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FRANZ SUCHOMEL
SS UnterscharfiJhrer
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[ Suchomel Singing In German]
♪ Looking squarely ahead, brave and joyous ♪
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♪ At the world ♪
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♪ The squads march to work ♪
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♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka ♪
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♪ It is our destiny ♪
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♪ That's why we've become one
with Treblinka ♪
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♪ In no time at all ♪
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♪ We know only the word
of our Commander ♪
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♪ We know only obedience and duty ♪
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♪ We want to serve,
to go on serving ♪
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♪ Until a little luck ends it all ♪
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♪ HurrayJ ♪
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[ Lanzmann, In German]
Once more, but louder.
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[ Suchomel]
We're laughing about it but ifs so sad.
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- [ L anzmann j No one is" laughing.
- [ Suchome/ j Don 7' be sore at' me.
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You want History.
I'm giving you History.
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Franz wrote the words.
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The melody came from Buchenwald.
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Camp Buchenwald,
where Franz was a guard.
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New Jews who arrived in the morning...
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- New “worker Jews”?
- Ja.
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They were taught the song,
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and by evening all of them had to sing it.
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- [ Lanzmann ] Sing it again.
- All right.
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[ Lanzmann ]
It's very important. But loud!
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♪ Looking squarely ahead,
brave and joyous ♪
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♪ At the world ♪
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♪ The squads march to work ♪
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♪ All that matters to us now is Treblinka ♪
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♪ It is our destiny ♪
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♪ That's why we've become one with Treblinka ♪
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♪ In no time at all ♪
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♪ We know only the word
of our Commander ♪
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♪ We know only obedience and duty ♪
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♪ We want to serve, to go on serving ♪
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♪ Until a little luck ends it all ♪
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♪ Hurray N'
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Satisfied?
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That's unique.
No Jews know that today!
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[Train Approaching ]
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[ Lanzmann ]
How was it possible in Treblinka
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in peak days...
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Mm-hmm.
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To “process” 18,000 people?
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18,000 is too high.
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- But I read that figure in court reports.
- Sure.
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To “process” 18,000 people.
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To liquidate them.
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Mr. Lanzmann, that's an exaggeration.
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Believe me.
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How many?
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12,000 t015,000.
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But we had to spend half the night at it.
- Ja.
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In January,
the trains started arriving at 6 A.M.
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Ja?
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Always at 6 A.M.?
- Not always.
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Often.
- Yes.
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- The schedules were erratic.
- Yes.
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Sometimes one came at 6 A.M.,
then another at noon,
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maybe another late in the evening.
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You see?
- So a train arrived.
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I'd like you to describe in detail
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the whole process.
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During the peak period.
- Uh-huh.
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[ Lanzmann ]
Hmm?
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[ Suchomel ]
The trains left Malkinia station,
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for Treblinka station.
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[ Lanzmann ]
How many miles from Malkinia to Treblinka?
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[ Suchomel]
About six miles.
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Treblinka was a village.
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A small village.
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As a station,
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it gained in importance
because of the transports of Jews.
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There were at least 30 to 50 cars.
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They were divided
into sections of 10 or 15
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shunted into Treblinka Camp,
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and brought to the ramp.
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The other cars waited, loaded with people,
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in Treblinka station.
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The windows were closed off
with barbed wire,
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so no one could get out.
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On the roofs were the “hellhounds,”
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the Ukrainians or Latvians.
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The Latvians were the worst.
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On the ramp, for each car,
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there stood
two Jews from Blue Squad
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to speed things up.
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They said,
“Get out, get out. Hurry, hurry!”
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There were also Ukrainians and Germans.
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[ Lanzmann ]
How many Germans?
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[ Suchomel ]
3 to 5.
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- No more?
- No more. I can assure you.
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How many Ukrainians?
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- Ten.
- [ Lanzmann Repeats Phrase]
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[ Lanzmann ]
10 Ukrainians, 5 Germans.
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Ja, ja.
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2... 20 people from the Blue Squad.
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Men from the Blue Squad
were here and here.
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They sent the people inside.
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The Red Squad was here.
- Ja?
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- So the Red Squad was here.
- What was the Red Squad's job?
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The clothes...
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to carry the clothes
taken off by the men
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and by the women
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up here immediately.
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How much time elapsed
between unloading at the ramp
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and the undressing,
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how many minutes?
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For the women,
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let's say an hour in all.
- [ Repeats Phrase]
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An hour, an hour and a half.
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A whole train took 2 hours.
- Yes.
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In 2 hours, it was all over.
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- Between the time of arrival...
- Und... and...
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and death.
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It was all over in 2 hours?
- 2 hours, 2 1/2 hours, 3 hours.
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A whole train?
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Yes, a whole train.
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And for only one section,
for 10 cars, how long?
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I can't calculate that
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because the sections
came one after another,
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and people flooded in constantly,
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understand?
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Usually, the men waiting
who sat there, or there,
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were sent straight up via the “funnel.”
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The women were sent last.
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At the end.
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They had to go up there too,
and often waited here.
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5... at a time.
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50 people.
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60 women with children.
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They had to wait here
until there was room here.
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- Naked.
- Naked.
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In summer and winter.
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- In winter?
- In winter.
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[ Lanzmann ]
Winter in Treblinka can be very cold.
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[ Suchomel] Well, in winter,
in December, anyway after Christmas.
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- J a.
- Bu! e van before Christmas it was cold as hell.
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Between 15 and minus 4.
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I know: At first
it was cold as hell for us, too.
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We didn't have suitable uniforms.
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It was cold for us too.
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But it was colder for...
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- For those poor people.
- In the “funnel.”
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In the “funnel,” it was very, very cold.
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- [ Repeats Phrase]
- Ja.
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Can you...
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describe this “funnel” precisely?
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What was it like? How wide?
- Ja. Ja, der Sch/auch. ..
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How was it
for the people in this “funnel”?
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It was about 13 feet wide.
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- Das Isl'...
- As wide as this room.
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[ Repeats Phrase]
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On each side were walls
this high or this high.
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- Walls?
- No, barbed wire.
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Woven into the barbed wire,
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uh, were branches of pine trees.
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- Mm-hmm.
- You understand?
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It was known as “camouflage.”
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There was a “Camouflage Squad” of 20 Jews.
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They brought in new branches every day.
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- From the woods?
- That's right.
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- Uh-huh.
- So everything was screened.
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People couldn't see anything
to the left or right.
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Nothing.
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You couldn't see through it.
- Impossible.
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[ Repeats Phrase]
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Here and here too.
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Here, too.
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- Ja?
- Und hier.
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[ Suchomel]
Impossible to see through.
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THE CAMP TODAY
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[ Lanzmann ]
Treblinka,
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where so many people
were exterminated,
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wasn't big, right?
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[ Suchomel]
It wasn't big.
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1600 feet at the widest point.
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It wasn't a rectangle,
more like a rhomboid.
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You must realize
that here the ground was flat,
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and here it began to rise.
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And at the top of the slope
was the gas chamber.
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You had to climb up to it.
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The “funnel” was called
the “Road to Heaven,” right?
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The Jews called it the “Ascension.”
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Also “The Last Road.”
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I only heard those two names for it.
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[ Lanzmann ]
I need to see it.
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The people go into the “funnel.”
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Then what happens?
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They're totally naked?
- Totally naked.
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Here...
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stood two Ukrainian guards.
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- Yes.
- Mainly for the men.
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If the men wouldn't go in,
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they were beaten with whips.
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Here too. Even here.
- Ah, yes.
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The men were “driven” along.
Not the women.
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- Not the women.
- No, they weren't beaten.
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Why such humanity?
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- I didn't see it.
- Ja.
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I didn't see it.
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Maybe they were beaten too.
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Why not?
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[ Repeats Phrase]
They were about to die anyway. Hmm?
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Why not?
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Hmm?
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At the entrance to the gas chambers,
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undoubtedly.
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ABRAHAM BOMBA
- ISRAEL -
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[ Lanzmann, In English]
Abraham, can you tell me how did it happen?
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How were you chosen?
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[ Bomba ]
There came an order
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from the Germans
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to take out the barbers they could get.
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And they needed them for a certain job.
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What kind ofjob they needed it for,
we didn't know at that time.
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00:18:49,712 --> 00:18:54,218
But, we gathered together
as many barbers as we could.
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00:18:55,968 --> 00:18:58,938
How long did it happen
after your arrival in Treblinka?
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That... I would say that happened to me
about four weeks after I was in Treblinka.
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When was it?
It was in the morning, in the...
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That was in the morning.
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It was around 10:00
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when a transport came to Treblinka,
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and the women went into the gas chambers.
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And they chose some people
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from the working people over there,
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and they asked the question:
Who was a barber, and who was not a barber?
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I was a barber for quite a number of years.
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Some of them, they knew me,
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like people from Czestochowa
and from other places.
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So, naturally, they chose me,
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and I selected some more barbers
which I know of them,
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and we got it together.
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- Professional barbers?
- Professional, yes.
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We got it together,
and we were waiting for the order.
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And the order came to go with them,
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with the Germans.
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They took us into the gas chamber,
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to the second... part
of the camp in Treblinka.
241
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It was far from the first part?
242
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It was not too far,
but it was all covered
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with gates, barbed wires
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and trees covering the gate,
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that nobody should see there is a gate,
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or there is a place
going into the gas chambers.
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Is it what the Germans
called the 'Schlauch”?
248
00:21:11,187 --> 00:21:15,033
No, the Germans,
what they called it, they called...
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Like going to...
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“Road to the Heaven.”
251
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- 'Himmelweg ?”
- "Himmel"... "Himmel way", yeah.
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“The Road to the Heaven.”
253
00:21:28,078 --> 00:21:31,958
And we knew about it
because we worked for quite a time
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00:21:32,041 --> 00:21:35,841
before we went in
to work in the gas chamber.
255
00:21:37,129 --> 00:21:41,384
Going in over there,
they put in some benches
256
00:21:42,426 --> 00:21:45,020
where the women could sit
257
00:21:46,305 --> 00:21:49,229
and not to have the idea
258
00:21:49,475 --> 00:21:53,150
that this is their last way,
259
00:21:53,229 --> 00:21:58,156
or that it is the last time
they're going to live
260
00:21:58,234 --> 00:21:59,827
or they're going to breathe,
261
00:21:59,902 --> 00:22:04,248
or they're going to know
what is going on.
262
00:22:04,907 --> 00:22:10,289
How long did it last that the barbers
cut the hair inside the gas chamber,
263
00:22:10,371 --> 00:22:12,749
because it was not always the case?
264
00:22:13,499 --> 00:22:18,380
We worked inside the gas chamber
for about a week or 10 days.
265
00:22:20,005 --> 00:22:21,757
After that,
266
00:22:22,508 --> 00:22:29,608
they decided that we will cut the hair
in the undressing barrack.
267
00:22:30,641 --> 00:22:34,191
- How did it look, the gas chamber?
- It was a room, not a big room.
268
00:22:34,270 --> 00:22:37,319
The room was, I would say, the size, by feet...
269
00:22:37,398 --> 00:22:38,775
Around...
270
00:22:40,901 --> 00:22:43,074
12 by 12.
271
00:22:43,279 --> 00:22:45,373
But, in that room,
272
00:22:46,949 --> 00:22:49,953
they pushed in a lot of women,
273
00:22:50,911 --> 00:22:53,960
almost one on top of the other one.
274
00:22:54,957 --> 00:22:57,210
But, like I mentioned before,
275
00:22:57,293 --> 00:23:01,423
when we came in, we didn't know
what we're going to do.
276
00:23:01,505 --> 00:23:05,476
And then, one of the kapos,
he came in and he said,
277
00:23:06,010 --> 00:23:08,433
“Barbers, you have to do a job:
278
00:23:08,512 --> 00:23:12,608
to make to believe
all those women that came in
279
00:23:13,183 --> 00:23:17,529
that they are just taking a haircut
280
00:23:17,813 --> 00:23:21,238
and going in to take a shower,
281
00:23:21,317 --> 00:23:25,163
and, from there,
they go out from this place.”
