Original subtitles

(Srebnik sings in Polish) ♪A little white house

♪ Lingers in my memory

♪ Of that little white house

♪ I dream each night

♪ The windows of that little house

♪ Beautifully shine in the sun

♪ As if someone's eyes

♪ Were filling with tears

♪ There was so much happiness in that little house

♪ And so many joyous days

♪ When I remember those blissful moments

♪ My heart trembles

♪ A little white house

♪ Lingers in my memory

♪ Of that little white house

♪ I dream each night ♪

(Man ♪ 1 speaking Polish)

(Female interpreter in French) He was 13 and a half years old.

He had a lovely singing voice and we heard him.

♪ A little white house

♪ Lingers in my memory

♪ Of that little white house

♪ I dream each night

♪ The windows of that little house

♪ Beautifully shine in the sun

♪ As if someone's eyes

♪ Were filling with tears ♪

(Man ♪3 speaking Polish)

(Interpreter) When I heard him again, my heart beat faster,

because what happened here... was a murder.

I really relived what happened.

(Sighs and coughs)

(In German) It's hard to recognise, but it was here.

They burned people here.

A lot of people were burned here.

Yes, this is the place.

(Crow caws)

No one ever left here again.

The gas vans came in here...

There were two huge ovens...

(Sighs)

...and after ward, the bodies were thrown

into these ovens,

and the flames reached to the sky.

- (Lanzmann in German) To the sky? - Ja.

It was terrible.

No one can describe it.

No one can...

recreate what happened here.

Impossible! And no one can understand it.

Even I, here, now.

I can't believe I'm here.

No, I just can't believe it.

It was always this peaceful here.

When they burned 2,000 people... Jews... every day,

it was just as peaceful.

No one shouted. Everyone went about his work.

It was silent. Peaceful.

Just as it is now.

(Srebnik singing in German)

(Cattle lowing)

♪ You, girl, don't you cry

♪ Don't be so sad

♪ For the dear summer is nearing

♪ And I'll return with it

♪ A mug of red wine, a slice of roast

♪ That's what the girls give their soldiers

♪ When the soldiers march along

♪ The girls open their doors and windows... ♪

(Man ♪ 1 speaking Polish)

(Interpreter in French) They thought the Germans made him sing on the river.

(Men speaking Polish)

(Interpreter) He was a toy to amuse them.

He had to do it.

He sang, but his heart wept.

(Lanzmann in French) Do their hearts weep thinking about that now?

- (Men reply) - (Interpreter) Certainly, very much so.

(Man ♪2 continues)

(Interpreter) They still talk about it around the family table.

(Man ♪2 continues)

It was public, so everyone knew of it.

(Speaks Polish)

He said that was true German irony...

...people were being killed, and he had to sing.

That's what I thought.

(Lanzmann) What died in him in Chelmno?

(Speaks Yiddish)

(Female Interpreter ♪2 in French) Everything died.

But he's only human, and he wants to live.

So he must forget.

The other survivor: MICHAEL PODCHLEBNIK - ISRAEL

(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)

He thanks God for what remains and that he can forget.

And let's not talk about that.

(Lanzmann) Does he think it's good to talk about it?

(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)

For me it's not good.

(Lanzmann) Then why is he talking about it?

(Speaking Yiddish)

Because you're insisting on it.

He was sent books on the Eichmann trial, where he was a witness,

and he didn't even read them.

(Lanzmann) He survived, but is he really alive, or...?

(Interpreter) At the time, he felt as if he were dead,

because he never thought he'd survive,

but... he's alive.

(Lanzmann) Why does he smile all the time?

(Interpreter) What do you want him to do, cry?

Sometimes you smile, sometimes you cry.

And if you're alive, it's better to smile.

(Lanzmann in French) Why was she so curious about this story?

(Female Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

(Speaking Hebrew)

HANNA ZAIDL - ISRAEL

DAUGHTER OF MOTKE ZAIDL, SURVIVOR OF VILNA (LITHUANIA)

(Interpreter ♪3 in French) It's a long story.

As a child, I had little contact with my father.

He went out to work, and I didn't see much of him.

Besides, he was a silent man, he didn't talk to me.

And when I grew up and was strong enough to face him,

I questioned him. I never stopped questioning him

until I got at the scraps oftruth he couldn't tell me.

It came out haltingly.

I had to tear the details out of him,

and finally, when Mr. Lanzmann came,

I heard the whole story for the second time.

MOTKE ZAIDL

BEN SHEMEN FOREST, ISRAEL

(Motke speaks Hebrew)

(Interpreter ♪3 in French) The place resembles Ponary: the forest, the ditches.

It's as if the bodies were burned here.

Except there were no stones in Ponary.

PONARY: FOREST WHERE MOST VILNA JEWS WERE MASSACRED

(Lanzmann) But the Lithuanian forests are denser than the Israeli forest, no?

(Interpreter ♪3 speaks Hebrew)

- (Motke replies) - Of course.

(Motke continues)

(Interpreter) The trees are similar, but taller and fuller in Lithuania.

FOREST OF THE EXTERMINATION CAMP AT SOBIBOR, POLAND

(Lanzmann in French) Is there still hunting here in Sobibor forest?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 speaks Polish)

(Man replies in Polish)

(Interpreter) Yes, there are lots of animals of all kinds.

(Lanzmann) Was there hunting then?

(Man replies in Polish)

(Interpreter) Only man hunting.

JAN PIWONSKI

(Speaks Polish)

(Interpreter) Some victims tried to escape.

But they didn't know the area.

At times people heard explosions in the minefield.

Sometimes they'd find a deer,

and sometimes a poor Jew who tried to escape.

(Piwonski continues)

That's the charm of our forests: the silence and beauty.

(Piwonski continues)

But it wasn't always so silent here.

There was a time when it was full of screams

and gunshots,

of dogs' barking.

(Piwonski continues)

And that period especially

is engraved on the minds of the people

who lived here then.

(Piwonski continues)

After the revolt, the Germans decided to liquidate the camp,

and early in the winter of 1943,

they planted pines that were three or four years old

to camouflage all the traces.

That screen of trees?

Yes.

(Lanzmann) That's where the mass graves were?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 speaks Polish)

Yes.

(Piwonski continues)

When he first came here in 1944,

you couldn't guess what had happened here,

that these trees were hiding the secret of a death camp.

(Lanzmann) How did he react, the first time he unloaded corpses,

when the gas van doors were opened?

(Interpreter ♪2 speaks Yiddish)

What could he do? He cried.

The third day, he saw his wife and children.

He placed his wife in the grave and asked to be killed.

The Germans said he was strong enough to work,

that he wouldn't be killed yet.

(Lanzmann) Was the weather very cold?

(Interpreter ♪2 in 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 in 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?

Yes.

(Man speaks 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 recognised my whole family.

(Lanzmann in French) Whom in his family did he recognise?

(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

Mum and my sisters. Three sisters with their kids.

They were all in there.

(Lanzmann) How could he recognise them?

ITZHAK DUGIN: SURVIVOR OF VILNA

They'd been in the earth 4 months,

and it was winter.

They were very well preserved.

I recognised their faces, their clothes too.

(Lanzmann) They'd been killed relatively recently?

(Interpreter ♪3 speaking Hebrew)

Yes.

(Lanzmann) And it was the last grave?

(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

- (Dugin replies) - Yes.

(Lanzmann) The Nazi plan was for them to open the graves

starting with the oldest?

(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

Yes.

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 speaks Hebrew)

(Interpreter ♪3) 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) With just their hands?

(Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

Yes.

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 in Hebrew)

(Motke continues)

The Germans even forbade us

to use the words "corpse" or "victim."

The dead were blocks of wood, shit,

with absolutely no importance...

(Dugin speaks 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. - As "Schmattes," which means "rags."

(Lanzmann) Were they told at the start

how many "Figuren" there were in all the graves?

(Interpreter ♪3 in 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 colour,

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) 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

(Interpreter) 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) 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 sings in Polish: "Little White House")

(Lanzmann in English) You never returned to Poland since?

(Woman) 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, yes.

PAULA BIREN - CINCINNATI, USA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ

THE JEWISH CEMETERY IN LODZ TODAY

(Crows cawing)

(Church bells ringing)

AUSCHWITZ: THE TOWN

(Lanzmann in French) Mrs. Pietyra, you live in Auschwitz?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Pietyra speak in Polish)

(Interpreter in French) Yes, I was born here.

(Lanzmann) And you've never left Auschwitz?

(Speaking Polish)

No, never.

(Lanzmann) Were there Jews in Auschwitz before the war?

(Interpreter) They made up 80% of the population.

(Speaking Polish)

They even had a synagogue here.

(Lanzmann) Just one?

- Just one, I think. - (Lanzmann) Does it still exist?

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? - Yes.

(Lanzmann) Closed? What does that mean?

They don't bury there now.

(♪Congregation sings Polish hymn)

(Lanzmann in French) Was there a synagogue in Wlodawa?

(Speaking Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Yes, and it's very beautiful.

(Speaking Polish)

When Poland was ruled by the czars,

that synagogue already existed.

It's even older than the Catholic church.

(Continues in Polish)

It's no longer used.

(Man continues)

There's no one to go to it.

(Lanzmann in French) These buildings haven't changed?

(Speaking Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Not at all. There were barrels of herrings here,

and the Jews sold fish.

There were stalls, small shops,

Jewish business, as the gentleman says.

- (Man continues) - That's Barenholz's house.

- (Man continues) - He sold wood.

(Man continues)

Lipschitz's store was there. He sold cloth.

(Lanzmann) This was Lichtenstein's.

(Interpreter ♪ 1) Lichtenstein, yes.

(Lanzmann) What was there, opposite?

A food store.

(Lanzmann) A Jewish store?

(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.

There was a notions shop here,

it sold thread, needles, odds and ends,

and there were also three barbers.

PAN FILIPOWICZ

- (Lanzmann) Was that fine house Jewish? - (Interpreter ♪ 1) It's Jewish.

- And this small one? - Also.

- And the one behind it? - These were all Jewish.

- This one on the left, too? - That one too.

(Lanzmann) Who lived in it? Borenstein? (Filipowicz) Borenstein.

- (Filipowicz continues) - He was in the cement business.

He was very handsome, and cultivated.

(Filipowicz continues)

Here there was a blacksmith named Tepper.

It was a Jewish house.

A shoemaker lived here.

(Lanzmann) What was his name? (Filipowicz) Yankel.

(Lanzmann) You get the feeling Wlodawa was a Jewish city.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

- (Filipowicz replies) - Yes, because it's true.

(Filipowicz continues)

The Poles lived farther out, the centre was wholly Jewish.

(Lanzmann in French) What happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Pietyra speak Polish)

They were expelled and resettled,

but I don't know where.

(Lanzmann) What year was that?

(Pietyra replies)

It began in 1940, which was when I moved here.

This apartment also belonged to Jews.

(Lanzmann) According to our information,

the Auschwitz Jews were "resettled," as they say,

nearby, in Benzin and Sosnowiec, in Upper Silesia.

(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes, because those were Jewish towns.

(Lanzmann) Does she know what happened to the Jews of Auschwitz?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

I think they all ended up in the camp.

(Lanzmann) That is, they returned to Auschwitz?

Yes.

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

(Pietyra continues)

All kinds of people from everywhere were sent here.

All the Jews came here... to die.

(Lanzmann) What did they think

when Wlodawa's Jews were all deported to Sobibor?

(Speaking Polish)

WLODAWA - SOBIBOR: 10 MILES

(In French) What could we think?

That it was the end of them, but they had foreseen that.

(Lanzmann) How so?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Even before the war, when you talked to the Jews,

they foresaw their doom.

He doesn't know how.

Even before the war, they had a premonition.

(Lanzmann) How were they taken to Sobibor? On foot?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Filipowicz replies)

It was frightful. He watched it himself.

(Filipowicz continues)

They were herded on foot to a station called Orkrobek.

(Train clacking)

(Filipowicz continues)

There, they put the old people first into waiting cattle cars...

...then the younger Jews...

...and finally the kids.

That was the worst: They threw them on top of the others.

(Lanzmann) Were there a lot of Jews in Kolo?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) A great many.

- (Man continues) - More Jews than Poles.

(Lanzmann) And what happened to the Kolo Jews?

Was he an eyewitness?

PAN FALBORSKI

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes. It was frightful.

Frightful to see.

Even the Germans hid, they couldn't see that.

When the Jews were herded to the station, they were beaten,

some were even killed.

A cart followed the convoy to pick up the corpses.

(Lanzmann) Those who couldn't walk, the slain?

Yes, those who'd fallen.

Where did this happen?

(Speaks Polish)

The Jews were collected in the Kolo synagogue.

Then they were herded to the station,

where the narrow-gauge railway went to Chelmno.

(Lanzmann) It happened to all the Jews in the area, not just in Kolo?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Falborski replies)

Absolutely.

- Everywhere. - (Falborski continues)

Jews were also murdered in the forests

near Kalisz, not far from here.

(Locomotive chugging)

(Train whistle blows)

(Man in English) There was a sign.

There was a small sign on the station of Treblinka.

I don't know if we were at the station or if we did not go up to the station.

ABRAHAM BOMBA - TEL AVIV, ISRAEL SURVIVOR OF TREBLINKA

On the line over there where we stayed,

there was a small sign, very small sign, which say "Treblinka."

That was the first time in my life I heard about that name "Treblinka,"

because nobody know.

It is not a place. There is not a city.

Or it is not even a small village.

TREBLINKA BY ROAD

Jewish people always dreamed,

and that was part of their life.

It was part of their messiah,

to dream that someday they're going to be free.

That dream was mostly true in the ghetto.

Every day, every single night,

I dreamed about a thing that's going to be good.

Not only the dream,

but the hope conserved in a dream.

The first transport from Czestochowa

was sent away at the day of the Yom Kippur.

The day before Sukkoth, there was the second transport.

I was together with them.

I know, only in my heart I know, that there's something that is not good,

because, if they take children,

if they take old people and they send them away,

that means it is not good.

What they said is they'd take them away to a place where they would be working.

But, on the other hand,

an old woman or a little child from a week or four weeks or five years,

what is he going to work?

That was a foolish thing, but, still, we had no choice.

We believed in that.

(Man speaks Polish) (Interpreter) He was born here...

in 1923...

and has been here ever since.

(Lanzmann in French) He lived at this very spot?

(Interpreter) Right here.

(Lanzmann) Then he had a front-row seat for what happened.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

- (Man replies) - Naturally.

(Man continues)

You could go up close or watch from a distance.

CZESLAW BOROWI

They had land on the far side of the station.

To work it, he had to cross the track,

so he could see everything.

(Lanzmann) Does he remember the first convoy of Jews from Warsaw

on July 22, 1942?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Borowi speaks in Polish)

He recalls the first convoy very well...

...and when all those Jews were brought here.

People wondered, "What's to be done with them?"

Clearly, they'd be killed, but no one yet knew how.

When people began to understand what was happening,

they were appalled,

and they commented privately that since the world began,

no one had ever murdered so many people that way.

(Lanzmann) While all this was happening before their eyes,

normal life went on?

- They worked their fields? - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Borowi replies)

Certainly they worked,

but not as willingly as usual.

They had to work,

but when they saw all this, they thought,

"What if our house is surrounded and we're arrested?"

(Lanzmann) Were they afraid for the Jews, too?

Well, he says it's this way...

If I cut my finger, it doesn't hurt him.

They saw what happened to the Jews,

the convoy came in and then went to the camp,

and the people vanished.

(Speak Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1) He had a field less than 100 yards from the camp.

He also worked during the German occupation.

(Lanzmann) He worked his field? (Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.

He saw how they were asphyxiated,

he heard them scream, he saw that.

There's a small hill. He could see quite a bit.

- (Laughter) - (Lanzmann) What did he say?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

They couldn't stop and watch.

It was forbidden. The Ukrainians shot at them.

(Lanzmann) But they could work a field 100 yards from the camp?

They could.

So occasionally he could steal a glance,

if the Ukrainians weren't looking.

(Lanzmann) He worked with his eyes lowered?

Yes.

(Speaks Polish)

He worked by the barbed wire and heard awful screams.

(Lanzmann) His field was there?

(Interpreter) Yes, right up close.

It wasn't forbidden to work there.

(Lanzmann) So he worked, he farmed there?

(Interpreter) Yes.

Where the camp is now was partly his field.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

It was off limits, but they heard everything.

(Lanzmann) It didn't bother him to work so near those screams?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

At first it was unbearable. Then you got used to it.

(Lanzmann) You get used to anything?

Yes.

Now he thinks... it's impossible.

Yet it was true.

(Speaking in Polish)

So he saw the convoys arriving.

There were 60 to 80 cars in each convoy,

and there were two locomotives

that took the convoys into the camp,

taking 20 cars at a time.

And the cars came back empty?

(Speaking Polish)

- Yes. - Does he remember...?

Here's how it happened.

The locomotive picked up 20 cars

and took them to the camp.

That took maybe an hour,

and the empty cars came back here.

Then the next 20 cars were taken,

and meanwhile, the people in the first 20 were already dead.

(Man speaks Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1) They waited, they wept...

...they asked for water, they died.

Sometimes they were naked in the cars, up to 170 people.

(Interpreter) This is where they gave the Jews water, he says.

(Lanzmann) Where was that?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Here. When the convoys arrived, they gave water to the Jews.

(Lanzmann) Who gave the Jews water?

We did, the Poles.

There was a tiny well, we took a bottle and...

(Lanzmann) Wasn't it dangerous to give them water?

Very dangerous.

You could be killed for giving a glass of water.

But we gave them water anyway.

(Lanzmann) Is it very cold here in winter?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 and man speak Polish)

It depends.

It can get to minus 15, minus 20.

(Lanzmann) Which was harder on the Jews, summer or winter?

- Waiting here, I mean. - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Man replies)

He thinks winter, because they were very cold.

(Man continues)

They were so packed in the cars, maybe they weren't cold.

In summer they stifled, it was very hot.

The Jews were very thirsty. They tried to get out.

(Lanzmann) Were there corpses in the cars on arrival?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Obviously.

Yes.

They were so packed in

that even those still alive sat on corpses for lack of space.

(Lanzmann) Didn't people here who went by the trains

look through the cracks in the cars?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes, they could look in sometimes as they went by.

When they were allowed, they gave them water, too.

(Lanzmann) Yes. How did the Jews try to get out?

The doors weren't opened. How'd they get out?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Through the windows.

They removed the barbed wire. Yes.

And came out of the windows. They jumped, of course.

Sometimes they just deliberately sat down on the ground,

and the guards came and shot them in the head.

(Speaking Polish)

They jumped from the cars. What a sight!

Jumping from the windows.

There was a mother and child.

- (Lanzmann) Jewish? - Yes.

She tried to run away,

and they shot her in the heart.

- Shot who? The mother? - Yes, the mother.

This gentleman has lived here a long time, he can't forget.

He says that now he can't understand

how a man can do that to another human being.

It's inconceivable, beyond understanding.

Once when the Jews asked for water, a Ukrainian went by

and forbade giving any.

The Jewish woman that had asked for water

threw her pot at his head.

The Ukrainian moved back,

maybe ten yards, and opened fire on the car.

Blood and brains were all over the place.

(Borowi speaks Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1) Lots of people opened the doors...

...or escaped through the windows.

Sometimes the Ukrainians fired through the car walls.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

It happened chiefly at night.

When the Jews talked to each other, as he showed us,

the Ukrainians wanted things quiet,

and they asked... yes, asked them to shut up.

So the Jews shut up and the guard moved off.

Then the Jews started talking again in their language,

as he says, Ra-Ra-Ra, and so on.

What's he mean, la-la-la? What's he trying to imitate?

- Their language. - No, ask him.

Was the Jews' noise something special?

They spoke Jew.

Yes.

Does Mr. Borowi understand "Jew"?

No.

(Bomba) We were in that wagon.

The wagon was rolling, rolling in the direction east.

A funny thing happened right there.

Maybe it's not nice to say, but I will say it.

Most of the people, not only most, but 99% of the Polish people,

when they saw the train going through...

We looked really like animals in that wagon,

just our eyes looked outside.

And they were laughing, and they were all...

They had a joy, because they took the Jewish people away.

What was going on in the wagon between the people,

and the pushing and the screaming...

"Where is my child?" and, "Where is my this?"

and "A little bit of water!"

And people were not only starving, but they were choking.

It was hot. It happened... Just it happened...

The Jewish luck...

in September, at that time, usually when it is rainy, when it is cool,

that it was hot like hell.

We had nothing inside.

For a child, you know, like my own child about the age of three weeks,

there was not a drop of water.

There wasn't a drop of water for the mother,

there wasn't a drop of water for anybody else.

(Whistle blows)

(Lanzmann in French) Did he hear screams behind his locomotive?

(Whistle blows)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Man replies)

Obviously, since the locomotive was next to the camp.

They screamed, asked for water.

The screams from the cars closest to the locomotive

could be heard very well.

(Lanzmann) Can one get used to that?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Man replies)

No.

It was extremely distressing to him.

He knew that the people behind him were human, like him.

(Whistle blows)

The Germans gave him and the other workers vodka to drink.

Without drinking, they couldn't have done it.

(Man continues)

There was a bonus...

...that they were paid not in money, but in liquor.

(Man continues)

Those who worked on other trains didn't get this bonus.

(Whistle blows)

HENRIK GAWKOWSKI

(Interpreter) He drank every drop he got,

because without liquor he couldn't stand the stench

when he got here.

They even bought more liquor on their own

to get drunk on.

(Bomba) We arrived in the morning.

We arrived, I would say, about 6:00, maybe 6:30.

On the other side of the tracks,

I saw more trains standing there,

and I was watching through...

I saw about 18, 20, maybe more, wagons going away.

And after about an hour or so,

I saw the wagons coming back, but without the people.

My train stayed there until about 12:00.

(Lanzmann) From the station to the unloading ramp in the camp,

how many miles?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Four.

(Bomba) While we stayed there, at that station over there,

waiting to go in Treblinka camp,

some of those German SS, they came around,

and they were asking us what we have.

So we said, "We got... Some of the people, they have... gold.

"They have diamonds.

"But we want water."

So they said, "Good.

"Give us the diamonds, we bring you water."

Yeah, they took them away and they didn't bring any water at all.

(Lanzmann) How long did last the trip?

The trip lasted from Czestochowa to Treblinka

about 24 hours,

with interruption waiting in Warsaw

and also waiting at Treblinka to go into Treblinka.

ABRAHAM BOMBA

At the last train, we went in over there.

But, like I mentioned before,

I saw many trains coming back,

but the trains were without the people.

So I said to myself, "What happened to the people?

We don't see any people, just trains coming back."

(Train clacking)

(Glazar in German) We travelled for two days.

On the morning of the second day,

we saw that we had left Czechoslovakia

and were heading east.

(Train whistle blows)

It wasn't the SS guarding us,

but the Schutzpolizei,

the police, in green uniforms.

We were in ordinary passenger cars.

All the seats were filled.

You couldn't choose.

They were all numbered and assigned.

In my compartment there was an elderly couple.

I still remember...

The good man was always hungry and his wife scolded him,

saying they'd have no food left for the future.

RICHARD GLAZAR

(Whistle blows)

Then, on the second day,

I saw a sign for Malkinia.

We went on a little farther.

Then, very slowly,

the train turned off the main track

and rolled at a walking pace through a wood.

While he looked out,

we'd been able to open a window.

The old man in our compartment saw a boy...

Cows were grazing...

And he asked the boy in signs,

"Where are we?"

And the kid made a funny gesture. This!

Across the throat.

- (Lanzmann) A Pole? - A Pole.

Where was this? At the station?

It was where the train had stopped.

On one side was the wood,

and on the other were fields.

And there was a farmer in a field?

We saw cows

which were watched over by a young man,

a farmhand.

And one of you questioned him?

Not in words, but in signs, we asked, "What's going on here?"

And he made that gesture. Like this.

We didn't really pay much attention to him.

We couldn't figure out what he meant.

(Dogs barking)

(Man speaks Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Once there were foreign Jews...

- They were this fat. - (Lanzmann) This fat?

Riding in passenger cars.

There was a dining car, they could drink and walk around too.

They said they were going to a factory.

On arrival, they saw what kind of a factory it was.

(Men speaking Polish)

(Interpreter) We'd gesture... (Lanzmann) Gesture how?

(Interpreter) That they'd be killed. (Lanzmann) They made that sign?

He says the Jews didn't believe it.

(Lanzmann) But what does that gesture mean?

That death awaited them.

