the war, yes.
If a king visits Germany by train,
that's a special train?
- That's a special train. - Yes.
But the procedure isn't the same
as for special trains for group tours, and so on.
State visits are handled by the Foreign Service.
May I ask you another question?
Why were there more special trains
during the war, than before or after?
I see what you're getting at.
You're referring to the so-called "resettlement trains."
- "Resettlement." That's it. - That's what they were called.
Those trains were ordered
by the Ministry of Transport of the Reich.
You needed an order from the Ministry of Transport of the Reich...
- In Berlin? - Correct.
As for the implementation of those orders,
the Head Office of Eastbound Traffic in Berlin dealt with it.
(Lanzmann) Yes, I understand.
- (Stier) Is that clear? - Perfectly.
But mostly, at that time, who was being "resettled"?
No! We didn't know that.
Only when we were fleeing from Warsaw ourselves,
did we learn that they could have been Jews,
or criminals, or similar people.
- Jews, criminals? - Criminals. All kinds.
Special trains for criminals?
No, that was just an expression.
You couldn't talk about that.
Unless you were tired of life,
it was best not to mention that.
(Lanzmann) But you knew that the trains to Treblinka or Auschwitz were...
Of course we knew.
I was the last district...
Without me, these trains couldn't reach their destination.
For instance, a train that started in Essen
had to go through the district of Wuppertal,
Hannover, Magdeburg, Berlin,
Frankfurt/Oder, Posen, Warsaw, etc.
So I had to.
Did you know that Treblinka meant extermination?
Of course not!
You didn't know?
Good God, no! How could we know?
I never went to Treblinka.
I stayed in Krakow, in Warsaw, glued to my desk.
You were a...?
- I was strictly a bureaucrat. - I see.
But it's astonishing that people in the Department of Special Trains
never knew about the "final solution."
(Stier) We were at war.
Because there were others who worked for the rail roads who knew.
- Like the train conductors. - No.
Yes, they saw it. They did.
But as to what happened, I know...
What was Treblinka for you? Treblinka or Auschwitz?
Yes, for us, Treblinka, Belzec and all that
were concentration camps.
- A destination? - Yes, that's all.
- But not death? - No.
People were put up there.
For instance, for a train coming from Essen
or Cologne, or elsewhere, room had to be made for them there.
With the war and the allies advancing everywhere,
those people had to be concentrated in camps.
When exactly did you find out?
When the word got around,
when it was whispered.
It was never said outright.
Good God, no! They'd have hauled you off at once!
We heard things...
- Rumours? - That's it, rumours.
During the war?
Towards the end of the war.
- Not in 1942? - No!
Good God, no! Not a word!
Towards the end of 1944, maybe.
- End of 1944? - Not before.
What did you...?
It was said that people were being sent to camps,
and those who weren't in good health probably wouldn't survive.
Extermination came to you as a big surprise?
Completely. Yes.
- You had no idea. - Not the slightest.
Like that camp, what was its name...?
It was in the Oppeln district.
I've got it: Auschwitz.
- Auschwitz was in the Oppeln district. - Right.
- Auschwitz wasn't far from Krakow. - That's true.
We never heard a word about that.
- Auschwitz to Krakow is 40 miles. - That's not very far.
And we knew nothing. Not a clue.
No.
But you knew that the Nazis...
that Hitler didn't like the Jews?
That we did. It was well-known, it appeared in print.
It was no secret.
But as to their extermination, that was news to us.
I mean, even today people deny it.
They say there couldn't have been so many Jews.
Is it true? I don't know.
That's what they say.
Anyway what was done was an outrage.
- What? - The extermination.
Everyone condemns it. Every decent person.
But as for knowing about it, we didn't.
The Poles, for instance.
The Polish people knew everything.
That's not surprising, Dr. Sorel.
They lived nearby, they heard, they talked.
And they didn't have to keep quiet.
(Whistle blows)
(Hilberg) This is the Fahrplananordnung Number 587,
which is typical for special trains.
The number of the order goes to show you how many of them there were.
Underneath: "Nur fur den Dienstgebrauch,"
"Only for internal use."
But this turns out to be a very low classification for secrecy.
Yes.
The fact that, in this entire document, which, after all, deals with death trains,
one cannot see...
Not only on this one, but one cannot see it on others.
One cannot see the word "geheim - secret,"
it's astonishing to me.
That they would not have done that is very astonishing.
But, on second thought, I believe that, had they labelled it secret,
they would have invited a great many inquiries from people who got hold of it.
They would then have perhaps raised more questions.
They would have focused attention on the thing.
And the key to the entire operation, from a psychological standpoint,
was never to utter the words
that would be appropriate to the action being taken.
"Say nothing. Do these things.
"Do not describe them."
So, therefore, this is "Nur für den Dienstgebrauch."
And now notice to how many recipients this particular order goes.
"BFE Bahnhofe."
On this stretch, there is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...
- And here we are in Malkinia... - Malkinia.
Which is, of course, the station near Treblinka.
Of course.
But notice that it takes eight recipients
for this relatively short distance,
through Radom to the Warsaw district.
Eight, because the train passes through these stations.
Therefore, each one has to know.
Not only that, but, of course, you're not going to write two pieces of paper
if you can write one.
So, therefore, we find here not only PKR,
which is a death train going here,
in the plan labelled thus,
but we also see the empty train after it has arrived in Treblinka,
now originating in Treblinka.
You can always know it's an empty train with the word "L" in front of it:
"Leer".
(Reads aloud German)
- Yes. And now... And now... - ...which means "return the empty train."
And now we're going back. Then we have another train.
Now notice that there's very little subtlety to this numbering system.
We're going from 9228 to 9229,
to 9230, to 9231, to 9232.
Hardly... Hardly any, uh, originality here.
It's just very regular traffic.
(Lanzmann) Death traffic.
(Hilberg) Death traffic.
And, here, we see that,
starting out in one ghetto, which obviously is being emptied,
the train leaves for Treblinka.
It leaves on the 30th of September, 1942,
18 minutes after 4:00, by schedule at least,
arrives there at 11:24 on the next morning.
This is also a very long train,
which may be the reason that it takes so slow.
It's "50 G." That's, er... "funfzig Gutervagen,"
50 freight cars filled with people.
That's an exceptionally heavy transport.
Now, once the train has been unloaded at Treblinka...
And you notice there are two numbers here:
11:24, that's in the morning,
and 15:59, which is to say, almost 4:00 in the afternoon.
In that interval of time, the train has to be unloaded,
cleaned and turned around.
It has to be very fast.
It has to be turned around.
And you see, here, the same numbers appear
as the "Leerzug," now empty train, goes to another place.
And it leaves at 4:00 in the afternoon
and now goes to that other place, which is yet another small town,
where it picks up victims.
And there you are at 3:00 in the morning.
It leaves on the 23rd at 3:00 in the morning
and arrives there the next day.
What is that? It seems to be the same train, as a matter off act.
- This is quite obviously the same. - Which gets every time another number.
The number has to be changed, quite obviously. Correct.
Then it goes back to Treblinka, and this is again a long trip.
It arrives in Treblinka, now goes back to yet another place.
Then the same situation, the same trip.
And then yet another.
It goes to Treblinka
and then arrives in Czestochowa on the 29th of September.
And then the cycle is complete.
And this is called a "Fahrplananordnung,"
and if you count up the number of, er...
not empty numbers, but full ones, PKRs...
There's one.
There is one.
- Here. - But why?
- That's two. That's three. - Why such a...?
That's four.
