Shoah Page #9

- Certainly.

[ Lanzmann ]

I think that's best.

If you could give us

a description of Treblinka.

How did it look when you arrived?

- I believe you got there in August?

- Mme August.

- Was it August 20 or 24?

- [ Suchome! Replies ]

- The 18th?

- I don't know exactly.

Around August 20.

[ I anzmann j

J a .

I arrived there with seven other men.

- From Berlin?

- From Berlin.

From Lublin?

From Berlin to Warsaw,

from Warsaw to Lublin,

from Lublin back to Warsaw

and from Warsaw to Treblinka.

What was Treblinka like then?

Treblinka then was operating

at full capacity.

- Full capacity?

- Full capacity!

Trains arrived...

The Warsaw ghetto

was being emptied then.

Ja.

Three trains arrived in two days...

Ja.

each with three, four,

five thousand people aboard,

all from Warsaw.

But at the same time,

other trains came in

from Kielce and other places.

- Kielce?

So three trains arrived,

and since the offensive

against Stalingrad was in fear,

the trainloads of Jews

were left on a station siding.

What's more, the cars were French...

Ja.

made of steel.

So that while 5,000 Jews

arrived in Treblinka,

3,000 were dead.

- In the...

- In the cars.

They had slashed their wrists,

or just died.

The ones we unloaded

were half-dead

and half-mad.

In the other trains from Kielce

and elsewhere,

at least half were dead.

We stacked them here, here,

here and here.

Thousands of people

piled one on top of another.

Ja.

On the ramp?

- On the ramp.

Stacked like wood.

In addition,

other Jews, still alive,

waited there for two days:

The small gas chambers

could no longer handle the number.

They functioned

day and night in that period.

Can you please describe, very precisely,

your first impression of Treblinka?

Very precisely. it's very important.

My first impression of Treblinka,

and that of some of the other men,

was catastrophic.

For we had not been told

how and what...

that people were being killed there.

They hadn't told us.

- You didn't know?

- No!

Incredible!

But true. I didn't want to go.

Ja.

- That was proved at my trial.

- Ja.

I was told,

Mr. Suchomel,

there are big workshops there

for tailors and shoemakers,

and you'll be guarding them.

- Ja.

- Nothing more.

But you knew it was a camp?

Yes. We were told,

The Fuhrer ordered a resettlement program.

- Ja.

- It's an order from the Fuhrer.

- Jaja.

- Understand?

- Resettlement program...

- [ Repeats Phrase]

- Ja.

No one ever spoke of killing.

[ Lanzmann ]

I understand.

Mr. Suchomel, we're not discussing you,

only Treblinka.

You are a very important eyewitness,

and you can explain what Treblinka was.

[ Suchomel]

But don't use my name.

No, I promise.

[ Suchomel]

Und Dortmund...

[ Lanzmann ]

All right, you've arrived at Treblinka.

[ Suchomel]

So Sta-die, the sarge,

showed us the camp

from end to end.

Just as we went by,

they were opening the gas chamber doors,

and people fell out like potatoes.

Naturally, that horrified

and appalled us.

We went back and sat down

on our suitcases

and cried like old women.

Each day, 100 Jews were chosen

to drag the corpses to the mass graves.

In the evening, the Ukrainians drove

those Jews into the gas chambers

or shot them.

Every day!

It was in the hottest days of August.

The ground undulated like waves

because of the gas.

From the bodies?

: 3%:

Bear in mind, the graves

were maybe 18, 20 feet deep...

Ja.

all crammed with bodies!

A thin layer of sand

and the heat. You see?

It was hell up there.

You saw that?

Yes, just once, the first day.

We puked and wept.

- You wept?

- We wept too, yes.

[ Lanzmann ]

Ja.

- The smell was infernal.

- [ Repeats Phrase]

Yes, because gas

was constantly escaping.

It stank horribly, for miles around.

- Miles?

- Miles!

- You could smell it all around...

- [ Repeats Phrase]

Not just in the camp?

Everywhere. It depended on the wind.

The stink was carried on the wind.

Understand?

[ Suchomel]

More people kept coming, always more,

whom we hadn't the facilities to kill.

Those gents were in a rush

to clean out the Warsaw ghetto.

The gas chambers

couldn't handle the load.

The small gas chambers.

The Jews had to wait their turn

for a day, 2 days, 3 days.

They foresaw what was coming.

They foresaw it.

They may not have been certain,

but many knew.

There were Jewish women

who slashed

their daughters' wrists at night,

then cut their own.

Others poisoned themselves.

They heard the engine

feeding the gas chamber.

A tank engine was used

in that gas chamber.

At Treblinka, the only gas used

was engine exhaust.

Zyklon gas, that was Auschwitz.

Because of the delay,

Eberl, the camp commandant,

phoned Lublin and said,

We can? go on this way.

I can? do it any longer.

We have to break off.

Overnight, Wirth arrived.

He inspected everything and then left.

He returned with people from Belzec,

experts.

Widh arranged to suspend the trains.

The corpses lying there

were cleared away.

That was the period

of the old gas chambers.

Because there were so many dead

that couldn't be gotten rid of,

for days and days,

the bodies piled up

around the gas chambers.

Under this pile of bodies

was a cesspool:

3 inches deep, full of blood, worms...

and sh*t.

Ja.

- Where?

- In front of the gas chamber.

- Ja.

- Nicht wahr?

No one wanted to clean it out.

The Jews preferred to be shot

rather than work there.

- Preferred to be shot?

- [ Repeats Phrase]

It was awful. Burying

their own people, seeing it all...

The dead flesh came off in their hands.

Ja.

So Wirlh went there himself

with a few Germans

and had long belts rigged up

that were wrapped

around the dead torsos to pull them...

- Who did that?

- SS men.

- Wirth?

- SS men and Jews.

- SS men and Jews!

- [ Repeats Phrase]

- Jews too?

- Jews too!

What did the Germans do?

They forced the Jews to...

They beat them?

Or they themselves helped

with the cleanup.

Which Germans did that?

Some of our guards

who were assigned up there.

The Germans themselves?

They had to.

They were in command!

They were in command,

but they were also commanded.

[ Lanzmann ]

I think the Jews did it.

In that case,

the Germans had to lend a hand.

THE BLACK EXECUTION WALL

IN THE COURTYARD OF BLOCK ll

AT AUSCHWITZ I,

THE ORIGINAL CAMP

[ Lanzmann, In German]

Filip, on that Sunday in May 1942,

when you first entered

the Auschwitz crematorium,

how old were you?

[ Man, In German]

Twenty.

It was a Sunday in May.

We were locked

in an underground cell in Block 11.

We were held in secret.

Then some SS men appeared

and marched us

along a street in the camp.

We went through a gate,

and around 300 feet away,

300 feet from the gate,

I suddenly saw a building.

It had a flat roof, and a smokestack.

I saw a door in the rear.

I thought they were taking us

to be shot.

FILIP MULLER - CZECH JEW

Survivor of the 5 liquidations

of the Auschwitz special detail

Rate this script:4.0 / 1 vote