The people who had a chance to get near the Jews

did that to warn them...

- (Lanzmann) He did it too? - That they'd be hanged, killed, slain.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes.

Even foreign Jews from Belgium, Czechoslovakia,

from France too, surely.

And from Holland...

These didn't know,

but the Polish Jews knew.

In the small cities in the area,

it was talked about.

So the Polish Jews were forewarned, but not the others.

Who'd they warn, Polish Jews or the others?

All the Jews.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in 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 in Polish)

It's not true.

(Lanzmann) It's not true?

(Woman speaks Polish)

(Lanzmann) What did Mrs. Gawkowska say?

(Interpreter ♪ 1) She said he may not have seen everything.

(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) Yes.

So he went past these "Pullmans," as he calls them,

those Jews who were calm, unsuspecting,

and he made that gesture to them.

(Speaks Polish)

Yes.

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 in Polish)

Because I saw men marching to their death.

(Lanzmann) Precisely where are we now?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

It's not far, a mile and a halffrom here.

- (Lanzmann) What, the camp? - Yes.

Yes.

(Lanzmann) What's that dirt road he's indicating?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

That's where the rail line into the camp was.

(Lanzmann) Did Mr. Gawkowski, aside from the trains of deportees

that he drove from Warsaw or Bialystok to Treblinka station,

did he ever drive the deportee cars

into the camp from Treblinka station?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes.

- (Lanzmann) Did he do it often? - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Two or three times a week.

(Lanzmann) Over how long a period?

Around a year and a half.

(Lanzmann) That is, throughout the camp's existence?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes.

- (Lanzmann) This is the ramp. - (Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Here he is, he goes to the end with his locomotive,

and he has the 20 cars behind him.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

No, they're in front of him.

He pushed them?

That's right, he pushed them.

(Interpreter ♪ 1) Yes.

(Piwonski speaks 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 in Polish)

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) Yes.

And another fence that ran to those trees over there.

So I'm standing inside the camp perimeter, right?

That's right.

Where I am now is 50 feet from the station,

and I'm already outside the camp.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Piwonski speak Polish)

Yes.

So this is the Polish part, and over there was death?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

Yes.

(Piwonski continues)

On German orders, Polish railmen split up the trains.

So the locomotive took 20 cars

and headed toward Chelm.

When it reached a switch...

...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.

Yes...

And at this point, we are inside the camp.

(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 in Polish)

Not always.

(Piwonski continues)

Often the richest Jews...

...from Belgium, Holland, France...

...arrived in passenger cars...

...sometimes even in 1st class.

They were usually better treated by the guards.

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.

Yes.

They dolled up.

And the Poles couldn't tell them anything,

the guards forbade contact with the future victims.

(Lanzmann) I suppose there were fine days like today.

(Interpreter ♪ 1 and Piwonski in Polish)

Unfortunately, some were even finer.

RUDOLF VRBA - NEW YORK, USA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ

(Vrba) 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 transport 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 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.

And lights went on.

There was a ramp.

Around the ramp were lights,

and under those lights were the cordon of the SS.

There was one every 10 yards, with a gun in the hand.

So, we were in the middle, the prisoners,

and we were waiting,

waiting for the train, waiting for the next order.

Now, when all this was done, everybody was there,

the transport was rolled in.

This means in a very slow fashion.

The locomotive, which was always at the front,

was coming to the ramp,

and that was the end of the railway line.

That was the end of the line for everybody who was on the train.

And, now, the train stopped, and...

the gangster elite marched on the ramp.

And in front of every second or every third wagon,

and sometimes in front of every wagon,

one of those Unterscharführers...

...was standing with a key

and opened the locks,

because the wagons were locked.

Now, inside, there were people, of course,

and you could see the people looking through the windows,

because they didn't know what's happening.

They had many stops on their journey.

Some of them were 10 days on the journey.

Some were two days on the journey.

And they didn't know what this particular stop means.

Now, the door was opened.

And the first order they were given was,

"Alle heraus!" "Everybody out!"

In order to make it quite clear,

they usually started with those walking sticks

to hit the first, the second, the third, who were...

They were... They were...

They were like sardines in those cars.

If they expected on that day four, five, six transports,

the pressure of getting out from the wagons was high.

Then they used sticks, clubs, cursing, et cetera, et cetera.

Sometimes, the SS, if it was good weather,

they used to deal with it differently.

I mean, I was not surprised if they were in a different mood and...

and exhibited a lot of humour,

like saying, "Good morning, Madam,"

and, "Will you please walk out?"

- (Lanzmann) It happened? - Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

And, "How nice that you arrived.

"We are so sorry that it wasn't too convenient,

"but now things will become different."

(Bomba) When we came into Treblinka,

we didn't know who the people were.

Some of them, they had armbands, some of them red.

Some of them, they had blue, Jewish kommando.

Falling out from the train

and pushing out each other

and, over there, losing each other,

and the... and the... and the crying and the hollering.

And, coming out,

we started on one way to the right, one to the left,

the women to the left and the men on the right.

And...

we had no time to even look at each other,

because they start hitting over the head

with all kinds of things.

And...

it is very, very...

Painful, it was.

You didn't know what had happened.

You had no time to think.

All you heard is crying.

And all you heard, all the time, was the hollering of the people.

(In German) And suddenly it started,

the yelling and screaming.

"All out, everybody out!"

All those shouts, the uproar, the tumult!

"Out! Get out!

"Leave the baggage!"

We got out, stepping on each other.

We saw men wearing blue armbands.

Some carried whips.

We saw some SS men.

Green uniforms,

black uniforms...

We were a mass...

And the mass swept us along.

It was irresistible. It had to move to another place.

I saw the others undressing.

And I heard, "Get undressed! You're to be disinfected!"

As I waited, already naked,

I noticed the SS men separating out some people.

These were told to get dressed.

A passing SS man suddenly stopped in front of me,

looked me over, and said,

"Yes, you too, quick, join the others, get dressed.

"You're going to work here, and if you're good,

"you can be a kapo, a squad leader."

(Bomba) At my transport, I was waiting, already naked.

A man came over and asked, "You, you, you, step out."

We stepped out,

and they took us a little bit to the side.

Some of the people from the transport,

they had an idea what is going on,

and they know already that they will not stay alive.

Pushing the people, they didn't want to go,

or they knew already where they go,

to that big door.

The hollering and the crying and the shouting

what was going over there on,

it was impossible.

The cries and the hollers was in your ears and in your mind

for days and days,

and, at night, the same thing.

From that hollering, you could not even sleep a couple nights of that.

All of a sudden, at one time, everything stopped,

like by a command.

It was all quiet,

the place where the people went in.

Just like on a command.

Like everything was dead.

Then, they told us to make clean the whole place.

It was about 2,000 people

which they undressed on the outside.

To take the whole thing away and to clear up the place,

and that has to be done in minutes.

Some of the Germans, some of the other people that were there,

the Ukrainians or the other ones,

they start shouting and hitting us that we should do it faster,

to carry the bundles on our backs faster to the main place,

where it was big places of clothes,

of shoes, of other things.

In no time, this was clean,

just like it never happened,

that never was people on that place again.

There was no trace, not at all.

Like a magic thing, everything disappeared.

BIRKENAU: THE RAMP

(Vrba) Whenever a new transport came,

the ramp was cleaned absolutely to zero point.

No trace from the previous transport was allowed to remain.

Not one trace.

(Glazar in German) We were taken to the barracks.

The whole place stank.

Piled about five feet high

in a jumbled mass,

were all the things people could conceivably have brought.

Clothes, suitcases,

everything stacked in a solid mass.

On top of it, jumping around like demons,

people were making bundles

and carrying them outside.

I was turned over to one of these men.

His armband said, "Squad Leader."

He shouted,

and I understood that I was also to pick up clothing, bundle it,

and take it somewhere.

As I worked, I asked him,

"What's going on? The undressed ones, where are they?"

And he replied, "Dead! All dead!"

But it still hadn't sunk in, I didn't believe it.

He'd used the Yiddish word.

It was the first time I'd heard Yiddish spoken.

He didn't say it very loud,

and I saw he had tears in his eyes.

Suddenly he started shouting

and raised his whip.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw an SS man coming.

And I understood that I was to ask no more questions,

but just to rush outside with the package.

(Bomba) At that time, we start working

in that place which they call Treblinka.

And still, I couldn't believe what had happened

over there on the other side of the gate,

where the people went in, disappeared,

or everything got quiet.

But in a minute, we find out,

when we start to ask the people which they worked before us

what had happened with them.

They said, "What do you mean, what happened? Don't you know that?

"They're all gassed. They're all killed."

It was impossible to say something

because we were just like stones.

We couldn't mention what had happened to the wife,

what had happened to the kid.

"What do you mean, wife? What do you mean, kid?

"Nobody is anymore alive!"

"What do you mean, they're not alive? How could they...?

"How could they kill, how could they gas so many people at once?"

But they had their way how to do it.

(Glazar) All I could think of then was my friend Carel Unger.

He'd been at the rear of the train,

in a section that had been uncoupled and left outside.

I needed someone. Near me. With me.

Then I saw him. He was in the 2nd group.

He'd been spared too.

On the way, somehow, he had learned, he already knew.

He looked at me,

all he said was, "Richard, my father, mother, brother..."

He had learned on the way there.

(Lanzmann) Your meeting with Carel,

how long after your arrival did it happen?

It was... around 20 minutes after we reached Treblinka.

Then I left the barracks

and had my first look at the vast space

that I soon learned was called "the sorting place."

It was buried under mountains of objects of all kinds.

Mountains of shoes, of clothes, 30 feet high.

I thought about it and said to Carel,

"It's a hurricane, a raging sea.

"We're shipwrecked. And we're still alive.

"We must do nothing

"but watch for every new wave,

"float on it,

"get ready for the next wave,

"and ride the wave at all costs.

"And nothing else."

That's how the day went through,

without anything.

No drinking.

We were 24 hours without water, without anything.

We couldn't drink.

We couldn't have anything taken into our mouths,

because it was impossible.

Just the meaning that before...

a minute, an hour before,

you were part of a family,

you were part of a wife or a husband,

and now, all of a sudden, everything is dead.

We went into a special barrack,

where I was sleeping right next to the wall.

And over there, that night,

it was the most horrible night for all the people,

because the memory of all those things,

what people went through with each other,

all the joys and the happiness,

and the births and the weddings and other things,

and all of a sudden, in one second,

to cut that through without anything,

and without any guilt of the people,

because the people were not guilty at all.

The only guilt from them was because they were Jewish people.

Most of us, we were all up at night,

trying to talk to each other, which was not allowed.

The commandant was sleeping in the same barrack.

We were not allowed to talk to each other

or to express our view or our minds to each other

until the morning, at 5:00,

we start going out from the barracks.

In the morning,

when they had an Appelle to go out from the barracks,

from our group,

I would say at least four or five were dead.

I don't know how the thing happened that, what?

They must have with them some kind of... some kind of poison

in which they poisoned themselves.

Some of them there,

I would say at least of them were my friends,

two of my close friends.

They didn't say anything.

We didn't even know that they have with them poison.

(Glazar in German) Greenery, sand everywhere else.

At night, we were put into barracks.

It just had a sand floor.

Nothing else.

Each of us simply dropped where he stood.

Half asleep, I heard some men hang themselves.

We didn't react then. It was almost normal.

Just as it was normal

that for everyone behind whom the gate of Treblinka closed,

there was death, had to be death,

for no one was supposed to be left to bear witness.

I already knew that,

three hours after arriving at Treblinka.

(♪ Man sings in German: "Mandolinen um Mitternacht")

BERLIN

(Woman) This is no longer home, you see?

And, especially, it's no longer home

when they start telling me that they didn't know, they didn't know.

They say they didn't see.

"Yes, there were Jews living in our house.

"One day, they were no longer there.

"We didn't know what happened."

They couldn't help seeing it. It was not a matter of one action.

These were actions that were taking place over almost two years.

There was always... Every fortnight people were torn out of the houses.

How could they escape it? How could they not see it?

I remember that day on which they made Berlin judenrein.

The people hastened in the streets. They didn't want to be in the street.

You could see the streets were absolutely empty.

They didn't want to look, you know?

They sort of hastened to buy what they had to buy.

It was Saturday, and they had to buy something for the Sunday, you see?

So they went shopping and hastened back into their houses.

And I remember this day very vividly,

because we saw police cars

rushing through the streets of Berlin,

taking people out of the houses.

They had herded together from factories, from the houses,

wherever they could find the Jews,

and had put them into something that was called Klu.

Klu was a dance restaurant, a very big one.

From there, they were deported in various transports.

They were going off not far from here,

on one of the tracks of the Bahnhof Grunewald.

And this was a day when I felt so...

suddenly so utterly alone,

so utterly left alone...

...because now I knew we would be one of the very few people left.

I didn't know how many more would be underground.

And this was a day when I felt very guilty that I didn't go myself,

that I tried to escape a fate that the others could not escape.

There was no more warmth around, no more soul akin to us, you understand?

And we talked about this.

"What happened to Elsa, and what happened to Hans?"

"Where is he, and where is she? Do you know this?"

"My God, what happened to the child?"

You know, these were our talks on that horrible day.

This feeling of being terribly alone and terribly guilty that we did not go...

- (Lanzmann) Guilty? - That we did not go with them.

(Man shouting in German)

Why did we try? Why? Why?

What made us do this,

to escape a fate that was really our destiny

or the destiny of our people?

INGE DEUTSCHKRON BORN IN BERLIN

LIVED THERE THROUGH THE WAR

IN HIDING BEGINNING IN FEBRUARY 1943

NOW LIVES IN ISRAEL

FRANZ SUCHOMEL: SS Unterscharführer

(Lanzmann in German) Are you ready? (Suchomel in German) Yes.

- (Lanzmann) Then we can... - We can begin.

(Lanzmann) We can begin.

(Lanzmann) How's your heart? Is everything in order?

(Suchomel) Oh, my heart... For the moment, it's all right.

If I have any pain, I'll tell you.

- We'll have to break off. - (Lanzmann) Of course.

But your health, in general, is...

(Suchomel) The weather today suits me fine.

The barometric pressure is high. That's good for me.

(Lanzmann) You look to be in good shape, anyway.

- Let's begin with Treblinka. - 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? - Mid-August.

- Was it August 20 or 24? - 18th.

- The 18th? - I don't know exactly.

Around August 20.

(Lanzmann) Yes.

(Suchomel) I arrived there with seven other men.

- (Lanzmann) From Berlin? - From Berlin.

(Lanzmann) From Lublin?

(Suchomel) From Berlin to Warsaw, from Warsaw to Lublin,

from Lublin back to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Treblinka.

(Lanzmann) 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.

Yes.

Three trains arrived in two days...

...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.

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,

made of steel.

So that while 5,000 Jews arrived in Treblinka,

3,000 were dead.

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 halfwere dead.

We stacked them here, here,

here and here.

Thousands of people

piled one on top of another.

- (Lanzmann) 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.

That's incredible.

But true. I didn't want to go.

- That was proved at my trial. - Yes.

I was told,

"Mr. Suchomel,

"there are big workshops there for tailors and shoemakers,

"and you'll be guarding them."

- Yes. - Nothing more.

But you knew it was a camp?

Yes, we were told,

"The Führer ordered a resettlement program.

"That's an order from the Führer."

- Understand? - Resettlement program...

A resettlement program.

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 mutters)

(Lanzmann) All right, you've arrived at Treblinka.

(Suchomel) So Stadie, 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.

- (Lanzmann) From the bodies? - Yes.

Bear in mind, the graves were maybe 18, 20 feet deep.

All crammed with bodies.

A thin layer of sand and the heat. You see?

It was hell up there.

- (Lanzmann) You saw that? - Yes, just once, the first day.

We puked and wept.

- You wept? - We wept too, yes.

- The smell was infernal. - Infernal?

Yes, because gas was constantly escaping.

It stank horribly, for miles around.

- Miles? - Miles!

- You could smell it all around? - All around!

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't go on this way. I can't 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.

Wirth 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,

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

...and shit.

- Where? - In front of the gas chamber.

No one wanted to clean it out.

The Jews preferred to be shot

rather than work there.

- Preferred to be shot? - To be shot.

It was awful. Burying their own people, seeing it all...

The dead flesh came off in their hands.

So Wirth went there himself

with a few Germans

and he had long belts rigged up

that were wrapped around the dead torsos to pull them.

- Who did that? - The SS men.

- Wirth? - SS men and Jews.

- SS men and Jews? - And Jews.

- But Jews too? - Jews too!

What did the Germans do?

They forced the Jews to...

They beat them?

Or they themselves helped with the clean-up.

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 II

AT AUSCHWITZ I, THE ORIGINAL CAMP

(Lanzmann in German) Filip, on that Sunday in May 71942,

when you first entered the Auschwitz crematorium,

how old were you?

(Filip) 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 FIVE LIQUIDATIONS OF AUSCHWITZ "SPECIAL DETAIL"

Suddenly, before a door,

under a lamp in the middle of this building,

a young SS man told us,

"Inside, filthy swine!"

We entered a corridor.

They drove us along it.

Right away, the stench, the smoke choked me.

They kept on chasing us,

and then I made out the shapes

of the first two ovens.

Between the ovens, some Jewish prisoners were working.

We were in the crematorium's incineration chamber

in Camp I at Auschwitz.

From there,

they herded us to another big room,

and told us to undress the corpses.

I looked around me.

There were hundreds of bodies,

all dressed.

Piled with the corpses

were suitcases, bundles

and, scattered everywhere,

strange, bluish-purple crystals.

I couldn't understand any of it.

It was like a blow to the head, as if you'd been stunned.

I didn't even know where I was.

Above all, I couldn't understand

how they managed to kill so many people at once.

When we undressed some of them,

the order was given to feed the ovens.

Suddenly, an SS man rushed up and told me,

"Get out of here! Go and stir the bodies!"

What did he mean, "Stir the bodies"?

I entered the cremation chamber.

There was a Jewish prisoner,

Fischel, who later became a squad leader.

He looked at me,

and I watched him poke the fire with a long rod.

He told me, "Do as I'm doing

"or the SS will kill you."

I picked up a poker

and did as he was doing.

(Lanzmann) A poker?

A steel poker.

I obeyed Fischel's order.

At that point, I was in shock as if I'd been hypnotised,

and ready to do

whatever I was told.

I was so mindless, so horrified,

that I did everything Fischel told me.

So the ovens were fed,

but we were so inexperienced

that we left the fans on too long.

- The fans? - Yes.

There were fans to make the fire hotter.

They worked too long...

The firebrick suddenly exploded,

blocking the pipes

linking the Auschwitz crematorium

with the smokestack.

Cremation was interrupted.

The ovens were out of action.

That evening, some trucks came,

and we had to load the rest,

some 300 bodies,

into the trucks.

Then we were taken...

I still don't know where,

but probably to a field at Birkenau.

We were ordered to unload the bodies

and put them in a pit.

There was a ditch, an artificial pit.

Suddenly, water gushed up from underground

and swept the bodies down.

When night came, we had to stop that horrible work.

We were loaded into the trucks

and returned to Auschwitz.

The next day,

we were taken to the same place.

But the water had risen.

Some SS men came with a fire truck

and pumped out the water.

We had to go down into that muddy pit

to stack up the bodies.

But they were slimy.

For example, I grasped a woman,

but her hands...

Her hand was slippery, slimy.

I tried to pull her,

but I fell over backward, into the water, the mud.

It was the same for all of us.

Up above, at the edge of the pit, Aumeyer and Grabner yelled,

"Get cracking, you filth, you bastards!

"We'll show you, you bunch of shits!"

These were the names they were calling us.

And in these...

How shall I say? ...circumstances,

two of my friends couldn't take any more.

One was a French student.

- Jews? - All Jews. They were exhausted.

They just lay there...

in the mud.

Aumeyer called one of his SS men.

"Go on, finish off those swine!"

They were exhausted. And they were shot in the pit.

(Lanzmann) There was no crematorium at Birkenau then?

(Muller) No, there weren't any there yet.

Birkenau still wasn't completely set up.

Only Camp B 1, which was the late women is camp, existed.

It wasn't until the spring of 1943

that skilled workmen and unskilled labourers, all Jews,

must have gone to work here

and built the four crematoria.

Each crematorium had 15 ovens,

a big undressing room, around 3,000 square feet,

and a big gas chamber

where up to 3,000 people at once could be gassed.

TREBLINKA

(Suchomel) The new gas chambers were built in September 1942.

(Lanzmann) Who built them?

Hackenhold and Lambert supervised the Jews who did the work,

the bricklaying, at least.

Ukrainian carpenters made the doors.

The gas chamber doors themselves

were armoured bunker doors.

I think they were brought from Bialystok,

from some Russian bunkers.

FRANZ SUCHOMEL

What was the capacity of the new gas chambers?

- There were two of them, right? - Yes.

But the old ones hadn't been demolished.

When there were a lot of trains, a lot of people,

the old ovens were put back into service.

And here... the Jews say there were five on each side.

I say there were four,

but I'm not sure.

In any case, only the upper row,

on this side,

was in action.

(Lanzmann) Why not the other side?

(Suchomel) Disposing of the bodies would have been too complicated.

- Too far? - Yes.

Up there, Wirth had built the death camp,

assigning a detail of Jewish workers to it.

The detail had a fixed number in it,

around 200 people.

(Lanzmann speaks German)

(Suchomel) ...who worked only in the death camp.

(Lanzmann) But what was the capacity of the new gas chambers?

The new gas chambers... Let's see...

They could finish off 3,000 people in two hours.

(Lanzmann) How many people at once in a single gas chamber?

I can't say exactly.

The Jews say 200.

- 200? - That's right, 200.

Imagine a room this size.

(Lanzmann) They put more in at Auschwitz.

Auschwitz was a factory!

(Lanzmann) And Treblinka?

I'll give you my definition.

Keep this in mind.

Treblinka was a primitive,

but efficient production line of death.

- A production line? - Of death.

- Understand? - Yes.

- But primitive...? - Primitive, yes.

But it worked well, that production line of death.

Was Belzec even more rudimentary?

Belzec was the laboratory.

Wirth was camp commandant.

He tried everything imaginable there.

He got off on the wrong foot.

The pits were overflowing,

and the cesspool seeped out in front of the SS mess hall.

It stank...

in front of the mess-hall, in front of their barracks.

- Were you at Belzec? - No.

Wirth with his own men.

With Franz, with Oberhauser

and Hackenhold,

he tried everything there.

Those three had to put the bodies in the pits themselves

so that Wirth could see how much space he needed.

And when they rebelled...

Franz refused.

Wirth beat Franz with a whip.

He whipped Hackenhold, too. You see?

- Kurt Franz? - Kurt Franz.

That's how Wirth was.

Then, with that experience behind him,

he came to Treblinka.

(People chatting in German)

(Glasses clinking)

(Woman speaks German)

(Lanzmann) Excuse me. How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?

You can't tell me?

(Man) I'd rather not. I have my reasons.

- But why not? - Yes.

(Man) Two Pilsners.

Yes.

(Lanzmann) How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?

- Go on, tell him. - Tell him what?

Just tell him approximately.

How many quarts of beer a day do you sell?

400, 500 quarts.

- What? - 400, 500 quarts.

Here.

That's a lot.

(Indistinct German)

Have you worked here long?

- Around 20 years. - 20 years?

Yes.

- Why are you hiding...? - I have my reasons.

- ...your face? - I have my reasons.

What reasons?

- Never mind. - Why not?

(Lanzmann) Do you recognise this man?

No?

Christian Wirth?

Mr. Oberhauser.

Do you remember Belzec?

No memories of Belzec?

No?

Of the overflowing graves?

You don't remember?

MUNICH

WUPPERTAL ANTON SPIESS

GERMAN STATE PROSECUTOR AT TREBLINKA TRIAL, FRANKFURT 1960

(Spiess in German) When the Action it selffirst got under way,

it was almost totally improvised.

At Treblinka, for example,

the commandant, Dr. Eberl, let more trains come in

than the camp could handle.

It was a disaster!

Mountains of corpses!

Word of this foul-up

reached the head of the Reinhard Action,

Odilo Globocznik, in Lublin.

He went to Treblinka

to see what was happening.

There's a very concrete account of the trip

by his former driver, Oberhauser.

Globocznik arrived on a hot day in August.

The camp was permeated

with the stench of rotting flesh.

Globocznik didn't even bother to enter the camp.

He stopped here, before the commandant's office,

sent for Dr. Eberl

and greeted him with these words,

"How dare you accept so many every day

"when you can only process 3,000?"