We may be talking here about 10,000 dead Jews
on this one Fahrplananordnung right here.
- More than 10,000. - Well, we will be conservative.
Yes.
But why such a document is so fascinating, as a matter off act?
Because I was in Treblinka, and to have the two things together,
Treblinka and that document...
Well, you see, when I hold a document in my hand,
particularly if it's an original document,
then I hold something which is actually something
that the original bureaucrat had held in his hand.
It's an artefact. It's a leftover. It's the only leftover there is.
- Yes. - The dead are not around.
(Dogs barking)
TREBLINKA - THE STATION
(Hilberg) The Reichsbahn was ready to ship, in principle,
any cargo in return for payment.
And, therefore, the basic key, price-controlled key,
was that Jews were going to be shipped to Treblinka,
were going to be shipped to Auschwitz, Sobibor, or any other destination,
so long as the rail roads were paid by the track kilometre,
so many pfennig per mile.
And the basic rate was the same throughout the war,
with children under 10 going at halffare, children under four going free.
And the payment had to be made for only one way.
The guards, of course, had to have return fare paid for them
because they were going back to their place of origin.
Excuse me. The children were shipped in the extermination camps...
- The children under four... - ...went free.
They had the privilege to be gassed freely?
Yes, their transport was free.
And, in addition to that, because the person who had to pay,
the agency that had to pay was the agency that ordered the train,
and that happened to have been the Gestapo, Eichmann's office...
Because of the financial problem which that office had in making payments,
the Reichsbahn agreed on group fare.
So the Jews were being shipped in much the same way
as any excursion fare would be granted if there were enough people travelling.
And the minimum was 400, a kind of charter fare.
400 was the minimum.
So even if there were fewer than 400,
it would pay to say that there were 400,
and, in that way, get the halffare for adults as well.
And that was the basic principle.
Now, of course, if there was exceptional filth in the cars,
which might be the case,
if there was damage to the equipment, which might be the case,
because the transports took so long,
and the inmates, to the extent of five or ten percent, died en route,
then there might be an additional bill for that damage.
But, in principle,
so long as payment was being made, transports were being shipped.
Sometimes, the SS got credit.
Sometimes, the transport went out before payment,
because, as you see, the whole business was handled,
as in the case of any other charter traffic, especially,
or any really personal traffic of any kind,
through a travel bureau.
Mitteleuropaisches Reiseburo would handle some of these transactions:
the billing procedure, the ticketing procedure.
Or if a smaller transport was involved, the SS would...
It was the same bureau who was dealing with any kind of normal passenger?
- Absolutely. - It was dealing with the Jews too.
Just the official travel bureau.
Mitteleuropaisches Reiseburo will ship people to the gas chambers,
or they will ship vacationers to their favourite resorts.
And that was basically the same office and the same operation,
the same procedure, the same billing.
- No difference? - No difference whatsoever.
And, as a matter of course, everybody would do that job
as if it were the most normal thing to do.
But it was not a normal job.
No, it was not a normal job.
As a matter off act, you know, even, uh...
even the complicated currency procedures were followed
in much the same way as with any other transaction,
if borders had to be crossed, and that was very frequent.
For instance?
Well, I think the most interesting example is, of course, Greece,
the transports from Saloniki, Greece, in the spring of 1943,
involving some 46,000 victims over a considerable distance,
so that, even with group fare, the bill came to almost two million marks,
which was quite a sum.
And the basic principle, you see, with such traffic,
is that which is employed in the usual customary way,
even to this day, all over the world.
One pays in the currency of the place of origin,
but, then, one has to pay the participating rail roads en route
in their own currencies.
From Saloniki, they had to cross Greece...
- They had to cross Greece. - In Greece, it was drachmas?
In Greece, it was drachma, and then you might have to go through the...
- Yugoslavia. - Yes, the Serbian and Croatian rail roads.
And you might have to then go through the Reichsbahn and pay in mark.
Now, ironically, the problem was, you see, that the military commander in Saloniki,
who was in charge,
so he, in a sense, was the ultimate person responsible for paying for these things,
didn't have the mark.
And he didn't have the Reichsmark, although he did have the drachma.
The drachma, you see, he had from the confiscated Jewish property
which was used to pay for these things.
This was a self-financing principle.
The SS or the military would confiscate the Jewish property
and, with proceeds, especially from bank deposits, would pay for transports.
This means that the Jews themselves...
- Absolutely. - ...would pay for their death?
You have to remember one basic principle:
there was no budget for destruction.
Yes.
So that is the reason that the confiscated property had to be used
in order to make the payments.
All right.
The property of the Jews in Saloniki was confiscated,
but the proceeds were in local Greek currency.
The Reichsbahn, of course, would want payment in mark.
How, then, do you change the drachma into mark?
Now, you have exchange controllers, right within occupied Europe.
The only way it could be done, of course,
is if somebody in this occupied zone obtained mark.
But how could they?
This was not such a simple thing in wartime.
And, therefore, for once, there was a default.
The rail road had shipped all these Jews to Auschwitz without compensation.
(Whistle blows)
(Muller) The "special detail's" life depended
on the trainloads due for extermination.
(Muller) When a lot of them came in,
the "special detail" was enlarged.
They couldn't do without the detail,
so there was no weeding-out.
OSWIECIM (AUSCHWITZ) THE STATION TODAY
But when there were fewer trainloads...
(Train whistle blows)
It meant immediate extermination for us.
We, in the "special detail," knew
that a lack of trains would lead to our liquidation.
The "special detail" lived in a crisis situation.
Every day,
we saw thousands and thousands of innocent people
disappear up the chimney.
With our own eyes, we could truly fathom
what it means to be a human being.
There they came,
men, women, children, all innocent.
They suddenly vanished,
and the world said nothing!
We felt abandoned. By the world, by humanity.
But the situation taught us fully
what the possibility of survival meant.
For we could gauge
the infinite value of human life.
And we were convinced
that hope lingers in man as long as he lives.
Where there's life, hope must never be relinquished.
That's why we struggled through our lives of hardship,
day after day, week after week, month after month,
year after year,
hoping against hope to survive,
to escape that hell.
(Suchomel) At that time,
in January, February,
March,
hardly any trains arrived.
Was Treblinka glum without the trains?
I wouldn't say the Jews were glum.
They became so when they realised...
I'll come to that later, it's a story in itself.
- Yes, it's a story in itself. - It's a story in itself.
Yes, I know.
The Jews...
...those in the work squads, thought at first...
- Those in the work squads, yes. - ...that they would survive.
But in January,
when they stopped receiving food,
for Wirth had decreed that there were too many of them,
there were a good 500 to 600 of them in Camp I...
- Up there? - Yes.
To keep them from rebelling,
they weren't shot or gassed,
but starved.
Then an epidemic broke out,
a kind of typhus.
The Jews stopped believing they'd make it.
They were left to die. They dropped like flies.
It was all over.
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
They'd stopped believing.
It was all very well to say...
We kept on insisting, "You're going to live."
We almost believed it ourselves.
If you lie enough, you believe your own lies.
Yes.
But they replied to me,
"No, chief, we're just reprieved corpses."
(Glazar) The "dead season," as it was called,
began in February 1943,
after the big trainloads came in from Grodno and Bialystok.
Absolute quiet.
It quieted in late January, February and into March.
Nothing.
Not one trainload.
The whole camp was empty.
And suddenly, everywhere, there was hunger.
It kept increasing.
And one day when the famine was at its peak,
Oberscharführer Kurt Franz appeared before us...
