Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling (37 page)

The food-carriers describe to us how the path to the death camp goes through a garden. Just before you come to the death-shower there is a hut, where everyone is instructed once again to relinquish money and gold. This is always accompanied by the threat of punishment by death. The greed of the Nazis is such that they won’t let even the smallest item of any value slip through their hands. At the shower room of death, which is adorned only by a Star of David, the victims are received with bayonets. They are driven into the shower rooms, prodded with these bayonets. Whereas the men go into the showers in a fairly restrained fashion, terrible scenes take place among the women. Showing no mercy, the only way the SS can think of to quieten the women is with their rifle-butts or bayonets. When all the wretched victims have been forced into the showers, the doors are hermetically sealed. After a few seconds, uncanny, horrifying screams are heard through the walls. These screams go up to heaven, demanding revenge. The screaming becomes weaker and weaker, finally dying away. At last everything is completely silent. Then the doors are opened, and the corpses are thrown into huge mass graves, which hold about 60 to 70 thousand people. When there was no room for any new victims in the mass graves, there came a new command to burn the dead bodies. They would dig out a deep trench, and throw in a few old trunks, boxes, wood and things like that. All that is set alight, and a layer of corpses is thrown onto it, then more branches, and more corpses, and so on. Later the order was given to dig out the dead in the mass graves, and burn them too.

When the corpses, which are already decomposing, are dug up, a considerable amount of money and valuables is found in the stomachs and guts of the victims. This proves that even when looking death in the face, the Jews still believed in life. The smell of blood, the dreadful stench of the decomposing and burnt corpses wafts death itself over the workers of the death-brigade. No one can stomach this work for more than a few weeks. Even the SS units are changed every two weeks, and sent on immediate leave; even the murderers themselves cannot bear this diabolical bestiality.

Later on, communication between the work-squads from the two camps was forbidden. Even during the hand-over of shoes or clothes by the squads of Camp II, our people were only allowed to go up to the border between the camps. There the workers from the death camp would hand over the fearfully stinking, blood-soaked clothing.

Once a large-scale typhus epidemic broke out in Death-Camp II. In order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, the sick people were separated from the others, stripped naked and only allowed to wrap themselves in a blanket. They were driven outdoors and chased up the high piled-up mounds of earth by the death-chambers. There the SS opened fire on them, and the bodies rolled down into the fires which were already burning in the ditches below. Shortly after this, barbed wire fences were erected between the two camps. This work was carried out by the work-squads of both camps. Once again we had the opportunity to pour out our woes to each other, and to lament our terrible fate.

New transports arrive at Treblinka all the time. Sometimes there is a break of a few days. But on average ten thousand people per day are murdered in Treblinka. There was one day in fact when the human transport reached the figure of twenty-four thousand! The Polish Jews, who in the early days had been sent only to Treblinka, already sensed in advance what their fate would be. It was as if they understood that Treblinka meant the end for them, and they let themselves be handled like animals for the slaughter. They are beaten while they are being put into the wagons, while they are being driven from the ramp, when they are getting undressed and when they are going to their death. Only once did any of them put up some resistance, when some Jews in a transport from Warsaw managed to smuggle in some revolvers and handgrenades. They did not, however, achieve any great success. Just a few wounded SS The punishment for the rebels was very severe.
Oberscharführer
Franz deliberately kept them alive in order to beat and torture them until death released them.

Those who managed to commit suicide were mainly doctors and their families; they secretly brought cyanide capsules with them.

The transports of German and Czech Jews were received with all kinds of tricks and pretences which masked the true situation. On the platform, signposts were put up: ‘to Bialystok’, ‘to Wolkowice’. There were also signs saying: ‘Platform 1’, ‘Exit’, ‘To the Toilets’, etc. The people were not beaten on arrival and even the commands were given in a polite and friendly fashion. One woman who has brought a lot of suitcases with her and does not want to go into the ‘Lazarett,’ is given assurances that her luggage will be sent on after her. She, however, won’t hear of it; all her life, she says, she has worked for the things she has brought with her and she isn’t going to entrust them to anyone else.
Unterscharführer
Sepp finally loses ‘patience’ with her and cannot resist using his whip. Then she leaves her suitcases and goes off weeping and wailing to the ‘Lazarett’ with the man from the red brigade. On the way there she tells him that she is hoping to have a good rest here in order to get her strength back.