Operations were suspended,

Eberl was transferred and Wirth came,

followed immediately by Stangl,

and the camp was completely reorganised.

The Reinhard Action covered three extermination camps:

Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.

There's also talk of three death camps on the Bug River,

for they were all located on or near the Bug.

The gas chambers were the heart of the camp.

They were built first,

in the woods, or in a field, as at Treblinka.

The gas chambers were the only stone buildings.

All the others were wooden sheds.

These camps weren't built to last.

Himmler was in a hurry to begin the 'final solution'.

The Germans had to capitalise on their eastward advance

and use this remote back-country

to carry out their mass murder as secretly as possible.

So at first, they couldn't manage the perfection

they achieved three months later.

(Piwonski speaks Polish)

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in French) Near the end of March 1942...

(Piwonski continues)

...sizeable groups of Jews were herded here,

groups of 50 to 100 people.

(Piwonski continues)

Several trains arrived...

...with sections of barracks, with posts, barbed wire, bricks...

...and construction of the camp as such began.

(Train whistle blows)

(Piwonski continues in Polish)

(Interpreter) The Jews unloaded these cars...

...and carted the sections of barracks to the camp.

The Germans made them work extremely fast.

When we saw the pace they worked at...

It was extremely brutal.

When we saw the complex being built, and the fence,

which, after all, enclosed a vast space...

(Piwonski continues)

...we realised that what the Germans were building

wasn't meant to aid mankind.

(Birds chirping)

(Piwonski continues)

(Interpreter) Early in June...

...the first convoy arrived.

I'd say there were over 40 cars.

With the convoy were SS men in black uniforms.

It happened one afternoon. He had just finished work.

JAN PIWONSKI

But he got on his bicycle and went home.

(Lanzmann) Why?

I merely thought

that these people had come to build the camp,

as the others had before them.

That convoy...

...there was no way of knowing that it was...

...the first earmarked for extermination.

And besides... he couldn't have known that Sobibor...

(Piwonski continues)

...would be a place for the mass extermination of the Jews.

The next morning, when I came here to work,

the station was absolutely silent.

And we realised,

after talking with the Poles who worked at the station here...

...that something utterly incomprehensible had happened.

First of all, when the camp was being built...

...there were orders shouted in German...

...there were screams...

...Jews were working at the run, there were shots,

and here there was that silence...

No work crews...

...a really total silence.

40 cars had arrived, and then... nothing.

It was all very strange.

(Lanzmann) It was the silence that tipped them off?

(Interpreter) That's right.

Can he describe that silence?

(Piwonski speaks Polish)

It was a silence.

Nothing was going on in the camp. You heard nothing.

Nothing moved.

(Piwonski continues)

So then they began to wonder...

"Where have they put those Jews?"

(Muller in German) Cell 13, Block 11 at Auschwitz 1,

is where the Special Work Detail was held.

The cell was underground, isolated.

For we were...

..."bearers of secrets".

We were reprieved dead men.

We weren't allowed to talk to anyone,

or contact any prisoner,

even the SS.

Only those in charge of the "Action."

There was a window.

We heard what happened in the courtyard.

The executions,

the victims' cries, the screams,

but we couldn't see anything.

This went on for several days.

One night an SS man came

from the political section.

It was around 4:00am.

The whole camp was still asleep.

There wasn't a sound in the camp.

We were again taken out of our cell

and led to the crematorium.

There, for the first time, I saw the procedure used

with those who came in alive.

We were lined up against a wall

and told, "No one may talk to those people."

Suddenly, the wooden door to the crematorium courtyard opened,

and 250 to 300 people filed in,

old people, and women.

They carried bundles, wore the Star of David.

Even from a distance, I could tell

that they were Polish Jews,

probably from Upper Silesia,

from the Sosnowiec ghetto, some 20 miles from Auschwitz.

FILIP MULLER

I caught some of the things they said.

I heard "fachowitz,"

meaning "skilled worker."

And "Malach-ha-Mavis,"

which means "the angel of death" in Yiddish.

Also, "harginnen": "They're going to kill us."

From what I could hear,

I clearly understood the struggle going on inside them.

Sometimes they spoke of work

probably hoping that they'd be put to work.

Or they spoke of "Malach-ha-Mavis," the angel of death.

The conflicting words echoed the conflict in their feelings.

Then a sudden silence

fell over those gathered in the crematorium courtyard.

All eyes converged

on the flat roof of the crematorium.

Who was standing there?

Aumeyer of the SS,

Grabner, the head of the political section,

and Hossler, the SS officer.

Aumeyer addressed the crowd,

"You're here to work,

"for our soldiers fighting at the front.

"Those who can work will be all right."

It was obvious that hope flared in those people.

You could feel it clearly.

The executioners had got past the first obstacle.

They saw it was succeeding.

Then Grabner spoke up,

"We need masons, electricians,

"all the trades."

Next, Hossler took over.

He pointed to a short man in the crowd.

I can still see him.

"What's your trade?"

The man said, "Mr. Officer, I'm a tailor."

"A tailor? What kind of tailor?"

"A men's... No, for both men and women."

"Wonderful! We need people like you in our workshops."

Then he questioned a woman,

"What's your trade?"

"Nurse," she replied.

"Splendid! We need nurses in our hospitals for our soldiers.

"We need all of you! But first, undress.

"You must be disinfected.

"We want you healthy."

I could see the people were calmer,

reassured by what they'd heard,

and they began to undress.

Even if they still had their doubts,

if you want to live, you must hope.

Their clothing remained in the courtyard,

scattered everywhere.

Aumeyer was beaming,

very proud of how he'd handled things.

He turned to some of the SS men and told them,

"You see? That's the way to do it!"

By this device,

a great leap forward had been made:

Now the clothing could be used.

RAUL HILBERG HISTORIAN

In all of my work, I have never begun by asking the big questions,

because I was always afraid that I would come up with small answers,

and I have preferred, therefore, to address these things,

which are minutiae or detail,

in order that I might then be able to put together

in a gestalt,

a picture, which...

...if not an explanation, is at least a description,

a more full description, of what transpired.

And, in that sense, I look also upon the bureaucratic destruction process,

for this is what it was,

as a series of minute steps taken in logical order

and relying above all, as much as possible,

on experience, past experience.

This goes not only, incidentally, for the administrative steps taken,

but also the psychological arguments,

even the propaganda.

Amazingly little was newly invented

until, of course, the moment came when one had to go beyond

that which had already been established by precedent,

and one had to gas these people,

or, in some sense, annihilate them on a large scale.

Then, these bureaucrats became inventors.

But like all inventors of institutions,

they did not copyright or patent their achievements,

and they preferred obscurity.

(Lanzmann) What did they get from the past, the Nazis?

They got the actual content of measures which they took.

For example, the barring of Jews from office,

the prohibition of intermarriages,

the employment in Jewish homes of female persons under the age of45,

the various marking decrees, especially the Jewish star,

the compulsory ghetto,

the voidance of any will executed by a Jew

that might work in such a way

as to prevent inheritance of his property by someone who was a Christian.

Many such measures had been worked out

over the course of more than a thousand years

by authorities of the Church

and by secular governments that followed in those footsteps.

And the experience gathered over that time

became a reservoir that could be used

and which indeed was used to an amazing extent.

You mean that one can compare...

- One can actually compare... - Each measure?

One can compare a rather large number of German laws and decrees

with their counterparts in the past

and find complete parallels,

even in detail,

as if they were a memory

which automatically extended to the period of 1933

and 1935 and 1939 and beyond.

In such respect, they didn't invent anything?

They invented very little,

and they did not invent the portrait of the Jew,

which also was taken over, lock, stock and barrel,

from writings going back to the 16th century.

So, even the propaganda,

the realm of the imagination and invention,

even there, they were remarkably in the footsteps

of those who preceded them,

from Martin Luther to the 19th century.

And, here again, they were not inventive.

They had to become inventive with the 'final solution'.

That was their great invention,

and that is what made this entire process different

from all others that had preceded that event.

And, in this respect,

what transpired when the final solution was... adopted,

or, to be more precise,

when the bureaucracy moved into it,

was a turning point in history.

Even here, I would suggest a logical progression,

one which came to fruition

in what might be called closure,

because, from the earliest days,

from the fourth century, fifth century, sixth century,

the missionaries of Christianity had said, in effect, to the Jews,

"You may not live among us as Jews."

The secular rulers who followed them,

from the late Middle Ages, had then decided,

"You may not live among us,"

and the Nazis finally decreed,

"You may not live."

This means that the three steps were... The first one was conversion.

- Conversion, followed by... - The second one, ghettoisation.

- Expulsion. - Or expulsion.

Expulsion.

And the third was the territorial solution,

which was, of course, the solution carried out

within the territories under German command,

excluding emigration:

death...

The final solution.

And the "final solution," you see, is really final,

because people who are converted can yet be, in secret, Jews,

people who are expelled can yet return,

but people who are dead will not reappear.

In such a respect, in the last stage, they were really pioneers and inventors?

This was something unprecedented, and this was something new.

How can one figure...

give some ideas about the complete newness of this,

because I think that it was new for themselves too?

Yes, it was new,

and this... I think, for this reason that one cannot find a specific document,

a specific plan, outline or blueprint

which states, "Now, the Jews will be killed."

Everything is left to inference from general words.

- Inference from...? - General wording.

The very wording "final solution" or "total solution",

or "territorial solution",

leaves something to the bureaucrat that he must infer.

He cannot read that document.

One cannot even read Goring's famous letter to Heydrich,

at the end of July 1941,

charging him in two paragraphs to proceed with the final solution.

And taking that document aside, everything is clarified?

Far from it.

- Far from it? - Far from it.

It was an authorisation to invent.

It was an authorisation to begin something

that was not as yet capable of being put into words.

I think it... I think of it that way.

It was a case for every agency, as a matter off act.

Absolutely, for every agency.

In every aspect of this operation, invention was necessary.

Certainly at this point,

because every problem was unprecedented:

not just how to kill the Jews, but what to do with their property thereafter,

and, not only that,

but how to deal with the problem

of not letting the world know what had happened.

All of these multitudes of problems were new.

(Children shouting)

(Van door closes)

FRANZ SCHALLING

(Lanzmann in German) First, explain to me...

how you came to Kulmhof, to Chelmno.

You were at Lodz, right?

- (Schalling) In Lodz, yes. - Litzmannstadt?

(Schalling) In Litzmannstadt, yes.

We were on permanent guard duty.

Protecting military objectives: mills,

the roads, when Hitler went to East Prussia.

It was dreary, and we were told,

"We're looking for men who want to break out of this routine."

So we volunteered.

We were issued winter uniforms,

overcoats, fur hats, fur-lined boots,

and 2 or 3 days later, we were told, "We're off!"

We were put aboard 2 or 3 trucks... I don't know...

They had benches,

and we rode and rode.

Finally we arrived.

The place was crawling with SS men and police.

Our first question was, "What goes on here?"

They said, "You'll find out!"

- (Lanzmann) You'll find out? - You'll find out.

(Lanzmann) Yes.

- You weren't in the SS, you were... - Police.

- Which police? - Security guards.

We were ordered to report to the Deutsche Haus,

the only big stone building in the village.

Yes.

We were taken into it.

An SS man immediately told us,

"This is a top secret mission."

- Secret? - "A top secret mission."

- Yes. - "Sign this!"

We each had to sign.

There was a form ready for each of us.

What did it say?

It was a pledge of secrecy.

We never even got to read it through.

You had to take an oath?

- No, just sign... - Yes.

Promising to shut up about whatever we'd see.

- Shut up? - Not say a word.

Yes.

After we'd signed, we were told,

"Final solution to the Jewish question."

We didn't understand what that meant.

So someone said...?

He told us what was going to happen there.

Someone said, "The final solution to the Jewish question."

You'd be assigned to the "final solution"?

Yes, but what did that mean?

We'd never heard that before.

So it was explained to us.

Just when was this?

Let's see... when was it...?

In the winter of 1941-42.

Then we were assigned to our stations.

Our guard post was at the side of the road.

A sentry box in front of the castle.

(Lanzmann) So you were in the "castle detail"?

(Schalling) That's right.

(Lanzmann) Can you describe what you saw?

We could see. We were at the gatehouse.

Yes?

When the Jews arrived, the way they looked,

half-frozen, starved, dirty, already half-dead.

Old people, children.

Think of it! The long trip here standing in a truck, packed in!

Who knows if they knew what was in store?

They didn't trust anyone, that's for sure.

After months in the ghetto, you can imagine!

Yes?

I heard an SS man shout at them,

"You're going to be deloused

"and have a bath.

"You're going to work here."

The Jews consented.

They said, "Yes, that's what we want to do."

(Lanzmann) Was the castle big?

Pretty big, with huge front steps.

The SS man stood at the top of the steps.

(Lanzmann) Then what happened?

They were hustled into 2 or 3 big rooms on the first floor.

They had to undress, give up everything:

rings, gold, everything.

(Lanzmann) How long did the Jews stay there?

- Long enough to undress. - Yes.

Then, stark naked,

they had to run down more steps

to an underground corridor

that led back up to the ramp, where the gas van awaited them.

(Lanzmann) Did the Jews enter the van willingly?

No, they were beaten.

Blows fell everywhere, and the Jews understood.

They screamed.

It was frightful!

Frightful!

I know, because we went down to the cellar

when they were all in the van.

We opened the cells of the work detail,

the Jewish workers

who collected the things thrown out of the 1st-floor window into there.

(Lanzmann) Describe the gas vans.

(Schalling) Like moving vans.

Very big?

They stretched, say,

from here to the window.

Just big trucks,

like moving vans, with 2 rear doors.

What system was used?

How did they kill them?

- With exhaust fumes. - Exhaust fumes?

It went like this: a Pole yelled, "Gas!"

then the driver got under the van to hook up the pipe

that fed the gas into the van.

- Yes, but how? - From the motor.

Yes, but through what?

A pipe... a tube.

He fiddled around under the truck.

I'm not sure how.

It was just exhaust gas?

That's all.

(Lanzmann) Yes.

Who were the drivers?

SS men.

All those men were SS.

Were there many of these drivers?

I don't know.

Were there 2, 3, 5, 10?

Not that many. 2 or 3, that's all.

I think there were 2 vans,

one big, one smaller.

Yes?

Did the driver sit in the cabin of the van?

- Mrs. Uwe? - (Woman) No.

He climbed into the cabin after the doors were closed

and started the motor.

Did he race the motor?

I don't know.

Could you hear the sound of the motor?

Yes, from the gate we could hear it turn over.

Was it a loud noise?

The noise of a truck engine.

Yes.

The van was stationary while the motor ran?

- That's right. - Yes.

Then it started moving.

We opened the gate, and it headed for the woods.

Were the people already dead?

I don't know.

- It was quiet. No more screams. - No screams.

You couldn't hear anything as they drove by.

(Podchlebnik speaks Yiddish)

(Interpreter ♪2 in French) He recalls it was 1941,

two days before the new year.

(Podchlebnik continues)

They were routed out at night...

...and in the morning they reached Chelmno.

There was a castle there.

When he entered the castle courtyard...

...he knew something awful was going on.

He already understood.

THE SITE OF THE CASTLE

(Podchlebnik continues)

They saw clothes and shoes...

...scattered in the courtyard.

Yet they were alone there.

He knew his parents had been through there...

...and there wasn't a Jew left.

(Podchlebnik continues)

They were taken down into a cellar.

On a wall was written, "No one leaves here alive."

Graffiti in Yiddish.

There were lots of names.

He thinks it was the Jews from villages around Chelmno

who had come before him, who had written their names.

- (Podchlebnik continues) - A few days after New Year's...

...they heard people arrive in a truck one morning.

The people were taken out of the truck...

...and up to the first floor of the castle.

The Germans lied, saying they were to be deloused.

They were chased down the other side...

...where a van was waiting.

(Podchlebnik continues)

The Germans pushed and beat them with their weapons

to hustle them into the trucks faster.

(Podchlebnik continues)

He heard people praying, "Shma Israel"...

...and he heard the van's rear doors being shut.

Their screams were heard,

becoming fainter and fainter...

...and when there was total silence,

the van left.

(Podchlebnik continues)

He and the 4 others were brought out of the cellar.

They went upstairs...

...and gathered up the clothes remaining

outside the supposed baths.

(Lanzmann) Did he understand then how they'd died?

(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)

MICHAEL PODCHLEBNIK

SURVIVOR OF 1ST PERIOD OF EXTERMINATION AT CHELMNO

THE CASTLE PERIOD

(Interpreter) Yes, first because there had been rumours of it.

And when he went out, he saw the sealed vans,

so he knew.

(Lanzmann) He understood that people were gassed in the vans?

(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)

Yes, because he'd heard the screams

and heard how they weakened,

and later the vans were taken into the woods.

(Lanzmann) What were the vans like?

(Interpreter ♪2 in Yiddish)

Like the ones that deliver cigarettes here.

They were enclosed, with double-leaf rear doors.

(Lanzmann) What colour?

The colour the Germans used, green, ordinary.

MARTHA MICHELSOHN

(Lanzmann) How many German families were there in Kulmhof, Chelmno?

(Speaks German) Ten or eleven, I'd say.

Germans from Volhynia and two families from the Reich,

the Bauers and us.

- And you? - Us, the Michelsohns.

How did you wind up in Kulmhof?

I was born in Laage,

and I was sent to Kulmhof.

They were looking for volunteer settlers,

and I signed up.

That's how I got there.

First in Warthbrucken, Kolo,

then Chelmno... Kulmhof.

Directly from Laage?

- No, I left from Munster. - Yes?

- Did you opt to go to Kulmhof? - Yes.

No, I asked for Wartheland.

Why?

(Murmurs In German)

A pioneering spirit!

- You were young? - Oh, yes, I was young.

- You wanted to be useful? - Yes.

What was your first impression of Wartheland?

It was primitive. Super-primitive.

Meaning...?

- Even worse... - Even worse?

Worse than primitive.

Difficult to understand, right?

Yes.

But why...?

The sanitary facilities were disastrous.

The only toilet was in Warthbrucken, in the town.

You had to go there.

The rest was a disaster.

- Why a disaster? - There were no toilets at all!

Yes?

There were privies.

I can't tell you how primitive it was.

Astonishing!

Why did you choose such a primitive place?

I was young, you know.

You can't imagine such places exist.

You don't believe it. But that's how it was.

(Michelsohn) This was the whole village.

A very small village,

straggling along the road.

Just a few houses.

There was the church, the castle,

a store, too,

the administrative building and the school.

The castle was next to the church,

with a high board fence around both.

(Lanzmann) Yes.

How far was your house from the church?

(Michelsohn) It was just opposite... 150 feet.

MRS. MICHELSOHN WAS THE NAZI TEACHER'S WIFE

(Lanzmann) Did you see the gas vans?

No...

Yes, from the outside. They shuttled back and forth.

I never looked inside. I didn't see Jews in them.

I only saw things from outside,

the Jews' arrival, their disposition,

how they were loaded aboard.

Since World War I,

the castle had been in ruins.

Only part of it could still be used.

That's where the Jews were taken.

This ruined castle was used...

For housing and delousing the Poles, and so on.

- The Jews? - Yes, the Jews.

Why do you call them "Poles" and not "Jews"?

- Sometimes, I get them mixed up. - Yes.

There's a difference between Poles and Jews?

Oh, yes! Oh, yes!

What's the difference?

(Laughs)

The Poles weren't exterminated,

and the Jews were.

That's the difference. An external difference, right?

And the inner difference?

I can't assess that.

I don't know enough about psychology and anthropology.

The difference between the Poles and the Jews?

Anyway, they couldn't stand each other.

(In French) On January 19, 1942,

the rabbi of Grabow, Jacob Schulmann,

wrote the following letter to his friends in Lodz:

"My very dear friends,

"I didn't write sooner: I wasn't sure of what I'd heard.

"Alas, to our great grief, we now know all.

"I've spoken to an eyewitness who managed to escape.

"He told me everything.

"They're exterminated in Chelmno, near Dombie,

"and they're all buried in the nearby Rzeszow forest.

"The Jews are killed in 2 ways: by shooting or gas.

"It's just happened to thousands of Lodz Jews.

"Do not think that this is being written by a madman.

"Alas, it is the tragic, horrible truth.

"Horror, horror. Man, shed thy clothes,

"cover thy head with ashes, run in the streets

"and dance in thy madness.

"I am so weary that my pen can no longer write.

"Creator of the universe, help us!"

The creator did not help the Jews of Grabow.

With their rabbi, they all died in the gas van at Chelmno

a few weeks later.

Chelmno is only 12 miles from Grabow.

(Cockerel crowing)

(Lanzmann) Were there a lot of Jews here in Grabow?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

- (Woman speaks Polish) - A lot, quite a few.

(Interpreter) They were sent to Chelmno.

(Lanzmann) Has she always lived near the synagogue?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

The Polish word is "Buzinica" not synagogue.

(Chatting in Polish)

She says it's now a furniture warehouse

but they didn't harm it from a religious point of view.

It hasn't been... desecrated.

Does she remember the rabbi at the synagogue?

(Interpreter ♪ 1 in Polish)

(Woman speaks Polish)

THE SYNAGOGUE IN GRABOW

She says she's 80 now, and her memory isn't too good,

and the Jews have been gone for 40 years.

Barbara, tell this couple they live in a lovely house.

(Speaks Polish)

Do they agree? Do they think it's a lovely house?

Yes.

Tell me about the decoration of this house, the doors,

what's it mean?

People used to do carvings like that.

Did they decorate it that way?

No.

- No, it was the Jews again. - The Jews did it?

The door's a good century old.

Did Jews own this house?

Yes, all these houses.

All these houses on the square were Jewish?

Jews lived in all the ones in front, on the street.

Yes. Where did the Poles live?

In the courtyards, where the privies were.

Where the privies were?

There used to be a store here.

What kind?

A food store.

- Owned by Jews? - Yes.

So the Jews lived in the front,

and the Poles in the courtyard with the privies.

Yes.

How long have these two lived here?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

15 years.

(Lanzmann) Where did they live before?

(Wife replies)

In a courtyard across the square.

(Lanzmann) They've got rich.

- Them? - Yes.

- Yes. - (Laughter)

(Lanzmann) How did they get rich?

They worked.

- How old is the gentleman? - He's 70.

He looks young and healthy.

(Barbara laughs)

Do they remember the Jews of Grabow?

Yes. And when they were deported, too.

They recall the deportation of the Grabow Jews?

He says he speaks "Jew" well.

- He speaks "Jew"? - Yes.

As a kid he played with Jews so he speaks "Jew".

(Husband continues)

First, they grouped them there, where that restaurant is,

or in this square, and took their gold.

An elder among the Jews collected the gold

and turned it over to the police.

That done, the Jews were put in the Catholic church.

(Lanzmann) A lot of gold?

Yes, the Jews had gold...

(Wife replies)

...and some handsome candelabras.

(Lanzmann) Did the Poles know the Jews would be killed at Chelmno?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

Yes, they knew.

The Jews knew it, too.

(Lanzmann) Did the Jews try to do something about it,

to rebel, to escape?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

The young tried to run away...

...but the Germans caught them

and maybe killed them even more savagely.

(Man continues)

In every town and village, 2 or 3 streets were closed,

and the Jews were kept under guard.

They couldn't leave there.

(Man continues)

Then they were locked in the Polish church here in Grabow

and later taken to Chelmno.

THE SYNAGOGUE IN THE BACKGROUND

(People chatting in Polish)

The Germans threw children as small as these...

- Yes? - ...into the trucks by the legs.

She saw that?

- Old folks too. - Threw kids into the trucks.

The Poles knew the Jews would be gassed in Chelmno?

Did this gentleman know?

- (Lanzmann) Yes? - Yes.

(Lanzmann) Does he recall the Jews' deportation from Grabow?

(Barbara) Yes.

(Man continues)

At that time, he worked in the mill.

- (Lanzmann) There, opposite? - Yes, and they saw it all.

What did he think of it? Was it a sad sight?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

Yes, it was...

Yes.

Yes. How could you see that without sadness?

(Hoof beats)

What trades were the Jews in?

They were tanners, tradesmen...

...tailors.

They sold things... eggs, chickens, butter.

(Barbara) There were a lot of tailors...

...tradesmen, too.

(Man continues)

But most were tanners.

- They had beards and side locks. - (Lanzmann) Yes.

He says they weren't pretty.

(Lanzmann) They weren't pretty?

- They stank, too. - They stank?

- Yes. - Yes?

Why did they stink?