...and told us,
"The trains will be coming in again, starting tomorrow."
We didn't say anything.
We just looked at each other,
and each of us thought,
"Tomorrow...
"...the hunger will end."
At that period,
we were actively planning the rebellion.
We all wanted to survive until the rebellion.
The trainloads came from an assembly camp in Saloniki.
They'd brought in Jews from Bulgaria, Macedonia.
These were rich people.
The passenger cars bulged with possessions.
Then an awful feeling gripped us,
all of us, my companions as well as myself.
A feeling of helplessness,
a feeling of shame.
For we threw ourselves on their food.
A detail brought a crate full of crackers,
another full of jam.
They deliberately dropped the crates,
falling over each other,
filling their mouths with crackers and jam.
The trainloads from the Balkans brought us
to a terrible realisation...
RICHARD GLAZAR
We were the workers in the Treblinka factory,
and our lives depended
on the whole manufacturing process,
that is, the slaughtering process at Treblinka.
(Lanzmann) This realisation came suddenly
with the fresh trainloads?
Maybe it wasn't so sudden,
but it was only with the Balkans trainloads
that it became...
...so stark to us, unadorned.
Why?
24,000 people,
probably with not a sick person among them,
not an invalid, all healthy and robust.
I recall watching them from our barracks.
They were already naked, milling among their baggage.
And David...
David Bratt said to me,
"Maccabees!
The Maccabees have arrived in Treblinka!"
Sturdy, physically strong people,
unlike the others...
- Fighters? - Yes, they could have been fighters.
It was staggering for us,
for these men and women, all splendid...
...were wholly unaware of what was in store for them.
Wholly unaware.
Never before had things gone so smoothly and quickly.
Never.
We felt ashamed,
and also that this couldn't go on, that something had to happen.
Not just a few people acting
but all of us.
The idea was almost ripe back in November 1942.
Beginning in November '42,
we'd noticed
that we were being "spared,"
in quotes.
We noticed it
and we also learned
that Stangl, the commandant, wanted for efficiency's sake
to hang onto men who were already trained,
specialists in the various tasks:
sorters, corpse-haulers,
barbers who cut the women's hair,
and so on.
This in fact is what later gave us the chance
to prepare,
to or ganise the uprising.
We had a plan
worked out in January 1943,
code-named "The Time."
At a set time,
we were to attack the SS everywhere,
seize their weapons and attack the Kommandantur.
But we couldn't do it,
because things were at a standstill in the camp,
and because typhus had already broken out.
(Muller) In the autumn of 1943,
when it was clear to all of us
that no one would help us
unless we helped ourselves,
a key question faced us all.
For us in the "special detail,"
was there any chance to halt this wave of extermination
and still save our lives?
We could see only one:
armed rebellion.
We thought
that if we could get hold of a few weapons...
...and secure the participation of all the inmates...
...throughout the camp,
there was a chance of success.
That was the essential thing.
That's why our liaison men
contacted the leaders of the Resistance movement,
first in Birkenau,
then in Auschwitz I,
so the revolt could be coordinated everywhere.
FILIP MULLER
The answer came
that the Resistance command in Auschwitz I
agreed with our plan
and would join with us.
Unfortunately, among the Resistance leaders,
there were very few Jews.
Most were political prisoners
whose lives weren't at stake,
and for whom each day of life lived through
increased their chances of survival.
For us in the "special detail," it was the opposite.
RUDOLF VRBA
Auschwitz and Birkenau, apart from being a Hinrichtung centre,
a mass-murder centre,
was a normal concentration camp too,
which had its order, like Mauthausen,
like Buchenwald,
like Dachau, like Sachsenhausen.
But whereas in Mauthausen
the main product of prisoners' work was stone,
there was a big stone quarry,
the product in Auschwitz was death.
Everything was geared to keep the crematoria running.
This was the aim.
This means the prisoners would work on the road leading to the crematoria.
They would build the crematoria.
They would build all barracks necessary for keeping prisoners.
And, of course, apart from that,
there was an element of a normal German concentration camp,
because the Krupp and Siemens factories moved in and utilised slave labour.
So the Krupp factories and Siemens factories were built partly
directly within the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
The tradition in the concentration camp was
that there was a considerable amount of political prisoners,
trade unionists, Social Democrats,
Communists,
ex-fighters from Spain.
What happened was a very peculiar development.
The Resistance leadership in Auschwitz
was concentrated in the hands of...
...German-speaking anti-Nazis,
who were German by birth,
were considered racially pure by the Nazi hierarchy.
They got a bit better treatment than the rest of the camp.
I don't say that they were treated with gloves.
But they managed, with time,
to gain influence over various Nazi dignitaries from the SS
and to use it in a way
which led systematically to an improvement of conditions
within the concentration camp itself.
Whereas, in 1943...'42,
in Birkenau, in December and January,
a death rate of400 prisoners per day was common,
by May 1943,
not only because of the weather improvement,
but due to the activities of the Resistance movement,
the improvement was so marked
that the mortality grossly decreased in the concentration camp.
And they considered it a great victory on their side.
And that improvement of living conditions
within the concentration camp
was, perhaps, not so against the policy of the higher echelons ofSS ranks,
as long as it did not interfere with the objective of the camp.
This means production of death on the arrivals,
which were not prisoners of the camp.
There was a rule that if there are those people in the transport
who can be utilised for work,
who are in good physical condition,
they are not old, they are not too young, they are not children,
they are not women with children, et cetera, they look healthy,
they should come into the concentration camp
for replacement of those who were dying in the concentration camp,
as a fresh force.
And I could see the following discussions.
I once overheard...
A transport came from...
I think it was from Holland or from Belgium.
I do not guarantee which one it was.
And the SS doctor selected a group
of well-looking Jewish prisoners, newcomers,
from the whole transport, which would be gassed,
which was gassed.
But the representative SS from the concentration camp
said he doesn't want them.
And there was a discussion between them which I could overhear,
in which the doctor was saying, "Why don't you take them?
"They are... (speaks German)"
This means: "Jews very, very nourished on Dutch cheese."
"They would be good for the camp."
And Fries, it was, Hauptscharführer Fries answered him.
(Speaks German)
"I can't take those people,
"because nowadays they don't kick the bucket so fast in the camp."
- This means they don't die fast enough? - That's right.
In other words, he explained that the stand of the camp was, say, 30,000.
If 500 or 5,000 died,
they were replaced by a new force
from the Jewish transport which came in.
But if only a thousand died,
well, only a thousand were replaced, and more went into the gas chamber.
So, the improvement of the conditions within the concentration camp itself
made a higher death rate
in the gas chamber, straight into the gas chamber.
It decreased the death rate
among the prisoners in the concentration camp.
So, it was clear to me
that the improvement of the situation of the concentration camp
does not impede the process of mass executions
of those people who were brought into the camp.
Consequently, my idea, then, of the Resistance movement,
of the sense of the Resistance movement, was
that the improvement of the conditions within the camp is only a first step,
that the Resistance movement actually wants... is aware...
that the main thing is to stop the process of mass execution,
the machinery of the killing,
and that, therefore, it is a time of preparation,
of gathering of forces
for attacking the SS from inside,
even if it is a suicidal mission.
But destroy the machinery.
And in this respect,
I would consider it as a suitable objective,
worthy objective.
And... it was also clear to me
that such an objective cannot be achieved overnight,
there is necessary a lot of preparation and a lot of circumstances
about which, being only a small cog in the whole machinery of resistance,
I could not know or decide.