The SS take even more care over the transports of Bulgarian Jews. They arrive in nicely appointed passenger coaches. Their trains have coaches with wine, bread, fruit and other foods, The SS make a real banquet of these delicacies, and the Bulgarian Jews go with carefree minds to their death. They are given soap and bath-towels. Whistling to themselves and waving their towels they go merrily to the death-camp.

The Gypsies are not brought in wagons but in small groups on horses and carts. They are not sent to the death camp but are brought to the ‘Lazarett’ where they are shot and burned.

Only once did Jews leave the camp alive. The Front had demanded women. So one hundred and ten of the most beautiful Jewish girls, accompanied by a Jewish doctor, were sent off.

In the camp, which in any case was so full of terrible cruelty, there were individual SS men who were famous for particular ‘specialities’.
Unterscharführer
Sepp, for example, had the habit of choosing small children from the newly arrived transports, and skilfully splitting their little heads with a spade.
Untersturmführer
Kurt Franz – the deputy camp commandant – used to pick out people from the work-brigades every day, and under various pretexts (working too slowly, giving hostile glances and so on) he would order them to strip naked and then beat them to death with his riding whip. But the absolute demon in our camp was
Unterscharführer
Mütter. He has to have several victims every day. So he goes and picks someone at random and searches that person’s pockets. If he finds something, he beats the victim with extreme brutality until he falls down dead. If he doesn’t find anything, he looks at the person for a moment and says: ‘You have an evil look about you - you definitely think too much; therefore you are dangerous and must die.’ After this explanation Mütter beats his victim until the latter shows no sign of life.
Unterscharführer
Suchomil, the head of the barracks, had a special interest in the ‘gold-Jews’. These were Jews who sorted the gold and valuables. Suchomül constantly used to send home huge amounts of gold and other valuable objects, and the gold-Jews who knew about his plundering were naturally not permitted to remain alive for long.

I only once met an SS man in Treblinka who was unwilling to participate in the inhuman deeds. The first day he was there he found everything so incredible that he took a Jew from a work-squad aside and asked him to tell him the absolute truth. ‘Impossible, impossible!’ he kept on murmuring, shaking his head slowly as he spoke. From that day on he was never seen again.

Our life was a constant round of fear and pain. We often envied those who had it all behind them. Death is constantly before our eyes. The food is never adequate and all the time we have to work out methods of stealing little bits of food such as bread, potatoes and so on from the newly arrived transports. We steal, even though we know that we run the risk of suffering a terrible death. For smoking, you are shot. One man was killed because he was so cold that he lay down on a heap of clothes and covered himself with a torn fur: for that crime he was torn to pieces by the dog Barry which was specially kept for such things. The man’s overseer, who had not reported him, was killed on the spot by
Unterscharführer
Franz with one blow to the face.

Our working hours were from six in the morning till six in the evening. We had one hour at midday. In the evening, when we are dead tired, we have to sing various songs to the accompaniment of an orchestra. First the Treblinka March, then a Polish song which tells of a mother who sells her child in order not to die of hunger.

In the early days Jews used to try to escape from Treblinka almost every day, but then the control became very strict. For trying to run away, people were hung up by the feet on a high pole until they breathed their last in terrible agony. Once two Jews were hung up like this. As they hung there, they kept screaming at us: ‘Run, run, all of you! In the end death awaits you too. Don’t be fooled because you’ve got enough to eat to-day – tomorrow you’ll share our fate!’

Reporting sick is not really a possibility either; you are only admitted to the hospital with a fever of over 40 degrees, and anyone who is ill for more than six days is shot. In general, death by shooting became a daily occurrence. The Jews who had been shot were replaced by new workers from the latest transports.