Because they were tanners, and the hides stink.

(Chatting in Polish)

The Jewish women were beautiful.

The Poles liked to make love with them.

Are Polish women glad there are no Jewesses left?

(Woman continues in Polish)

(Lanzmann) What did she say?

(Barbara) The women who are her age now

also liked to make love.

(Lanzmann) So the Jewish women were competitors?

(Barbara) It's crazy how the Poles liked the little Jewesses!

Do the Poles miss the little Jewesses?

(Barbara) Naturally, such beautiful women!

Why? What made them so beautiful?

(Barbara) Because they did nothing. Polish women worked.

Jewish women only thought of their beauty and clothes.

(Lanzmann) So Jewesses did no work?

- None at all. - Why not?

- They were rich. - (Women continue speaking)

The Poles had to serve them and work.

(Lanzmann) I heard her use the word "capital."

(Barbara) The capital was in the hands of the Jews.

(Lanzmann) Yes... You didn't translate that.

Ask her again. So the capital was in the Jews' hands?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

All Poland was in the Jews' hands.

Are they glad there are no more Jews here, or sad?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

It doesn't bother them.

As you know, Jews and Germans ran all Polish industry before the war.

Did they like them on the whole?

(Barbara speaks Polish)

(Man replies)

Not much. Above all, they were dishonest.

Was life in Grabow more fun when the Jews were here?

(Barbara in Polish)

He'd rather not say.

Why does he call them dishonest?

(Barbara in Polish)

They exploited the Poles. That's what they lived off.

How did they exploit them?

By imposing their prices.

- Ask her if she likes her house. - (Speaking Polish)

Yes,

But her children live in much better houses.

In modern houses.

- They've all gone to college. - Great, that's progress!

Her children are the best educated in the village.

Very good, Madam. Long live education!

Isn't this a very old house?

Yes, Jews lived here before.

So Jews used to live here. Did she know them?

Yes.

- What was their name? - (Barbara in Polish)

- She doesn't know. - What was their trade?

Benkel, their name was. Benkel.

- And what was their trade? - (Barbara in Polish)

(Man speaks Polish)

They had a butcher's shop.

(Lanzmann) A butcher's shop. Why is she laughing?

Because the gentleman said it was...

a butcher's shop where you could buy cheap meat.

What does he think about them being gassed in trucks?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Man replies)

He says he doesn't like that at all.

(Man continues)

If they'd gone to Israel of their own free will,

he might have been glad.

But killing them was unpleasant.

(Lanzmann) Does he miss the Jews?

(Barbara in Polish)

Yes, because there were some beautiful Jewesses.

For the young, it was fine.

(Lanzmann) Are they sorry the Jews are no longer here or pleased?

(Barbara in Polish)

How can I tell? I never went to school.

I can only think of how I am now. Now I'm fine.

- Is she better off? - (Barbara in Polish)

Before the war, she picked potatoes.

Now she sells eggs, and she's much better off.

Because the Jews are gone or because of socialism?

(Barbara in Polish)

She doesn't care, she's happy because she's doing well now.

How did he feel about losing his classmates?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Wife Replies)

It still upsets him.

- Does he miss the Jews? - (Barbara in Polish)

Certainly.

- They were good Jews, Madam says. - (Lanzmann) Yes?

GRABOW IN WINTER

(Michelsohn) The Jews came in trucks,

and later there was a narrow-gauge railway

that they arrived on.

They were packed tightly in the trucks,

or in the cars of the narrow-gauge railway.

Lots of women and children.

Men too, but most of them were old.

The strongest were put in work details.

They walked with chains on their legs.

In the morning, they fetched water,

looked for food, and so on.

- (Lanzmann) On work detail? - Jews on work detail.

These weren't killed right away.

That was done later.

I don't know what became of them.

They didn't survive, anyway.

(Lanzmann) Two of them did.

- Only two. - Yes.

They were in chains?

- On the legs. - All of them?

The workers, yes. The others were killed at once.

The Jewish work squad went through the village in chains.

- Yes? - Mm-hmm.

Could people speak to them?

No, that was impossible.

Why?

No one dared.

- What? - No one dared.

- Yes. - Understand?

Yes... No one dared.

Why, was it dangerous?

- Yes, there were guards. - Yes.

Anyway, people wanted nothing to do with all that.

- You see? - Yes.

Gets on your nerves, seeing that every day.

You can't force a whole village to watch such distress.

When the Jews arrived,

when they were pushed into the church or the castle...

And the screams!

It was frightful! Depressing.

Day after day, the same spectacle!

It was terrible! A sad spectacle!

They screamed. They knew what was happening.

At first, the Jews thought they were going to be deloused.

But they soon understood.

Their screams grew wilder and wilder.

Horrifying screams. Screams of terror.

Because they knew what was happening to them.

(Lanzmann) Do you know how many Jews were exterminated there?

(Michelsohn) Four something, 400,000 or 40,000...

(Lanzmann) 400,000.

(Michelsohn) 400,000, yes. I knew it had a 4 in it.

Sad, sad, sad!

(Srebnik sings in German) ♪When the soldiers march

♪ The girls open their windows and doors... ♪

(Lanzmann) Do you remember a Jewish child, a boy of 13?

He was in the work squad.

He sang on the river.

- (Michelsohn) On the Narew River? - Yes.

- Is he still alive? - Yes, he is alive.

(Lanzmann) He sang a German song

that the SS in Chelmno taught him.

"When the soldiers march...

(Michelsohn) "The girls open their windows and doors..."

(Continues singing)

SIMON SREBNIK

SURVIVOR OF 2ND PERIOD OF EXTERMINATION AT CHELMNO

THE CHURCH PERIOD

(♪Organ plays)

(♪Sings Polish hymn)

(♪Congregation joins in)

(Lanzmann) So it's a holiday in Chelmno?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Together) Yes.

(Lanzmann) What holiday? What's being celebrated?

(Barbara) The birth of the Virgin Mary. It's her birthday.

- (Lanzmann) Birth of the Virgin Mary? - Yes.

(Lanzmann) It's a huge crowd, isn't it?

(Barbara in Polish)

But the weather's bad... it's raining.

(Lanzmann) Ask them if they're glad to see Srebnik again.

(Barbara in Polish)

- Very, it's a great pleasure. - (Lanzmann) Why?

(Barbara in Polish)

They're glad to see him again,

because they know all he's lived through.

Seeing him as he is now, they're very pleased.

- They're pleased? - Yes.

Why does the whole village remember him?

(Barbara in Polish)

They remember him well

because he walked with chains on his ankles,

and he sang on the river.

He was young,

he was skinny,

he looked ready for his coffin.

(Lanzmann) Ripe for a coffin!

- Did he seem happy or sad? - (Barbara in Polish)

Even the lady...

...when she saw that child,

she told the German, "Let that child go!"

He asked her, "Where to?" "To his father and mother."

Looking at the sky, he said, "He'll soon go to them."

- The German said that? - Yes.

They remember when the Jews were locked in this church?

(Barbara in Polish)

Yes, they do.

They brought them to the church in trucks.

- At what time of day? - (Barbara in Polish)

All day long and into the night.

What happened? Can they describe it in detail?

At first, the Jews were taken to the castle.

Only later were they put into the church.

(Lanzmann) The second phase, right.

(Barbara) In the morning, they were taken into the woods.

(Lanzmann) How were they taken into the woods?

(Barbara in Polish)

In very big armoured vans.

The gas came through the bottom.

Then they were carried in gas vans, right?

(Barbara in Polish)

Yes, in gas vans.

Where did the vans pick them up?

- The Jews? - Yes.

(Barbara in Polish)

Here, at the church door.

The trucks pulled up where they are now?

No, they went right to the door.

The vans came to the church door?

And they all knew these were death vans?

(Barbara in Polish)

Yes, they couldn't help knowing.

They heard screams at night?

(Barbara in Polish)

The Jews moaned, they were hungry.

(Lanzmann) They were hungry?

They were shut in and starved.

- Did they have any food? - (Barbara in Polish)

You couldn't look there. You couldn't talk to a Jew.

(Chatting in Polish)

(Barbara) Even going by on the road, you couldn't look there.

(Lanzmann) Did they look anyway?

(Barbara) Yes, vans came,

and the Jews were moved farther off.

You could see them, but on the sly.

- (Lanzmann) In sidelong glances. - That's right.

(Barbara in Polish)

That's right, in sidelong glances.

What kind of cries and moans were heard at night?

(Barbara in Polish)

They called on Jesus and Mary and God,

sometimes in German, as she puts it.

(Lanzmann) The Jews called on Jesus, Mary and God?

(Chatting in Polish continues)

(Barbara) The presbytery was full of suitcases.

(Lanzmann) The Jews' suitcases?

(Barbara) Yes, and there was gold.

(Church bells ringing)

How does she know there was gold?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Lanzmann) The procession! We'll stop now.

(Bells continue)

(Horse whinnies)

(Bells cease)

(Lanzmann) Were there as many Jews in the church

as there were Christians today?

(Barbara in Polish)

Almost.

How many gas vans were needed to empty it out?

(Barbara in Polish)

An average of 50.

(Lanzmann) It took 50 vans to empty it.

In a steady stream?

(Barbara in Polish)

Yes.

(Lanzmann) The lady said before

that the Jews' suitcases were dumped in the house opposite.

(Barbara in Polish)

(Lanzmann) What was in this baggage?

(Barbara) Pots with false bottoms.

What was in the false bottoms?

(Barbara in Polish)

- Valuables... objects of value. - Ah, yes?

(Woman continues in Polish)

They also had gold in their clothes.

(Woman continues)

When given food, the Jews sometimes threw them valuables

or sometimes money.

(Lanzmann) They said before it was forbidden to talk to Jews.

(Barbara in Polish)

Absolutely forbidden.

(Lanzmann) Ask them if they miss the Jews.

(Barbara in Polish)

- (Woman replies) - Of course.

(Woman continues)

We wept too, Madam says.

(Lanzmann) Yes. Of course.

And Mr. Kantarowski gave them bread and cucumbers.

(Lanzmann) Why do they think all this happened to the Jews?

(Barbara in Polish)

Because they were the richest!

Many Poles were also exterminated.

Even priests.

Mr. Kantarowski...

...will tell us what a friend told him.

It happened in Myndjewyce, near Warsaw.

(Lanzmann) Go on.

(Speaks in Polish)

(Barbara) The Jews were gathered in a square.

The rabbi asked an SS man, "Can I talk to them?"

The guard said yes.

So the rabbi said that around 2,000 years ago,

the Jews condemned the innocent Christ to death.

And when they did that, they cried out,

"Let his blood fall on our heads and on our sons' heads."

(Barbara) Then the rabbi told them,

"Perhaps the time has come for that, so let us do nothing.

"Let us go, let us do as we're asked."

(Lanzmann) He thinks the Jews expiated the death of Christ?

(Barbara in Polish)

He doesn't think so, or even that Christ sought revenge.

He didn't say that. The rabbi said it.

(Barbara) It was God's will, that's all!

- (Lanzmann) What'd she say? - So Pilate washed his hands

and said, "Christ is innocent," he sent Barabbas.

But the Jews cried out,

"Let his blood fall on our heads."

That's all. Now you know!

(Voices fade)

(Lanzmann) Was the road between Chelmno, the village

and the woods where the pits were,

was it asphalted as it is now?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Falborski speaks in Polish)

The road was narrower then, but it was asphalted.

(Lanzmann) How many feet were the pits from the road?

(Barbara in Polish)

(Falborski speaks in Polish)

They were around 1,600 feet,

maybe 1,900 or 2,200 feet away.

So even from the road, you couldn't see them.

How fast did the vans go?

(Barbara in Polish)

PAN FALBORSKI

At moderate speed, kind of slow.

It was a calculated speed

because they had to kill the people inside on the way.

When they went too fast,

the people weren't quite dead on arrival in the woods.

By going slower, they had time to kill the people inside.

Once a van skidded on a curve.

(Falborski continues)

Half an hour later, I arrived

at the hut of a forest warden named Senajak.

He told me, "Too bad you were late.

"You could have seen a van that skidded.

"The rear of the van opened,

"and the Jews fell out on the road."

(Falborski continues)

They were still alive.

Seeing those Jews crawling, a Gestapo man

took out his revolver and shot them.

(Falborski continues)

He finished them all off.

Then they brought Jews who were working in the woods.

They righted the van

and put the bodies back inside.

(Srebnik) This was the road

that the gas vans used.

There were 80 people in each van.

When they arrived, the SS said,

"Open the doors!"

We opened them. The bodies tumbled right out.

An SS man said, "Two men inside!"

These two men worked at the ovens. They were experienced.

Another SS man screamed,

"Hurry up! The other van's coming!"

We worked until the whole shipment was burned.

That's how it went, all day long. So it went.

I remember that once they were still alive.

The ovens were full,

and the people lay on the ground.

They were all moving,

they were coming back to life,

and when they were thrown into the ovens,

they were all conscious. Alive.

They could feel the fire burn them.

When we built the ovens, I wondered what they were for.

An SS man told me,

"To make charcoal. For laundry irons."

That's what he told me. I didn't know.

When the ovens were completed,

the logs put in

and the gasoline poured on and lighted,

and when the first gas van arrived,

then we knew why the ovens were built.

When I saw all that, it didn't affect me.

Neither did the 2nd or 3rd shipment.

I was only 13,

and all I'd ever seen until then

were dead bodies.

Maybe I didn't understand.

Maybe if I'd been older I'd have understood,

but the fact is, I didn't.

I'd never seen anything else.

In the ghetto, I saw... in the ghetto in Lodz,

that as soon as anyone took a step, he fell dead.

I thought that was the way things had to be.

It was normal.

I'd walk the streets of Lodz,

maybe 100 yards, and there'd be 200 bodies.

People were hungry.

They went into the street and they fell, they fell...

Sons took their fathers' bread,

fathers took their sons'.

Everyone wanted to stay alive.

So when I came here, to Chelmno,

I was already...

I didn't care about anything.

I thought, if I survive,

I just want one thing:

five loaves of bread to eat.

That's all.

That's what I thought.

But I dreamed, too,

that if I survived, I'd be the only one left in the world.

Not another soul. Just me. One.

Only me left in the world, if I get out of here.

THE RUHR

(Lanzmann) "Geheime Reichssache," secret Reich business.

Berlin, June 5, 1942.

Changes to be made to special vehicles now in service

at Kulmhof (Chelmno),

and to those now being built.

Since December 1941,

97,000 have been processed - "verarbeitet" in German,

by the three vehicles in service, with no major incident.

In light of observations made so far, however,

the following technical changes are needed:

First,

the van's normal load is usually 9 to 10 per square yard.

In Saurer vehicles, which are very spacious,

maximum use of space is impossible,

not because of any possible overload,

but because loading to full capacity

would affect the vehicle's stability.

So reduction of the load space seems necessary.

It must absolutely be reduced by a yard,

instead oftrying to solve the problem, as hitherto,

by reducing the number of pieces loaded.

Besides, this extends the operating time,

as the empty void must also be filled with carbon monoxide.

On the other hand, if the load space is reduced

and the vehicle is packed solid,

the operating time can be considerably shortened.

The manufacturers told us during a discussion,

that reducing the size of the van's rear

would throw it badly off balance.

The front axle, they claim, would be overloaded.

In fact, the balance is automatically restored

because the merchandise aboard

displays, during the operation,

a natural tendency to rush to the rear doors,

and are mainly found lying there at the end of the operation.

So the front axle is not overloaded.

Secondly:

The lighting must be better protected than now.

The lamps must be enclosed in a steel grid

to prevent their being damaged.

Lights could be eliminated,

since they apparently are never used.

However, it has been observed

that when the doors are shut,

the load always presses hard against them,

against the doors,

as soon as darkness sets in.

This is because the load

naturally rushes toward the light

when darkness sets in,

which makes closing the doors difficult.

Also, because of the alarming nature of darkness,

screaming always occurs when the doors are closed.

It would therefore be useful to light the lamp

before and during the first moments of the operation.

Third:

For easy cleaning of the vehicle,

there must be a sealed drain in the middle of the floor.

The drainage hole's cover, 8 to 12 inches in diameter,

would be equipped with a slanting trap,

so that fluid liquids

can drain off during the operation.

During cleaning,

the drain can be used to evacuate large pieces of detritus.

The aforementioned technical changes

are to be made to vehicles in service

only when they come in for repairs.

As for the 10 vehicles ordered from Saurer,

they must be equipped with all innovations and changes

shown by use and experience to be necessary.

Submitted for decision to Gruppenleiter II D,

SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Rauff.

Signed Just.

END OF THE FIRST ERA

FRANZ SUCHOMEL SS Unterscharführer

(Suchomel sings in German) ♪ Looking squarely ahead

♪ Brave and joyous

♪ At the world

♪ The squads march to work

♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka

♪ It is our destiny

♪ That's why we've become one with Treblinka

♪ In no time at all

♪ We know only the word of our Commander

♪ We know only obedience and duty

♪ We want to serve, to go on serving

♪ Until a little luck ends it all

♪ Hurray! ♪

(Lanzmann) Once more, but louder.

(Suchomel) We're laughing about it but it's so sad.

(Lanzmann) No one is laughing. (Suchomel) Don't be sore at me.

You want history, I'm giving you history.

Franz wrote the words.

The melody came from Buchenwald.

Camp Buchenwald, where Franz was a guard.

New Jews who arrived in the morning...

- (Lanzmann) New "Worker Jews"? - Yes.

They were taught the song,

and by evening all of them had to sing it.

- (Lanzmann) Sing it again. - All right.

(Lanzmann) It's very important. But loud.

♪ Looking squarely ahead, brave and joyous

♪ At the world

♪ The squads march to work

♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka

♪ It is our destiny

♪ That's why we've become one with Treblinka

♪ In no time at all

♪ We know only the word of our Commander

♪ We know only obedience and duty

♪ We want to serve, to go on serving

♪ Until a little luck ends it all

♪ Hurray! ♪

Satisfied?

That's unique. No Jews know that today.

(Train approaches)

(Lanzmann) How was it possible in Treblinka

in peak days...

...to "process" 18,000 people?

18,000 is too high.

- But I read that figure in court reports. - Sure.

To "process" 18,000 people.

To liquidate them.

Mr. Lanzmann, that's an exaggeration.

Believe me.

How many?

12,000 to 15,000.

But we had to spend halfthe night at it.

In January, the trains started arriving at 6:00am.

Yes?

- Always at 6:00am? - Not always.

- Often. - Yes.

- The schedules were erratic. - Yes.

Sometimes one came at 6:00am, then another at noon,

maybe another late in the evening.

- You see? - So a train arrived.

I'd like you to describe in detail

the whole process.

During the peak period.

(Suchomel) The trains left Malkinia station,

for Treblinka station.

(Lanzmann) How many miles from Malkinia to Treblinka?

(Suchomel) About six miles.

Treblinka was a village.

A small village.

As a station,

it gained in importance because of the transports of Jews.

There were at least 30 to 50 cars.

They were divided into sections of 10 or 15,

shunted into Treblinka Camp,

and brought to the ramp.

The other cars waited, loaded with people,

in Treblinka station.

The windows were closed off with barbed wire,

so no one could get out.

On the roofs were the "hellhounds,"

the Ukrainians or Latvians.

The Latvians were the worst.

On the ramp, for each car,

there stood two Jews from Blue Squad

to speed things up.

They said, "Get out, get out. Hurry, hurry!"

There were also Ukrainians and Germans.

(Lanzmann) How many Germans? (Suchomel) 3 to 5.

- (Lanzmann) No more? - No more. I can assure you.

- (Lanzmann) How many Ukrainians? - Ten.

(Lanzmann) 10 Ukrainians, 5 Germans...

Yes, yes.

2... 20 people from the Blue Squad.

Men from the Blue Squad were here and here.

They sent the people inside.

The Red Squad was here.

So the Red Squad was here.

(Lanzmann) What was the Red Squad's job?

(Suchomel) The Red Squad's job was the clothes,

to carry the clothes taken off by the men

and by the women

up here immediately.

(Lanzmann) How much time elapsed between unloading at the ramp

and the undressing,

how many minutes?

For the women,

let's say an hour in all.

An hour, an hour and a half.

A whole train took 2 hours.

In 2 hours, it was all over.

Between the time of arrival... and death.

- It was all over in 2 hours? - 2 and a half hours, 3 hours.

A whole train?

Yes, a whole train.

And for only one section, for 10 cars, how long?

I can't calculate that

because the sections came one after another,

and people flooded in constantly.

Understand?

Usually, the men waiting who sat there, or there,

were sent straight up via the "funnel."

The women were sent last.

At the end.

They had to go up there too, and often waited here.

5... at a time.

50 people.

60 women with children.

They had to wait here until there was room here.

- (Lanzmann) Naked? - Naked.

In summer and winter.

- (Lanzmann) In winter? - In winter.

(Lanzmann) Winter in Treblinka can be very cold.

(Suchomel) Well, in winter, in December, anyway after Christmas.

But even before Christmas it was cold as hell.

Between 15 and minus 4.

I know. At first it was cold as hell for us, too.

We didn't have suitable uniforms.

It was cold for us too.

But it was colder for...

- For those poor people. - In the "funnel."

In the "funnel," it was very, very cold.

Very, very cold.

Can you...

Can you describe this "funnel" precisely?

- What was it like? How wide? - Yes...

How was it for the people in this "funnel"?

It was about 13 feet wide.

As wide as this room.

Wide as this room.

On each side were walls this high or this high.

- Walls? - No, barbed wire.

Woven into the barbed wire...

...were branches of pine trees.

You understand?

It was known as "camouflage."

There was a "Camouflage Squad" of 20 Jews.

They brought in new branches every day.

- From the woods? - That's right.

So everything was screened.

People couldn't see anything to the left or right.

Nothing.

- You couldn't see through it. - Impossible?

It was impossible.

Here and here too.

Here, too.

And here.

Impossible to see through.

THE CAMP TODAY

(Lanzmann) Treblinka, where so many people were exterminated,

wasn't big, right?

(Suchomel) It wasn't big.

1600 feet at the widest point.

It wasn't a rectangle, more like a rhomboid.

You must realise that here the ground was flat,

and here it began to rise.

And at the top of the slope was the gas chamber.

You had to climb up to it.

(Lanzmann) The "funnel" was called the "Road to Heaven," right?

The Jews called it the "Ascension."

Also "The Last Road."

I only heard those two names for it.

(Lanzmann) I need to see it.

The people go into the "funnel." Then what happens?

- They're totally naked? - Totally naked.

Here...

...stood two Ukrainian guards.

Mainly for the men.

If the men wouldn't go in,

they were beaten with whips.

Here too. Even here.

The men were "driven" along. Not the women.

- Not the women? - No, they weren't beaten.

Why such humanity?

I didn't see it.

Maybe they were beaten too.

Why not?

Why not? They were about to die anyway, no?

Why not?

Hmm?

At the entrance to the gas chambers,

undoubtedly.

ABRAHAM BOMBA ISRAEL

(Lanzmann) Abraham, can you tell me how did it happen?

How were you chosen?

(Bomba) There came an order

from the Germans

to take out the barbers they could get.

And they needed them for a certain job.

What kind of job they needed it for, we didn't know at that time.

But we gathered together as many barbers as we could.

How long did it happen after your arrival in Treblinka?

I would say that happened to me about four weeks after I was in Treblinka.

When was it? It was in the morning, in the...

That was in the morning.

It was around 10:00

when a transport came to Treblinka,

and the women went into the gas chambers.

And they chose some people

from the working people over there,

and they asked the question: Who was a barber, and who was not a barber?

I was a barber for quite a number of years.

Some of them, they knew me,

like people from Czestochowa and from other places.

So, naturally, they chose me,

and I selected some more barbers which I know of them,

and we got it together.

- Professional barbers? - Professional, yes.

We got it together, and we were waiting for the order.

And the order came to go with them,

with the Germans.

They took us into the gas chamber,

to the second... part of the camp in Treblinka.

It was far from the first part?

It was not too far, but it was all covered

with gates, barbed wire

and trees covering the gate,

that nobody should see there is a gate,

or there is a place going into the gas chambers.

Is it what the Germans called the 'Schlauch"?

No, the Germans, what they called it, they called...

Like going to...

"Road to the Heaven."

- "Himmelweg?" - "Himmel"... "Himmelweg", yeah.

"The Road to the Heaven."

And we knew about it because we worked for quite a time

before we went in to work in the gas chamber.