But it was clear in my mind
that the only objective of any resistance
within a concentration camp of the type of Auschwitz
has to be different from that in Mauthausen or in Dachau.
Because, whereas in Mauthausen and in Dachau,
this policy of resistance improved the survival rate of political prisoners,
the same very noble policy
improved and oiled the machinery of mass annihilation,
as practised by the Nazis within the concentration camp.
(Train clacking)
(Woman, in English) In There sienstadt,
this time it reached us, the transport to the east.
(Train whistle blows)
We were loaded into these wagons for cattle.
RUTH ELIAS - ISRAEL Deported from There sienstadt
And it went for two days...
...and one night.
- (Lanzmann) In wintertime? - The second day... It was December.
But it was warm inside, because we made the heat.
We heated it up with our temperature, body temperature.
One evening, the train came to a stop,
the next day in the evening.
And the doors were opened.
And there was a terrible screaming.
"Out! Out! Out! Out!"
We were shocked. We didn't know what's going on, where we are.
We saw only SS with dogs.
And we saw, in the distance, in symmetric lights there,
but we didn't know where we are,
what the lights, the thousands of lights, were meaning.
We only heard this shouting.
- "Out! Out! Out!" - (Lanzmann) "Raus!"
Yes, just exactly.
And, "Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!"
Out we came of these wagons.
We had to line up.
And there were some people with striped uniforms.
We didn't know what the stripes are.
And I asked one in Czech, "Where are we?"
And it was a Polish who understood my Czech,
and he told me, "Auschwitz,"
but it didn't mean anything to me.
What is Auschwitz?
I didn't know about Auschwitz anything.
We were led into a so-called family camp, Familienlager B Zwei B,
children, men and women together,
without any selection beforehand.
Men from the Männerlager,
they came in and told us
that Auschwitz is a VerniChtungslager,
where they are burning people,
and we didn't believe.
In this camp, there was already a transport
who left There sienstadt in September,
three months before us.
They didn't believe it too, because we were all together,
and nobody was taken away, and nobody was burned.
We didn't believe it.
(Vrba) Those Czech Jews from There sienstadt,
from the ghetto near Prague,
came into one particular part of the camp,
which was called "Bauabschnitt Zwei B," "IIB."
At that time, I was working as a registrar in II A.
The division between II A and II B was only one electrical fence,
through which nobody could climb, but you could speak through it.
In the morning, I could sort out the whole situation.
There were a number of surprising circumstances.
The families... this means men, women and children,
were taken together,
and nobody was gassed.
They took with them their luggage into the camp,
and they were not shorn, their hair was left.
So they were in a different position
than anything which I have seen until now.
I didn't know what to think about it, and nobody knew.
But in the main registrar's office,
it was known that all those people have got special cards,
which had a remark on them:
"SB mit sechsmonatiger Quarantäne."
"SB," we knew what it means:
"Sonderbehandlung" which meant "gassing".
And "Quarantäne" also we knew what it means.
But it didn't make sense to us
that somebody should be kept in the camp for six months
in order to be gassed after six months.
Therefore, it was left open to interpretation
if "SB - Sonderbehandlung" always means death in gas chamber
or if perhaps it has got a double meaning.
And the six months were supposed to elapse on March 7.
In December, and I think it was close to December 20,
another transport from There sienstadt came,
also about 4,000 people strong,
which was added to the first transport into the Camp B ll B.
Also, men, women and children were left together.
Families were not torn apart, old people, young people.
Everything remained intact.
And their hair was left, and their personal property was left.
They could wear civil clothes, whatever they had.
They were given a sort of a different treatment.
A school was arranged for the children in a special barrack.
The children soon made a theatre there.
Also it was not really a very comfortable life, because they were cramped,
and, from the first 4,000 people during the first six months,
the mortality was about a thousand.
- One thousand died. - (Lanzmann) Were they obliged to work?
Yes, they had to work, but only inside their camp.
They were making a new camp road,
and they were ornamenting the barracks.
They were induced to write letters,
induced to write letters by the SS,
to their relatives in the There sienstadt ghetto,
saying that they are all together, et cetera.
They had better conditions of food, for instance?
Definitely better conditions of food, better conditions of treatment.
I mean, the conditions were so good
that, within six months,
including the old people and children, only one quarter of them died.
I mean, this was a very unusually good condition in Auschwitz.
And, uh, to the children's theatre,
the SS used to come there and play with the children.
Personal relationships were struck up.
And, of course, one of my tasks as a registrar
was to find out the possibility of people who are resistance...
who have got a mind for resistance, and to strike up with them a relationship,
and contact, and...
- You were already a member of...? - The Resistance. Yes, yes.
That was my job as a registrar,
that I had the possibility of moving a bit around under various pretexts,
to carry papers from my part of the camp into the Central Registry,
and, at that occasion, to meet other people and give them messages,
take messages from them.
And one of my tasks then was, because I was closest to this camp,
to find out if, among the members of this transport,
there are people who are suitable for organising a Resistance nucleus.
We soon found several ex-members of the International Brigade in Spain.
And so, in no time, I had a list of about 40 people
who had a record from the past
of developing some sort of resistance against the Nazis.
A special figure emerged among this family camp,
a man called Freddy Hirsch.
He was a German Jew
who emigrated from Germany to Prague.
Freddy Hirsch showed a considerable amount of interest
for the education of the children who were there.
He knew each child by name.
And, by his upright behaviour and obvious human dignity,
he became a sort of a spiritual leader
of this whole family camp.
Now, March 7th started to near,
and this was supposed to give us the signal
of what is supposed to happen,
but what, we did not know for sure.
CREMATORIUM V
(Muller, in German) At the end of February,
I was in a night squad at Crematorium V.
Around midnight,
there appeared a man from the political section:
Oberscharführer Hustek.
He handed Oberscharführer Voss a note.
Voss was then in charge of the 4 crematoria.
I saw Voss unfold the note
and talk to himself, saying, "Sure, always Voss.
"What'd they do without Voss? How can we do it?"
That's how he talked to himself.
Suddenly he told me, "Go and get the kapos."
I fetched the kapos, kapo Schloime,
and kapo Wacek.
They came in, and he asked them,
"How many pieces are left?"
By "pieces" he meant bodies.
They told him, "Around 500 pieces."
He said, "By morning, those 500 pieces must be...
"...reduced to ashes.
"You're sure it's 500?" he asked. "Just about," they said.
"Arseholes! What do you mean, 'just about'?"
Then he left
for the "undressing room" to see for himself.
(Lanzmann) Where the bodies were?
They were piled there.
At Crematorium V, the "undressing room" also served
as a warehouse for bodies.
(Lanzmann) After the gassing?
After the gassing, the bodies were dragged there.
Voss went there to check.
He forgot the note, leaving it on the table.
I quickly scanned it,
and I was shocked by what I read.
BIRKENAU THE LAKE OF ASHES
(Muller) The crematorium was to be got ready
for "special treatment" of the Czech family camp.
In the morning, when the day squad came on,
I ran into kapo Kaminski,
one of the Resistance leaders in the "special detail",
and I told him the news.
He informed me
that Crematorium II was also being prepared.
That the ovens were ready there, too.
And he exhorted me,
"You have friends and fellow countrymen.
"Go and see them. They're locksmiths and can move around,
"so they can go to Camp B II B.
"Tell them to warn these people
"of what's in store for them,
"and say that if they defend themselves,
"we'll reduce the crematoria to ashes.
"And at Camp B II B,
they can immediately burn down their barracks."
We were certain that the next night,
these people would be gassed.