282
00:23:25,779 --> 00:23:30,535
But we knew already that there is
no way going out from this room.
283
00:23:30,910 --> 00:23:36,633
Because this room is the last place
where they went in alive,
284
00:23:36,707 --> 00:23:39,677
and they will never go out alive again.
285
00:23:41,921 --> 00:23:44,845
Can you describe precisely?
286
00:23:44,924 --> 00:23:46,722
Precisely, to describe, is...
287
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,269
When the transport came in...
288
00:23:49,762 --> 00:23:53,608
Waiting there
until the transport came in.
289
00:23:53,682 --> 00:23:56,060
The transport came in.
290
00:23:57,937 --> 00:24:01,692
Women with children.
291
00:24:04,026 --> 00:24:07,997
And pushing into that place.
292
00:24:08,822 --> 00:24:12,292
We, the barbers, started to cut the hair,
293
00:24:12,368 --> 00:24:16,293
and some of them,
I would say all of them,
294
00:24:16,372 --> 00:24:19,842
some of them, they knew already
what's going to happen to them.
295
00:24:21,043 --> 00:24:24,343
We tried to do the best what we could...
296
00:24:24,588 --> 00:24:28,058
- [ Lanzmann ] No, no, no, no. No.
- the most human being what we could.
297
00:24:29,802 --> 00:24:31,645
Excuse me.
How did it happen?
298
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,974
When the women came
into the gas chamber,
299
00:24:35,057 --> 00:24:38,277
were you yourself already in the gas chamber...
300
00:24:38,352 --> 00:24:40,025
- In, in.
- or did you come afterwards?
301
00:24:40,104 --> 00:24:44,200
I said we were already
in the gas chamber,
302
00:24:44,942 --> 00:24:49,539
because we were waiting over there
for the transport to come in.
303
00:24:51,907 --> 00:24:54,001
- You were inside?
- Inside, yes.
304
00:24:54,076 --> 00:24:57,171
Inside the gas chamber.
We were already in.
305
00:24:57,246 --> 00:25:00,250
And suddenly you saw the women coming?
306
00:25:01,250 --> 00:25:02,968
Yes, they came in.
307
00:25:03,043 --> 00:25:04,511
How were they?
308
00:25:04,586 --> 00:25:09,843
They were undressed, all naked,
without clothes, without anything else.
309
00:25:09,925 --> 00:25:13,725
- All of them completely naked?
- Completely naked.
310
00:25:15,097 --> 00:25:17,816
All the women and all the children.
311
00:25:18,267 --> 00:25:20,941
- All the children too?
- The children too.
312
00:25:21,186 --> 00:25:25,441
Because they came
from the undressing barracks.
313
00:25:25,691 --> 00:25:28,365
There was a barracks
before going into the gas chamber
314
00:25:28,444 --> 00:25:30,993
where they had undressed themselves.
315
00:25:31,864 --> 00:25:34,117
What did you feel the first time
316
00:25:34,199 --> 00:25:38,045
that it happened that you saw
all these naked women coming?
317
00:25:38,120 --> 00:25:41,340
Well, I felt that,
318
00:25:41,415 --> 00:25:46,387
accordingly,
I got to do what they told me:
319
00:25:46,628 --> 00:25:48,722
to cut the hair in a way
320
00:25:48,797 --> 00:25:52,392
that it should look like
a barber is doing his job,
321
00:25:52,468 --> 00:25:54,562
like he's doing a job for a woman,
322
00:25:54,636 --> 00:25:56,980
a nice haircut to give them,
323
00:25:57,306 --> 00:26:02,437
but to take off as much hair as we could,
324
00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:06,023
because they needed the women's hair
325
00:26:07,316 --> 00:26:10,160
to be transported to Germany.
326
00:26:10,235 --> 00:26:12,454
This means that you didn't shave them?
327
00:26:13,822 --> 00:26:15,916
No, we did not shave them.
328
00:26:17,117 --> 00:26:19,586
We just cut their hair to make them believe
329
00:26:19,661 --> 00:26:22,505
that they're getting a nice haircut.
330
00:26:22,915 --> 00:26:25,759
- But you cut with what? With scissors?
- With scissors, yes.
331
00:26:25,834 --> 00:26:29,634
With scissors and with a comb,
without any clippers.
332
00:26:30,339 --> 00:26:32,182
Just like a...
333
00:26:32,466 --> 00:26:34,514
a man's haircut, I would say.
334
00:26:35,928 --> 00:26:40,775
Not a... Not a “baldy” one to take out...
to take off all the hair,
335
00:26:40,849 --> 00:26:43,944
but just to have the imagination
336
00:26:44,019 --> 00:26:47,114
that they're getting a nice haircut.
337
00:26:47,189 --> 00:26:50,614
- There were no mirrors, no?
- No, there were no mirrors.
338
00:26:50,692 --> 00:26:53,286
There were just benches, not chairs,
339
00:26:53,362 --> 00:26:58,789
but just benches where we worked,
about 16, 17 barbers,
340
00:26:59,618 --> 00:27:02,872
and we had a lot of women in.
341
00:27:02,955 --> 00:27:06,084
Every haircut, it took about two minutes,
342
00:27:06,166 --> 00:27:07,793
no more than that,
343
00:27:07,876 --> 00:27:12,256
because there was a lot of women to come in
344
00:27:12,339 --> 00:27:14,888
and to get rid of their hair.
345
00:27:15,968 --> 00:27:19,017
Can you imitate now how did you do?
346
00:27:19,471 --> 00:27:21,439
Well, how we did it...
347
00:27:22,099 --> 00:27:24,318
We did it as fast as we could,
348
00:27:24,393 --> 00:27:29,820
because we were quite a number
of professional barbers.
349
00:27:30,691 --> 00:27:35,913
And the way we did it,
we just stopped this and this,
350
00:27:37,906 --> 00:27:39,408
and we cut...
351
00:27:39,491 --> 00:27:42,665
And we just cut this like this,
here and there and there
352
00:27:42,744 --> 00:27:46,669
and this side and this side
and the hair was all finished.
353
00:27:47,958 --> 00:27:50,177
- With big movements?
- With big...
354
00:27:50,252 --> 00:27:56,009
Naturally, with big movements,
because we could not waste any time.
355
00:27:56,925 --> 00:27:59,678
The other party was waiting already outside,
356
00:27:59,761 --> 00:28:05,268
coming in to do the same thing,
the same, uh, job, the same procedure.
357
00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:09,275
- You said that you were 16 barbers, about?
- Yes.
358
00:28:10,355 --> 00:28:15,111
This means you cut the hair
of how many women in one batch?
359
00:28:16,236 --> 00:28:20,036
In one batch,
there was about, I would say,
360
00:28:20,115 --> 00:28:22,038
going into that place,
361
00:28:22,117 --> 00:28:25,371
between 60 and 70 women
362
00:28:25,454 --> 00:28:28,458
in the same room at one time.
363
00:28:29,124 --> 00:28:31,377
Afterwards, the doors
of the gas chamber were closed?
364
00:28:31,460 --> 00:28:37,183
After that, we were finished with this party,
another party came in.
365
00:28:37,257 --> 00:28:40,636
It was around about 140, 150 women.
366
00:28:40,719 --> 00:28:45,065
- You were...
- They all were already taken care of.
367
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:50,237
They told us to leave the gas chamber
368
00:28:50,812 --> 00:28:54,066
for a few minutes, about five minutes,
369
00:28:54,149 --> 00:28:59,076
while they put in the gas
and they choked them to death.
370
00:28:59,154 --> 00:29:03,125
- Where did you wait?
- Outside the gas chamber.
371
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,999
And, on the other side, where...
372
00:29:06,078 --> 00:29:08,331
On this side, the women went in.
373
00:29:08,413 --> 00:29:11,713
On the other side was
a group of working people,
374
00:29:11,792 --> 00:29:13,965
which they took out already the dead bodies.
375
00:29:14,044 --> 00:29:17,014
Some of them, they were not exactly dead.
376
00:29:17,673 --> 00:29:19,675
They took them out,
377
00:29:19,925 --> 00:29:21,973
and, in two minutes...
378
00:29:22,052 --> 00:29:25,682
Not even two minutes.
In one rninute, everything was clear.
379
00:29:26,014 --> 00:29:31,521
And it was clean to take in
the other party of the other women
380
00:29:31,603 --> 00:29:35,699
to go through the same thing
what the first one, they went through.
381
00:29:36,358 --> 00:29:39,532
These women, they had long hair?
382
00:29:39,736 --> 00:29:42,865
Most of them, they had long hair,
they had short hair,
383
00:29:42,948 --> 00:29:46,794
but we had to do the job
to get rid of the hair.
384
00:29:47,119 --> 00:29:51,966
Like I mentioned, the Germans,
they needed the hair for their purposes.
385
00:29:53,041 --> 00:29:55,009
But I asked you, and you didn't answer:
386
00:29:55,085 --> 00:29:57,383
What was your impression
387
00:29:57,462 --> 00:30:03,310
the first time you saw arriving
these naked women with children?
388
00:30:03,385 --> 00:30:05,058
What did you feel?
389
00:30:05,262 --> 00:30:08,482
I tell you something.
To have a feeling over there...
390
00:30:08,557 --> 00:30:11,936
It was very hard to feel anything
or to have a feeling,
391
00:30:12,436 --> 00:30:16,031
because, working there day and night
between dead people,
392
00:30:16,106 --> 00:30:19,781
between bodies, men and women,
393
00:30:19,860 --> 00:30:21,328
your feeling disappeared.
394
00:30:21,403 --> 00:30:25,124
You were dead with your feeling.
You had no feeling at all.
395
00:30:25,574 --> 00:30:28,669
And matter of fact, I want to tell you
something what had happened.
396
00:30:28,744 --> 00:30:30,496
At the gas chamber,
397
00:30:30,746 --> 00:30:34,296
when I was chosen in over there
to work as a barber,
398
00:30:34,374 --> 00:30:37,503
some of the women, they came in
399
00:30:37,586 --> 00:30:41,136
from a transport from my town,
from Czestochowa.
400
00:30:41,757 --> 00:30:44,556
And, from the women,
from the number of women,
401
00:30:44,634 --> 00:30:47,308
I knew a lot of people.
402
00:30:47,387 --> 00:30:49,355
- You knew them?
- I knew them.
403
00:30:49,431 --> 00:30:52,685
I lived with them in my town.
404
00:30:52,768 --> 00:30:55,612
I lived with them in my street.
405
00:30:55,979 --> 00:30:59,609
And I was...
Some of them, they were my close friends.
406
00:30:59,858 --> 00:31:04,159
And when they saw me,
all of them started hugging me.
407
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:06,782
“Abe!” This and that.
408
00:31:06,865 --> 00:31:09,869
“What are you doing here?
What's going to happen with us?”
409
00:31:09,951 --> 00:31:12,625
What could you tell them?
410
00:31:13,205 --> 00:31:15,333
What could you tell?
411
00:31:15,415 --> 00:31:19,545
A friend of mine, he worked as a barber.
412
00:31:19,628 --> 00:31:23,132
He was also a good barber
in my hometown.
413
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:26,639
When his wife and his sister...
414
00:31:30,013 --> 00:31:32,562
came into the gas chamber...
415
00:31:36,144 --> 00:31:37,817
lcannot
416
00:32:41,376 --> 00:32:43,549
[ Lanzmann ]
Go on, Abe. You must go.
417
00:32:50,886 --> 00:32:52,809
You have to.
418
00:32:54,097 --> 00:32:55,724
I can't do it.
419
00:32:56,349 --> 00:32:58,818
It's too horrible.