Going in over there, they put in some benches

where the women could sit

and not to have the idea

that this is their last way,

or that it is the last time they're going to live

or they're going to breathe,

or they're going to know what is going on.

How long did it last that the barbers cut the hair inside the gas chamber,

because it was not always the case?

We worked inside the gas chamber for about a week or 10 days.

After that,

they decided that we will cut the hair in the undressing barrack.

- How did it look, the gas chamber? - It was a room, not a big room.

The room was, I would say, the size by feet, around...

...12 by 12.

But in that room,

they pushed in a lot of women,

almost one on top of the other one.

But, like I mentioned before,

when we came in, we didn't know what we're going to do.

And then, one of the kapos, he came in and he said,

"Barbers, you have to do a job,

"to make to believe all those women that came in

"that they are just taking a haircut

"and going in to take a shower,

"and, from there, they go out from this place."

But we knew already that there is no way going out from this room.

Because this room is the last place where they went in alive,

and they will never go out alive again.

Can you describe precisely?

Precisely, to describe, is...

When the transport came in...

Waiting there until the transport came in.

The transport came in.

Women with children.

And pushing into that place.

We, the barbers, started to cut the hair,

and some of them, I would say all of them,

some of them, they knew already what's going to happen to them.

We tried to do the best what we could...

- (Lanzmann) No, no, no. - ...the most human being what we could.

(Lanzmann) Excuse me. How did it happen?

When the women came into the gas chamber,

were you yourself already in the gas chamber

or did you come after wards?

I said we were already in the gas chamber,

because we were waiting over there for the transport to come in.

- You were inside? - Inside, yes.

Inside the gas chamber. We were already in.

And suddenly you saw the women come in?

Yes, they came in.

How were they?

They were undressed, all naked, without clothes, without anything else.

- All of them completely naked? - Completely naked.

All the women and all the children.

- All the children too? - The children too.

Because they came from the undressing barracks.

There was a barracks before going into the gas chamber

where they had undressed themselves.

What did you feel the first time

that it happened that you saw all these naked women coming?

Well, I felt that,

accordingly, I got to do what they told me:

to cut the hair in a way

that it should look like a barber is doing his job,

like he's doing a job for a woman,

a nice haircut to give them,

but to take off as much hair as we could,

because they needed the women's hair

to be transported to Germany.

This means that you didn't shave them?

No, we did not shave them.

We just cut their hair to make them believe

that they're getting a nice haircut.

- But you cut with what? With scissors? - With scissors, yes.

With scissors and with a comb, without any clippers.

Just like a...

a man's haircut, I would say.

Not a "baldy" one to take out... to take off all the hair,

but just to have the imagination

that they're getting a nice haircut.

- There were no mirrors, no? - No, there were no mirrors.

There were just benches, not chairs,

but just benches where we worked, about 16, 17 barbers,

and we had a lot of women in.

Every haircut, it took about two minutes,

no more than that,

because there was a lot of women to come in

and to get rid of their hair.

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 job, the same procedure.

- You said that you were 16 barbers? - 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.

After wards, 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.

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 minute, 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 off act, 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 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...

I cannot.

(Lanzmann) Go on, Abe. You must.

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 apologise.

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)

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 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" overwhelmed 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 faeces.

Only women?

Not the men, only the women.

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, yes? - 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.

No?

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.

- Yes. - That's a fact.

It's been medically... 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... - Yes.

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."

It 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.

They were forced to strip,

to sit on a sandbank,

and were killed with a shot in the neck.

They fell into the pit.

There was always a fire in the pit.

With rubbish, paper and gasoline,

people burn very well.

RICHARD GLAZAR SWITZERLAND

(In German) The "Infirmary" was a narrow site

very close to the ramp

to which the aged were led.

I had to do this too.

This execution site wasn't covered,

just an open place with a roof,

but screened by a fence,

so no one could see in.

The way in was a narrow passage,

very short, but somewhat similar to the "funnel."

Yes, a sort of tiny labyrinth.

In the middle of it, there was a pit.

And to the left as one came in,

there was a little booth,

with a kind of wooden plank in it,

like a springboard.

If people were too weak to stand on it,

they'd have to sit on it,

and then,

as the saying went in Treblinka jargon...

...SS man Miete would

"cure each one with a single pill",

a shot in the neck.

In the peak periods,

that happened daily.

In those days, the pit...

it was at least

10 to 12 feet deep,

it was full of corpses.

There were also cases

of children who for some reason arrived alone

or got separated from their parents.

These children were led to the "Infirmary"

and shot there.

The "Infirmary" was also for us,

the Treblinka slaves,

the last stop.

Not the gas chamber.

We always ended up in the "Infirmary."

AUSCHWITZ TODAY THE SORTING STATION

(Vrba) There was always an amount of people

who could not get out from the wagons.

There were those who died on the road,

or people who were sick to such a degree

that even a persuasion with violent beating

wouldn't get them moving fast enough.

So those people remained in the wagons.

RUDOLF VRBA SURVIVOR OF AUSCHWITZ

So our first job was to get into the wagons

to get out the dead bodies or the dying

and transport them "im Laufs Chritt", as the Germans like to say.

This means "running."

Laufs chritt, yeah. Never, never walking, or something.

Everything had to be done im Laufs chritt.

- Immer laufen? - Lmmer laufen.

So... Very sporty, they are a sporty nation, you see?

And, er... we had to get out those bodies

and, on the ramp, running, to get them on a truck,

which was at the head of the ramp.

There were already trucks prepared. Trucks were ready.

Say, the trucks were five, six sometimes standing there, sometimes more.

There was no iron rule.

But the first truck was for the dead and the dying.

There was not much, er...

medical care taken to establish who is dead and who feigns to be dead.

I mean, you know, who is only simulating.

So they were put on the truck, and these trucks went to...

Then, once this was finished, then this was the first truck which move off,

and it went straight to the crematorium,

which was about two kilometres to the left from the ramp.

At the time, it was two kilometres. It was before the construction of...

Before the construction of the new ramp.

THE OLD RAMP

(Vrba) This was the old ramp.

Through that old ramp,

the first one and three-quarters of a million people went.

Through that old ramp.

I mean the majority.

The new ramp was only built

for the expected murder,

in a very short time,

of one million Jews from Hungary.

THE NEW RAMP BUILT IN EARLY 1944

(Vrba) The whole murder machinery could work

only on one principle:

that the people came to Auschwitz

and didn't know where they were going and for what purpose.

The new arrivals were supposed to be kept without panic

and orderly marching into the gas chamber.

Especially, the panic was dangerous from women with small children.

So, it was important for the Nazis

that none of us give some sort of a message

which could cause a panic even in the last moment.

And anybody who tried to get in touch with newcomers

was either clubbed to death

or taken behind the wagon and shot.

Because, if a panic would have broken out,

and a massacre would have taken place on the spot, on the ramp,

it would already be a hitch in the machinery.

You can't bring in the next transport with dead bodies and blood around,

because this will only increase the panic.

The Nazis were concentrated upon one thing:

it should go in an orderly fashion,

so that it goes unimpeded.

One doesn't lose time.

(Muller, in German) Before each gassing operation,

the SS took stern precautions.

The crematorium was surrounded by SS men.

Many SS men patrolled the court

with dogs and machine-guns.

To the right were the steps

that led underground to the "undressing room."

In Birkenau, there were 4 crematoria,

Crematoria II, III and IV, V.

Crematorium II was similar to III.

In Crematoria II and III,

the "undressing room" and the gas chambers were underground.

A large "undressing room"

of about 3000 square feet

and a large gas chamber...

...where one could...

...gas up to 3000 people at a time.

Crematoria IV and V were of a different type

in that they weren't located underground.

Everything was at ground level.

In IV and V, there were 3 gas chambers

with a total capacity

of at most 1800 to 2000 people at a time.

AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM MODEL OF CREMATORIA II AND III

ELEVATORS HOISTED BODIES TO THE OVENS

Crematoria II and III had 15 ovens each.

Crematoria IV and V had 8 ovens each.

As people reached the crematorium,

they saw everything...

this horribly violent scene.

The whole area was ringed with SS men.

Dogs barked.

Machine-guns.

They all, mainly the Polish Jews, had misgivings.

They knew something was seriously amiss.

But none of them had the faintest of notions

that in 3 or 4 hours they'd be reduced to ashes.

When they reached the "undressing room,"

they saw

that it looked like an International Information Centre!

On the walls were...

...hooks.

And each hook had a number.

Beneath the hooks were...

...wooden benches.

So people could undress "more comfortably," it was said.

And on the numerous pillars

that held up this underground "undressing room,"

there were signs with slogans

in several languages:

"Clean is good!"

"Lice can kill!"

"Wash yourself!"

"To the disinfection area."

All those signs

were only there

to lure people into the gas chambers already undressed.

And to the left,

at a right-angle, was the gas chamber...

...with its massive door.

CREMATORIUM III: THE UNDRESSING ROOM

THE GAS CHAMBER

In Crematoria II and III, Zyklon gas crystals were poured in

by a so-called "SS disinfection squad,"

through the ceiling,

and in Crematoria IV and V through side openings.

With 5 or 6 canisters of gas,

they could kill around 2000 people.

This so-called "disinfection squad"

arrived in a truck marked with a red cross

and escorted people along

to make them believe they were being led to take a bath.

But the red cross was only a mark

to hide the canisters of Zyklon gas and the hammers to open them.

The gas took about 10 to 15 minutes to kill.

The most horrible thing was,

once the doors of the gas chambers were opened,

the unbearable sight.

People were packed together like basalt,

like blocks of stone.

How they tumbled out of the gas chamber!

I saw that several times.

That was the toughest thing to take.

You could never get used to that.

It was impossible.

CREMATORIUM IV

(Lanzmann) Impossible...

Yes.

You see, once the gas was poured in, it worked like this:

it rose from the ground upwards.

And in the terrible struggle that followed,

because it was a struggle,

the lights were switched off in the gas chambers.

It was dark, no one could see.

So the strongest people tried to climb higher.

Because they probably realised

that the higher they got,

the more air there was.

They could breathe better.

Yes? That caused the struggle.

Secondly, most people tried to push their way to the door.

It was psychological.

They knew where the door was,

so maybe they could force their way.

It was instinctive,

a death struggle.

Which is why children

and weaker people and the aged

always wound up at the bottom.

The strongest were on top.

Because in the death struggle...

...a father didn't realise his son lay...

...beneath him.

And when the doors were opened?

They fell out.

People fell out like blocks of stone,

like rocks falling out of a truck.

But near the Zyklon gas, there was a void.

There was no one where the gas crystals went in.

An empty space.

Probably the victims realised that...

...the gas worked strongest there.

And the people were...?

The people were battered.

They struggled and fought in the darkness.

They were covered in excrement...

...in blood,

from ears and noses.

One also sometimes saw

that the people lying on the ground,

because of the pressure of the others,

were unrecognisable.

Children had their skulls crushed.

- Yes. - What?

It was awful.

People had... vomited.

Blood from the ears and noses.

Probably even menstrual fluid... sure of it.

There was everything in that struggle for life,

that death struggle.

It was terrible to see. That was the toughest part.

FILIP MULLER CZECH JEW

SURVIVOR OF FIVE LIQUIDATIONS OF AUSCHWITZ "SPECIAL DETAIL"

(Muller) It was pointless

to tell the truth to anyone

who crossed the threshold of the crematorium.

You couldn't save anyone there.

It was impossible to save people.

One day, in 1943,

when I was already in Crematorium V,

a train from Bialystok arrived.

A prisoner on the "special detail"

saw a woman in the "undressing room,"

who was the wife of a friend of his.

He came right out and told her,

"You are going to be exterminated.

"In 3 hours, you'll be ashes."

The woman believed him because she knew him.

She ran all over

and warned the other women.

"We're going to be killed.

"We're going to be gassed."

Mothers carrying their children on their shoulders

didn't want to hear that.

They decided the woman was crazy.

They chased her away.

So she went to the men.

To no avail.

Not that they didn't believe her.

They'd heard rumours in the Bialystok ghetto,

or in Grodno, and elsewhere.

But who wanted to hear that?

When she saw that no one would listen,

she scratched her whole face.

Out of despair, in shock.

And she started to scream.

So what happened?

Everyone was gassed, but the woman was held back.

We had to line up in front of the oven.

First, they tortured her horribly,

because she wouldn't betray him.

In the end, she pointed to him.

He was taken out of the line and thrown alive into the oven.

We were told, "Whoever says anything will end like that!"

We, in the "special detail," kept trying to figure out

if there was a way

we could tell people

to inform them.

But our experience,

in several instances where we were able to tell people,

showed that it was of no use.

That it made their last moments even harder to bear.

At most, we thought it might help

the Jews from Poland,

or Jews from There sienstadt, the Czech family camp,

who'd already spent 6 months in Birkenau.

We thought it might have been of use in such cases

to tell people.

But imagine what it was like in other cases,

Jews from Greece, from Hungary, from Corfu,

who'd been travelling for 10 or 12 days,

starving,

without water for days, dying of thirst,

they were half-crazed when they arrived.

They were dealt with differently.

They were only told,

"Get undressed, you'll soon get a mug of tea."

These people were in such a state

because they'd been travelling so long,

that their only thought

was to quench their thirst.

And the SS executioners knew that very well.

It was all preprogrammed,

a calculated part of the extermination process

that if people were so weak

and weren't given something to drink,

they'd rush into the gas chamber.

But in fact,

all these people were already being exterminated

before reaching the gas chambers.

Think of the children.

They begged their mothers, screaming,

"Mother, please, water, water!"

The adults, too, who'd spent days without water,

had the same obsession.

Informing those people was quite pointless.

CORFU

(Bellsjingling)

(Metal banging)

(Banging intensifies)

(People chat in Greek)

(Metal banging)

- Grab it from there. - Yes, grab it from there.

- Put it right there. - Okay.

- Right there. - Okay, yes.

Okay, be careful. Wait.

- You'll come and pick it up later? - Yes.

- Put it down. - In a second.

Hold on a second.

Just hold on a second.

Maybe if you removed this?

Got it? That's how you'll load it.

Come and pick it up next week.

Understood? Now move the cart away from here.

Move the cart.

Yes, let's make some space.

(Man) So you're an actor now!

Let's finish this.

MOSHE MORDO

(Man, in Italian) These are my nephews.

They burned them in Birkenau.

Two of my brother's kids.

They took them to the crematorium with their mum.

They were all burned in Birkenau.

- My brother. - (Lanzmann) Yes?

He was sick,

and they put him in the oven, in the crematorium, and burned him.

That was at Birkenau.

(Mordo, In Italian) The oldest boy was 17,

the second was 15.

Two more kids "kaput" with their mum.

Yes, 4 children I lost.

- (Woman) Your brother? - No.

(Women chat in Greek)

(Lanzmann, In Italian) Your father too?

My dad, him too.

- (Lanzmann) How old was your father? - Dad was 85 years old.

- 85 years old and died in Auschwitz? - Yes.

Auschwitz, that's right.

85 and he died at Birkenau.

My father.

- Your father made the whole trip? - Yes.

(Mordo) The whole family died.

First the gas chamber, then the crematorium.

(♪ Man sings in Hebrew)

(♪ Mordo sings in Hebrew)

(♪Singing ends)

(In French) On Friday morning, June 9, 1944,

members of the Corfu Jewish community came, very frightened,

and reported to the Germans.

This square was full of Gestapo men and police,

and we went forward.

There were even traitors, the Recanati brothers, Athens Jews.

After the war they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

But they're already free.

We were ordered to go forward.

- (Lanzmann) By the street? - Yes, by this street.

- How many of you were there? - Exactly 1,650.

(Speaking Greek)

- Quite a crowd? - A lot of people.

Christians stopped there.

Christians, that's right. And they saw.

- Where were the Christians? - There.

- At the street corner? - Yes.

And on the balconies.

After we gathered here,

Gestapo men with machine-guns came up behind us.

What time was it?

- It was 6:00am. - In the morning.

- A fine day? - Yes, the day was fine.

6:00 in the morning.

1,600. That's a lot of people in the street.

People gathered.

The Christians heard the Jews were being rounded up.

- Why'd they come? - To see the show.

Let's hope it never happens again.

- Were you scared? - Very scared.

There were young people,

sick people, little children,

the old, the crazy, and so on.

When we saw they'd even brought the insane,

even the sick from the hospital,

we were frightened

for the survival of the whole community.

What were you told?

That we were to appear here at the fort

to be taken to work in Germany.

- Poland. - Poland, that's right.

The Germans had put up a proclamation on all the walls in Corfu.

It said all Jews had to report.

And once we were all rounded up,

life would be better without us in Greece.

It was signed by the police chiefs, by officials and by the mayors.

- That it's better without Jews? - Yes.

We found out after we came back.

Was Corfu anti-Semitic?

Corfu's always had anti-Semitism?

It existed, sure,

but it wasn't so strong in the years just before that.

Why not?

Because they didn't think like that against the Jews.

ARMANDO AARON - President of the Corfu Jewish community

- And now? - Now we're free.

How do you get on with the Christians now?

Very well.

- (Man speaks Greek) - Hmm?

Very well.

- What did he say? - He asked me what you said.

He agrees our relations with the Christians are very good.

(Man ♪2 speaks Greek)

- Did all the Jews live in the ghetto? - Most of them.

What happened after the Jews left?

They took all our possessions, all the gold we had with us.

They took the keys to our houses and stole everything.

To whom was all this given? Who stole it all?

By law, it was to go to the Greek government.

But the state got only a small part of it.

The rest was stolen, usurped.

- By whom? - By everybody, and by the Germans.

(Lanzmann) Of the 1,700 people deported...

(Aaron) Around 122 were saved.

95% of them died.

Was it a long trip from Corfu to Auschwitz?

We were arrested here on June 9,

and finally arrived June 29.

Most were burned on the night of the 29th.

It lasted from June 9 to 29?

(Speaks Greek)

We stayed here for around 5 days.

Here in the fort.

No one dared escape and leave his father, mother, brothers.

Our solidarity was on religious and family grounds.

The first group left on June 11.

I went with the 2nd convoy, on June 15.

What kind of a boat were you on?

A zattera. That's a boat made of barrels and planks.

It was towed by a small boat with Germans in it.

On our boat there were 1, 2 or 3 guards,

not many Germans, but we were terrified.

You can understand, terror is the best of guards.

- What was the journey like? - Terrible! Terrible!

No water, nothing to eat.

90 cars that were good for only 20 animals,

all of us standing up.

A lot of us died.

Later, they put the dead in another car in quicklime.

They burned them in Auschwitz, too.

(Whistle blows)

Next figure: WALTER STIER Ex-member of the Nazi party

FORMER HEAD, REICH RAILWAYS, BUREAU 33

"RAILROADS OF THE REICH"

(Lanzmann, in German) You never saw a train?

(Stier) No, never.

We had so much work, I never left my desk.

We worked day and night.

(Lanzmann) "G.E.D.O.B."

"GEDOB" means "Head Office of Eastbound Traffic."

(Stier) In January 1940, I was assigned to GEDOB Krakow.

In mid-1943, I was moved to Warsaw.

I was made chief traffic planner.

Chief of the traffic planning office.

(Lanzmann) But your duties were the same before and after 1943?

(Stier) The only change: I was promoted to head of the department.

What were your specific duties at GEDOB in Poland during the war?

(Stier) The work was barely different from the work in Germany:

preparing timetables,

coordinating the movement of special trains with regular trains.

- There were several departments? - Yes.

Department 33 was in charge of special trains

and regular trains.

The special trains were handled by Department 33.

You were always in the Department of Special Trains?

Yes.

What's the difference between a special and a regular train?

A regular train may be used

by anyone who purchases a ticket.

Say from Krakow to Warsaw.

Or from Krakow to Lemberg.

A special train has to be ordered.

The train is specially put together

and people pay...

...group fares.

Are there still special trains now?

- Of course. - Yes?

Just as there were then.

For group vacations, you can or ganise a special train?

Yes, for instance,

for immigrant workers returning home for the holidays...

(Clears throat)

...special trains are scheduled.

Or else one couldn't handle the traffic.

You said after the war you handled trains for visiting dignitaries.

After the war, yes.

If a king visits Germany by train,

that's a special train?

- That's a special train. - Yes.

But the procedure isn't the same

as for special trains for group tours, and so on.

State visits are handled by the Foreign Service.

May I ask you another question?

Why were there more special trains

during the war, than before or after?

I see what you're getting at.

You're referring to the so-called "resettlement trains."

- "Resettlement." That's it. - That's what they were called.

Those trains were ordered

by the Ministry of Transport of the Reich.

You needed an order from the Ministry of Transport of the Reich...

- In Berlin? - Correct.

As for the implementation of those orders,

the Head Office of Eastbound Traffic in Berlin dealt with it.

(Lanzmann) Yes, I understand.

- (Stier) Is that clear? - Perfectly.

But mostly, at that time, who was being "resettled"?

No! We didn't know that.

Only when we were fleeing from Warsaw ourselves,

did we learn that they could have been Jews,

or criminals, or similar people.

- Jews, criminals? - Criminals. All kinds.

Special trains for criminals?

No, that was just an expression.

You couldn't talk about that.

Unless you were tired of life,

it was best not to mention that.

(Lanzmann) But you knew that the trains to Treblinka or Auschwitz were...

Of course we knew.

I was the last district...

Without me, these trains couldn't reach their destination.

For instance, a train that started in Essen

had to go through the district of Wuppertal,

Hannover, Magdeburg, Berlin,

Frankfurt/Oder, Posen, Warsaw, etc.

So I had to.

Did you know that Treblinka meant extermination?

Of course not!

You didn't know?

Good God, no! How could we know?

I never went to Treblinka.

I stayed in Krakow, in Warsaw, glued to my desk.

You were a...?

- I was strictly a bureaucrat. - I see.

But it's astonishing that people in the Department of Special Trains

never knew about the "final solution."

(Stier) We were at war.

Because there were others who worked for the rail roads who knew.

- Like the train conductors. - No.

Yes, they saw it. They did.

But as to what happened, I know...

What was Treblinka for you? Treblinka or Auschwitz?

Yes, for us, Treblinka, Belzec and all that

were concentration camps.

- A destination? - Yes, that's all.

- But not death? - No.

People were put up there.

For instance, for a train coming from Essen

or Cologne, or elsewhere, room had to be made for them there.

With the war and the allies advancing everywhere,

those people had to be concentrated in camps.

When exactly did you find out?

When the word got around,

when it was whispered.

It was never said outright.

Good God, no! They'd have hauled you off at once!

We heard things...

- Rumours? - That's it, rumours.

During the war?

Towards the end of the war.

- Not in 1942? - No!

Good God, no! Not a word!

Towards the end of 1944, maybe.

- End of 1944? - Not before.

What did you...?

It was said that people were being sent to camps,

and those who weren't in good health probably wouldn't survive.

Extermination came to you as a big surprise?

Completely. Yes.

- You had no idea. - Not the slightest.

Like that camp, what was its name...?

It was in the Oppeln district.

I've got it: Auschwitz.

- Auschwitz was in the Oppeln district. - Right.

- Auschwitz wasn't far from Krakow. - That's true.

We never heard a word about that.

- Auschwitz to Krakow is 40 miles. - That's not very far.

And we knew nothing. Not a clue.

No.

But you knew that the Nazis...

that Hitler didn't like the Jews?

That we did. It was well-known, it appeared in print.

It was no secret.

But as to their extermination, that was news to us.

I mean, even today people deny it.

They say there couldn't have been so many Jews.

Is it true? I don't know.

That's what they say.

Anyway what was done was an outrage.

- What? - The extermination.

Everyone condemns it. Every decent person.

But as for knowing about it, we didn't.

The Poles, for instance.

The Polish people knew everything.

That's not surprising, Dr. Sorel.

They lived nearby, they heard, they talked.

And they didn't have to keep quiet.

(Whistle blows)

(Hilberg) This is the Fahrplananordnung Number 587,

which is typical for special trains.

The number of the order goes to show you how many of them there were.

Underneath: "Nur fur den Dienstgebrauch,"

"Only for internal use."

But this turns out to be a very low classification for secrecy.

Yes.

The fact that, in this entire document, which, after all, deals with death trains,

one cannot see...

Not only on this one, but one cannot see it on others.

One cannot see the word "geheim - secret,"

it's astonishing to me.

That they would not have done that is very astonishing.

But, on second thought, I believe that, had they labelled it secret,

they would have invited a great many inquiries from people who got hold of it.

They would then have perhaps raised more questions.

They would have focused attention on the thing.