But when no night squad went out, we were relieved.
The deadline had been postponed
for a few days.
But many prisoners, including the Czechs in the family camp,
accused us of spreading panic, of having...
...of having circulated false reports.
(Vrba) Approximately by the end of February,
a rumour was spread by the Nazis
that the family transport will be moved
to a place called Heydebreck.
The first move was to separate the first family transport
from the second family transport,
by transferring them overnight
into the quarantine camp B II A,
where I was a registrar.
So I could now speak with those people directly.
I talked to Freddy Hirsch specifically,
and I told him about the possibility that the transport has been...
his transport, the family transport of the Czechs...
has been transferred to the quarantine camp
because of the possibility
of them being predestined to be gassed on March 7th.
He asked me if I know that for sure.
And I said, "I do not know it for sure, but it is a serious possibility,
"because there is no record of any train going away
"from Auschwitz."
And, usually, the offices, the registrars,
where the Resistance movement had their people,
would get wind of such an information,
of a transport being prepared out from Auschwitz,
and there was no such information.
And I explained him the circumstances, and I explained him what it means.
And the possibility, then, would arise
that, for the first time, there are, in camp, people
who are relatively physically preserved,
who have some sort of a morale retained,
who are certain to go to die,
in other words, to be subject to the normal execution procedure,
anonymous major execution procedure, as usual,
and they will know it, they can't be just tricked,
and that this is perhaps the time to act.
And the action, of course,
will have to come out from them.
Because there are others whose death was imminent,
and those were the people from the Sonderkommando
who worked in the crematorium, which was periodically replaced.
And they showed a willingness,
that if the Czechs, before the gassing, attack the SS, they will join them.
Freddy Hirsch objected.
He was very reasonable.
He said that it doesn't make sense to him
that the Germans would keep them for six months,
feeding the children with milk and white bread,
in order to gas them after six months.
On the next day, I got the message, again from the Resistance,
that it is sure that they are going to be gassed,
that the Sonderkommando already received the coal
for burning the transport.
The Sonderkommando knew exactly
how many people are going to be gassed, what sort of people,
because there were certain rules of work too.
So I called up again to Freddy and, uh, explained to him
that, as far as this transport is concerned, including him,
they are going to be gassed in the next 48 hours.
So, he suddenly started to worry.
He said, "What happens to the children if we start the uprising?"
He had a very close relationship with the children.
- How many children? - Could be about 100.
- Alive. - And how many people able to fight?
Uh, well, the nucleus was about 30,
and now it was not necessary to keep any precautions,
and this depends.
I mean, if it comes to fighting, even an old woman can pick up a stone.
Anybody can fight. I mean, this is difficult to predict.
But it was necessary to have a nucleus,
and it was necessary to have a leading personality.
You see, those are small details which are extremely important.
He said to me, "If we make the uprising,
"what is going to happen to the children?
"Who is going to take care of them?"
I said, "The children?
"I cannot say anything except that there is no way out for them.
"They will die whatsoever. That's for sure.
"This we cannot prevent.
"The question what we can do is, who is going to die with them,
"and how many SS are going to die with them,
"and how will it impede the whole machinery?
Plus, the possibility that a part, during the uprising,
"will find their way out from the camp."
Which is possible in such a situation.
I mean, to break through the guards,
because, once the uprising starts,
some weapons can be expected to be had.
And I explained to him that
there is absolutely no chance for him or for anybody from that transport,
to the best of my knowledge
and everybody else's knowledge whom I trust,
to survive the next 48 hours.
- This took place inside the block? - Inside the block, in my room.
And I told him also the need for a personality,
and that he has been selected for that.
And, of course, he explained to me that he understands the situation,
that it is extremely difficult for him to make any decisions
because of the children,
and that he cannot see how he can leave those children just to their fate.
He was sort of their father.
I mean, he was only 30 at that time,
but the relationship between him and those children was very strong.
And he said to me that, of course, he can see the logic behind my argumentation,
and that he would like to think about it for an hour,
if I could leave him alone to think for an hour.
And because I had, at that time, a room of my own as a registrar,
I left him in my room,
which was equipped with a table,
a chair and a bed
and some writing instrumentation.
And I told him that I will come back in an hour's time.
And I came back in an hour,
and I could see that he is laying on my bed,
and that he's dying.
He was cyanotic in the face.
He had froth around the mouth,
and I could see that he has poisoned himself.
He took poison,
but he was not dead.
And, because of him being so important, I...
I didn't know what sort of poison he took,
but I had, again, a connection to a man called Dr. Kleinman.
This Dr. Kleinman was of Polish origin and a French Jew
and medically qualified.
And I called Dr. Kleinman immediately to Hirsch
and asked Kleinman to do what he can
because this is an important man.
And Kleinman inspected Freddy Hirsch,
and he said that he thinks he poisoned himselfwith a big dose of barbiturates,
that it might be perhaps possible to save his life,
but he won't be on his feet for a long time to come,
and he is going to be gassed within the next 48 hours, and he thinks...
Kleinman said it would be better to leave things as they are
and to do nothing.
Well, the story after the suicide of Freddy Hirsch developed very fast.
The first thing, I informed the rest of... of them,
what I told to Hirsch.
Secondly, I moved to the Camp ll D
to establish a contact with the Resistance there,
with the Resistance movement.
They gave me bread for the people...
bread, yes, bread and onions...
and said that I will get... they don't know any...
no decision has been made, and I should come later for... for instructions.
The moment I distributed the bread, something happened,
namely, a special curfew was made within the camp.
All administrative activities were stopped.
All guards were doubled.
Machine guns, et cetera, were spread around the quarantine camps,
and I was out of contact.
The Czech family transport was then gassed in the evening.
They were put on trucks.
All of them knew.
They were put on trucks. They behaved very well.
We didn't know, of course, where the trucks are going.
They were being assured once more
that they are going to Heydebreck and not to be gassed.
And we knew that, if they are going out from the camp,
the trucks will turn right when they leave the camp.
And we knew that, if they turn left, there is only one way.
500 yards, and that's where the crematorium was.
(Muller) That night, I was at Crematorium II.
As soon as the people got out of the vans,
they were blinded by floodlights
and forced through a corridor
to the stairs leading to the "undressing room."
They were blinded, made to run.
Blows were rained on them.
Those who didn't run fast enough were beaten to death
by the SS.
The violence used against them was extraordinary.
And suddenly...
- (Lanzmann) Without explanation? - Not a word.
As soon as they left the vans,
the beatings began.
When they entered the "undressing room,"
I was standing near the rear door,
and from there I witnessed the frightful scene.
The people were bloodied.
They knew then where they were.
They stared at the pillars
of the so-called "International Information Centre" I mentioned,
and that terrified them.
What they read didn't reassure them.
On the contrary, it panicked them.
They knew the score.
They'd learned at Camp B ll B what went on there.
They were in despair.
Children clung to each other.
Their mothers,
their parents, the old people all cried,
overcome with misery.
Suddenly,
some SS officers appeared on the steps,
including the camp commandant, Schwarzhuber.
He'd given them his word as an SS officer
that they'd be transferred to Heydebreck.
So they all began to cry out, to beg,
shouting, "Heydebreck was a trick!
"We were lied to! We want to live! We want to work!"
They looked their SS executioners in the eye,
but the SS men...
...remained impassive, just staring at them.
There was a movement in the crowd.
They probably wanted to rush to the SS men
and tell them how they'd been lied to.
Then some guards surged forward,
wielding clubs,
and more people were injured.
