Shoah Page #6

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

He says the foreign Jews

arrived here in passenger cars,

they were well dressed, in white shirts,

there were flowers in the cars,

and they played cards.

[ Lanzmann, In French]

From what I know, that was very rare,

Jews shipped in passenger cars.

Most arrived in cattle cars.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

It's not true.

- [ Interpreter #1 Repeats Phrase]

- [ Lanzmann ] it's not true?

[Woman Speaking Polish]

[ Lanzmann ]

What did Mrs. Gawkowska say?

[ Interpreter #1 ]

She said he may not have seen everything.

[ Lanzmann ]

Oui.

[ Interpreter #1 ]

He says he did.

Once, at the Malkinia station,

for example,

a foreign Jew left the train

to buy something at the bar.

The train pulled out

and he ran after it...

[ Lanzmann ]

To catch up to it.

[ Interpreter #1 ]

Oui.

So he went past these Pullmans,

as he calls them,

those Jews who were calm, unsuspecting,

and he made that gesture to them.

[Speaking Polish]

Oui.

To all the Jews, in principle.

He just went along the platform.

Ask him.

Yes. The road was as it is now.

When the guard wasn't looking,

he made that gesture.

[ Lanzmann ]

Ask Mr. Gawkowski why he looks so sad.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

Because I saw men

marching to their death.

[ Lanzmann ]

Precisely where are we now?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

It's not far...

a mile and a half from here.

- [ Lanzmann ] What, the camp?

- Oui.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

Oui.

[ Lanzmann ]

What's that dirt road he's indicating?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

That's where the rail line

into the camp was.

[ Lanzmann ] Did Mr. Gawkowski,

aside from the trains of deponees

he drove from Warsaw or Bialystok

to the Treblinka station...

Did he ever drive the deportee cars

into the camp

from the Treblinka station?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Gawkowski] 'Yak.

- Oui.

'Yak.

[ Lanzmann ]

Did he do it often?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

[ Gawkowski Replies ]

Two or three times a week.

- [ Lanzmann ] Over how long a period?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

[ Gawkowski Replies ]

Around a year and a half.

[ Lanzmann] That is,

throughout the camp's existence?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Gawkowski] 'Yak.

- Oui.

'Yak.

- [ Lanzmann] This is the ramp.

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

Here he is, he goes

to the end with his locomotive,

and he has the 20 cars behind him.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

No, they're in front of him.

- He pushed them?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- That's right, he pushed them.

- [ Lanzmann Repeats Phrase]

[ Interpreter #1 ]

Oui.

[ Piwonski Speaking Polish]

[ Interpreter #1 ]

In February 1942,

I began working here

as an assistant switchman.

[ Lanzmann]

The station building, the rails, the platforms

are just as they were in 1942?

- Nothing's changed?

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Piwonski Replies]

- Nothing.

Exactly where did the camp begin?

JAN PIWONSKI:

I'll show you exactly.

Here,

there was a fence that ran

to those trees you see there.

[ Lanzmann ]

Oui.

And another fence

that ran to those trees over there.

So I'm standing

inside the camp perimeter, right?

[ Interpreter #1 ]

That's right.

Where I am now

is 50 feet from the station,

and I'm already outside the camp.

- [ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Piwonski] Tak. Tak.

Yes.

So this is the Polish part,

and over there was death.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

Yes.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

On German orders,

Polish railmen split up the trains.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

So the locomotive took 20 cars

and headed toward Chelm.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

When it reached a switch...

[ Piwonski Continues ]

it pushed the cars into the camp

on the other track we can see.

The ramp began there.

So here we're outside the camp,

and back here we enter it.

Unlike Treblinka,

the station here is part of the camp.

- [Speaking Polish]

- Tak. Tak.

Tak?

And at this point,

we are inside the camp.

[ Piwonski Speaking Polish]

[ Interpreter #1 ]

This track was inside the camp.

And it's exactly as it was? Hmm?

Yes, the same track.

It hasn't changed since then.

Where we are now

is what was called the ramp, right?

Yes, those to be exterminated

were unloaded here.

So where we're standing

is where 250,000 Jews

were unloaded before being gassed.

Yes.

[ Lanzmann ] Did foreign Jews

arrive here in passenger cars, too?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- [ Piwonski Replies ]

- Not always.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

Often the richest Jews...

[ Piwonski Continues ]

from Belgium, Holland, France...

[ Piwonski Continues ]

arrived in passenger cars...

- [ Piwonski Continues ]

- sometimes even in 1st class.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

They were usually better treated

by the guards.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

Especially the convoys

of Western European Jews

waiting their turn here,

Polish railmen saw the women

putting on make-up, combing their hair,

wholly unaware

of what awaited them minutes later.

Oui.

They dolled up.

And the Poles

couldn't tell them anything:

The guards forbad contact

with the future victims.

[ Lanzmann ]

I suppose there were fine days like today.

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

[ Piwonski Replies ]

Unfortunately, some were even finer.

RUDOLF VRBA - NEW YORK, USA,

survivor of Auschwitz

[ Vrba, In English]

There was a place called the ramp,

where the trains with the Jews

were coming in, in Auschwitz.

They were coming in day or night,

and sometimes one per day,

and sometimes five per day,

from all sorts of places in the world.

I worked there from August 18, 1942

until June 7, 1943.

I saw those transports rolling

one after the other,

and I am sure that I have seen at least

two hundred of them, in this position.

I have seen it so many times

that it became a routine.

Constantly, people from the heart

of Europe were disappearing,

and they were arriving to the same place

with the same ignorance of the fate

of the previous transports.

And that people in this mass...

And I knew, of course, that within

a couple of hours after they arrived there,

90% of them will be gassed,

or something like that. I knew that.

And somehow, in my thinking,

it... I could...

It was difficult for me to comprehend

that people can disappear in this way,

and nothing is going to happen,

and then there comes the next transport,

and they don't know anything about

what happened to the previous transport,

and this is going on

for months and months, on and on.

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

So what happened was the following:

Say, a transpon of Jews

was announced to come at 2:00.

So when the transport arrived

to close stations from Auschwitz,

the announcement came to the SS.

Now, one SS man came and woke us up.

We had to get up

and, uh, move to the ramp.

We immediately got an escort in the night,

and we were escorted to the ramp.

Say, we were about 200 men.

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