And the key to the entire operation, from a psychological standpoint,

was never to utter the words

that would be appropriate to the action being taken.

"Say nothing. Do these things.

"Do not describe them."

So, therefore, this is "Nur für den Dienstgebrauch."

And now notice to how many recipients this particular order goes.

"BFE Bahnhofe."

On this stretch, there is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...

- And here we are in Malkinia... - Malkinia.

Which is, of course, the station near Treblinka.

Of course.

But notice that it takes eight recipients

for this relatively short distance,

through Radom to the Warsaw district.

Eight, because the train passes through these stations.

Therefore, each one has to know.

Not only that, but, of course, you're not going to write two pieces of paper

if you can write one.

So, therefore, we find here not only PKR,

which is a death train going here,

in the plan labelled thus,

but we also see the empty train after it has arrived in Treblinka,

now originating in Treblinka.

You can always know it's an empty train with the word "L" in front of it:

"Leer".

(Reads aloud German)

- Yes. And now... And now... - ...which means "return the empty train."

And now we're going back. Then we have another train.

Now notice that there's very little subtlety to this numbering system.

We're going from 9228 to 9229,

to 9230, to 9231, to 9232.

Hardly... Hardly any, uh, originality here.

It's just very regular traffic.

(Lanzmann) Death traffic.

(Hilberg) Death traffic.

And, here, we see that,

starting out in one ghetto, which obviously is being emptied,

the train leaves for Treblinka.

It leaves on the 30th of September, 1942,

18 minutes after 4:00, by schedule at least,

arrives there at 11:24 on the next morning.

This is also a very long train,

which may be the reason that it takes so slow.

It's "50 G." That's, er... "funfzig Gutervagen,"

50 freight cars filled with people.

That's an exceptionally heavy transport.

Now, once the train has been unloaded at Treblinka...

And you notice there are two numbers here:

11:24, that's in the morning,

and 15:59, which is to say, almost 4:00 in the afternoon.

In that interval of time, the train has to be unloaded,

cleaned and turned around.

It has to be very fast.

It has to be turned around.

And you see, here, the same numbers appear

as the "Leerzug," now empty train, goes to another place.

And it leaves at 4:00 in the afternoon

and now goes to that other place, which is yet another small town,

where it picks up victims.

And there you are at 3:00 in the morning.

It leaves on the 23rd at 3:00 in the morning

and arrives there the next day.

What is that? It seems to be the same train, as a matter off act.

- This is quite obviously the same. - Which gets every time another number.

The number has to be changed, quite obviously. Correct.

Then it goes back to Treblinka, and this is again a long trip.

It arrives in Treblinka, now goes back to yet another place.

Then the same situation, the same trip.

And then yet another.

It goes to Treblinka

and then arrives in Czestochowa on the 29th of September.

And then the cycle is complete.

And this is called a "Fahrplananordnung,"

and if you count up the number of, er...

not empty numbers, but full ones, PKRs...

There's one.

There is one.

- Here. - But why?

- That's two. That's three. - Why such a...?

That's four.

We may be talking here about 10,000 dead Jews

on this one Fahrplananordnung right here.

- More than 10,000. - Well, we will be conservative.

Yes.

But why such a document is so fascinating, as a matter off act?

Because I was in Treblinka, and to have the two things together,

Treblinka and that document...

Well, you see, when I hold a document in my hand,

particularly if it's an original document,

then I hold something which is actually something

that the original bureaucrat had held in his hand.

It's an artefact. It's a leftover. It's the only leftover there is.

- Yes. - The dead are not around.

(Dogs barking)

TREBLINKA - THE STATION

(Hilberg) The Reichsbahn was ready to ship, in principle,

any cargo in return for payment.

And, therefore, the basic key, price-controlled key,

was that Jews were going to be shipped to Treblinka,

were going to be shipped to Auschwitz, Sobibor, or any other destination,

so long as the rail roads were paid by the track kilometre,

so many pfennig per mile.

And the basic rate was the same throughout the war,

with children under 10 going at halffare, children under four going free.

And the payment had to be made for only one way.

The guards, of course, had to have return fare paid for them

because they were going back to their place of origin.

Excuse me. The children were shipped in the extermination camps...

- The children under four... - ...went free.

They had the privilege to be gassed freely?

Yes, their transport was free.

And, in addition to that, because the person who had to pay,

the agency that had to pay was the agency that ordered the train,

and that happened to have been the Gestapo, Eichmann's office...

Because of the financial problem which that office had in making payments,

the Reichsbahn agreed on group fare.

So the Jews were being shipped in much the same way

as any excursion fare would be granted if there were enough people travelling.

And the minimum was 400, a kind of charter fare.

400 was the minimum.

So even if there were fewer than 400,

it would pay to say that there were 400,

and, in that way, get the halffare for adults as well.

And that was the basic principle.

Now, of course, if there was exceptional filth in the cars,

which might be the case,

if there was damage to the equipment, which might be the case,

because the transports took so long,

and the inmates, to the extent of five or ten percent, died en route,

then there might be an additional bill for that damage.

But, in principle,

so long as payment was being made, transports were being shipped.

Sometimes, the SS got credit.

Sometimes, the transport went out before payment,

because, as you see, the whole business was handled,

as in the case of any other charter traffic, especially,

or any really personal traffic of any kind,

through a travel bureau.

Mitteleuropaisches Reiseburo would handle some of these transactions:

the billing procedure, the ticketing procedure.

Or if a smaller transport was involved, the SS would...

It was the same bureau who was dealing with any kind of normal passenger?

- Absolutely. - It was dealing with the Jews too.

Just the official travel bureau.

Mitteleuropaisches Reiseburo will ship people to the gas chambers,

or they will ship vacationers to their favourite resorts.

And that was basically the same office and the same operation,

the same procedure, the same billing.

- No difference? - No difference whatsoever.

And, as a matter of course, everybody would do that job

as if it were the most normal thing to do.

But it was not a normal job.

No, it was not a normal job.

As a matter off act, you know, even, uh...

even the complicated currency procedures were followed

in much the same way as with any other transaction,

if borders had to be crossed, and that was very frequent.

For instance?

Well, I think the most interesting example is, of course, Greece,

the transports from Saloniki, Greece, in the spring of 1943,

involving some 46,000 victims over a considerable distance,

so that, even with group fare, the bill came to almost two million marks,

which was quite a sum.

And the basic principle, you see, with such traffic,

is that which is employed in the usual customary way,

even to this day, all over the world.

One pays in the currency of the place of origin,

but, then, one has to pay the participating rail roads en route

in their own currencies.

From Saloniki, they had to cross Greece...

- They had to cross Greece. - In Greece, it was drachmas?

In Greece, it was drachma, and then you might have to go through the...

- Yugoslavia. - Yes, the Serbian and Croatian rail roads.

And you might have to then go through the Reichsbahn and pay in mark.

Now, ironically, the problem was, you see, that the military commander in Saloniki,

who was in charge,

so he, in a sense, was the ultimate person responsible for paying for these things,

didn't have the mark.

And he didn't have the Reichsmark, although he did have the drachma.

The drachma, you see, he had from the confiscated Jewish property

which was used to pay for these things.

This was a self-financing principle.

The SS or the military would confiscate the Jewish property

and, with proceeds, especially from bank deposits, would pay for transports.

This means that the Jews themselves...

- Absolutely. - ...would pay for their death?

You have to remember one basic principle:

there was no budget for destruction.

Yes.

So that is the reason that the confiscated property had to be used

in order to make the payments.

All right.

The property of the Jews in Saloniki was confiscated,

but the proceeds were in local Greek currency.

The Reichsbahn, of course, would want payment in mark.

How, then, do you change the drachma into mark?

Now, you have exchange controllers, right within occupied Europe.

The only way it could be done, of course,

is if somebody in this occupied zone obtained mark.

But how could they?

This was not such a simple thing in wartime.

And, therefore, for once, there was a default.

The rail road had shipped all these Jews to Auschwitz without compensation.

(Whistle blows)

(Muller) The "special detail's" life depended

on the trainloads due for extermination.

(Muller) When a lot of them came in,

the "special detail" was enlarged.

They couldn't do without the detail,

so there was no weeding-out.

OSWIECIM (AUSCHWITZ) THE STATION TODAY

But when there were fewer trainloads...

(Train whistle blows)

It meant immediate extermination for us.

We, in the "special detail," knew

that a lack of trains would lead to our liquidation.

The "special detail" lived in a crisis situation.

Every day,

we saw thousands and thousands of innocent people

disappear up the chimney.

With our own eyes, we could truly fathom

what it means to be a human being.

There they came,

men, women, children, all innocent.

They suddenly vanished,

and the world said nothing!

We felt abandoned. By the world, by humanity.

But the situation taught us fully

what the possibility of survival meant.

For we could gauge

the infinite value of human life.

And we were convinced

that hope lingers in man as long as he lives.

Where there's life, hope must never be relinquished.

That's why we struggled through our lives of hardship,

day after day, week after week, month after month,

year after year,

hoping against hope to survive,

to escape that hell.

(Suchomel) At that time,

in January, February,

March,

hardly any trains arrived.

Was Treblinka glum without the trains?

I wouldn't say the Jews were glum.

They became so when they realised...

I'll come to that later, it's a story in itself.

- Yes, it's a story in itself. - It's a story in itself.

Yes, I know.

The Jews...

...those in the work squads, thought at first...

- Those in the work squads, yes. - ...that they would survive.

But in January,

when they stopped receiving food,

for Wirth had decreed that there were too many of them,

there were a good 500 to 600 of them in Camp I...

- Up there? - Yes.

To keep them from rebelling,

they weren't shot or gassed,

but starved.

Then an epidemic broke out,

a kind of typhus.

The Jews stopped believing they'd make it.

They were left to die. They dropped like flies.

It was all over.

FRANZ SUCHOMEL

They'd stopped believing.

It was all very well to say...

We kept on insisting, "You're going to live."

We almost believed it ourselves.

If you lie enough, you believe your own lies.

Yes.

But they replied to me,

"No, chief, we're just reprieved corpses."

(Glazar) The "dead season," as it was called,

began in February 1943,

after the big trainloads came in from Grodno and Bialystok.

Absolute quiet.

It quieted in late January, February and into March.

Nothing.

Not one trainload.

The whole camp was empty.

And suddenly, everywhere, there was hunger.

It kept increasing.

And one day when the famine was at its peak,

Oberscharführer Kurt Franz appeared before us...

...and told us,

"The trains will be coming in again, starting tomorrow."

We didn't say anything.

We just looked at each other,

and each of us thought,

"Tomorrow...

"...the hunger will end."

At that period,

we were actively planning the rebellion.

We all wanted to survive until the rebellion.

The trainloads came from an assembly camp in Saloniki.

They'd brought in Jews from Bulgaria, Macedonia.

These were rich people.

The passenger cars bulged with possessions.

Then an awful feeling gripped us,

all of us, my companions as well as myself.

A feeling of helplessness,

a feeling of shame.

For we threw ourselves on their food.

A detail brought a crate full of crackers,

another full of jam.

They deliberately dropped the crates,

falling over each other,

filling their mouths with crackers and jam.

The trainloads from the Balkans brought us

to a terrible realisation...

RICHARD GLAZAR

We were the workers in the Treblinka factory,

and our lives depended

on the whole manufacturing process,

that is, the slaughtering process at Treblinka.

(Lanzmann) This realisation came suddenly

with the fresh trainloads?

Maybe it wasn't so sudden,

but it was only with the Balkans trainloads

that it became...

...so stark to us, unadorned.

Why?

24,000 people,

probably with not a sick person among them,

not an invalid, all healthy and robust.

I recall watching them from our barracks.

They were already naked, milling among their baggage.

And David...

David Bratt said to me,

"Maccabees!

The Maccabees have arrived in Treblinka!"

Sturdy, physically strong people,

unlike the others...

- Fighters? - Yes, they could have been fighters.

It was staggering for us,

for these men and women, all splendid...

...were wholly unaware of what was in store for them.

Wholly unaware.

Never before had things gone so smoothly and quickly.

Never.

We felt ashamed,

and also that this couldn't go on, that something had to happen.

Not just a few people acting

but all of us.

The idea was almost ripe back in November 1942.

Beginning in November '42,

we'd noticed

that we were being "spared,"

in quotes.

We noticed it

and we also learned

that Stangl, the commandant, wanted for efficiency's sake

to hang onto men who were already trained,

specialists in the various tasks:

sorters, corpse-haulers,

barbers who cut the women's hair,

and so on.

This in fact is what later gave us the chance

to prepare,

to or ganise the uprising.

We had a plan

worked out in January 1943,

code-named "The Time."

At a set time,

we were to attack the SS everywhere,

seize their weapons and attack the Kommandantur.

But we couldn't do it,

because things were at a standstill in the camp,

and because typhus had already broken out.

(Muller) In the autumn of 1943,

when it was clear to all of us

that no one would help us

unless we helped ourselves,

a key question faced us all.

For us in the "special detail,"

was there any chance to halt this wave of extermination

and still save our lives?

We could see only one:

armed rebellion.

We thought

that if we could get hold of a few weapons...

...and secure the participation of all the inmates...

...throughout the camp,

there was a chance of success.

That was the essential thing.

That's why our liaison men

contacted the leaders of the Resistance movement,

first in Birkenau,

then in Auschwitz I,

so the revolt could be coordinated everywhere.

FILIP MULLER

The answer came

that the Resistance command in Auschwitz I

agreed with our plan

and would join with us.

Unfortunately, among the Resistance leaders,

there were very few Jews.

Most were political prisoners

whose lives weren't at stake,

and for whom each day of life lived through

increased their chances of survival.

For us in the "special detail," it was the opposite.

RUDOLF VRBA

Auschwitz and Birkenau, apart from being a Hinrichtung centre,

a mass-murder centre,

was a normal concentration camp too,

which had its order, like Mauthausen,

like Buchenwald,

like Dachau, like Sachsenhausen.

But whereas in Mauthausen

the main product of prisoners' work was stone,

there was a big stone quarry,

the product in Auschwitz was death.

Everything was geared to keep the crematoria running.

This was the aim.

This means the prisoners would work on the road leading to the crematoria.

They would build the crematoria.

They would build all barracks necessary for keeping prisoners.

And, of course, apart from that,

there was an element of a normal German concentration camp,

because the Krupp and Siemens factories moved in and utilised slave labour.

So the Krupp factories and Siemens factories were built partly

directly within the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

The tradition in the concentration camp was

that there was a considerable amount of political prisoners,

trade unionists, Social Democrats,

Communists,

ex-fighters from Spain.

What happened was a very peculiar development.

The Resistance leadership in Auschwitz

was concentrated in the hands of...

...German-speaking anti-Nazis,

who were German by birth,

were considered racially pure by the Nazi hierarchy.

They got a bit better treatment than the rest of the camp.

I don't say that they were treated with gloves.

But they managed, with time,

to gain influence over various Nazi dignitaries from the SS

and to use it in a way

which led systematically to an improvement of conditions

within the concentration camp itself.

Whereas, in 1943...'42,

in Birkenau, in December and January,

a death rate of400 prisoners per day was common,

by May 1943,

not only because of the weather improvement,

but due to the activities of the Resistance movement,

the improvement was so marked

that the mortality grossly decreased in the concentration camp.

And they considered it a great victory on their side.

And that improvement of living conditions

within the concentration camp

was, perhaps, not so against the policy of the higher echelons ofSS ranks,

as long as it did not interfere with the objective of the camp.

This means production of death on the arrivals,

which were not prisoners of the camp.

There was a rule that if there are those people in the transport

who can be utilised for work,

who are in good physical condition,

they are not old, they are not too young, they are not children,

they are not women with children, et cetera, they look healthy,

they should come into the concentration camp

for replacement of those who were dying in the concentration camp,

as a fresh force.

And I could see the following discussions.

I once overheard...

A transport came from...

I think it was from Holland or from Belgium.

I do not guarantee which one it was.

And the SS doctor selected a group

of well-looking Jewish prisoners, newcomers,

from the whole transport, which would be gassed,

which was gassed.

But the representative SS from the concentration camp

said he doesn't want them.

And there was a discussion between them which I could overhear,

in which the doctor was saying, "Why don't you take them?

"They are... (speaks German)"

This means: "Jews very, very nourished on Dutch cheese."

"They would be good for the camp."

And Fries, it was, Hauptscharführer Fries answered him.

(Speaks German)

"I can't take those people,

"because nowadays they don't kick the bucket so fast in the camp."

- This means they don't die fast enough? - That's right.

In other words, he explained that the stand of the camp was, say, 30,000.

If 500 or 5,000 died,

they were replaced by a new force

from the Jewish transport which came in.

But if only a thousand died,

well, only a thousand were replaced, and more went into the gas chamber.

So, the improvement of the conditions within the concentration camp itself

made a higher death rate

in the gas chamber, straight into the gas chamber.

It decreased the death rate

among the prisoners in the concentration camp.

So, it was clear to me

that the improvement of the situation of the concentration camp

does not impede the process of mass executions

of those people who were brought into the camp.

Consequently, my idea, then, of the Resistance movement,

of the sense of the Resistance movement, was

that the improvement of the conditions within the camp is only a first step,

that the Resistance movement actually wants... is aware...

that the main thing is to stop the process of mass execution,

the machinery of the killing,

and that, therefore, it is a time of preparation,

of gathering of forces

for attacking the SS from inside,

even if it is a suicidal mission.

But destroy the machinery.

And in this respect,

I would consider it as a suitable objective,

worthy objective.

And... it was also clear to me

that such an objective cannot be achieved overnight,

there is necessary a lot of preparation and a lot of circumstances

about which, being only a small cog in the whole machinery of resistance,

I could not know or decide.

But it was clear in my mind

that the only objective of any resistance

within a concentration camp of the type of Auschwitz

has to be different from that in Mauthausen or in Dachau.

Because, whereas in Mauthausen and in Dachau,

this policy of resistance improved the survival rate of political prisoners,

the same very noble policy

improved and oiled the machinery of mass annihilation,

as practised by the Nazis within the concentration camp.

(Train clacking)

(Woman, in English) In There sienstadt,

this time it reached us, the transport to the east.

(Train whistle blows)

We were loaded into these wagons for cattle.

RUTH ELIAS - ISRAEL Deported from There sienstadt

And it went for two days...

...and one night.

- (Lanzmann) In wintertime? - The second day... It was December.

But it was warm inside, because we made the heat.

We heated it up with our temperature, body temperature.

One evening, the train came to a stop,

the next day in the evening.

And the doors were opened.

And there was a terrible screaming.

"Out! Out! Out! Out!"

We were shocked. We didn't know what's going on, where we are.

We saw only SS with dogs.

And we saw, in the distance, in symmetric lights there,

but we didn't know where we are,

what the lights, the thousands of lights, were meaning.

We only heard this shouting.

- "Out! Out! Out!" - (Lanzmann) "Raus!"

Yes, just exactly.

And, "Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!"

Out we came of these wagons.

We had to line up.

And there were some people with striped uniforms.

We didn't know what the stripes are.

And I asked one in Czech, "Where are we?"

And it was a Polish who understood my Czech,

and he told me, "Auschwitz,"

but it didn't mean anything to me.

What is Auschwitz?

I didn't know about Auschwitz anything.

We were led into a so-called family camp, Familienlager B Zwei B,

children, men and women together,

without any selection beforehand.

Men from the Männerlager,

they came in and told us

that Auschwitz is a VerniChtungslager,

where they are burning people,

and we didn't believe.

In this camp, there was already a transport

who left There sienstadt in September,

three months before us.

They didn't believe it too, because we were all together,

and nobody was taken away, and nobody was burned.

We didn't believe it.

(Vrba) Those Czech Jews from There sienstadt,

from the ghetto near Prague,

came into one particular part of the camp,

which was called "Bauabschnitt Zwei B," "IIB."

At that time, I was working as a registrar in II A.

The division between II A and II B was only one electrical fence,

through which nobody could climb, but you could speak through it.

In the morning, I could sort out the whole situation.

There were a number of surprising circumstances.

The families... this means men, women and children,

were taken together,

and nobody was gassed.

They took with them their luggage into the camp,

and they were not shorn, their hair was left.

So they were in a different position

than anything which I have seen until now.

I didn't know what to think about it, and nobody knew.

But in the main registrar's office,

it was known that all those people have got special cards,

which had a remark on them:

"SB mit sechsmonatiger Quarantäne."

"SB," we knew what it means:

"Sonderbehandlung" which meant "gassing".

And "Quarantäne" also we knew what it means.

But it didn't make sense to us

that somebody should be kept in the camp for six months

in order to be gassed after six months.

Therefore, it was left open to interpretation

if "SB - Sonderbehandlung" always means death in gas chamber

or if perhaps it has got a double meaning.

And the six months were supposed to elapse on March 7.

In December, and I think it was close to December 20,

another transport from There sienstadt came,

also about 4,000 people strong,

which was added to the first transport into the Camp B ll B.

Also, men, women and children were left together.

Families were not torn apart, old people, young people.

Everything remained intact.

And their hair was left, and their personal property was left.

They could wear civil clothes, whatever they had.

They were given a sort of a different treatment.

A school was arranged for the children in a special barrack.

The children soon made a theatre there.

Also it was not really a very comfortable life, because they were cramped,

and, from the first 4,000 people during the first six months,

the mortality was about a thousand.

- One thousand died. - (Lanzmann) Were they obliged to work?

Yes, they had to work, but only inside their camp.

They were making a new camp road,

and they were ornamenting the barracks.

They were induced to write letters,

induced to write letters by the SS,

to their relatives in the There sienstadt ghetto,

saying that they are all together, et cetera.

They had better conditions of food, for instance?

Definitely better conditions of food, better conditions of treatment.

I mean, the conditions were so good

that, within six months,

including the old people and children, only one quarter of them died.

I mean, this was a very unusually good condition in Auschwitz.

And, uh, to the children's theatre,

the SS used to come there and play with the children.

Personal relationships were struck up.

And, of course, one of my tasks as a registrar

was to find out the possibility of people who are resistance...

who have got a mind for resistance, and to strike up with them a relationship,

and contact, and...

- You were already a member of...? - The Resistance. Yes, yes.

That was my job as a registrar,

that I had the possibility of moving a bit around under various pretexts,

to carry papers from my part of the camp into the Central Registry,

and, at that occasion, to meet other people and give them messages,

take messages from them.

And one of my tasks then was, because I was closest to this camp,

to find out if, among the members of this transport,

there are people who are suitable for organising a Resistance nucleus.

We soon found several ex-members of the International Brigade in Spain.

And so, in no time, I had a list of about 40 people

who had a record from the past

of developing some sort of resistance against the Nazis.

A special figure emerged among this family camp,

a man called Freddy Hirsch.

He was a German Jew

who emigrated from Germany to Prague.

Freddy Hirsch showed a considerable amount of interest

for the education of the children who were there.

He knew each child by name.

And, by his upright behaviour and obvious human dignity,

he became a sort of a spiritual leader

of this whole family camp.

Now, March 7th started to near,

and this was supposed to give us the signal

of what is supposed to happen,

but what, we did not know for sure.

CREMATORIUM V

(Muller, in German) At the end of February,

I was in a night squad at Crematorium V.

Around midnight,

there appeared a man from the political section:

Oberscharführer Hustek.

He handed Oberscharführer Voss a note.

Voss was then in charge of the 4 crematoria.

I saw Voss unfold the note

and talk to himself, saying, "Sure, always Voss.

"What'd they do without Voss? How can we do it?"

That's how he talked to himself.

Suddenly he told me, "Go and get the kapos."

I fetched the kapos, kapo Schloime,

and kapo Wacek.

They came in, and he asked them,

"How many pieces are left?"

By "pieces" he meant bodies.

They told him, "Around 500 pieces."

He said, "By morning, those 500 pieces must be...

"...reduced to ashes.

"You're sure it's 500?" he asked. "Just about," they said.

"Arseholes! What do you mean, 'just about'?"

Then he left

for the "undressing room" to see for himself.

(Lanzmann) Where the bodies were?

They were piled there.

At Crematorium V, the "undressing room" also served

as a warehouse for bodies.

(Lanzmann) After the gassing?

After the gassing, the bodies were dragged there.

Voss went there to check.

He forgot the note, leaving it on the table.

I quickly scanned it,

and I was shocked by what I read.

BIRKENAU THE LAKE OF ASHES

(Muller) The crematorium was to be got ready

for "special treatment" of the Czech family camp.

In the morning, when the day squad came on,

I ran into kapo Kaminski,

one of the Resistance leaders in the "special detail",

and I told him the news.