- Please.
420
00:33:04,483 --> 00:33:07,202
We have to do it.
You know it.
421
00:33:16,244 --> 00:33:18,212
I won't be able to do it.
422
00:33:18,455 --> 00:33:21,755
You have to do it.
I know it's very hard.
423
00:33:22,751 --> 00:33:25,049
I know, and I apologize.
424
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:54,624
Don't keep me long with that, please.
425
00:33:55,075 --> 00:33:57,294
Please. You must go on.
426
00:34:09,130 --> 00:34:11,883
I told you,
today it's going to be very hard.
427
00:34:28,525 --> 00:34:30,619
It was taken in with bags,
428
00:34:31,528 --> 00:34:34,077
and it was transported to Germany.
429
00:34:39,411 --> 00:34:43,006
[ Murmuring In Yiddish]
430
00:34:46,001 --> 00:34:51,349
[Yiddish 1
431
00:35:01,057 --> 00:35:02,730
Okay, go ahead.
432
00:35:05,812 --> 00:35:07,940
Yes, what did he answer...
433
00:35:09,816 --> 00:35:12,569
when his wife and sister came?
434
00:35:15,780 --> 00:35:19,284
They tried to talk to him
435
00:35:19,534 --> 00:35:21,628
and the husband,
436
00:35:23,913 --> 00:35:26,336
also from his sister.
437
00:35:27,542 --> 00:35:29,795
They could not tell them
438
00:35:30,253 --> 00:35:33,632
that is the last time they stay alive,
439
00:35:33,715 --> 00:35:37,936
because behind them was the German Nazis,
440
00:35:38,219 --> 00:35:40,221
the SS men,
441
00:35:40,805 --> 00:35:44,935
and they knew,
the minute they will say a word,
442
00:35:45,018 --> 00:35:50,366
not only the wife and the women,
which they are dead already,
443
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:54,786
but also they will share
the same path with them.
444
00:35:56,571 --> 00:36:00,451
But, in a way, they tried
to do the best for them,
445
00:36:00,533 --> 00:36:07,041
to stay with them a second longer,
a minute longer,
446
00:36:07,123 --> 00:36:10,502
just to hug them and just to kiss them,
447
00:36:10,585 --> 00:36:16,513
because they knew
they will never see them again.
448
00:37:00,635 --> 00:37:03,980
[ Suchomel, In German]
In the “funnel,” the women had to wait.
449
00:37:05,974 --> 00:37:09,444
They heard the motors of the gas chamber.
450
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,860
Maybe they also heard people
screaming and imploring.
451
00:37:27,704 --> 00:37:31,675
As they waited,
“death-panic” ovem/helmed them.
452
00:37:37,839 --> 00:37:42,060
“Death-panic” makes people let go.
453
00:37:43,011 --> 00:37:47,391
They empty themselves,
from the front or the rear.
454
00:37:49,225 --> 00:37:54,197
So often, where the women stood,
455
00:37:54,272 --> 00:38:00,154
there were 5 or 6 rows of excrement.
456
00:38:01,988 --> 00:38:03,035
They stood?
457
00:38:03,114 --> 00:38:07,745
They could squat or do it standing.
458
00:38:07,827 --> 00:38:09,750
I didn't see them do it.
459
00:38:09,829 --> 00:38:13,049
I only saw the feces.
460
00:38:13,124 --> 00:38:14,967
Only women?
461
00:38:15,043 --> 00:38:17,967
- Not the men, only the women.
- [ Repeats Phrase]
462
00:38:18,046 --> 00:38:20,799
The men were chased through the “funnel.”
463
00:38:20,882 --> 00:38:24,432
The women had to wait
464
00:38:27,055 --> 00:38:29,149
until a gas chamber was empty.
465
00:38:29,224 --> 00:38:34,230
- And the men?
- No, they were whipped in first.
466
00:38:34,479 --> 00:38:36,652
- Ah, fa?
- You understand?
467
00:38:36,731 --> 00:38:38,483
The men were always first?
468
00:38:38,566 --> 00:38:41,695
Yes, they always went first.
469
00:38:41,778 --> 00:38:47,456
- They didn't have to wait.
- They weren't given time to wait, no.
470
00:38:48,576 --> 00:38:50,044
Nein?
471
00:38:51,913 --> 00:38:53,665
And this “death-panic”...
472
00:38:53,748 --> 00:38:56,126
When this “death-panic” sets in,
473
00:38:58,086 --> 00:39:00,180
one lets go.
474
00:39:00,255 --> 00:39:06,513
It's well-known when someone's terrified
and knows he's about to die.
475
00:39:06,594 --> 00:39:09,188
It can happen in bed.
476
00:39:09,264 --> 00:39:12,313
My mother was kneeling by her bed.
477
00:39:13,768 --> 00:39:17,147
- Your mother?
- Yes. Then there was a big pile.
478
00:39:17,230 --> 00:39:21,360
- Ja.
- That's a fact.
479
00:39:21,442 --> 00:39:24,036
- It's been medically...
- [ Repeats Phrase]
480
00:39:24,112 --> 00:39:26,035
Proven.
481
00:39:26,114 --> 00:39:29,038
Since you wanted to know:
482
00:39:29,117 --> 00:39:33,213
As soon as they were unloaded,
483
00:39:33,663 --> 00:39:38,214
if they'd been loaded
in Warsaw, or elsewhere,
484
00:39:38,293 --> 00:39:40,466
they'd already been beaten.
485
00:39:41,796 --> 00:39:44,925
Beaten hard, worse than in Treblinka,
486
00:39:45,592 --> 00:39:48,562
I can assure you.
487
00:39:50,221 --> 00:39:52,940
Then during the train journey,
488
00:39:53,016 --> 00:39:55,144
standing in cars,
489
00:39:55,226 --> 00:39:57,194
no toilets,
490
00:39:57,562 --> 00:40:00,862
nothing, hardly any water.
491
00:40:00,940 --> 00:40:02,567
Fear.
492
00:40:02,650 --> 00:40:06,530
Then the doors opened
and it started again,
493
00:40:07,530 --> 00:40:11,160
“Bremze, bremze!”
494
00:40:11,826 --> 00:40:15,501
“Szybciej, szybciej!”
495
00:40:15,580 --> 00:40:20,552
I can't pronounce it:
I have false teeth.
496
00:40:20,627 --> 00:40:21,674
It's Polish.
497
00:40:21,753 --> 00:40:24,506
“Bremze” or “szybciej.”
498
00:40:24,589 --> 00:40:26,307
What does “bremze” mean?
499
00:40:26,382 --> 00:40:30,512
It's a Ukrainian word.
It means “faster.”
500
00:40:30,595 --> 00:40:35,943
Again the chase...
a hail of whiplashes.
501
00:40:36,017 --> 00:40:38,395
The SS man Kuttner's whip was this long.
502
00:40:38,853 --> 00:40:41,732
Women to the left, men to the right.
503
00:40:42,857 --> 00:40:45,736
And always more blows.
504
00:40:46,194 --> 00:40:47,821
No respite?
505
00:40:47,904 --> 00:40:49,451
None.
506
00:40:49,530 --> 00:40:54,286
Go in there, strip. Hurry, hurry!
507
00:40:54,369 --> 00:40:58,090
- Always running.
- Always running.
508
00:40:59,582 --> 00:41:00,879
Running and screaming.
509
00:41:00,959 --> 00:41:04,463
That's how they were finished off.
510
00:41:04,545 --> 00:41:07,640
- That was the technique.
- Yes, the technique.
511
00:41:10,051 --> 00:41:14,852
You must remember: it had to go fast.
512
00:41:16,140 --> 00:41:20,566
And the Blue Squad also had the task
513
00:41:21,896 --> 00:41:25,491
of leading the sick and the aged...
514
00:41:26,150 --> 00:41:28,448
to the “Infirmary,”
515
00:41:30,071 --> 00:41:34,918
so as not to delay the flow
of the people to the gas chambers.
516
00:41:34,993 --> 00:41:39,043
Old people would have slowed it down.
517
00:41:42,125 --> 00:41:45,504
Assignment to the “Infirmary”
518
00:41:46,129 --> 00:41:49,474
was decided by Germans.
519
00:41:51,134 --> 00:41:54,434
The Jews of the Blue Squad...
- Ja.
520
00:41:54,512 --> 00:41:59,018
Only implemented the decision:
521
00:41:59,267 --> 00:42:02,737
leading the people there,
522
00:42:02,812 --> 00:42:07,409
or carrying them on stretchers.
523
00:42:10,028 --> 00:42:13,623
Old women, sick children,
524
00:42:13,698 --> 00:42:16,372
children whose mother was sick,
525
00:42:17,452 --> 00:42:20,001
or whose grandmother was very old,
526
00:42:20,455 --> 00:42:23,800
were sent along with the grandma
527
00:42:23,875 --> 00:42:27,721
because she didn't know
about the “Infirmary.”
528
00:42:28,629 --> 00:42:33,009
l! had a white flag with a red cross.
529
00:42:35,970 --> 00:42:38,223
A passage led to it.
530
00:42:38,931 --> 00:42:42,276
Until they reached the end,
they saw nothing.
531
00:42:44,729 --> 00:42:47,653
Then they'd see the dead in the pit.
532
00:42:51,819 --> 00:42:55,574
They were forced to strip,
533
00:42:57,742 --> 00:43:00,746
to sit on a sandbank,
534
00:43:02,330 --> 00:43:05,425
and were killed with a shot in the neck.
535
00:43:06,042 --> 00:43:09,421
They fell into the pit.
536
00:43:13,841 --> 00:43:17,596
There was always a fire in the pit.
537
00:43:19,013 --> 00:43:24,019
With rubbish, paper and gasoline,
538
00:43:27,438 --> 00:43:30,362
people burn very well.
539
00:43:32,777 --> 00:43:36,372
RICHARD GLAZAR
- SWITZERLAND -
540
00:43:40,660 --> 00:43:43,960
[ In German]
The “infirmary” was a narrow site
541
00:43:44,539 --> 00:43:48,214
very close to the ramp
542
00:43:50,253 --> 00:43:54,633
to which the aged were led.
543
00:43:55,133 --> 00:43:57,807
I had to do this too.
544
00:44:03,391 --> 00:44:08,397
This execution site wasn't covered,
545
00:44:09,063 --> 00:44:12,237
just an open place with a roof,
546
00:44:12,316 --> 00:44:15,490
but screened by a fence,
547
00:44:15,570 --> 00:44:18,119
so no one could see in.
548
00:44:23,077 --> 00:44:28,379
The way in was a narrow passage,
549
00:44:30,418 --> 00:44:36,972
very short,
but somewhat similar to the “funnel.”
550
00:44:37,383 --> 00:44:40,808
Ja. A sort of tiny labyrinth.
551
00:44:43,181 --> 00:44:46,355
In the middle of it, there was a pit.
552
00:44:48,644 --> 00:44:53,115
And to the left as one came in,
553
00:44:53,191 --> 00:44:55,740
there was a little booth,
554
00:44:55,818 --> 00:45:00,870
with a kind of wooden plank in it,
555
00:45:00,948 --> 00:45:03,417
like a springboard.
556
00:45:04,327 --> 00:45:09,424
If people were too weak to stand on it,
557
00:45:09,790 --> 00:45:14,637
they'd have to sit on it,
558
00:45:15,796 --> 00:45:17,423
and then,
559
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:25,019
as the saying went in Treblinka jargon,
560
00:45:25,890 --> 00:45:34,526
SS man Miete would
561
00:45:35,608 --> 00:45:40,364
“cure each one with a single pill”:
562
00:45:42,365 --> 00:45:44,663
a shot in the neck.
563
00:45:49,372 --> 00:45:52,922
In the peak periods,
564
00:45:53,501 --> 00:45:55,128
that happened daily.
