Shoah Page #2

[ Lanzmann ]

Was the weather very cold?

[ Interpreter #2 Speaking Yiddish]

[ Podchlebnik Replies ]

It was in the winter of 1942,

in early January.

[ Lanzmann ] At that time,

the bodies weren't burned, just buried?

[ Interpreter #2 Speaking Yiddish]

[ Podchlebnik Replies ]

No, they were buried,

and each row was covered with dirt.

They weren't being burned yet.

There were around four or five layers.

The ditches were funnel-shaped.

[ Podchlebnik Continues]

They dumped the bodies

in these ditches,

and they had to lay them out

like herrings, head to foot.

[ Lanzmann ] So it was they who dug up

and burned all the Jews of Vilna?

- [ Podchlebnik Replies]

- Yes.

[ Man Speaking Hebrew]

[ Interpreter #3, In French]

In early January 1944,

we began digging up the bodies.

[ Man Continues]

When the last mass grave was opened,

I recognized my whole family.

[ Lanzmann, In French]

Whom in his family did he recognize?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

Morn and my sisters.

3 sisters with their kids.

They were all in there.

[ Lanzmann]

How could he recognize them?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

ITZHAK DUGIN:

Survivor of Vilna

They'd been in the earth 4 months,

and it was winter.

They were very well preserved.

I recognized their faces,

their clothes too.

[ Lanzmann]

They'd been killed relatively recently?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

Oui.

[ Lanzmann ]

And it was the last grave?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

- [ Dugin Replies]

- Oui.

[ Lanzmann ]

The Nazi plan was for them to open the graves

starting with the oldest?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

Oui.

The last graves were the newest,

and we started with the oldest,

those of the first ghetto.

In the first grave,

there were 24,000 bodies.

[ Motke Speaking Hebrew]

[ Interpreter #3, In French]

The deeper you dug, the flatter the bodies were.

Each was almost a flat slab.

[ Motke Continues]

When you tried to grasp a body,

it crumbled,

it was impossible to pick them up.

We had to open the graves,

but without tools.

They said, Get used to working

with your hands.

[ Lanzmann, In French]

With just their hands?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

Oui.

When we first opened the graves,

we couldn't help it,

we all burst out sobbing.

But the Germans almost beat us to death.

We had to work

at a killing pace for two days,

beaten all the time, and with no tools.

[ Lanzmann ]

They all burst out sobbing?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

[ Motke Continues]

The Germans even forbade us

to use the words corpse or victim.

The dead were blocks of wood, sh*t,

with absolutely no importance...

[ Dugin Speaking Hebrew]

Anyone who said corpse

or victim was beaten.

[ Dugin Continues]

The Germans made us

refer to the bodies as Figuren,

that is, as puppets, as dolls...

- Schmattes.

- or as Schmattes, which means rags.

[ Lanzmann ]

Were they told at the start!

how many Figuren

there were in all the graves?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

[ Motke Replies ]

The head of the Vilna Gestapo told us,

There are 90,000 people lying there,

and absolutely no trace

must be left of them.

[ In German]

It was at the end of November 1942.

They chased us away from our work

and back to our barracks.

Suddenly,

from the part of the camp called

the death camp,

flames shot up very high.

In a flash, the whole countryside,

the whole camp seemed ablaze.

It was already dark.

We went into our barracks

and ate...

And from the window,

we kept on watching

the fantastic backdrop of flames

of every imaginable color,

red, yellow, green, purple.

And suddenly one of us stood up.

We knew he'd been

an opera singer in Warsaw.

His name was Salve, and...

- [ Lanzmann, In German] Salve?

- Salve.

Facing that curtain of fire,

he began chanting a song

I didn't know:

My God, my God,

why hast Thou forsaken us?

RICHARD GLAZAR -

BASEL (SWITZERLAND)

We have been thrust

into the fire before,

but we have never denied

Thy Holy Law.

He sang in Yiddish,

while, behind him,

blazed the pyres

on which they had begun

then, in November 1942,

to burn the bodies in Treblinka.

That was the first time it happened.

We knew that night

that the dead would no longer be buried,

they'd be burned.

TREBLINKA:

When things were ready,

they poured on fuel

and touched off the fire.

They waited for a high wind.

The pyres usually burned

for 7 or 8 days.

[ Srebnik, In German]

There was a concrete platform some distance away,

and the bones that hadn't burned,

the big bones of the feet, for example,

we took...

There was a chest with two handles.

We carried the bones there,

where others had to crush them.

It was very fine,

that powdered bone.

Then it was put into sacks,

and when there were enough sacks,

we went to a bridge on the Narew river

and dumped the powder.

The current carried it off.

It drifted downstream.

[ Srebnik Singing In Polish: Little White House]

[ Lanzmann, In English]

You never returned to Poland since?

[ Woman, In English]

No.

I wanted many times.

But, what will I see?

How can I face it?

My grandparents are buried in Lodz.

And, at one point, I heard

from somebody that visited Poland

that they want to level off the cemetery,

do away with the cemetery.

Now how can I return to that, to visit?

[ Lanzmann ]

When did they die, your grandparents?

- My grandparents?

- Mm-hmm.

My grandparents died in the ghetto, quickly.

They were elderly,

and within a couple years...

Within a year, my grandfather died.

- And my grandmother the next year.

- In the ghetto?

In the ghetto, yes.

PAULA BIREN - CINCINNATI U.S.A.

survivor of Auschwitz

THE JEWISH CEMETERY

IN LODZ TODAY:

[Crows Cawing ]

[Church Bells Ringing ]

AUSCHWITZ:
THE TOWN

[ Lanzmann, In French]

Mrs. Pietryra, you live in Auschwitz?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Pietryra Replies In Polish]

[ Interpreter #1, In French]

Yes, I was born here.

[ Lanzmann ]

And you've never left Auschwitz?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Pietryra Replies ]

No, never.

[ Lanzmann ]

Were there Jews in Auschwitz before the war?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

[ Pietryra Replies ]

They made up 80% of the population.

[Speaking Polish]

They even had a synagogue here.

- [ Lanzmann ] Just one?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- Just one, I think.

- [ Lanzmann ] Does it still exist?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

No, it was wrecked.

There's something else there now.

[ Lanzmann ]

Was there a Jewish cemetery in Auschwitz?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

It still exists. it's closed now.

- It still exists?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

Yes.

[ Lanzmann ]

Closed? What does that mean?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Pietryra Replies ]

They don't bury there now.

[ Congregation Singing Polish Hymn]

[ Lanzmann, In French]

Was there a synagogue in Wlodawa?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [Speaking Polish]

[ Interpreter #1, In French]

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