He informed me

that Crematorium II was also being prepared.

That the ovens were ready there, too.

And he exhorted me,

"You have friends and fellow countrymen.

"Go and see them. They're locksmiths and can move around,

"so they can go to Camp B II B.

"Tell them to warn these people

"of what's in store for them,

"and say that if they defend themselves,

"we'll reduce the crematoria to ashes.

"And at Camp B II B,

they can immediately burn down their barracks."

We were certain that the next night,

these people would be gassed.

But when no night squad went out, we were relieved.

The deadline had been postponed

for a few days.

But many prisoners, including the Czechs in the family camp,

accused us of spreading panic, of having...

...of having circulated false reports.

(Vrba) Approximately by the end of February,

a rumour was spread by the Nazis

that the family transport will be moved

to a place called Heydebreck.

The first move was to separate the first family transport

from the second family transport,

by transferring them overnight

into the quarantine camp B II A,

where I was a registrar.

So I could now speak with those people directly.

I talked to Freddy Hirsch specifically,

and I told him about the possibility that the transport has been...

his transport, the family transport of the Czechs...

has been transferred to the quarantine camp

because of the possibility

of them being predestined to be gassed on March 7th.

He asked me if I know that for sure.

And I said, "I do not know it for sure, but it is a serious possibility,

"because there is no record of any train going away

"from Auschwitz."

And, usually, the offices, the registrars,

where the Resistance movement had their people,

would get wind of such an information,

of a transport being prepared out from Auschwitz,

and there was no such information.

And I explained him the circumstances, and I explained him what it means.

And the possibility, then, would arise

that, for the first time, there are, in camp, people

who are relatively physically preserved,

who have some sort of a morale retained,

who are certain to go to die,

in other words, to be subject to the normal execution procedure,

anonymous major execution procedure, as usual,

and they will know it, they can't be just tricked,

and that this is perhaps the time to act.

And the action, of course,

will have to come out from them.

Because there are others whose death was imminent,

and those were the people from the Sonderkommando

who worked in the crematorium, which was periodically replaced.

And they showed a willingness,

that if the Czechs, before the gassing, attack the SS, they will join them.

Freddy Hirsch objected.

He was very reasonable.

He said that it doesn't make sense to him

that the Germans would keep them for six months,

feeding the children with milk and white bread,

in order to gas them after six months.

On the next day, I got the message, again from the Resistance,

that it is sure that they are going to be gassed,

that the Sonderkommando already received the coal

for burning the transport.

The Sonderkommando knew exactly

how many people are going to be gassed, what sort of people,

because there were certain rules of work too.

So I called up again to Freddy and, uh, explained to him

that, as far as this transport is concerned, including him,

they are going to be gassed in the next 48 hours.

So, he suddenly started to worry.

He said, "What happens to the children if we start the uprising?"

He had a very close relationship with the children.

- How many children? - Could be about 100.

- Alive. - And how many people able to fight?

Uh, well, the nucleus was about 30,

and now it was not necessary to keep any precautions,

and this depends.

I mean, if it comes to fighting, even an old woman can pick up a stone.

Anybody can fight. I mean, this is difficult to predict.

But it was necessary to have a nucleus,

and it was necessary to have a leading personality.

You see, those are small details which are extremely important.

He said to me, "If we make the uprising,

"what is going to happen to the children?

"Who is going to take care of them?"

I said, "The children?

"I cannot say anything except that there is no way out for them.

"They will die whatsoever. That's for sure.

"This we cannot prevent.

"The question what we can do is, who is going to die with them,

"and how many SS are going to die with them,

"and how will it impede the whole machinery?

Plus, the possibility that a part, during the uprising,

"will find their way out from the camp."

Which is possible in such a situation.

I mean, to break through the guards,

because, once the uprising starts,

some weapons can be expected to be had.

And I explained to him that

there is absolutely no chance for him or for anybody from that transport,

to the best of my knowledge

and everybody else's knowledge whom I trust,

to survive the next 48 hours.

- This took place inside the block? - Inside the block, in my room.

And I told him also the need for a personality,

and that he has been selected for that.

And, of course, he explained to me that he understands the situation,

that it is extremely difficult for him to make any decisions

because of the children,

and that he cannot see how he can leave those children just to their fate.

He was sort of their father.

I mean, he was only 30 at that time,

but the relationship between him and those children was very strong.

And he said to me that, of course, he can see the logic behind my argumentation,

and that he would like to think about it for an hour,

if I could leave him alone to think for an hour.

And because I had, at that time, a room of my own as a registrar,

I left him in my room,

which was equipped with a table,

a chair and a bed

and some writing instrumentation.

And I told him that I will come back in an hour's time.

And I came back in an hour,

and I could see that he is laying on my bed,

and that he's dying.

He was cyanotic in the face.

He had froth around the mouth,

and I could see that he has poisoned himself.

He took poison,

but he was not dead.

And, because of him being so important, I...

I didn't know what sort of poison he took,

but I had, again, a connection to a man called Dr. Kleinman.

This Dr. Kleinman was of Polish origin and a French Jew

and medically qualified.

And I called Dr. Kleinman immediately to Hirsch

and asked Kleinman to do what he can

because this is an important man.

And Kleinman inspected Freddy Hirsch,

and he said that he thinks he poisoned himselfwith a big dose of barbiturates,

that it might be perhaps possible to save his life,

but he won't be on his feet for a long time to come,

and he is going to be gassed within the next 48 hours, and he thinks...

Kleinman said it would be better to leave things as they are

and to do nothing.

Well, the story after the suicide of Freddy Hirsch developed very fast.

The first thing, I informed the rest of... of them,

what I told to Hirsch.

Secondly, I moved to the Camp ll D

to establish a contact with the Resistance there,

with the Resistance movement.

They gave me bread for the people...

bread, yes, bread and onions...

and said that I will get... they don't know any...

no decision has been made, and I should come later for... for instructions.

The moment I distributed the bread, something happened,

namely, a special curfew was made within the camp.

All administrative activities were stopped.

All guards were doubled.

Machine guns, et cetera, were spread around the quarantine camps,

and I was out of contact.

The Czech family transport was then gassed in the evening.

They were put on trucks.

All of them knew.

They were put on trucks. They behaved very well.

We didn't know, of course, where the trucks are going.

They were being assured once more

that they are going to Heydebreck and not to be gassed.

And we knew that, if they are going out from the camp,

the trucks will turn right when they leave the camp.

And we knew that, if they turn left, there is only one way.

500 yards, and that's where the crematorium was.

(Muller) That night, I was at Crematorium II.

As soon as the people got out of the vans,

they were blinded by floodlights

and forced through a corridor

to the stairs leading to the "undressing room."

They were blinded, made to run.

Blows were rained on them.

Those who didn't run fast enough were beaten to death

by the SS.

The violence used against them was extraordinary.

And suddenly...

- (Lanzmann) Without explanation? - Not a word.

As soon as they left the vans,

the beatings began.

When they entered the "undressing room,"

I was standing near the rear door,

and from there I witnessed the frightful scene.

The people were bloodied.

They knew then where they were.

They stared at the pillars

of the so-called "International Information Centre" I mentioned,

and that terrified them.

What they read didn't reassure them.

On the contrary, it panicked them.

They knew the score.

They'd learned at Camp B ll B what went on there.

They were in despair.

Children clung to each other.

Their mothers,

their parents, the old people all cried,

overcome with misery.

Suddenly,

some SS officers appeared on the steps,

including the camp commandant, Schwarzhuber.

He'd given them his word as an SS officer

that they'd be transferred to Heydebreck.

So they all began to cry out, to beg,

shouting, "Heydebreck was a trick!

"We were lied to! We want to live! We want to work!"

They looked their SS executioners in the eye,

but the SS men...

...remained impassive, just staring at them.

There was a movement in the crowd.

They probably wanted to rush to the SS men

and tell them how they'd been lied to.

Then some guards surged forward,

wielding clubs,

and more people were injured.

In the "undressing room."

The violence climaxed

when they tried to force the people to undress.

A few obeyed,

only a handful.

Most of them refused to follow the order.

Suddenly, as though in chorus,

like a chorus...

they all began to sing.

The whole "undressing room" rang

with the Czech national anthem,

and the "Hatikva."

That moved me terribly, that...

Please stop.

That was happening to my countrymen,

and I realised

that my life had become meaningless.

Why go on living? For what?

So I went into the gas chamber with them...

...resolved to die.

With them.

Suddenly, some who recognised me came up to me.

For my locksmith friends and I

had sometimes gone into the family camp.

A small group of women approached.

They looked at me and said right there in the gas chamber...

- You were inside the gas chamber? - Inside.

One of them said,

"So you want to die.

"But that's senseless.

"Your death won't give us back our lives.

"That's no way.

"You must get out of here alive,

"you must bear witness to our suffering,

"and to the injustice done to us."

(Vrba) That's how it ended with the first Czech family transport.

And it was quite clear to me then

that the resistance in the camp

is not geared for an uprising, but for survival,

for the survival of the members of the Resistance.

I then decided to act,

what was called by the members of Resistance

as anarchic and individualistic activity,

like an escape and leaving the community

for which I am co-responsible by that time.

RUDOLF VRBA AND HIS FRIEND WETZLER

ESCAPED ON APRIL 7, 1944.

SEVERAL PRISONERS HAD PREVIOUSLY TRIED TO FLEE,

BUT ALL WERE CAUGHT.

The decision to escape,

in spite of the policy of the Resistance movement at that time,

uh, was formed immediately,

and I started to press on with the preparations for the escape

together with my friend Wetzler who was extremely important in this matter.

And before I left, I spoke with, uh, Hugo Lenek.

And Hugo Lenek was in command of the second...

of the Resistance group in the second family transport.

Yes, and I explained to him that,

from the Resistance movement, they can "explain" nothing now...

expect nothing but bread.

But when it comes to the dying, they should act on their own.

As for myself is concerned,

I think that if I successfully managed to break out from the camp

and bring the information to the right place, in the right time,

that this might be a help,

that I might manage, if I succeed, to bring help from outside.

And also it was a firm belief in me that all this was possible

because either the victims who came to Auschwitz

didn't know what is happening there,

or, if somebody had the knowledge outside,

that the knowledge was with...

I would say that they didn't know. That's it.

I thought that, if this will be made known, by any means,

within Europe and especially within Hungary,

from where a million Jews were supposed to be

transported to Auschwitz immediately in May,

and I knew about that,

that this might stir up the Resistance outside

and bring help from outside directly to Auschwitz.

And, thus, the escape plans were finally formulated,

and the escape took place on April 7th.

(Lanzmann) This is the main reason why you decided to escape?

Suddenly, at that moment, to press on with it.

In other words, not to delay anything,

but to escape as soon as possible.

To inform the world.

- About what was going on? - Right.

- In Auschwitz? - Right. Right.

(Exhales)

Now... now I go back

35 years.

No.

I don't go back, you know, as a matter off act.

(Sobbing)

I come back.

JAN KARSKI, University Professor, USA

FORMER COURIER OF THE POLISH GOVERNMENT IN EXILE

(Karski) I am ready. (Lanzmann) All right.

(Karski) In the middle of 1942,

I was thinking to continue my service as a courier

between the Polish underground

and the Polish government in exile, in London.

The Jewish leaders in Warsaw learned about it.

A meeting was arranged outside of the ghetto.

There were two gentlemen.

They did not live in the ghetto.

They introduced themselves:

leader of Bund,

Zionist leader.

Now, what "transcribed," what happened in our conversation,

first, I was not prepared for it.

I was relatively isolated in my work in Poland.

I did not see many things.

In 35 years after the war,

I don't go back.

I have been a teacher for 26 years.

I never mention the Jewish problem to my students.

I understand this film is for historical record,

so I will try to do it.

They described to me what is happening to the Jews.

Did I know about it?

No, I didn't.

They described to me first

that the Jews... Jewish problem is unprecedented,

cannot be compared with the Polish problem,

or the Russian, or any other problem.

Hitler will lose this war,

but he will exterminate all the Jewish population.

Do I understand it?

The Allies fight for their people.

They fight for humanity.

The Allies cannot forget

that the Jews will be exterminated totally in Poland,

Polish and European Jews.

They were breaking down.

They paced the room. They were whispering.

They were hissing.

It was a nightmare

for me.

(Lanzmann) Did they look in complete desperation?

Yes.

Yes, at various stages of the conversation,

they lost control of themselves.

I just sat in my chair.

I just listened.

I did not even react. I didn't ask them questions.

I was just listening.

Well, and then they...

(Lanzmann) They wanted to convince you to convey...?

They realised, I think...

They realised from the beginning that I don't know,

that I don't understand this problem.

Once I said I will take messages from them,

they wanted to inform me what is happening to the Jews.

And I didn't know this. I was never in a ghetto.

I never dealt with the Jewish matters.

Did you know yourself at the time

that most of the Jews of Warsaw had already been killed?

I did know, but I didn't see anything.

I had never heard any description what is happening over there.

I was never there.

It is one thing to know statistics.

There were hundreds of thousands of Poles also killed,

Russians, Serbs, Greeks.

We knew about it,

but it was a question of statistics.

But did they insist about the complete uniqueness

of the situation of the Jews?

Yes, this was their problem: to impress upon me,

and then it was my mission

to impress upon all people whom I am going to see,

that the Jewish situation is unprecedented in history.

Egyptians... Egyptian pharaohs did not do it.

Babylonians did not do it.

Now, for the first time in history,

actually, they came to the conclusion.

Unless the Allies take some unprecedented steps,

regardless of the outcome of the war,

the Jews will be totally exterminated.

And they cannot accept it.

This means that they asked for very specific measures...?

Yes.

So then, interchangeably,

at a certain point, the Bund leader,

at a certain point, the Zionist leader...

Then what do they want?

What message am I supposed to take?

Then they gave me messages,

various messages to the Allied governments, as such.

I was to see as many government officials as I could.

As I could, of course.

Then, to the Polish government.

Then to the president of the Polish Republic.

Then to the international Jewish leaders,

and to individual political leaders, leading intellectuals.

Approach as many people as possible.

And then they gave me segments: to whom do I report what.

So now, in this nightmarish...

Two meetings, I had with them,

nightmarish meetings.

Well, then, they presented their demands,

separate demands.

The message was:

"Hitler cannot be allowed to continue extermination.

"Every day counts."

NEW YORK

(Karski) The Allies cannot treat this war

only from a purely military, strategic standpoint.

They will win the war

if they take such an attitude,

but what good will it do to us?

We will not survive this war.

The Allied governments cannot take such a stand.

We contributed to humanity.

We gave scientists for thousands of years...

We originated great religions.

We are humans.

Do you understand it? Do you understand it?

It never happened before in history what is happening to our people now.

Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.

We understand we have no country of our own.

We have no government.

We have no voice in the Allied councils,

so we have to use services, little people like you are.

Will you do it? Will you approach them?

Will you fulfil your mission,

approach the Allied leaders?

WASHINGTON

We want an official declaration...

...of the Allied nations

...that, in addition...

...to the military strategy...

...which aims at securing victory,

military victory in this war,

extermination of the Jews...

...forms a separate chapter,

and the Allied nations

formally, publicly announce...

...that they will deal with this problem,

that it becomes a part

of their overall strategy in this war.

Not only defeat of Germany,

but also saving the remaining Jewish population.

Once they make such an official declaration...

They have an air force.

They drop bombs on Germany,

why cannot they drop millions of leaflets...

...informing the German population

exactly what their government is doing to the Jews?

Perhaps they don't know it!

Now, let them make an official declaration,

again, official, public declaration,

that if the German nation does not offer evidence

of trying to change the policy of their government,

German nation will have to be held responsible

for the crimes their government is committing.

And now, if there is not such evidence,

to announce publicly, officially,

certain objects in Germany

will be bombed, destroyed,

as retaliation

for what the German government is doing against the Jews.

That bombing which will take place

is not a part of the military strategy.

It deals only with the Jewish problem.

Let the German people know before bombing takes place

and after bombing takes place

that this was done and will continue to be done

because Jews are being exterminated in Poland.

Perhaps it will help.

They can do it. This, they can do it.

THE RUHR

(Karski) This was one mission.

Next...

...both of them,

particularly the Zionist leader...

He was again, like, whispering, hissing to me.

Something is going to happen.

The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are talking about it.

Particularly young elements,

they will fight.

They speak about declaration of war against the Third Reich,

unique war in the world history.

Never such a war took place.

They want to die fighting.

We cannot deny them this kind of death.

By the way, I didn't know at that time Jewish military organisation emerged.

They didn't tell me about it, only that something is going to happen.

The Jews will fight.

They need arms.

We approached the commander of the Home Army,

the underground movement in Poland.

Those arms were denied, refused.

They cannot be denied arms

if such arms exist,

and we know you have arms.

This message to the commander in chief, General Sikorski,

to issue orders

that those arms will be given to the Jews.

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

(Karski) This was another part of the mission.

There are international Jewish leaders.

Reach as many as possible.

Tell them this...

They are Jewish leaders.

Their people are dying.

There will be no Jews,

so what for do we need leaders?

We are going to die as well.

We don't try to escape. We stay here.

Let them go

to important offices

in London, wherever they are.

Let them demand for action.

If it is refused,

let them walk out,

stay in the street,

refuse food,

refuse drink.

Let them die

in view of all humanity.

Who knows? Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.

Between those two Jewish leaders,

somehow... and this belongs to human relations...

I took, so to say, to the Bund leader,

probably because of his behaviour.

He looked like a Polish nobleman,

a gentleman, straight,

beautiful gestures, dignified.

I think that he liked me, also personally.

Now, at a certain point, he suggested it.

He says, "Mr. Witold,

"I know the Western world.

"You are going to deal with the English.

"Now, you will give them your oral reports.

"I am sure it will strengthen your report

"if you will be able to say, 'I saw it myself."'

WARSAW

"We can or ganise for you to visit the Jewish ghetto.

"Would you do it?

"If you do,

"to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, I will go with you,

"so I will be sure

"that you will be as safe as possible."

A few days later, we established contact.

By that time,

the Jewish ghetto, as it existed in 1942 until July,

did not exist anymore.

Out of approximately 400,000 Jews,

in the meantime, some 300,000 were already deported from the ghetto.

So within the outside walls,

practically there were some four units.

The most important was the so-called "central ghetto."

They were separated by some areas inhabited by the Aryans,

already some areas not inhabited by anybody.

There was some building.

This building was constructed in such a way

that the wall which separated the ghetto from the outside world

was a part of the back of the building.

So the front was facing the Aryan area.

There was some tunnel.

We went through this tunnel without any kind of difficulties.

What struck me: completely different man,

the Bund leader,

the Polish nobleman.

I go with him.

He is broken down,

curving, like a Jew from the ghetto,

as if he lived there all the time.

Apparently, this was his nature.

This was his world.

So we walked the streets.

He was on my left.

We didn't talk very much. He led me.

Well, so what? So now comes the description of it, yes?

Well...

Naked bodies on the street.

I ask him, "Why are they here?"

- (Lanzmann) Corpses, you mean? - Corpses.

He says, "Well, they have a problem.

"If a Jew dies,

"and the family wants some burial,

"they have to pay tax on it,

"so they just throw them in the street."

- Because they cannot pay the tax? - Yeah.

They cannot afford it.

So then they say, "Every rag counts,"

so they take their clothing.

And then, once the body, the corpse, is on the street,

the Judenrat has to take care of it.

Women with their babies,

publicly feeding their babies,

but they have no... no breast, it's just flat.

Babies with some crazy eyes, looking.

Did it look like a complete strange world?

- What? - It was a world, I mean.

No, it was not a world. That was not humanity.

Streets full.

Full.

Apparently, all of them lived in the street.

Exchange what... what was the most important.

Everybody offering something to sell.

"Three onions."

"Buy onions." "Some cookies?"

Selling.

Begging each other.

Crying, "I am hungry."

Those horrible children.

Some children running by themselves,

or with their mothers, sitting.

It wasn't humanity.

It was some... some... some hell.

Now...

...this part of the ghetto,

German officers were there, in the central ghetto.

If Gestapo released somebody, and the Gestapo officers,

they had to pass through the ghetto to get out of it.

So there were also Germans, German traffic.

Now, the Germans in uniform,

they were walking.

Silence.

Everybody frozen until he passed.

No movement, no begging, nothing.

Germans.

Contempt.

"This is those..." apparently... "dirty subhuman."

"They are not human, this."

Now, at a certain point,

some movement starts.

Jews are running from the street I was on.

We jumped into some house.

He just hits the door.

"Open the door! Open the door!"

They opened the door. We moved in.

Windows go... give to the back of the street.

We go to the opposite.

In the door. Some woman opened the door.

He says, "All right, all right. Don't be afraid.

"We are Jews."

He pushes me to the window.

"Now look at it. Look at it."

(Sighs heavily)

There were two boys,

nice-looking boys,

Hitler-Jugend uniforms.

They walked.

Every step they made, Jews disappearing,

running away.

They were talking to each other.

At a certain point,

a boy gets into his pocket,

without even thinking...

...shoots.

"Aaah!"

Some broken glass.

Some shouting, "Aaah!"

The other boy says something, congratulating him.

They go back.

So I was paralysed.

(Gasps)

(Sobs)

So then the Jewish woman...

Probably she recognised me, I don't know... that I am not a Jew.

She embraced me. "Go, go. It doesn't do you any good.

"Go, go."

So we left the house.

Then we left the ghetto.

So then he said, "You didn't see everything. You didn't see too much.

"Would you like to go again? I will go with you.

"I want you to see everything."

"I will."

Next day, we went again. The same house, the same way.

So then, again, now I was more conditioned,

so I felt the other things.

Stench.

Dirt, stench.

Everywhere. Suffocating.

Dirty streets.

Nervousness. Tension.

Some bedlam.

This was Platz Muranowski.

In a corner of it,

some children playing something with some rags.

They're throwing the rags to another.

He says, "They are playing, as you see.

"Life goes on. Life goes on."

So then I said,

"They are simulating playing. They don't play."

- It was a special place for playing? - In the corner of Platz Muranowski.

No, no, no. Open.

- As I say, they are... - There were trees?

There were a few trees, rachitic trees.

So then we just walked the streets.

We didn't talk to anybody.

We walked probably one hour.

Sometimes, he would tell me,

"Look at this Jew,"

a Jew standing, without moving.

I said, "Is he dead?" He says, "No, no, no. He's alive.

"Mr. Witold, remember, he's dying.

"He's dying. Look at him.

"Tell them over there.

"You saw it. Don't forget."

We walk again.

It's macabre.

Only from time to time, he would whisper,

"Remember this. Remember this."

Or he would tell me, "Look at her."

In very many cases,

I would say, "What are they doing here?"

His answer: "They are dying. That's all right. They are dying."

And always, "But remember, remember."

We spent more... perhaps one hour.

We left the ghetto.

Frankly, I couldn't take it anymore.

"Get me out of it."

And then I never saw him again.

I was sick.

I don't... Even now, I don't want...

I understand your role. I am here.

I don't go back in my memory.

I couldn't take any more.

But I reported... what I saw.

Yes, it was not a world, it was not a part of humanity.

I was not part of it.

I did not belong there.

I never saw such things. I never...

Nobody wrote about this kind of reality.

I never saw any theatre, I never saw any movie.

This was not the world.

I was told that these are human beings.

They didn't look like human beings.

Then we left. He embraced me then.

"Good luck. Good luck."

I never saw him again.

WARSAW

Next figure: Dr FRANZ GRASSLER, DEPUTY TO AUERSWALD,

THE NAZI COMMISSIONER OF THE WARSAW GHETTO

(Lanzmann, in German) You don't remember those days?

(Grassler) Not much.

I recall more clearly my pre-war mountaineering trips

than the entire war period

and those days in Warsaw.

All in all, those were bad times.

It's a fact, we tend to forget,

thank God,

the bad times more easily than the good.

The bad times are repressed.

(Lanzmann) I'll help you remember.

In Warsaw, you were Dr. Auerswald's deputy.

(Grassler) Yes.

(Lanzmann) Dr. Auerswald was...

(Grassler) Commissioner of the "Jewish District" of Warsaw.

Dr. Grassler, this is Czerniakow's diary.

You're mentioned in it.

- It's been printed, it exists? - Yes, yes.

- He kept a diary... - Mm-hmm.

That was recently published.

He wrote on July 7, 1941...

July 7, 1941? That's the first time I've relearned a date.

May I take notes?

After all, it interests me too.

So in July I was already there.