565
00:45:55,211 --> 00:46:00,889
In those days, the pit...
566
00:46:01,509 --> 00:46:03,477
and it was at least
567
00:46:05,096 --> 00:46:08,851
10 to 12 feet deep...
568
00:46:08,933 --> 00:46:11,231
was full of corpses.
569
00:46:20,528 --> 00:46:24,704
There were also cases
570
00:46:24,907 --> 00:46:31,210
of children who
for some reason arrived alone
571
00:46:31,289 --> 00:46:35,715
or got separated from their parents.
572
00:46:36,127 --> 00:46:39,677
These children were led to the “infirmary”
573
00:46:40,214 --> 00:46:42,433
and shot there.
574
00:46:51,392 --> 00:46:55,488
The “infirmary” was also for us,
575
00:46:55,563 --> 00:46:58,032
the Treblinka slaves,
576
00:46:59,066 --> 00:47:01,239
the last stop.
577
00:47:02,361 --> 00:47:04,614
Not the gas chamber.
578
00:47:05,990 --> 00:47:10,416
We always ended up in the “infirmary.”
579
00:47:19,128 --> 00:47:23,554
AUSCHWITZ TODAY
THE SORTING STATION
580
00:47:37,438 --> 00:47:39,987
[ Vrba, In English]
There was always an amount of people
581
00:47:40,066 --> 00:47:42,444
who could not get out from the wagons.
582
00:47:43,778 --> 00:47:46,281
There were those who died on the road,
583
00:47:47,948 --> 00:47:51,578
or people who were sick to such a degree
584
00:47:52,119 --> 00:47:56,966
that even a persuasion with violent beating
585
00:47:57,541 --> 00:47:59,919
wouldn't get them moving fast enough.
586
00:48:01,295 --> 00:48:03,639
So those people remained in the wagons.
587
00:48:04,298 --> 00:48:07,302
RUDOLF VRBA
Survivor of Auschwitz
588
00:48:09,553 --> 00:48:12,978
So our first job was to get into the wagons
589
00:48:13,057 --> 00:48:15,936
to get out the dead bodies or the dying
590
00:48:16,477 --> 00:48:22,905
and transport them im Laufischr/tt,
as the Germans like to say.
591
00:48:22,983 --> 00:48:24,701
This means “running.”
- [ Lanzmann ] Laufischritt.
592
00:48:24,777 --> 00:48:27,576
Laufischritt, yeah.
Never, never, never walking, or something.
593
00:48:27,655 --> 00:48:29,248
Everything had to be done im Laufischritt.
594
00:48:29,323 --> 00:48:31,496
- Immer Iaufen?
- Immer Iaufen.
595
00:48:32,159 --> 00:48:33,581
So...
596
00:48:33,661 --> 00:48:37,165
Very sporty.
They are a sporty nation, you see?
597
00:48:37,373 --> 00:48:40,877
And, uh, we had to get out those bodies
598
00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:46,012
and, on the ramp, running,
to get them on a truck,
599
00:48:46,090 --> 00:48:48,092
which was at the head of the ramp.
600
00:48:48,175 --> 00:48:51,850
There were already trucks prepared.
Trucks were ready.
601
00:48:52,513 --> 00:48:57,519
Say, uh, the trucks were five, six
sometimes standing there, sometimes more.
602
00:48:57,601 --> 00:48:59,103
There was no iron rule.
603
00:48:59,186 --> 00:49:02,030
But the first truck
was for the dead and the dying.
604
00:49:07,361 --> 00:49:09,489
There was not much, uh,
605
00:49:09,697 --> 00:49:14,578
medical care taken to establish
who is dead and who feigns to be dead.
606
00:49:14,660 --> 00:49:17,288
I mean, you know, who is only simulating.
607
00:49:17,371 --> 00:49:20,045
So they were put on the truck,
and these trucks went to...
608
00:49:20,124 --> 00:49:24,300
Then, once this was finished,
then this was the first truck which move off,
609
00:49:24,378 --> 00:49:25,925
and it went straight to the crematorium,
610
00:49:26,005 --> 00:49:31,011
which was about two kilometers
to the left from the ramp.
611
00:49:31,093 --> 00:49:32,970
- At the time, it was two kilometers.
- At the time.
612
00:49:33,053 --> 00:49:36,227
- It was before the construction of...
- Before the construction of the new ramp.
613
00:49:37,766 --> 00:49:40,861
THE OLD RAMP
614
00:49:41,103 --> 00:49:43,197
[ Vrba ]
This was the old ramp.
615
00:49:46,066 --> 00:49:47,989
Through that old ramp,
616
00:49:48,527 --> 00:49:52,452
the first one and three-quarters
of a million people went.
617
00:49:53,073 --> 00:49:54,916
Through that old ramp.
618
00:49:55,743 --> 00:49:57,711
I mean the majority.
619
00:50:03,417 --> 00:50:05,545
The new ramp was only built
620
00:50:05,753 --> 00:50:08,006
for the expected murder,
621
00:50:08,088 --> 00:50:10,307
in a very shod time,
622
00:50:10,382 --> 00:50:12,350
of one million Jews from Hungary.
623
00:50:15,638 --> 00:50:20,235
THE NEW RAMP BUILT IN EARLY 1944
624
00:50:23,854 --> 00:50:26,778
The whole murder machinery could work
625
00:50:27,274 --> 00:50:29,197
only on one principle:
626
00:50:29,944 --> 00:50:31,537
that the people came to Auschwitz
627
00:50:31,612 --> 00:50:35,242
and didn't know where they were going
and for what purpose.
628
00:50:37,910 --> 00:50:41,005
The new arrivals were
supposed to be kept without panic
629
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:43,959
and orderly marching into the gas chamber.
630
00:50:47,002 --> 00:50:51,007
Especially, the panic was dangerous
from women with small children.
631
00:50:52,967 --> 00:50:56,972
So, it was important for the Nazis
632
00:50:57,471 --> 00:51:00,725
that none of us give some sort of a message
633
00:51:00,808 --> 00:51:04,153
which could cause a panic
even in the last moment.
634
00:51:05,604 --> 00:51:09,984
And anybody who tried
to get into touch with newcomers
635
00:51:10,359 --> 00:51:13,033
was either clubbed to death
636
00:51:14,113 --> 00:51:16,992
or taken behind the wagon and shot.
637
00:51:20,035 --> 00:51:23,630
Because, if a panic would have broken out,
638
00:51:23,706 --> 00:51:28,678
and a massacre would have taken place
on the spot, on the ramp,
639
00:51:29,128 --> 00:51:32,803
it would already be a hitch
in the machinery.
640
00:51:33,841 --> 00:51:39,189
You can't bring in the next transport
with dead bodies and blood around,
641
00:51:39,763 --> 00:51:42,232
because this will only increase the panic.
642
00:51:43,017 --> 00:51:45,145
The Nazis were concentrated upon one thing:
643
00:51:45,227 --> 00:51:48,197
It should go in an orderly fashion,
644
00:51:48,522 --> 00:51:50,775
so that it goes unimpeded.
645
00:51:50,858 --> 00:51:53,202
One doesn't lose time.
646
00:52:10,753 --> 00:52:12,926
[ Muller, In German]
Before each gassing operation,
647
00:52:13,005 --> 00:52:17,260
the SS took stern precautions.
648
00:52:20,929 --> 00:52:25,105
The crematorium
was surrounded by SS men.
649
00:52:27,770 --> 00:52:32,651
Many SS men patrolled the court
650
00:52:33,817 --> 00:52:38,539
with dogs and machine-guns.
651
00:52:43,744 --> 00:52:49,046
To the right were the steps
652
00:52:50,626 --> 00:52:54,676
that led underground
to the “undressing room.”
653
00:53:11,939 --> 00:53:16,285
In Birkenau, there were 4 crematoria,
654
00:53:20,864 --> 00:53:25,586
Crematorium II, III and IV, V.
655
00:53:29,832 --> 00:53:34,258
Crematorium II was similar to III.
656
00:53:42,052 --> 00:53:44,100
In II and III,
657
00:53:44,304 --> 00:53:49,060
the “undressing room”
and the gas chambers were underground.
658
00:53:53,355 --> 00:53:56,029
A large “undressing room”
659
00:53:57,860 --> 00:54:01,285
of about 3000 square feet
660
00:54:23,260 --> 00:54:25,638
and a large gas chamber...
661
00:54:29,349 --> 00:54:31,602
where one could...
662
00:54:33,687 --> 00:54:40,036
gas up to 3000 people at a time.
663
00:54:51,872 --> 00:54:56,872
Crematorium IV and V
were of a different type
664
00:55:04,551 --> 00:55:08,476
in that they weren't located underground.
665
00:55:09,556 --> 00:55:12,355
Everything was at ground level.
666
00:55:14,102 --> 00:55:17,697
In IV and V,
there were 3 gas chambers
667
00:55:17,773 --> 00:55:19,821
with a total capacity
668
00:55:19,900 --> 00:55:24,622
of at most 1800 to 2000 people at a time.
669
00:55:26,782 --> 00:55:31,162
AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM
MODEL OF CREMATORIUMS ll AND Ill
670
00:55:31,245 --> 00:55:35,625
Elevators hoisted bodies
to the ovens
671
00:55:43,590 --> 00:55:47,970
Crematorium II and III had 15 ovens each.
672
00:55:49,471 --> 00:55:53,021
Crematorium IV and V had 8 ovens each.
673
00:56:06,029 --> 00:56:09,158
As people reached the crematorium,
674
00:56:09,449 --> 00:56:12,077
they saw everything...
675
00:56:12,536 --> 00:56:15,380
this horribly violent scene.
676
00:56:16,999 --> 00:56:21,425
The whole area was ringed with SS men.
677
00:56:22,004 --> 00:56:24,382
Dogs barked.
678
00:56:24,464 --> 00:56:26,842
Machine-guns.
679
00:56:29,845 --> 00:56:35,318
They all, mainly the Polish Jews,
had misgivings.
680
00:56:37,060 --> 00:56:42,738
They knew something was seriously amiss.
681
00:56:46,653 --> 00:56:53,628
But none of them
had the faintest of notions
682
00:56:53,702 --> 00:56:57,707
that in 3 or 4 hours
they'd be reduced to ashes.
683
00:57:04,755 --> 00:57:07,759
When they reached
the “undressing room,”
684
00:57:08,342 --> 00:57:10,436
they saw
685
00:57:11,094 --> 00:57:17,818
that it looked like
an International Information Center!
686
00:57:35,410 --> 00:57:39,790
On the walls were...
687
00:57:42,376 --> 00:57:43,923
hooks,
688
00:57:47,506 --> 00:57:50,350
and each hook had a number.
689
00:57:52,928 --> 00:57:56,228
Beneath the hooks were...
690
00:57:58,183 --> 00:58:00,561
wooden benches.
691
00:58:00,978 --> 00:58:06,701
So people could undress
“more comfortably,” it was said.
692
00:58:09,695 --> 00:58:13,495
And on the numerous pillars
693
00:58:14,950 --> 00:58:19,080
that held up
this underground “undressing room,”
694
00:58:19,997 --> 00:58:22,591
there were signs with slogans
695
00:58:23,625 --> 00:58:26,424
in several languages:
696
00:58:29,548 --> 00:58:31,926
“Clean is good!”
697
00:58:34,428 --> 00:58:36,931
“Lice can kill!”
698
00:58:38,515 --> 00:58:40,768
“Wash yourself!”
699
00:58:42,769 --> 00:58:45,568
“To the disinfection area.”
700
00:58:50,694 --> 00:58:53,618
All those signs
701
00:58:54,364 --> 00:58:57,117
were only there
702
00:58:58,535 --> 00:59:03,541
to lure people into the gas chambers
already undressed.