In the "undressing room."
The violence climaxed
when they tried to force the people to undress.
A few obeyed,
only a handful.
Most of them refused to follow the order.
Suddenly, as though in chorus,
like a chorus...
they all began to sing.
The whole "undressing room" rang
with the Czech national anthem,
and the "Hatikva."
That moved me terribly, that...
Please stop.
That was happening to my countrymen,
and I realised
that my life had become meaningless.
Why go on living? For what?
So I went into the gas chamber with them...
...resolved to die.
With them.
Suddenly, some who recognised me came up to me.
For my locksmith friends and I
had sometimes gone into the family camp.
A small group of women approached.
They looked at me and said right there in the gas chamber...
- You were inside the gas chamber? - Inside.
One of them said,
"So you want to die.
"But that's senseless.
"Your death won't give us back our lives.
"That's no way.
"You must get out of here alive,
"you must bear witness to our suffering,
"and to the injustice done to us."
(Vrba) That's how it ended with the first Czech family transport.
And it was quite clear to me then
that the resistance in the camp
is not geared for an uprising, but for survival,
for the survival of the members of the Resistance.
I then decided to act,
what was called by the members of Resistance
as anarchic and individualistic activity,
like an escape and leaving the community
for which I am co-responsible by that time.
RUDOLF VRBA AND HIS FRIEND WETZLER
ESCAPED ON APRIL 7, 1944.
SEVERAL PRISONERS HAD PREVIOUSLY TRIED TO FLEE,
BUT ALL WERE CAUGHT.
The decision to escape,
in spite of the policy of the Resistance movement at that time,
uh, was formed immediately,
and I started to press on with the preparations for the escape
together with my friend Wetzler who was extremely important in this matter.
And before I left, I spoke with, uh, Hugo Lenek.
And Hugo Lenek was in command of the second...
of the Resistance group in the second family transport.
Yes, and I explained to him that,
from the Resistance movement, they can "explain" nothing now...
expect nothing but bread.
But when it comes to the dying, they should act on their own.
As for myself is concerned,
I think that if I successfully managed to break out from the camp
and bring the information to the right place, in the right time,
that this might be a help,
that I might manage, if I succeed, to bring help from outside.
And also it was a firm belief in me that all this was possible
because either the victims who came to Auschwitz
didn't know what is happening there,
or, if somebody had the knowledge outside,
that the knowledge was with...
I would say that they didn't know. That's it.
I thought that, if this will be made known, by any means,
within Europe and especially within Hungary,
from where a million Jews were supposed to be
transported to Auschwitz immediately in May,
and I knew about that,
that this might stir up the Resistance outside
and bring help from outside directly to Auschwitz.
And, thus, the escape plans were finally formulated,
and the escape took place on April 7th.
(Lanzmann) This is the main reason why you decided to escape?
Suddenly, at that moment, to press on with it.
In other words, not to delay anything,
but to escape as soon as possible.
To inform the world.
- About what was going on? - Right.
- In Auschwitz? - Right. Right.
(Exhales)
Now... now I go back
35 years.
No.
I don't go back, you know, as a matter off act.
(Sobbing)
I come back.
JAN KARSKI, University Professor, USA
FORMER COURIER OF THE POLISH GOVERNMENT IN EXILE
(Karski) I am ready. (Lanzmann) All right.
(Karski) In the middle of 1942,
I was thinking to continue my service as a courier
between the Polish underground
and the Polish government in exile, in London.
The Jewish leaders in Warsaw learned about it.
A meeting was arranged outside of the ghetto.
There were two gentlemen.
They did not live in the ghetto.
They introduced themselves:
leader of Bund,
Zionist leader.
Now, what "transcribed," what happened in our conversation,
first, I was not prepared for it.
I was relatively isolated in my work in Poland.
I did not see many things.
In 35 years after the war,
I don't go back.
I have been a teacher for 26 years.
I never mention the Jewish problem to my students.
I understand this film is for historical record,
so I will try to do it.
They described to me what is happening to the Jews.
Did I know about it?
No, I didn't.
They described to me first
that the Jews... Jewish problem is unprecedented,
cannot be compared with the Polish problem,
or the Russian, or any other problem.
Hitler will lose this war,
but he will exterminate all the Jewish population.
Do I understand it?
The Allies fight for their people.
They fight for humanity.
The Allies cannot forget
that the Jews will be exterminated totally in Poland,
Polish and European Jews.
They were breaking down.
They paced the room. They were whispering.
They were hissing.
It was a nightmare
for me.
(Lanzmann) Did they look in complete desperation?
Yes.
Yes, at various stages of the conversation,
they lost control of themselves.
I just sat in my chair.
I just listened.
I did not even react. I didn't ask them questions.
I was just listening.
Well, and then they...
(Lanzmann) They wanted to convince you to convey...?
They realised, I think...
They realised from the beginning that I don't know,
that I don't understand this problem.
Once I said I will take messages from them,
they wanted to inform me what is happening to the Jews.
And I didn't know this. I was never in a ghetto.
I never dealt with the Jewish matters.
Did you know yourself at the time
that most of the Jews of Warsaw had already been killed?
I did know, but I didn't see anything.
I had never heard any description what is happening over there.
I was never there.
It is one thing to know statistics.
There were hundreds of thousands of Poles also killed,
Russians, Serbs, Greeks.
We knew about it,
but it was a question of statistics.
But did they insist about the complete uniqueness
of the situation of the Jews?
Yes, this was their problem: to impress upon me,
and then it was my mission
to impress upon all people whom I am going to see,
that the Jewish situation is unprecedented in history.
Egyptians... Egyptian pharaohs did not do it.
Babylonians did not do it.
Now, for the first time in history,
actually, they came to the conclusion.
Unless the Allies take some unprecedented steps,
regardless of the outcome of the war,
the Jews will be totally exterminated.
And they cannot accept it.
This means that they asked for very specific measures...?
Yes.
So then, interchangeably,
at a certain point, the Bund leader,
at a certain point, the Zionist leader...
Then what do they want?
What message am I supposed to take?
Then they gave me messages,
various messages to the Allied governments, as such.
I was to see as many government officials as I could.
As I could, of course.
Then, to the Polish government.
Then to the president of the Polish Republic.
Then to the international Jewish leaders,
and to individual political leaders, leading intellectuals.
Approach as many people as possible.
And then they gave me segments: to whom do I report what.
So now, in this nightmarish...
Two meetings, I had with them,
nightmarish meetings.
Well, then, they presented their demands,
separate demands.
The message was:
"Hitler cannot be allowed to continue extermination.
"Every day counts."
NEW YORK
(Karski) The Allies cannot treat this war
only from a purely military, strategic standpoint.
They will win the war
if they take such an attitude,
but what good will it do to us?
We will not survive this war.
The Allied governments cannot take such a stand.
We contributed to humanity.
We gave scientists for thousands of years...
We originated great religions.
We are humans.
Do you understand it? Do you understand it?
It never happened before in history what is happening to our people now.
Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.
We understand we have no country of our own.
We have no government.
We have no voice in the Allied councils,
so we have to use services, little people like you are.
Will you do it? Will you approach them?
Will you fulfil your mission,
approach the Allied leaders?
WASHINGTON
We want an official declaration...
...of the Allied nations
...that, in addition...
...to the military strategy...
...which aims at securing victory,
military victory in this war,
extermination of the Jews...
...forms a separate chapter,
and the Allied nations
formally, publicly announce...
...that they will deal with this problem,
that it becomes a part
of their overall strategy in this war.