He wrote on July 7, 1941,

"Morning in the Community", the Jewish Council HQ,

"and later with Auerswald, Schlosser..."

- Schlosser was... - "...and Grassler."

"On routine matters."

That's the first time...

- That my name is mentioned? - Yes.

Yes, but there were three of us.

Schlosser was in the "economics department."

- I think he had to do with economics. - Yes, yes.

And the second time...

...was on July 22.

CZERNIAKOW WAS PRESIDENT OF THE WARSAW JEWISH COUNCIL

- He wrote every day? - Yes.

Yes, every day.

- Every day? - It's quite amazing...

That the diary was saved. It's amazing that it was saved.

BURLINGTON - VERMONT, USA

(Hilberg, In English) Adam Czerniakow began keeping a diary

the very first week of the war,

before the Germans entered Warsaw,

and before he took over the responsibility of leading the Jewish community,

and kept his diary in daily entries

until the afternoon of the day that he ended his life.

He left us a window

through which we can observe a Jewish community

in the terminal hours of its life.

A dying community, for it began dying from the beginning.

RAUL HILBERG

In that sense,

Adam Czerniakow did something very important.

He didn't save the Jews.

In that respect, he was like other Jewish leaders.

But he left a record of what had happened to them

in a day-by-day fashion.

And you could see that he did all this

on top of working a seven-day week,

for he was a man without vacations,

without any day off.

And yet every day, almost every day,

he had an entry.

He might record the weather,

where he went in the morning,

and then all the things that happened,

but he never failed to write.

That was something that moved him, pushed him,

compelled him throughout the years,

almost three years of his life under the Germans.

And, in that sense,

perhaps because he wrote in such a prosaic style,

we now know what went on in his mind,

how things were perceived,

recognised, reacted to.

We even know from what he didn't say

just what it is that went through this community.

There are constant references in the diary

to the end.

He talks in terms of Greek mythology,

and he refers to himself as wearing a poisoned cloak,

as Hercules once did.

He has a feeling of doom

for the Jews of Warsaw.

And there are remarkable passages in the diary that illustrate what he meant.

He is sarcastic enough, if that is the word,

in December 1941, to remark that now the intelligentsia were dying also.

Up to this point, poor people were dying,

but, by December 1941, members of the intelligentsia were starving to death.

(Lanzmann) Why does he mention specifically the intelligentsia at this time?

He mentions it because there is a difference,

owing to the class structure within the ghetto,

in vulnerability to starvation.

The lower classes died first. The middle class died a little bit later.

Intelligentsia were, of course, at the top of the middle class,

and once they started dying, the situation was really very, very bad.

And that's the meaning of that.

We're dealing with a ghetto where the average consumption

was about 1,200 calories.

He mentions with approval, with approval,

that one petitioner came to him for money

and said, "I want money,

"not in order to eat.

"I want money for the rent,

"to pay the rent for my apartment,

"because I don't want to die in the street."

This is the kind of comment that Czerniakow writes down in his diary.

This meaning of dignity,

the approval of the...

You mean he received a petition from somebody

who said, "Give me money"?

Yes, but not for food.

"Give me money so that I can pay the rent,

"because I don't want to die in the street."

There were people dropping dead in the street.

They were covered with newspaper.

Why was the housing more important to him than the food?

To this particular individual,

who wasn't eating enough to remain alive,

who didn't want to be dying of hunger while collapsing in the street.

This means that death was not avoidable,

but it was avoidable... to die either inside or outside?

Of course. It is one of these sardonicjokes,

of which he had quite a few.

He always had the...

strange, strange description

of a band playing in front of a funeral parlour,

of a hearse with drunken drivers,

and a dead child running around the grounds.

He had... He had rather sardonic comments about death.

He lived with death.

(Pages turning)

(Lanzmann) Did you go into the ghetto?

Seldom. When I had to visit Czerniakow.

What were the conditions like?

Awful.

- Yes, awful. - Yes?

I never went back when I saw what it was like.

Unless I had to.

In the whole period, I think I only went once or twice.

At the Commission, we tried

to maintain the ghetto for its labour force,

and especially to prevent epidemics, like typhus.

That was the big danger.

- Yes. - Yes?

Can you tell us about typhus?

I'm not a doctor.

I only know that typhus is a very dangerous epidemic

that wipes people out like the plague,

and that it can't be confined to a ghetto.

If typhus had broken out...

I don't think it did, but there was fear that it might,

...it would have killed the Poles and the Germans.

Why was there typhus in the ghetto?

I don't know if there was,

but there was a danger, because of the famine.

People didn't get enough to eat.

That's what was so awful.

At the Commission,

we did our best to feed the ghetto,

so it wouldn't become an incubator of epidemics.

Aside from humanitarian factors, that's what mattered.

If typhus had broken out, and it didn't,

it wouldn't have stopped at the ghetto.

Czerniakow also wrote that

one of the reasons the ghetto was walled in

was because of this German fear.

- Yes, absolutely! - Fear of typhus.

He says Germans always associated Jews with typhus.

Maybe.

I'm not sure if there were grounds for it.

But imagine that mass of people packed in the ghetto...

There weren't only the Warsaw Jews,

but others who came later.

The danger kept on growing.

(Hilberg) There was a lady somewhere in Warsaw,

in love with a man.

And the man was hit,

grievously wounded,

with his insides coming out.

This woman stuffed the insides back with her own hands.

She carried the man to a first-aid station. He died.

He was buried in a mass grave. She disinterred him and buried him.

This, to Czerniakow, this simple episode,

was the ultimate of virtue.

(Lanzmann) He is never revolted?

He doesn't bother, or he doesn't express the revolt.

He doesn't express the disgust except with other Jews,

Jews who either deserted the community

by emigrating early,

or Jews who, like Gancwajch, are collaborating with the Germans.

And, for the Germans, he doesn't have words of disgust.

I think he is beyond such words.

He hasn't any criticism of the Germans themselves

and only seldom allows himself to make a remark

which indicates that he opposed something by arguing.

He very seldom argues with the Germans.

He pleads, he appeals, but he doesn't argue with them.

He does argue when he's forced not only to build the wall

but to pay for it.

And he says that, if the wall is being put up as a hygienic measure

to prevent Jewish epidemics from engulfing the Polish or German population outside,

then why is it...

why is it that the Jews have to pay for it?

The people who get the protection should be paying for the medicine.

If the wall is medicine, let the Germans pay.

And Auerswald, the ghetto Kommissar, says that's a very nice argument

that he, Czerniakow, might bring up at an international conference someday,

but, for now, he'll pay for the wall.

Czerniakow writes all this down,

including Auerswald's reply to his own argument.

And that's about the most he ever allows him self to say in criticism

of what the Germans are doing.

So he takes for granted, he assumes, he anticipates,

everything that is happening to the Jews,

including the worst.

(Lanzmann) The Germans had a policy on the Warsaw ghetto.

What was that policy?

You're asking more than I know.

The policy that wound up with extermination,

the Final Solution,

we knew nothing about it.

Our job was to maintain the ghetto,

and try to preserve the Jews as a work force.

The Commission's goal,

in fact, was very different

from the one that later led to extermination.

Yes, but do you know how many people died

in the ghetto each month in 1941?

I don't know now... if I ever knew it.

But you did know. There are exact figures.

I probably knew...

It was 5,000 a month.

- 5,000 a month? - Yes.

- That's a lot. - That's a lot, of course.

But there were far too many people in the ghetto.

- That was it. Far too many. - Far too many?

Far too many.

(Lanzmann) My question is philosophical.

What does a ghetto mean, in your opinion?

(Grassler) History is full of ghettos,

going back centuries, for all I know.

Persecution of the Jews wasn't a German invention,

and it didn't start with World War II.

The Poles persecuted them too.

(Lanzmann) But a ghetto like Warsaw's, in a great capital,

in the heart of the city.

(Grassler) That was unusual.

You say you wanted to maintain the ghetto.

Our mission wasn't to annihilate the ghetto,

but to keep it alive, to maintain it.

What does "alive" mean in such...?

That was the problem. That was the whole problem...

The problem needed to be resolved. I knew that.

But people were dying in the streets.

- There were bodies everywhere. - Yes.

That was the paradox.

- You see it as a paradox? - I'm sure of it.

- Why? Can you explain? - No.

- Why not? - Explain what?

But the fact is...

Jews were being exterminated daily in the ghetto. Czerniakow wrote...

Yes, yes. To maintain it properly,

we'd have needed more substantial rations,

and less crowding.

Why weren't the rations more humane?

Why weren't they?

That was a German decision, no?

There was no real decision to starve the ghetto.

The big decision to exterminate came much later.

(Lanzmann) That's right, later. In 1942.

- Precisely. - Yes.

- Three years later. - Yes.

Our mission, as I recall it,

was to manage the ghetto,

and, naturally, with those inadequate rations,

and the overcrowding,

a high, even excessive death rate was inevitable.

Yes.

What does "maintain" the ghetto mean in such conditions,

the food, sanitation, etc.?

What could the Jews do against such measures?

They couldn't do anything.

(Lanzmann) Czerniakow saw a film before the war

where the captain of a sinking ship

gives order to the orchestra to playjazz.

In the entry of July 8, 1942,

not even two weeks before his death,

he identifies himself as this captain of the sinking ship.

Yes.

Of course, there is no jazz, but there is a kind of children's festival.

There are chess tournaments, yes. There's theatre, a children's festival.

There's everything going on until the last moment.

But, more importantly, these are symbols.

These outward cultural activities, these festivals,

they're not simply morale-building devices,

which is what Czerniakow identifies them to be.

Rather, they are symbolic of the entire posture of the ghetto,

which is in the process of healing, or trying to heal, sick people

who are soon going to be gassed,

which is trying to educate youngsters who will never be growing up,

which is in the process of trying to find work for people and increase employment

in a situation which is doomed to failure.

They are going on as though life will continue.

They have an official faith in the survivability of the ghetto,

even after all indications are to the contrary.

The strategy continues to be:

"We must continue, for this is the only strategy that is left.

"We must minimise the injury, minimise the damage, minimise the losses,

"but we must continue."

And continuity is the only thing, in all of this.

But obviously when he compares himself to this captain of a sinking ship,

he knows that everything is sinking.

He knows.

I think he knew or he sensed or he believed the end was coming

perhaps as early as October 1941,

when he has a note about alarming rumours

as to the fate of Warsaw Jewry in the spring.

This is also when Bischoff, the head of the Transferstelle, tells him

that, after all, a ghetto is only a temporary device,

without specifying for what.

He knows, because in January,

he has premonitions or reports and rumours

about Lithuanians coming.

He is concerned when Auerswald disappears and is going to Berlin

right around January 20, 1942,

which we now know to have been the date

of the Final Solution Conference in Berlin,

the Wannsee Conference.

THE FINAL SOLUTION CONFERENCE WAS HELD HERE

And even though Czerniakow, in Warsaw, behind the walls,

has no idea of such a conference going on in Berlin,

yet he is concerned that Auerswald, the ghetto Kommissar, is going to Berlin.

He can't imagine why,

unless it is for a purpose that bodes no good.

And so, in February, there are more rumours.

In March, the rumours are becoming even more specific.

He now begins to record

the departure of Jews from the Lublin ghetto,

or Mielec,

or Krakow,

and Lwow.

And he recognises

that something may well be in the offing for Warsaw itself.

And every subsequent entry is replete

with the anxiety that he feels.

BELZEC SITE OF THE EXTERMINATION CAMP

(Lanzmann) When Czerniakow hears rumours

about the deportations from Lublin, Lwow and Krakow,

around March 1942,

and we know now that the transports went to Belzec,

does he ask in his diary where they are shipped,

what happens to them?

(Hilberg) No. He never does.

And he never mentions any destination.

But we cannot really decide

that he had no knowledge whatsoever about these camps.

All we know is that he didn't mention them in the diary.

We also know, of course, from other sources,

that the existence of death camps was already known in Warsaw,

certainly by June.

(Lanzmann) Why did Czerniakow commit suicide?

Because he realised there was no future for the ghetto.

He probably saw before I did that the Jews would be killed.

I suppose the Jews already had their excellent secret services.

They were too well informed,

better than we were.

- You think so? - Yes, I do.

- The Jews knew more than you? - I'm convinced of it.

- It's hard to believe. - Yeah, yeah...

The German administration was never informed

of what would happen to the Jews.

When was the first deportation to Treblinka?

Before Auerswald's suicide, I think.

- Auerswald's? - I mean Czerniakow's. Sorry.

July 22.

Those are dates which...

So the deportations began July 22, 1942.

Yes.

To Treblinka.

And Czerniakow killed himself on July 23.

Yes, that is...

- The next day. - The next day.

So that was it, he'd realised

that his idea...

it was his idea, I think, of working in good faith with the Germans,

in the Jews' best interests.

He'd realised this idea, this dream, was destroyed.

- That the idea was a dream? - Yes.

And when the dream faded, he took the logical way out.

(Lanzmann) The last entry takes place how long before his suicide?

(Hilberg) The last entry precedes his death by a few hours.

(Lanzmann) And what does he write?

(Hilberg) "It is three o'clock.

"So far, 4,000 are ready to go.

"The orders are that there must be 9,000 by 4:00."

This is the last entry of a man on the afternoon

of the day that he commits suicide.

(Lanzmann) The first transport of the Jews of Warsaw for Treblinka

was the 22nd of July, 1942.

- And he commits suicide the day after? - That's right.

In other words, on the 22nd, you see,

on the 22nd, he is called in by Sturmbannführer Höfle,

who is in charge of the resettlement staff,

who has come in there for the express purpose

of taking the Jews out of Warsaw.

Höfle tells him on the 22nd...

And, here, incidentally, is another fascinating point.

Czerniakow is so agitated

that he doesn't put the date down correctly.

Instead of saying, "July 22, 1942," he says, "July 22, 1940."

(Clicks tongue)

Höfle calls him in at 10:00,

disconnects the telephones.

Children are removed from the playground opposite the community building.

And then he is told that all Jews, irrespective of sex and age,

with certain exceptions, will be deported to the east.

To the east.

Again, the east.

And by 4:00pm today, a contingent of 6,000 people must be provided,

and this, at the minimum, will be the daily quota.

Now, he's told that at 10:00 in the morning of July 22, 1942.

He then goes on, he keeps appealing.

He wants certain exemptions.

He wants the council staff to be exempt.

He wants the staff of the welfare organisations to be exempt,

and he's terribly worried that the orphans will be deported,

and he repeatedly brings up the orphans.

And, on the next day, he still doesn't have assurance

that the orphans are going to be saved.

Now, if he cannot be the caretaker of the orphanage,

then he has lost his war.

He has lost his struggle.

(Lanzmann) But why the orphans?

They are the most helpless element in the community.

They are the little children, its future, who have lost their parents.

They cannot possibly do anything on their own.

If the orphans do not have exemption, if he doesn't even get the promise,

the words spoken by a German SS officer,

not even assurances, which, as he knows, cannot be counted on,

if he cannot even get the words,

what can he think?

If he cannot take care of the children, what else can he do?

Some people report that

he wrote a note after he closed the book on the diary,

in which he said...

"They want me to kill the children with my own hands."

(Lanzmann) Did you think this idea of a ghetto was a good one?

A sort of self-management, right?

- That's right. - A mini-state?

It worked well.

But it was self-management for death, no?

We know that now. But at the time...

- Even then! - No.

Czerniakow wrote,

"We're puppets, we have no power."

- No power. - Sure, that was...

- You Germans were the overlords. - Yes.

The overlords, the masters.

Obviously.

- Czerniakow was merely a tool. - A tool, yes.

Yes, but a good tool.

Jewish self-management worked well, I can tell you.

It worked well for three years...

1941, 1942, 1943. Two and a half years. And in the end...

- And in the end... - "Worked well" for what?

To what end?

For self-preservation.

No, for death!

- Yes, but... - Self-management, self-preservation...

That's easy to say now.

You admitted the conditions were inhuman.

Atrocious, horrible.

So it was clear even then...

No, extermination wasn't clear.

- Now we see the result. - Extermination isn't so simple.

One step was taken,

then another, and another, and another...

But to understand the process, one must...

I repeat: extermination did not take place in the ghetto, not at first.

Only with the evacuations.

Otherwise, in the ghetto, we would have...

Evacuations?

The evacuations to Treblinka.

The ghetto could have been wiped out with weapons, no?

As it was finally done, after the rebellion.

After I'd left. But at the start...

Mr. Lanzmann, this is getting us nowhere.

We're reaching no new conclusions.

- I don't think we can. - No.

I didn't know then what I know now.

You weren't a nonentity.

- But I was. - You were important.

- You overestimate my role. - No.

You were 2nd to the Commissioner of the Warsaw "Jewish District."

- But I had no power. - It was something.

You were part of the vast German power structure.

Correct. But a small part.

You overestimate the authority of a deputy of 28 then.

- You were 30. - 28.

At 30, you were...

You were mature.

Yes, but for a lawyer who got his degree at 27,

it's just a beginning.

Yes.

- You had a doctorate. - The title proves nothing.

- Did Auerswald have one too? - No.

But the title's irrelevant.

Doctor of Law...

What did you do after the war?

I was with a mountaineering publishing house.

- Is that so? - Yes.

I wrote and published mountain guidebooks.

I published a climbers' magazine.

Is climbing your main interest?

Yes.

- The mountains, the air... - Yes.

The sun, the pure air...

Not like the ghetto air.

(♪Women sing in Yiddish)

♪ The words, the words that I write to you

♪ Are not written with ink, but with tears

♪ The best years are ending now

♪ Are not written with ink, but with tears

♪ The best years are ending now

♪ And are gone, not to return

♪ It is difficult to fix that which is shattered

♪ And it is difficult to unite our love

♪ Oh, show your tears

♪ The fault is not mine

♪ Because it must be so

♪ It must be so, it must be so

♪ We must both separate

♪ It must be so, it must be so

♪ The love that ends for both of us

♪ Do you remember when I left you?

♪ My fate dictated I must leave you

♪ Because in this way I will never again be bothered

NEW YORK - GERTRUDE SCHNEIDER AND HER MOTHER

♪ Because it must be so ♪

LOHAME HAGHETAOT KIBBUTZ MUSEUM

GHETTO FIGHTERS' KIBBUTZ, ISRAEL

JEWISH COMBAT ORGANISATION (JCO) IN THE WARSAW GHETTO

WAS OFFICIALLY FORMED ON JULY 28, 1942.

AFTER THE FIRST MASS DEPORTATION TO TREBLINKA,

WHICH WAS INTERRUPTED ON SEPTEMBER 30,

SOME 60,000 JEWS REMAINED IN THE GHETTO.

ON JANUARY 18, 1943, DEPORTATIONS WERE RESUMED.

DESPITE A SEVERE LACK OF WEAPONS,

THE MEMBERS OF THE JCO CALLED FOR RESISTANCE,

AND STARTED FIGHTING, TO THE GERMANS' TOTAL SURPRISE.

IT LASTED THREE DAYS.

THE NAZIS WITHDREW WITH LOSSES,

ABANDONING WEAPONS THE JEWS GRABBED.

THE DEPORTATIONS WERE STOPPED.

THE GERMANS NOW KNEW

THAT THEY HAD TO FIGHT TO CONQUER THE GHETTO.

THE BATTLE BEGAN ON THE EVENING OF APRIL 19, 1943,

THE EVE OF PESSACH PASSOVER.

IT HAD TO BE A FIGHT TO THE DEATH.

SIMHA ROTTEM, known as "Kajik"

ITZHAK ZUCKERMANN, known as "Antek," 2nd in command of the JCO

(Antek speaks Hebrew)

(Interpreter ♪3, in French) I began drinking after the war.

It was very difficult.

Claude, you asked for my impression.

If you could lick my heart,

it would poison you.

AT THE REQUEST OF MORDECHAI ANIELEWICZ,

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE JCO,

ANTEK LEFT THE GHETTO 6 DAYS BEFORE THE GERMAN ATTACK.

HIS MISSION:

TO ASK POLISH RESISTANCE LEADERS TO ARM THE JEWS.

THEY REFUSED.

(Speaks Hebrew)

(Interpreter ♪3) I don't think the human tongue can describe

the horror we went through in the ghetto.

In the streets, if you can call them that,

for nothing was left of the streets,

we had to step over heaps of corpses.

There was no room to pass beside them.

Besides fighting the Germans, we fought hunger and thirst.

We had no contact with the outside world,

we were completely isolated, cut off from the world.

(Continues in Hebrew)

(Interpreter ♪3) We were in such a state that we could no longer understand

the very meaning of why we went on fighting.

We thought of attempting a breakout

to the Aryan part of Warsaw, outside the ghetto.

(Kajik continues in Hebrew)

Just before May 1,

Sigmund and I were sent

to try to contact Antek in Aryan Warsaw.

(Interpreter ♪3 continues) We found a tunnel under Bonifrateska Street

that led out into Aryan Warsaw.

(Kajik continues in Hebrew)

Early in the morning,

we suddenly emerged into a street in broad daylight.

(Kajik continues)

Imagine us on that sunny May 1,

stunned to find ourselves in the street, among normal people.

We'd come from another planet.

(Kajik continues)

People immediatelyjumped on us

because we certainly looked exhausted, skinny, in rags.

Around the ghetto, there were always suspicious Poles who grabbed Jews.

(Kajik continues)

By a miracle, we escaped them.

(Kajik continues)

In Aryan Warsaw,

life went on as naturally and normally as before.

(Kajik continues)

The cafes operated normally,

the restaurants, buses, streetcars...

The movies were open.

(Kajik continues)

The ghetto was an isolated island amid normal life.

(Kajik continues)

(Interpreter) Our job was to contact Itzhak Zuckermann

to try to mount a rescue operation,

to try to save the few fighters who might still be alive in the ghetto.

(Kajik continues)

We managed to contact Zuckermann.

(Kajik continues)

We found two sewer workers.

(Kajik continues)

On the night of May 8-9,

we decided to return to the ghetto

with another buddy, Riszek, and the two sewer workers.

After the curfew, we entered the sewers.

(Kajik continues)

We were entirely at the mercy of the two workmen,

since only they knew the ghetto's underground layout.

(Kajik continues)

Halfway there, they decided to turn back,

they tried to drop us, and we had to threaten them with our guns.

(Kajik continues)

We went on through the sewers...

(Kajik continues)

...until one of the workmen told us we were under the ghetto.

(Kajik continues)

Riszek guarded them so they couldn't escape.

MILA 18 - JCO BUNKER HEADQUARTERS

(Kajik continues)

I raised the manhole cover to go up into the ghetto.

(Kajik continues)

At bunker Mila 18, I missed them by a day.

(Kajik continues)

I had returned the night of May 8-9.

The Germans found the bunker on the morning of the 8th.

WARSAW - MONUMENT TO THE GHETTO FIGHTERS

(Kajik continues)

Most of its survivors committed suicide,

or succumbed to gas in the bunkers.

REPLICA OF MONUMENT TO THE GHETTO FIGHTERS

JERUSALEM

(Kajik continues)

(Interpreter) I went to bunker Franciszkanska 22.

There was no answer when I yelled the password,

so I had to go on through the ghetto.

I suddenly heard a woman calling from the ruins.

(Kajik continues in Hebrew)

(Interpreter) It was darkest night, no lights, you saw nothing.

All the houses were in ruins, and I heard only one voice.

I thought some evil spell had been cast on me,

a woman's voice talking from the rubble.

I circled the ruins.

I didn't look at my watch,

but I must have spent half an hour exploring,

trying to find the woman whose voice guided me,

but, unfortunately, I didn't find her.

- (Lanzmann) Were there fires? - (Interpreter in Hebrew)

(Kajik replies in Hebrew)

Strictly speaking, no, for the flames had died down,

but there was still smoke,

and that awful smell of charred flesh

of people who had surely been burned alive.

I continued on my way,

going to other bunkers in search of fighting units,

but it was the same everywhere.

I'd give the password: "Jan."

(Lanzmann) That's a Polish first name, Jan.

(Speaking Hebrew)

(Interpreter) Right. And I got no answer.

I went from bunker to bunker,

and after walking for hours in the ghetto,

I went back toward the sewers.

- (Lanzmann) Was he alone then? - (Interpreter ♪3 in Hebrew)

Yes, I was alone all the time.

Except for that woman's voice,

and a man I met as I came out of the sewers,

I was alone throughout my tour of the ghetto.

I didn't meet a living soul.

At one point, I recall

feeling a kind of peace, or serenity,

when I said to myself, "I'm the last Jew.

"I'll wait for morning and for the Germans."