703
00:59:25,187 --> 00:59:28,532
And to the left,
704
00:59:29,232 --> 00:59:33,988
at a right-angle,
was the gas chamber
705
00:59:38,825 --> 00:59:44,173
with its massive door.
706
01:00:03,725 --> 01:00:08,105
CREMATORIUM Ill:
THE UNDRESSING ROOM
707
01:00:41,429 --> 01:00:45,855
THE GAS CHAMBER
708
01:00:59,156 --> 01:01:06,415
In Crematoria II and III,
Zyklon gas crystals were poured in
709
01:01:07,205 --> 01:01:10,379
by a so-called
“SS disinfection squad,”
710
01:01:11,209 --> 01:01:13,587
through the ceiling,
711
01:01:22,262 --> 01:01:28,235
and in Crematoria IV and V
through side openings.
712
01:01:33,773 --> 01:01:37,778
With 5 or 6 canisters of gas,
713
01:01:39,487 --> 01:01:42,457
they could kill around 2000 people.
714
01:01:51,208 --> 01:01:54,428
This so-catted “disinfection squad”
715
01:01:56,004 --> 01:02:00,305
arrived in a truck
marked with a red cross
716
01:02:02,469 --> 01:02:05,814
and escorted people along
717
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:13,273
to make them believe
they were being led to take a bath.
718
01:02:16,691 --> 01:02:21,037
But the red cross was only a mark
719
01:02:21,488 --> 01:02:26,039
to hide the canisters of Zyklon gas
and the hammers to open them.
720
01:02:32,540 --> 01:02:38,923
The gas took about
10 to 15 minutes to kill.
721
01:02:47,973 --> 01:02:50,522
The most horrible thing was,
722
01:02:52,394 --> 01:02:55,364
once the doors of the gas chambers
were opened...
723
01:02:56,022 --> 01:03:01,199
the unbearable sight.
724
01:03:06,157 --> 01:03:10,537
People were packed together like basalt,
725
01:03:12,289 --> 01:03:14,542
like blocks of stone.
726
01:03:17,919 --> 01:03:22,299
How they tumbled out of the gas chamber!
727
01:03:26,553 --> 01:03:28,976
I saw that several times.
728
01:03:31,349 --> 01:03:35,570
That was the toughest thing to take.
729
01:03:37,147 --> 01:03:40,822
You could never get used to that.
730
01:03:43,445 --> 01:03:45,743
It was impossible.
731
01:03:46,156 --> 01:03:49,581
CREMATORIUM IV
732
01:03:52,579 --> 01:03:54,172
[ Lanzmann ]
Impossible.
733
01:03:55,749 --> 01:03:56,750
Yes.
734
01:03:56,833 --> 01:04:02,840
You see, once the gas was poured in,
it worked like this:
735
01:04:02,922 --> 01:04:06,517
It rose from the ground upwards.
736
01:04:07,093 --> 01:04:11,473
And in the terrible struggle
that followed,
737
01:04:11,973 --> 01:04:17,355
because it was a struggle.
738
01:04:18,438 --> 01:04:22,659
The lights were switched off
in the gas chambers.
739
01:04:23,443 --> 01:04:26,617
It was dark, no one could see.
740
01:04:26,821 --> 01:04:32,499
So the strongest people
tried to climb higher.
741
01:04:32,577 --> 01:04:35,330
Because they probably realized
742
01:04:35,955 --> 01:04:38,879
that the higher they got,
743
01:04:38,958 --> 01:04:41,928
the more air there was.
744
01:04:42,295 --> 01:04:44,923
They could breathe better.
745
01:04:45,173 --> 01:04:46,015
Ja?
746
01:04:46,091 --> 01:04:49,061
That caused the struggle.
747
01:04:49,135 --> 01:04:53,311
Secondly, most people
tried to push their way to the door.
748
01:04:53,932 --> 01:04:55,650
It was psychological:
749
01:04:55,725 --> 01:04:57,727
They knew where the door was,
750
01:04:57,811 --> 01:05:00,530
so maybe they could force their way.
751
01:05:00,605 --> 01:05:02,482
It was instinctive,
752
01:05:02,816 --> 01:05:08,664
a death struggle.
753
01:05:08,738 --> 01:05:11,833
Which is why children...
754
01:05:11,908 --> 01:05:14,582
and weaker people,
and the aged,
755
01:05:14,661 --> 01:05:16,504
always wound up at the bottom.
756
01:05:16,579 --> 01:05:19,674
The strongest were on top.
757
01:05:20,792 --> 01:05:26,925
Because in the death struggle...
758
01:05:28,591 --> 01:05:33,893
a father didn't realize his son lay...
759
01:05:35,348 --> 01:05:36,850
beneath him.
760
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:40,353
And when the doors were opened?
761
01:05:40,437 --> 01:05:42,485
They fell out.
762
01:05:42,564 --> 01:05:46,194
People fell out like blocks of stone,
763
01:05:46,276 --> 01:05:50,156
like rocks falling out of a truck.
764
01:05:50,864 --> 01:05:54,710
But near the Zyklon gas, there was a void.
765
01:05:54,784 --> 01:05:59,085
There was no one
where the gas crystals went in.
766
01:05:59,164 --> 01:06:01,633
An empty space.
767
01:06:01,708 --> 01:06:07,090
Probably the victims realized that
768
01:06:08,548 --> 01:06:12,769
the gas worked strongest there.
769
01:06:17,974 --> 01:06:19,647
- And the people were...?
- Ja.
770
01:06:19,726 --> 01:06:23,572
The people were battered.
771
01:06:24,731 --> 01:06:32,240
They struggled and fought
in the darkness.
772
01:06:34,199 --> 01:06:37,419
They were covered in excrement,
773
01:06:39,579 --> 01:06:41,081
in blood,
774
01:06:43,041 --> 01:06:45,419
from ears and noses.
775
01:06:49,422 --> 01:06:52,847
One also sometimes saw
776
01:06:52,926 --> 01:06:56,556
that the people lying on the ground,
777
01:06:56,638 --> 01:07:01,644
because of the pressure of the others,
778
01:07:01,726 --> 01:07:07,233
were unrecognizable.
779
01:07:07,315 --> 01:07:11,786
Children had their skulls crushed.
780
01:07:14,072 --> 01:07:15,824
- Yes.
- What?
781
01:07:17,033 --> 01:07:18,535
It was awful.
782
01:07:18,618 --> 01:07:23,670
Vomit.
783
01:07:25,625 --> 01:07:29,801
Blood from the ears and noses.
784
01:07:29,879 --> 01:07:34,259
Probably even menstrual fluid...
sure of it.
785
01:07:34,801 --> 01:07:38,055
There was everything
in that struggle for life,
786
01:07:38,137 --> 01:07:40,139
that death struggle.
787
01:07:41,099 --> 01:07:45,195
It was terrible to see.
That was the toughest part.
788
01:07:46,896 --> 01:07:50,150
FILIP MULLER, Czech Jew
789
01:07:50,233 --> 01:07:56,787
survivor of the 5 liquidations
of the Auschwitz “special detail”
790
01:08:25,852 --> 01:08:29,197
It was pointless
791
01:08:29,856 --> 01:08:33,201
to tell the truth to anyone
792
01:08:34,319 --> 01:08:39,200
who crossed the threshold
of the crematorium.
793
01:08:43,328 --> 01:08:46,707
You couldn't save anyone there.
794
01:08:48,791 --> 01:08:52,591
It was impossible to save people.
795
01:09:03,014 --> 01:09:05,142
One day, in 1943,
796
01:09:05,224 --> 01:09:09,604
when I was already in Crematorium V,
797
01:09:11,981 --> 01:09:15,076
a train from Bialystok arrived.
798
01:09:18,237 --> 01:09:21,537
A prisoner on the “special detail”
799
01:09:21,908 --> 01:09:26,755
saw a woman in the “undressing room,”
800
01:09:28,581 --> 01:09:31,425
who was the wife of a friend of his.
801
01:09:35,588 --> 01:09:38,592
He came right out and told her,
802
01:09:39,592 --> 01:09:41,765
“You are going to be exterminated.
803
01:09:43,096 --> 01:09:46,100
In 3 hours, you'll be ashes.”
804
01:09:54,607 --> 01:09:58,953
The woman believed him
because she knew him.
805
01:10:05,785 --> 01:10:08,709
She ran all over
806
01:10:08,788 --> 01:10:11,632
and warned the other women.
807
01:10:13,584 --> 01:10:16,087
“We're going to be killed.
808
01:10:16,754 --> 01:10:19,132
We're going to be gassed.”
809
01:10:22,135 --> 01:10:27,187
Mothers carrying their children
on their shoulders
810
01:10:27,265 --> 01:10:29,484
didn't want to hear that.
811
01:10:30,393 --> 01:10:33,146
They decided the woman was crazy.
812
01:10:35,565 --> 01:10:38,034
They chased her away.
813
01:10:42,155 --> 01:10:44,829
So she went to the men.
814
01:10:46,492 --> 01:10:48,836
To no avail.
815
01:10:50,329 --> 01:10:52,377
Not that they didn't believe her.
816
01:10:52,457 --> 01:10:55,927
They'd heard rumors
in the Bialystok ghetto,
817
01:10:56,002 --> 01:10:57,800
or in Grodno, and elsewhere.
818
01:10:58,755 --> 01:11:01,850
But who wanted to hear that!
819
01:11:08,347 --> 01:11:12,193
When she saw that no one would listen,
820
01:11:12,852 --> 01:11:16,356
she scratched her whole face.
821
01:11:17,607 --> 01:11:20,281
Out of despair. In shock.
822
01:11:20,526 --> 01:11:23,700
And she started to scream.
823
01:11:28,034 --> 01:11:29,877
[ Muller Continues ]
So what happened?
824
01:11:30,411 --> 01:11:34,291
Everyone was gassed.
The woman was held back.
825
01:11:36,834 --> 01:11:41,214
We had to line up in front of the oven.
826
01:11:43,132 --> 01:11:47,137
First they tortured her horribly,
827
01:11:47,220 --> 01:11:49,564
because she wouldn't betray him.
828
01:11:52,350 --> 01:11:56,571
In the end, she pointed to him.
829
01:11:59,732 --> 01:12:05,080
He was taken out of the line
and thrown alive into the oven.
830
01:12:06,405 --> 01:12:10,751
We were told,
“Whoever says anything will end like that!”
831
01:12:16,582 --> 01:12:21,088
We, in the “special detail,”
kept trying to figure out
832
01:12:21,671 --> 01:12:24,891
if there was a way
833
01:12:25,299 --> 01:12:29,475
we could tell people
834
01:12:30,596 --> 01:12:33,850
to inform them.
835
01:12:35,101 --> 01:12:39,026
But our experience,
836
01:12:39,105 --> 01:12:43,611
in several instances
where we were able to tell people,
837
01:12:44,443 --> 01:12:47,287
showed that it was of no use.
838
01:12:47,363 --> 01:12:52,039
That it made their last moments
even harder to bear.
839
01:12:52,118 --> 01:12:56,624
At most, we thought it might help...
840
01:12:56,706 --> 01:13:00,586
Jews from Poland,
841
01:13:00,668 --> 01:13:05,139
or Jews from Theresienstadt
(the Czech family camp),
842
01:13:05,214 --> 01:13:09,560
who'd already spent 6 months in Birkenau,
843
01:13:09,635 --> 01:13:13,390
we thought it might have been
of use in such cases
844
01:13:13,472 --> 01:13:15,474
to tell people.
845
01:13:15,892 --> 01:13:19,897
But imagine what it was like
in other cases:
846
01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:25,076
Jews from Greece,
from Hungary, from Corfu
847
01:13:25,151 --> 01:13:29,247
who'd been traveling for 10 or 12 days,
848
01:13:29,322 --> 01:13:30,915
starving,
849
01:13:31,824 --> 01:13:36,125
without water for days, dying of thirst,
850
01:13:36,203 --> 01:13:39,082
they were half-crazed when they arrived.