Our situation becomes more dreadful every day. Day and night we think about ways of avoiding our terrible fate. Then suddenly, a chance happening came to our aid. In the camp there was a Jewish doctor, Chorazycki, who used to treat the SS too. Once
Unterscharführer
Franz comes to be examined by him. He suddenly notices the doctor’s bulging wallet. He asks the doctor about the contents of his wallet and the doctor answers him by grabbing a surgical knife and plunging it into
Unterscharführer
Franz’s body. The latter runs round the yard, and the doctor pursues him with the knife. Instantly, Ukrainians appear from every side and throw themselves on the doctor. He manages, however, to swallow poison. Straight away all the doctors in the camp are alerted. They do their best to keep Dr. Chorazycki alive by pumping out his stomach. When that doesn’t help, Franz takes revenge by taking his riding whip and beating the dying doctor until he is completely dead.

The next day a search is made of the belongings of the Jewish kapo and a sack of gold is found among his things. He is shot dead on the spot. The tension mounts every day. We Jews realise that it is now a question of life or death. A while ago we buried money and valuables, knowing that without financial means we cannot even think about running away. We have also managed to procure a few weapons. Now we have to organise the attempt. Engineer Galewski, the
Lagerälteste
, the new kapo Kurland, and Moniek, the kapo of the ‘yard-Jews’ (who worked in the yard of the camp) were the leaders of the uprising. A fourteen-year-old Jewish boy steals into the Ukrainian guardroom at night and removes weapons, bullets and several machine-guns. The arms are divided out, and the day on which the revolt will be launched is decided upon. As far as I remember it was a day at the end of the summer, 1943. On that day the terrible
Oberscharführer
Franz and forty Ukrainians are due to leave the camp to bathe. At six in the morning a shot is to be fired as a signal that the uprising has started. There is enormous tension among the Jews.

At four in the morning we find out that our plan is in danger of collapsing.
Oberscharführer
Kittner has arrested twenty Jews whom he found in possession of gold. Finding Jews with gold or valuables was a sign for the SS that people were planning to escape and therefore had to supply themselves with valuables so that they could live illegally. In such a case the SS would instantly carry out a search of the other Jews in the camp.

It is not long before we see the SS taking these twenty Jews off to the ‘Lazarett’ in order to kill them. After a short discussion we decide to launch the revolt this very minute. A hand grenade is thrown at
Oberscharführer
Franz. The signal to fight is given and the Ukrainian SS open heavy fire on the Jews. But the Jews remain firm, throw hand grenades and position their machine-guns. Some Ukrainians fall, and the thousand or so Jews in the camp break through the fence. On the other side of the fence a path leads into the wood. Heavy fire from the Ukrainians accompanies the escapees. Some are hit, but the great majority reach the woods in safety. A frenzied activity begins. All the telephone lines are cut; the vehicles are disabled, so that they can’t be driven; whatever petrol we can obtain is poured out and lit; the death-camp Treblinka begins to burn. Pillars of fire ascend to the sky. The SS shoot back chaotically into the fire.

A mad pursuit begins. The Jews divide themselves into very small groups. I am with three other people. Now there is just one command: forward, forward! We manage to get twelve kilometres away from Treblinka. By day we do not dare to move, for fear of being seen. We hide in inaccessible places. At night fear drives us on. But we are beginning to be tormented by hunger.

We wonder whether we still have any chance of staying alive, or whether it would not be easier to take our own lives. One of us talks of hanging himself. But in the end the will to live is stronger.

Being the best Polish speaker, I creep into the nearby village to get something to eat. Slowly, hesitatingly, indecisively, with a pounding heart, I come out of the wood and approach a peasant house standing on its own. It is about 30 kilometres from Treblinka. Raising my eyes to heaven and praying, I step onto the threshold of the house. One glance at the woman tells me that she realises what I am. ‘You must have escaped from Treblinka,’ she exclaims. The state I am in, my clothes, and above all the expression of desperation on my face have all given me away. I am prepared for the worst. But the woman reassures me, saying that I mustn’t be afraid, that she will help me as much as she can. She can’t hide me, however. The SS are snooping around and searching all the villages in the area. She is not prepared to expose herself and all her family to mortal danger. She gives me bread and milk and tells me to come back at eleven o’clock at night.