Not only defeat of Germany,
but also saving the remaining Jewish population.
Once they make such an official declaration...
They have an air force.
They drop bombs on Germany,
why cannot they drop millions of leaflets...
...informing the German population
exactly what their government is doing to the Jews?
Perhaps they don't know it!
Now, let them make an official declaration,
again, official, public declaration,
that if the German nation does not offer evidence
of trying to change the policy of their government,
German nation will have to be held responsible
for the crimes their government is committing.
And now, if there is not such evidence,
to announce publicly, officially,
certain objects in Germany
will be bombed, destroyed,
as retaliation
for what the German government is doing against the Jews.
That bombing which will take place
is not a part of the military strategy.
It deals only with the Jewish problem.
Let the German people know before bombing takes place
and after bombing takes place
that this was done and will continue to be done
because Jews are being exterminated in Poland.
Perhaps it will help.
They can do it. This, they can do it.
THE RUHR
(Karski) This was one mission.
Next...
...both of them,
particularly the Zionist leader...
He was again, like, whispering, hissing to me.
Something is going to happen.
The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are talking about it.
Particularly young elements,
they will fight.
They speak about declaration of war against the Third Reich,
unique war in the world history.
Never such a war took place.
They want to die fighting.
We cannot deny them this kind of death.
By the way, I didn't know at that time Jewish military organisation emerged.
They didn't tell me about it, only that something is going to happen.
The Jews will fight.
They need arms.
We approached the commander of the Home Army,
the underground movement in Poland.
Those arms were denied, refused.
They cannot be denied arms
if such arms exist,
and we know you have arms.
This message to the commander in chief, General Sikorski,
to issue orders
that those arms will be given to the Jews.
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
(Karski) This was another part of the mission.
There are international Jewish leaders.
Reach as many as possible.
Tell them this...
They are Jewish leaders.
Their people are dying.
There will be no Jews,
so what for do we need leaders?
We are going to die as well.
We don't try to escape. We stay here.
Let them go
to important offices
in London, wherever they are.
Let them demand for action.
If it is refused,
let them walk out,
stay in the street,
refuse food,
refuse drink.
Let them die
in view of all humanity.
Who knows? Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.
Between those two Jewish leaders,
somehow... and this belongs to human relations...
I took, so to say, to the Bund leader,
probably because of his behaviour.
He looked like a Polish nobleman,
a gentleman, straight,
beautiful gestures, dignified.
I think that he liked me, also personally.
Now, at a certain point, he suggested it.
He says, "Mr. Witold,
"I know the Western world.
"You are going to deal with the English.
"Now, you will give them your oral reports.
"I am sure it will strengthen your report
"if you will be able to say, 'I saw it myself."'
WARSAW
"We can or ganise for you to visit the Jewish ghetto.
"Would you do it?
"If you do,
"to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, I will go with you,
"so I will be sure
"that you will be as safe as possible."
A few days later, we established contact.
By that time,
the Jewish ghetto, as it existed in 1942 until July,
did not exist anymore.
Out of approximately 400,000 Jews,
in the meantime, some 300,000 were already deported from the ghetto.
So within the outside walls,
practically there were some four units.
The most important was the so-called "central ghetto."
They were separated by some areas inhabited by the Aryans,
already some areas not inhabited by anybody.
There was some building.
This building was constructed in such a way
that the wall which separated the ghetto from the outside world
was a part of the back of the building.
So the front was facing the Aryan area.
There was some tunnel.
We went through this tunnel without any kind of difficulties.
What struck me: completely different man,
the Bund leader,
the Polish nobleman.
I go with him.
He is broken down,
curving, like a Jew from the ghetto,
as if he lived there all the time.
Apparently, this was his nature.
This was his world.
So we walked the streets.
He was on my left.
We didn't talk very much. He led me.
Well, so what? So now comes the description of it, yes?
Well...
Naked bodies on the street.
I ask him, "Why are they here?"
- (Lanzmann) Corpses, you mean? - Corpses.
He says, "Well, they have a problem.
"If a Jew dies,
"and the family wants some burial,
"they have to pay tax on it,
"so they just throw them in the street."
- Because they cannot pay the tax? - Yeah.
They cannot afford it.
So then they say, "Every rag counts,"
so they take their clothing.
And then, once the body, the corpse, is on the street,
the Judenrat has to take care of it.
Women with their babies,
publicly feeding their babies,
but they have no... no breast, it's just flat.
Babies with some crazy eyes, looking.
Did it look like a complete strange world?
- What? - It was a world, I mean.
No, it was not a world. That was not humanity.
Streets full.
Full.
Apparently, all of them lived in the street.
Exchange what... what was the most important.
Everybody offering something to sell.
"Three onions."
"Buy onions." "Some cookies?"
Selling.
Begging each other.
Crying, "I am hungry."
Those horrible children.
Some children running by themselves,
or with their mothers, sitting.
It wasn't humanity.
It was some... some... some hell.
Now...
...this part of the ghetto,
German officers were there, in the central ghetto.
If Gestapo released somebody, and the Gestapo officers,
they had to pass through the ghetto to get out of it.
So there were also Germans, German traffic.
Now, the Germans in uniform,
they were walking.
Silence.
Everybody frozen until he passed.
No movement, no begging, nothing.
Germans.
Contempt.
"This is those..." apparently... "dirty subhuman."
"They are not human, this."
Now, at a certain point,
some movement starts.
Jews are running from the street I was on.
We jumped into some house.
He just hits the door.
"Open the door! Open the door!"
They opened the door. We moved in.
Windows go... give to the back of the street.
We go to the opposite.
In the door. Some woman opened the door.
He says, "All right, all right. Don't be afraid.
"We are Jews."
He pushes me to the window.
"Now look at it. Look at it."
(Sighs heavily)
There were two boys,
nice-looking boys,
Hitler-Jugend uniforms.
They walked.
Every step they made, Jews disappearing,
running away.
They were talking to each other.
At a certain point,
a boy gets into his pocket,
without even thinking...
...shoots.
"Aaah!"
Some broken glass.
Some shouting, "Aaah!"
The other boy says something, congratulating him.
They go back.
So I was paralysed.
(Gasps)
(Sobs)
So then the Jewish woman...
Probably she recognised me, I don't know... that I am not a Jew.
She embraced me. "Go, go. It doesn't do you any good.
"Go, go."
So we left the house.
Then we left the ghetto.
So then he said, "You didn't see everything. You didn't see too much.
"Would you like to go again? I will go with you.
"I want you to see everything."
"I will."
Next day, we went again. The same house, the same way.
So then, again, now I was more conditioned,
so I felt the other things.
Stench.
Dirt, stench.
Everywhere. Suffocating.
Dirty streets.
Nervousness. Tension.
Some bedlam.
This was Platz Muranowski.
In a corner of it,
some children playing something with some rags.
They're throwing the rags to another.
He says, "They are playing, as you see.
"Life goes on. Life goes on."
So then I said,
"They are simulating playing. They don't play."
- It was a special place for playing? - In the corner of Platz Muranowski.
No, no, no. Open.
- As I say, they are... - There were trees?
There were a few trees, rachitic trees.
So then we just walked the streets.
We didn't talk to anybody.
We walked probably one hour.
Sometimes, he would tell me,
"Look at this Jew,"
a Jew standing, without moving.
I said, "Is he dead?" He says, "No, no, no. He's alive.
"Mr. Witold, remember, he's dying.
"He's dying. Look at him.
"Tell them over there.
"You saw it. Don't forget."
We walk again.