851
01:13:39,415 --> 01:13:41,759
They were dealt with differently.
852
01:13:41,834 --> 01:13:44,383
They were only told,
853
01:13:44,462 --> 01:13:50,014
“Get undressed,
you'll soon get a mug of tea.”
854
01:13:51,677 --> 01:13:54,806
These people were in such a state
855
01:13:54,889 --> 01:14:00,362
because they'd been traveling so long,
856
01:14:00,436 --> 01:14:04,566
that their only thought
857
01:14:05,107 --> 01:14:08,611
was to quench their thirst.
858
01:14:08,694 --> 01:14:11,994
And the SS executioners
knew that very well.
859
01:14:12,073 --> 01:14:16,328
It was all preprogrammed,
860
01:14:19,038 --> 01:14:23,134
a calculated part
of the extermination process
861
01:14:23,209 --> 01:14:26,088
that if people were so weak
862
01:14:26,170 --> 01:14:28,673
and weren't given something to drink,
863
01:14:28,756 --> 01:14:32,226
they'd rush into the gas chamber.
864
01:14:32,301 --> 01:14:35,601
But in fact,
865
01:14:35,680 --> 01:14:41,938
all these people were already
being exterminated
866
01:14:42,019 --> 01:14:43,737
before reaching the gas chambers.
867
01:14:43,813 --> 01:14:46,066
Think of the children.
868
01:14:46,399 --> 01:14:49,653
They begged their mothers, screaming,
869
01:14:49,735 --> 01:14:52,705
“Mother, please, water, water!”
870
01:14:53,656 --> 01:14:58,287
The adults, too,
who'd spent days without water,
871
01:14:58,369 --> 01:15:01,122
had the same obsession.
872
01:15:01,205 --> 01:15:04,880
Informing those people
was quite pointless.
873
01:15:14,260 --> 01:15:18,356
CORFU
874
01:15:29,358 --> 01:15:32,202
[ Bells Jingling ]
875
01:16:07,730 --> 01:16:10,199
[ Metal Banging, Distant]
876
01:16:11,776 --> 01:16:14,450
[ Banging Grows Louder]
877
01:16:36,926 --> 01:16:39,179
[ Banging Continues]
878
01:16:53,859 --> 01:16:56,453
[ Banging Continues, Distant]
879
01:17:27,393 --> 01:17:29,737
[ People Chattering In Greek]
880
01:17:33,649 --> 01:17:35,697
[ Metal Banging ]
881
01:17:47,496 --> 01:17:50,375
- [Greek] Grab it from there.
- [ Greek] Yes, grab it from there.
882
01:17:50,457 --> 01:17:52,050
- Put it right there.
- Okay.
883
01:17:52,126 --> 01:17:53,878
- Right there.
- Okay, yes.
884
01:17:53,961 --> 01:17:56,089
Okay, be careful. Wait.
885
01:17:56,505 --> 01:17:59,224
You'll come and pick it up later?
- Yes.
886
01:17:59,300 --> 01:18:01,302
- Put it down.
- In a second.
887
01:18:01,385 --> 01:18:03,808
Hold on a second.
888
01:18:03,888 --> 01:18:05,686
Just hold on a second.
889
01:18:06,265 --> 01:18:08,609
Maybe if you removed this?
890
01:18:08,684 --> 01:18:11,528
Got it? That's how you'll load it.
891
01:18:11,604 --> 01:18:13,857
Come and pick it up next week.
892
01:18:13,939 --> 01:18:16,442
Understood?
Now move the cart away from here.
893
01:18:16,525 --> 01:18:18,243
Move the cart.
894
01:18:18,319 --> 01:18:20,947
Yes, let's make some space.
895
01:18:21,280 --> 01:18:23,203
[ Man ]
So you're an actor now.
896
01:18:26,285 --> 01:18:27,286
Let's finish this.
897
01:18:57,733 --> 01:19:01,783
MOSHE MORDO
898
01:19:22,216 --> 01:19:24,514
[ Man, In Italian]
These are my nephews.
899
01:19:24,593 --> 01:19:27,642
They burned them in Birkenau.
900
01:19:30,849 --> 01:19:33,773
Two of my brothefs kids.
901
01:19:33,852 --> 01:19:37,356
They took them
to the crematorium with their mom.
902
01:19:37,982 --> 01:19:40,531
They were all burned in Birkenau.
903
01:19:51,704 --> 01:19:55,299
My brother.
- [ Lanzmann] Si?
904
01:19:55,374 --> 01:19:58,298
He was sick,
905
01:19:58,377 --> 01:20:03,508
and they put him in the oven,
in the crematorium, and burned him.
906
01:20:05,050 --> 01:20:07,473
That was at Birkenau.
907
01:20:11,932 --> 01:20:15,527
[ Mordo, In Italian]
The oldest boy was 17,
908
01:20:16,437 --> 01:20:18,860
the second was 15.
909
01:20:20,274 --> 01:20:23,699
Two more kids “kaput” with their morn.
910
01:20:26,697 --> 01:20:29,416
Yes, 4 children I lost.
911
01:20:31,410 --> 01:20:34,289
- [ Woman ] Suo flare/lo?
- No.
912
01:20:34,371 --> 01:20:38,968
[Women Chattering In Greek]
913
01:20:39,043 --> 01:20:40,545
[ Lanzmann, In Italian ]
Your father too?
914
01:20:40,627 --> 01:20:44,598
- [Woman Repeats Phrase]
- My dad, him too.
915
01:20:45,132 --> 01:20:46,805
How old was your father?
916
01:20:46,884 --> 01:20:53,017
Dad was 85 years old.
917
01:20:53,515 --> 01:20:56,485
- 85 years old and he died in Auschwitz.
- Si.
918
01:20:56,560 --> 01:20:59,029
Auschwitz, that's right.
919
01:20:59,104 --> 01:21:00,572
[Woman Murmuring In Italian]
920
01:21:00,647 --> 01:21:04,777
85 and he died at Birkenau.
921
01:21:05,986 --> 01:21:07,613
My father.
922
01:21:07,988 --> 01:21:10,366
- Your father made the whole trip.
- Si.
923
01:21:19,249 --> 01:21:21,217
[ Mordo]
The whole family died.
924
01:21:21,293 --> 01:21:24,638
First the gas chamber,
then the crematorium.
925
01:21:30,636 --> 01:21:33,560
♪♪ [ Man Singing In Hebrew]
926
01:21:49,696 --> 01:21:52,415
♪♪ [ Mordo Singing In Hebrew]
927
01:22:05,337 --> 01:22:08,887
♪♪ [ Continues ]
928
01:22:24,940 --> 01:22:27,068
♪♪ [ Continues ]
929
01:23:11,737 --> 01:23:15,241
♪♪ [ Ends ]
930
01:23:36,595 --> 01:23:40,600
[ In French]
On Friday morning, June 9, 1944,
931
01:23:40,682 --> 01:23:46,234
members of the Corfu Jewish
community came, very frightened,
932
01:23:46,313 --> 01:23:49,032
and reported to the Germans.
933
01:23:49,107 --> 01:23:54,204
This square was full
of Gestapo men and police,
934
01:23:54,780 --> 01:23:56,373
and we went forward.
935
01:23:56,448 --> 01:24:00,794
There were even traitors,
the Recanati brothers, Athens Jews.
936
01:24:00,869 --> 01:24:07,127
After the war they were sentenced
to life imprisonment.
937
01:24:07,209 --> 01:24:10,304
But they're already free.
938
01:24:14,716 --> 01:24:18,391
We were ordered to go forward.
939
01:24:18,470 --> 01:24:21,895
- [ Lanzmann, In French] By the street?
- Yes, by this street.
940
01:24:21,974 --> 01:24:26,730
- How many of you were there?
- Exactly 1,650.
941
01:24:26,812 --> 01:24:29,986
[Speaking Greek]
942
01:24:31,149 --> 01:24:34,073
- Quite a crowd?
- A lot of people.
943
01:24:34,152 --> 01:24:37,122
Christians stopped there.
944
01:24:37,739 --> 01:24:39,491
Christians, that's right.
And they saw.
945
01:24:39,575 --> 01:24:41,543
- Where were the Christians?
- La'.
946
01:24:42,160 --> 01:24:43,161
[ Greek ]
947
01:24:43,245 --> 01:24:45,589
- At the street corner?
- Yes.
948
01:24:46,123 --> 01:24:47,625
And on the balconies.
949
01:24:48,875 --> 01:24:51,378
After we gathered here,
950
01:24:51,461 --> 01:24:55,432
Gestapo men with machine-guns
came up behind us.
951
01:24:56,675 --> 01:24:58,302
What time was it?
952
01:24:59,011 --> 01:25:01,389
- It was 6 A.M.
- [ In French] In the morning.
953
01:25:01,471 --> 01:25:03,815
- A fine day?
- Yes, the day was fine.
954
01:25:05,809 --> 01:25:07,356
6 o'clock in the morning.
955
01:25:08,020 --> 01:25:10,239
1 ,600.
That's a lot of people in the street.
956
01:25:10,314 --> 01:25:12,157
People gathered.
957
01:25:12,232 --> 01:25:16,954
The Christians heard the Jews
were being rounded up.
958
01:25:17,029 --> 01:25:20,374
- Why'd they come?
- To see the show.
959
01:25:25,370 --> 01:25:28,715
Let's hope it never happens again.
960
01:25:29,833 --> 01:25:32,427
- Were you scared?
- Very scared.
961
01:25:32,502 --> 01:25:35,551
There were young people,
962
01:25:35,631 --> 01:25:38,555
sick people, little children,
963
01:25:38,634 --> 01:25:41,808
the old, the crazy, and so on.
964
01:25:46,892 --> 01:25:50,692
When we saw
they'd even brought the insane,
965
01:25:50,771 --> 01:25:54,401
even the sick from the hospital,
966
01:25:54,483 --> 01:25:57,828
we were frightened
967
01:25:57,903 --> 01:26:00,998
for the survival
of the whole community.
968
01:26:03,784 --> 01:26:05,331
What were you told?
969
01:26:05,410 --> 01:26:08,505
That we were
to appear here at the fort
970
01:26:08,580 --> 01:26:11,424
to be taken to work in Germany.
971
01:26:12,793 --> 01:26:15,592
- [Greek] Poland.
- [ French] Poland, that's right.
972
01:26:16,630 --> 01:26:22,683
The Germans had put up
a proclamation on all the walls in Corfu.
973
01:26:23,470 --> 01:26:26,815
It said all Jews had to report.
974
01:26:26,890 --> 01:26:29,018
And once we were all rounded up,
975
01:26:29,101 --> 01:26:33,948
life would be better
without us in Greece.
976
01:26:34,022 --> 01:26:39,119
It was signed by the police chiefs,
by officials and by the mayors.
977
01:26:39,194 --> 01:26:42,073
- That it's better without Jews?
- Yes.
978
01:26:42,614 --> 01:26:45,288
We found out after we came back.
979
01:26:47,619 --> 01:26:50,498
Was Corfu anti-Semitic?
980
01:26:54,918 --> 01:26:57,967
Corfu's always had anti-Semitism?
981
01:26:58,213 --> 01:26:59,760
It existed, sure,
982
01:26:59,840 --> 01:27:04,937
but it wasn't so strong
in the years just before that.
983
01:27:05,011 --> 01:27:06,263
Why not?
984
01:27:06,346 --> 01:27:11,147
Because they didn't
think like that against the Jews.
985
01:27:11,393 --> 01:27:15,114
ARMANDO AARON
President of the Corfu Jewish community
986
01:27:15,313 --> 01:27:19,409
- And now?
- Now we're free.
987
01:27:21,111 --> 01:27:24,991
- How do you get on with the Christians now?
- Very well.
