Shoah Page #20

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, uh, job, the same procedure.

- You said that you were 16 barbers, about?

- 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.

Afterwards, 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.

- You were...

- 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 rninute, 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 of fact, 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 I was...

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...

lcannot

[ Lanzmann ]

Go on, Abe. You must go.

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 apologize.

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 1

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 German]

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 ovem/helmed 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 feces.

Only women?

- Not the men, only the women.

- [ Repeats Phrase]

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, fa?

- 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.

Nein?

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.

- Ja.

- That's a fact.

- It's been medically...

- [ Repeats Phrase]

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...

- Ja.

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.

l! 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.

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