It's macabre.
Only from time to time, he would whisper,
"Remember this. Remember this."
Or he would tell me, "Look at her."
In very many cases,
I would say, "What are they doing here?"
His answer: "They are dying. That's all right. They are dying."
And always, "But remember, remember."
We spent more... perhaps one hour.
We left the ghetto.
Frankly, I couldn't take it anymore.
"Get me out of it."
And then I never saw him again.
I was sick.
I don't... Even now, I don't want...
I understand your role. I am here.
I don't go back in my memory.
I couldn't take any more.
But I reported... what I saw.
Yes, it was not a world, it was not a part of humanity.
I was not part of it.
I did not belong there.
I never saw such things. I never...
Nobody wrote about this kind of reality.
I never saw any theatre, I never saw any movie.
This was not the world.
I was told that these are human beings.
They didn't look like human beings.
Then we left. He embraced me then.
"Good luck. Good luck."
I never saw him again.
WARSAW
Next figure: Dr FRANZ GRASSLER, DEPUTY TO AUERSWALD,
THE NAZI COMMISSIONER OF THE WARSAW GHETTO
(Lanzmann, in German) You don't remember those days?
(Grassler) Not much.
I recall more clearly my pre-war mountaineering trips
than the entire war period
and those days in Warsaw.
All in all, those were bad times.
It's a fact, we tend to forget,
thank God,
the bad times more easily than the good.
The bad times are repressed.
(Lanzmann) I'll help you remember.
In Warsaw, you were Dr. Auerswald's deputy.
(Grassler) Yes.
(Lanzmann) Dr. Auerswald was...
(Grassler) Commissioner of the "Jewish District" of Warsaw.
Dr. Grassler, this is Czerniakow's diary.
You're mentioned in it.
- It's been printed, it exists? - Yes, yes.
- He kept a diary... - Mm-hmm.
That was recently published.
He wrote on July 7, 1941...
July 7, 1941? That's the first time I've relearned a date.
May I take notes?
After all, it interests me too.
So in July I was already there.
He wrote on July 7, 1941,
"Morning in the Community", the Jewish Council HQ,
"and later with Auerswald, Schlosser..."
- Schlosser was... - "...and Grassler."
"On routine matters."
That's the first time...
- That my name is mentioned? - Yes.
Yes, but there were three of us.
Schlosser was in the "economics department."
- I think he had to do with economics. - Yes, yes.
And the second time...
...was on July 22.
CZERNIAKOW WAS PRESIDENT OF THE WARSAW JEWISH COUNCIL
- He wrote every day? - Yes.
Yes, every day.
- Every day? - It's quite amazing...
That the diary was saved. It's amazing that it was saved.
BURLINGTON - VERMONT, USA
(Hilberg, In English) Adam Czerniakow began keeping a diary
the very first week of the war,
before the Germans entered Warsaw,
and before he took over the responsibility of leading the Jewish community,
and kept his diary in daily entries
until the afternoon of the day that he ended his life.
He left us a window
through which we can observe a Jewish community
in the terminal hours of its life.
A dying community, for it began dying from the beginning.
RAUL HILBERG
In that sense,
Adam Czerniakow did something very important.
He didn't save the Jews.
In that respect, he was like other Jewish leaders.
But he left a record of what had happened to them
in a day-by-day fashion.
And you could see that he did all this
on top of working a seven-day week,
for he was a man without vacations,
without any day off.
And yet every day, almost every day,
he had an entry.
He might record the weather,
where he went in the morning,
and then all the things that happened,
but he never failed to write.
That was something that moved him, pushed him,
compelled him throughout the years,
almost three years of his life under the Germans.
And, in that sense,
perhaps because he wrote in such a prosaic style,
we now know what went on in his mind,
how things were perceived,
recognised, reacted to.
We even know from what he didn't say
just what it is that went through this community.
There are constant references in the diary
to the end.
He talks in terms of Greek mythology,
and he refers to himself as wearing a poisoned cloak,
as Hercules once did.
He has a feeling of doom
for the Jews of Warsaw.
And there are remarkable passages in the diary that illustrate what he meant.
He is sarcastic enough, if that is the word,
in December 1941, to remark that now the intelligentsia were dying also.
Up to this point, poor people were dying,
but, by December 1941, members of the intelligentsia were starving to death.
(Lanzmann) Why does he mention specifically the intelligentsia at this time?
He mentions it because there is a difference,
owing to the class structure within the ghetto,
in vulnerability to starvation.
The lower classes died first. The middle class died a little bit later.
Intelligentsia were, of course, at the top of the middle class,
and once they started dying, the situation was really very, very bad.
And that's the meaning of that.
We're dealing with a ghetto where the average consumption
was about 1,200 calories.
He mentions with approval, with approval,
that one petitioner came to him for money
and said, "I want money,
"not in order to eat.
"I want money for the rent,
"to pay the rent for my apartment,
"because I don't want to die in the street."
This is the kind of comment that Czerniakow writes down in his diary.
This meaning of dignity,
the approval of the...
You mean he received a petition from somebody
who said, "Give me money"?
Yes, but not for food.
"Give me money so that I can pay the rent,
"because I don't want to die in the street."
There were people dropping dead in the street.
They were covered with newspaper.
Why was the housing more important to him than the food?
To this particular individual,
who wasn't eating enough to remain alive,
who didn't want to be dying of hunger while collapsing in the street.
This means that death was not avoidable,
but it was avoidable... to die either inside or outside?
Of course. It is one of these sardonicjokes,
of which he had quite a few.
He always had the...
strange, strange description
of a band playing in front of a funeral parlour,
of a hearse with drunken drivers,
and a dead child running around the grounds.
He had... He had rather sardonic comments about death.
He lived with death.
(Pages turning)
(Lanzmann) Did you go into the ghetto?
Seldom. When I had to visit Czerniakow.
What were the conditions like?
Awful.
- Yes, awful. - Yes?
I never went back when I saw what it was like.
Unless I had to.
In the whole period, I think I only went once or twice.
At the Commission, we tried
to maintain the ghetto for its labour force,
and especially to prevent epidemics, like typhus.
That was the big danger.
- Yes. - Yes?
Can you tell us about typhus?
I'm not a doctor.
I only know that typhus is a very dangerous epidemic
that wipes people out like the plague,
and that it can't be confined to a ghetto.
If typhus had broken out...
I don't think it did, but there was fear that it might,
...it would have killed the Poles and the Germans.
Why was there typhus in the ghetto?
I don't know if there was,
but there was a danger, because of the famine.
People didn't get enough to eat.
That's what was so awful.
At the Commission,
we did our best to feed the ghetto,
so it wouldn't become an incubator of epidemics.
Aside from humanitarian factors, that's what mattered.
If typhus had broken out, and it didn't,
it wouldn't have stopped at the ghetto.
Czerniakow also wrote that
one of the reasons the ghetto was walled in
was because of this German fear.
- Yes, absolutely! - Fear of typhus.
He says Germans always associated Jews with typhus.
Maybe.
I'm not sure if there were grounds for it.
But imagine that mass of people packed in the ghetto...
There weren't only the Warsaw Jews,
but others who came later.
The danger kept on growing.
(Hilberg) There was a lady somewhere in Warsaw,
in love with a man.
And the man was hit,
grievously wounded,
with his insides coming out.
This woman stuffed the insides back with her own hands.
She carried the man to a first-aid station. He died.
He was buried in a mass grave. She disinterred him and buried him.
This, to Czerniakow, this simple episode,
was the ultimate of virtue.