988
01:27:29,327 --> 01:27:31,204
- [ Man Speaking Greek]
-Hmm?
989
01:27:31,288 --> 01:27:33,211
[ Greek ]
990
01:27:33,290 --> 01:27:34,416
Trés bonnes.
991
01:27:34,499 --> 01:27:37,343
- What'd he say?
- He asked me what you said.
992
01:27:37,419 --> 01:27:40,969
He agrees our relations
with the Christians are very good.
993
01:27:41,047 --> 01:27:42,890
[ Man
994
01:27:55,395 --> 01:27:59,821
- Did all the Jews live in the ghetto?
- Most of them.
995
01:28:05,572 --> 01:28:07,916
What happened after the Jews left?
996
01:28:07,991 --> 01:28:12,246
They took all our possessions,
all the gold we had with us.
997
01:28:12,329 --> 01:28:16,334
They took the keys to our houses
and stole everything.
998
01:28:20,086 --> 01:28:22,760
To whom was all this given?
Who stole it all?
999
01:28:22,839 --> 01:28:27,094
By law, it was to go
to the Greek government.
1000
01:28:27,177 --> 01:28:32,104
But the state got only a small part of it.
1001
01:28:32,182 --> 01:28:35,026
The rest was stolen, usurped.
1002
01:28:35,227 --> 01:28:38,697
- By whom?
- By everybody, and by the Germans.
1003
01:28:43,485 --> 01:28:46,659
[ Lanzmann ]
Of the 1,700 people deported...
1004
01:28:46,738 --> 01:28:50,083
[Aaron ]
Around 122 were saved.
1005
01:28:50,742 --> 01:28:53,586
95% of them died.
1006
01:28:56,540 --> 01:28:59,043
Was it a long trip
from Corfu to Auschwitz?
1007
01:28:59,125 --> 01:29:01,674
We were arrested here on June 9,
1008
01:29:01,753 --> 01:29:05,508
and finally arrived June 29.
1009
01:29:05,590 --> 01:29:09,436
Most were burned on the night of the 29th.
1010
01:29:09,928 --> 01:29:12,226
It lasted from June 9 to 29?
1011
01:29:12,305 --> 01:29:16,310
[ Greek ]
1012
01:29:16,393 --> 01:29:19,192
[ In French]
We stayed here for around 5 days.
1013
01:29:21,982 --> 01:29:23,655
Here in the fort.
1014
01:29:26,653 --> 01:29:31,159
No one dared escape
and leave his father, mother, brothers.
1015
01:29:31,241 --> 01:29:36,919
Our solidarity was
on religious and family grounds.
1016
01:29:39,541 --> 01:29:42,465
The first group left on June 11.
1017
01:29:42,544 --> 01:29:44,046
[ Boat Motor Humming ]
1018
01:29:44,129 --> 01:29:48,475
I went with the 2nd convoy, on June 15.
1019
01:29:56,349 --> 01:29:58,443
What kind of a boat were you on?
1020
01:29:58,977 --> 01:30:05,360
A zattera.
That's a boat made of barrels and planks.
1021
01:30:05,442 --> 01:30:09,163
It was towed by a small boat
with Germans in it.
1022
01:30:11,114 --> 01:30:14,618
On our boat there were 1, 2 or 3 guards,
1023
01:30:14,701 --> 01:30:18,126
not many Germans, but we were terrified.
1024
01:30:18,204 --> 01:30:21,959
You can understand,
terror is the best of guards.
1025
01:30:44,564 --> 01:30:47,864
- What was the journey like?
- Terrible! Terrible!
1026
01:30:50,070 --> 01:30:52,698
- No water, nothing to eat.
- [ Men Chattering In Greek]
1027
01:30:52,781 --> 01:30:58,538
90 cars that were good
for only 20 animals,
1028
01:30:59,037 --> 01:31:00,789
all of us standing up.
1029
01:31:03,541 --> 01:31:05,714
A lot of us died.
1030
01:31:06,670 --> 01:31:10,174
Later they put the dead
in another car in quicklime.
1031
01:31:10,256 --> 01:31:15,478
- [ Men Chattering In Greek]
- They burned them in Auschwitz, too.
1032
01:31:16,346 --> 01:31:19,725
[Whistle Blows]
1033
01:31:24,562 --> 01:31:29,489
Next figure: WALTER STIER
Ex-member of the Nazi party
1034
01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:34,581
Former head, Reich Railways, Bureau 33
(“Railroads of the Reich”)
1035
01:31:35,949 --> 01:31:38,327
[ Lanzmann, In German]
You never saw a train?
1036
01:31:38,702 --> 01:31:40,500
[ Stier, In German]
No, never.
1037
01:31:41,705 --> 01:31:44,709
We had so much work,
I never left my desk.
1038
01:31:45,709 --> 01:31:48,053
We worked day and night.
1039
01:31:54,426 --> 01:31:56,019
[ Lanzmann ]
“G.E.D.O.B.”
1040
01:31:56,678 --> 01:32:01,980
“GEDOB” means “Head office of Eastbound Traffic.”
- [ Stier Repeats Phrase, Agrees ]
1041
01:32:05,270 --> 01:32:09,776
In January 1940,
I was assigned to GEDOB Krakow.
1042
01:32:12,235 --> 01:32:16,706
In mid-1943, I was moved to Warsaw.
1043
01:32:17,907 --> 01:32:23,505
I was made chief traffic planner.
1044
01:32:23,747 --> 01:32:26,466
Chief of the traffic planning office.
1045
01:32:28,626 --> 01:32:35,009
But your duties were the same
before and after 1943?
1046
01:32:35,842 --> 01:32:40,973
The only change:
I was promoted to head of the department.
1047
01:32:44,184 --> 01:32:50,442
What were your specific duties
at GEDOB in Poland during the war?
1048
01:32:51,483 --> 01:32:57,286
The work was barely different
from the work in Germany:
1049
01:32:59,657 --> 01:33:01,500
preparing timetables,
1050
01:33:01,576 --> 01:33:07,674
coordinating the movement
of special trains with regular trains.
1051
01:33:09,459 --> 01:33:12,383
- There were several departments?
- Yes.
1052
01:33:13,338 --> 01:33:17,889
Department 33 was in charge
of special trains
1053
01:33:17,967 --> 01:33:20,641
and regular trains.
1054
01:33:22,138 --> 01:33:25,017
The special trains
were handled by Department 33.
1055
01:33:25,934 --> 01:33:29,529
You were always
in the Department of Special Trains?
1056
01:33:29,604 --> 01:33:31,151
Yes.
1057
01:33:32,107 --> 01:33:36,533
What's the difierence between
a special and a regular train ?
1058
01:33:38,238 --> 01:33:40,661
A regular train may be used
1059
01:33:40,740 --> 01:33:45,166
by anyone
who purchases a ticket.
1060
01:33:48,081 --> 01:33:50,880
Say from Krakow to Warsaw.
1061
01:33:50,959 --> 01:33:53,553
Or from Krakow to Lemberg.
1062
01:33:55,213 --> 01:34:00,811
A special train has to be ordered.
1063
01:34:04,097 --> 01:34:07,977
The train is specially put together
1064
01:34:08,059 --> 01:34:11,233
and people PaY---
1065
01:34:12,188 --> 01:34:15,192
group fares.
- [ Lanzmann Repeats Phrase]
1066
01:34:15,275 --> 01:34:17,653
Are there still special trains now?
1067
01:34:17,735 --> 01:34:19,533
- Of course.
- Ja?
1068
01:34:19,612 --> 01:34:22,331
Just as there were then.
1069
01:34:22,949 --> 01:34:26,829
For group vacations
you can organize a special train?
1070
01:34:26,911 --> 01:34:29,710
Yes, for instance,
1071
01:34:29,789 --> 01:34:34,260
for immigrant workers
returning home for the holidays...
1072
01:34:34,335 --> 01:34:35,382
[ Clears Throat]
1073
01:34:35,461 --> 01:34:40,558
Special trains are scheduled.
1074
01:34:40,633 --> 01:34:44,809
Or else one couldn't handle the traffic.
- Ja.
1075
01:34:47,015 --> 01:34:52,988
You said after the war you handled
trains for visiting dignitaries.
1076
01:34:53,062 --> 01:34:56,657
- After the war, yes.
- [ Repeats Phrase]
1077
01:34:56,733 --> 01:35:00,613
If a king visits Germany by train...
- Ja.
1078
01:35:00,695 --> 01:35:02,538
That's a special train?
1079
01:35:02,614 --> 01:35:05,242
- That's a special train. Mm-hmm.
- Ja.
1080
01:35:05,325 --> 01:35:10,456
But the procedure isn't the same
1081
01:35:10,538 --> 01:35:18,013
as for special trains
for group tours, and so on.
1082
01:35:18,087 --> 01:35:25,517
State visits are handled by the Foreign Service.
- Right.
1083
01:35:26,387 --> 01:35:29,311
May I ask you another question?
1084
01:35:30,308 --> 01:35:35,815
- Hmm?
- Why were there more special trains
1085
01:35:35,897 --> 01:35:38,366
during the war, than before or after?
- Ja.
1086
01:35:38,441 --> 01:35:41,661
I see what you're getting at.
1087
01:35:41,736 --> 01:35:48,620
You're referring to
the so-called “Resettlement trains.”
1088
01:35:49,118 --> 01:35:53,669
- “Resettlement.” That's it.
- That's what they were called.
1089
01:35:53,748 --> 01:35:57,127
Those trains were ordered
1090
01:35:59,087 --> 01:36:08,349
by the Ministry of Transport of the Reich.
1091
01:36:09,389 --> 01:36:14,987
You needed an order from the Ministry
of Transport of the Reich...
1092
01:36:15,395 --> 01:36:17,989
[ Both Repeat Phrase]
1093
01:36:18,064 --> 01:36:22,035
- In Berlin?
- Correct.
1094
01:36:22,860 --> 01:36:27,491
As for the implementation of those orders,
1095
01:36:27,573 --> 01:36:32,955
the Head Office of Eastbound Traffic
in Berlin dealt with it.
1096
01:36:33,037 --> 01:36:34,880
[ Lanzmann ]
Yes, Iunderstand.
1097
01:36:34,956 --> 01:36:37,550
- [ Stier ] Is that clear?
- Perfectly.
1098
01:36:37,875 --> 01:36:43,723
But mostly, at that time,
who was being “resettled”?
1099
01:36:44,173 --> 01:36:46,517
No! We didn't know that.
1100
01:36:47,093 --> 01:36:50,438
Only when we were fleeing
from Warsaw ourselves,
1101
01:36:50,513 --> 01:36:54,108
did we learn
that they could have been Jews
1102
01:36:54,183 --> 01:36:57,687
or criminals, or similar people.
1103
01:36:57,770 --> 01:37:01,445
- Jews, criminals?
- Criminals. All kinds.
1104
01:37:01,524 --> 01:37:03,902
Special trains for criminals?
1105
01:37:03,985 --> 01:37:09,492
No, that was just an expression.
1106
01:37:09,574 --> 01:37:11,793
You couldn't talk about that.
1107
01:37:11,868 --> 01:37:15,338
Unless you were tired of life,
1108
01:37:15,413 --> 01:37:18,383
it was best not to mention that.
1109
01:37:18,583 --> 01:37:26,058
[ Lanzmann ] But you knew that
the trains to Treblinka or Auschwitz were...
1110
01:37:26,132 --> 01:37:28,510
Of course we knew.
1111
01:37:28,593 --> 01:37:30,846
I was the last district:
- [ Lanzmann Continues Speaking German]
1112
01:37:30,928 --> 01:37:34,182
Without me, these trains
couldn't reach their destination.
1113
01:37:34,265 --> 01:37:35,266
- Ja. Ja.
- Um...
1114
01:37:35,350 --> 01:37:37,569
For instance,
a train that started in Essen
1115
01:37:37,643 --> 01:37:42,240
had to go through
the district of Wuppertal,
1116
01:37:42,315 --> 01:37:47,116
Hannover, Magdeburg, Berlin,
1117
01:37:47,403 --> 01:37:53,035
Frankfurt/Oder, Posen, Warsaw, etc.
1118
01:37:53,117 --> 01:37:54,664
So I had to.
1119
01:37:54,744 --> 01:37:59,625
Did you know that Treblinka
meant extermination?
1120
01:37:59,707 --> 01:38:01,129
Of course not!
1121
01:38:01,209 --> 01:38:03,132
You didn't know?
1122
01:38:03,211 --> 01:38:05,384
Good God, no!
How could we know?
1123
01:38:05,463 --> 01:38:08,091
I never went to Treblinka.
1124
01:38:08,174 --> 01:38:14,978
I stayed in Krakow, in Warsaw,
glued to my desk.
1125
01:38:15,306 --> 01:38:16,808
You were a...
1126
01:38:16,891 --> 01:38:21,237
- I was strictly a bureaucrat!
- lsee.
1127
01:38:21,312 --> 01:38:23,189
[ Lanzmann ]
But ifs astonishing
1128
01:38:23,272 --> 01:38:28,278
that people in the Department
of Special Trains
1129
01:38:28,361 --> 01:38:32,662
never knew about the “final solution. ”
1130
01:38:32,740 --> 01:38:34,162
[ Stier ]
We were at war.
1131
01:38:34,242 --> 01:38:40,966
Because there were others
who worked for the railroads who knew.
1132
01:38:41,040 --> 01:38:43,839
Like the train conductors.
- Nein.
1133
01:38:44,168 --> 01:38:46,262
Yes, they saw it. They did.
- [ Lanzmann Repeats Phrase]
1134
01:38:46,337 --> 01:38:50,683
But as to what happened, I know...
1135
01:38:50,758 --> 01:38:54,353
What was Treblinka for you?
Treblinka or Auschwitz?
1136
01:38:54,429 --> 01:38:58,525
Yes, for us Treblinka,
Belzec, and all that,
1137
01:38:58,599 --> 01:39:01,318
were concentration camps.
1138
01:39:01,394 --> 01:39:04,113
- A destination.
- Yes, that's all.
1139
01:39:04,188 --> 01:39:06,361
- But not death.
- No.
1140
01:39:06,441 --> 01:39:08,489
People were put up there.
1141
01:39:08,568 --> 01:39:12,698
For instance,
for a train coming from Essen
1142
01:39:12,780 --> 01:39:19,629
or Cologne, or elsewhere,
room had to be made for them there.
1143
01:39:19,704 --> 01:39:24,255
With the war and the allies
advancing everywhere,
1144
01:39:24,333 --> 01:39:28,634
those people had to be
concentrated in camps.
1145
01:39:28,713 --> 01:39:32,092
When exactly did you find out?
1146
01:39:32,175 --> 01:39:38,023
When the word got around,
1147
01:39:38,097 --> 01:39:40,316
when it was whispered.
1148
01:39:40,391 --> 01:39:43,144
- Ja.
- It was never said outright.
1149
01:39:43,227 --> 01:39:46,071
Good God, no!
They'd have hauled you off at once!
1150
01:39:46,147 --> 01:39:48,741
We heard things...
1151
01:39:49,066 --> 01:39:52,570
- Rumors?
- That's it, rumors.
1152
01:39:52,653 --> 01:39:54,246
- During the war?
- Bitte?
1153
01:39:54,322 --> 01:39:55,323
[ Repeats Phrase]
1154
01:39:55,406 --> 01:39:57,454
- Towards the end of the war.
- [ Repeats Phrase]
1155
01:39:57,533 --> 01:39:59,331
Not in 1942?
- No!
1156
01:39:59,410 --> 01:40:01,754
Good God, no! Not a word!
1157
01:40:01,996 --> 01:40:06,502
Towards the end of 1944, maybe.
[ Clears Throat]
1158
01:40:06,584 --> 01:40:08,461
- End of 1944?
- Not before.
1159
01:40:08,544 --> 01:40:10,012
What did you...?
1160
01:40:10,087 --> 01:40:12,556
It was said that
1161
01:40:12,632 --> 01:40:16,353
people were being sent to camps,
1162
01:40:16,427 --> 01:40:21,479
and those who weren't in good health
probably wouldn't survive.
1163
01:40:21,557 --> 01:40:25,232
Extermination came to you
as a big surprise?
1164
01:40:25,311 --> 01:40:27,439
- Completely. Yes.
- [ Repeats Phrase]
1165
01:40:27,522 --> 01:40:30,196
You had no idea.
- Not the slightest.
1166
01:40:30,274 --> 01:40:33,778
Like that camp, what was its name...?
1167
01:40:34,445 --> 01:40:37,824
It was in the Oppeln district.
1168
01:40:38,366 --> 01:40:40,539
I've got it: Auschwitz!
- Yes.
1169
01:40:40,618 --> 01:40:43,838
Auschwitz was in the Oppeln district.
- Right.
1170
01:40:43,913 --> 01:40:48,464
Auschwitz wasn't far from Krakow.
- That's true.
1171
01:40:48,543 --> 01:40:50,966
We never heard a word about that.
1172
01:40:51,629 --> 01:40:56,055
- Auschwitz to Krakow is 40 miles.
- That's not very far.
1173
01:40:56,133 --> 01:40:58,727
And we knew nothing.
Not a clue.
1174
01:40:58,803 --> 01:41:00,396
- [ Lanzmann Repeats Phrase]
- Nein.
1175
01:41:00,471 --> 01:41:03,850
But you knew that the Nazis...
1176
01:41:03,933 --> 01:41:09,064
that Hitler didn't like the Jews?
1177
01:41:09,146 --> 01:41:10,523
That we did.
1178
01:41:10,606 --> 01:41:14,656
It was well-known,
it appeared in print.
1179
01:41:14,735 --> 01:41:16,908
- [ Lanzmann ] Ja.
- It was no secret.
1180
01:41:16,988 --> 01:41:22,119
But as to their extermination,
that was news to us.
1181
01:41:22,201 --> 01:41:26,547
I mean, even today people deny it.
1182
01:41:26,622 --> 01:41:30,422
They say there couldn't
have been so many Jews.
1183
01:41:30,501 --> 01:41:32,424
Is it true? I don't know.
1184
01:41:32,503 --> 01:41:34,471
That's what they say.
- Ja.
1185
01:41:34,547 --> 01:41:38,472
Anyway what was done was an outrage.
1186
01:41:38,551 --> 01:41:40,895
- What?
- The extermination.
1187
01:41:40,970 --> 01:41:44,895
Everyone condemns it.
Every decent person.
1188
01:41:44,974 --> 01:41:47,397
But as for knowing about it, we didn't.
1189
01:41:47,476 --> 01:41:49,979
Ja.
1190
01:41:50,396 --> 01:41:52,649
The Poles, for instance.
1191
01:41:53,107 --> 01:41:57,283
- Ja?
- The Polish people knew everything.
1192
01:41:57,361 --> 01:42:00,365
That's not surprising, Dr. Sorel.
1193
01:42:00,448 --> 01:42:05,375
They lived nearby,
they heard, they talked.
1194
01:42:05,453 --> 01:42:08,832
And they didn't have to keep quiet.
1195
01:42:30,227 --> 01:42:31,945
[Whistle Blows]
1196
01:43:26,492 --> 01:43:31,498
[ Hilberg, In English]
This is the Fahrplananordnung Number 587,
1197
01:43:32,498 --> 01:43:35,798
which is typical for special trains.
1198
01:43:36,794 --> 01:43:41,516
The number of the order goes to show you
how many of them there were.
1199
01:43:43,509 --> 01:43:48,606
Underneath, “ Nur fUr den Dienstgebrauch. ”
1200
01:43:49,932 --> 01:43:52,185
“Only for internal use.”
1201
01:43:54,562 --> 01:43:59,568
But this turns out to be
a very low classification for secrecy.
1202
01:43:59,650 --> 01:44:00,822
Yes.
1203
01:44:00,901 --> 01:44:05,202
And the fact that, in this entire document,
which, after all, deals with death trains,
1204
01:44:05,281 --> 01:44:06,874
0H6 cannot SEE...
1205
01:44:06,949 --> 01:44:09,577
not only on this one,
but one cannot see it on others...
1206
01:44:09,660 --> 01:44:12,755
one cannot see
the word “geheim, ” “secret,”
1207
01:44:13,080 --> 01:44:15,333
is astonishing to me.
1208
01:44:15,666 --> 01:44:19,762
That they would not have done that
is very astonishing.
1209
01:44:19,837 --> 01:44:23,637
But, on second thought, I believe that,
had they labeled it secret,
1210
01:44:23,716 --> 01:44:27,812
they would have invited a great many
inquiries from people who got hold of it.
1211
01:44:27,887 --> 01:44:30,936
They would then have
perhaps raised more questions.
1212
01:44:31,015 --> 01:44:33,438
They would have focused
attention on the thing.
1213
01:44:33,768 --> 01:44:38,239
And the key to the entire operation,
from a psychological standpoint,
1214
01:44:38,481 --> 01:44:40,734
was never to utter the words
1215
01:44:40,816 --> 01:44:43,786
that would be appropriate
to the action being taken.
1216
01:44:44,403 --> 01:44:47,247
“Say nothing. Do these things.
1217
01:44:47,531 --> 01:44:49,408
Do not describe them.”
1218
01:44:49,658 --> 01:44:52,628
So, therefore, this is
“Nur fur den Dienstgebrauch. ”
1219
01:44:52,703 --> 01:44:58,961
And now notice to how many recipients
this particular order goes.
1220
01:45:00,044 --> 01:45:02,797
“Bie Bahnhbfe.
1221
01:45:03,047 --> 01:45:10,056
On this stretch, there is one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
1222
01:45:10,137 --> 01:45:12,481
and here we are in Malkinia...
- Malkinia.
1223
01:45:12,556 --> 01:45:15,025
Which is, of course,
the station near Treblinka.
1224
01:45:15,100 --> 01:45:16,317
Of course.
1225
01:45:16,393 --> 01:45:19,693
But notice that it takes eight recipients
1226
01:45:19,772 --> 01:45:22,742
for this relatively short distance,
1227
01:45:23,818 --> 01:45:27,072
through Radom to the Warsaw district.
1228
01:45:27,154 --> 01:45:31,660
Eight, because the train
passes through these stations.
1229
01:45:31,742 --> 01:45:34,871
Therefore, each one has to know.
1230
01:45:36,372 --> 01:45:40,627
Not only that, but, of course,
you're not going to write two pieces of paper
1231
01:45:40,709 --> 01:45:42,177
if you can write one.
1232
01:45:42,253 --> 01:45:45,803
So, therefore, we find here not only PKR,
1233
01:45:45,881 --> 01:45:50,478
which is a death train going here,
1234
01:45:50,553 --> 01:45:53,056
in the plan, labeled thus,
1235
01:45:53,138 --> 01:45:57,188
but we also see the empty train
after it has arrived in Treblinka,
1236
01:45:57,268 --> 01:45:59,145
now originating in Treblinka.
1237
01:45:59,228 --> 01:46:02,949
And you can always know when it's an empty train
with the word “L” in front of it,
1238
01:46:03,023 --> 01:46:04,570
“Leer. ”
1239
01:46:04,650 --> 01:46:07,574
- Yes. “Ruckleitung des Leerzuges”...
- And now...
1240
01:46:07,653 --> 01:46:11,157
Yes. And now... And now... And now...
- ...which means “return the empty train.”
1241
01:46:11,240 --> 01:46:14,790
And now we're going back.
Then we have another train.
1242
01:46:14,869 --> 01:46:21,218
Now notice that there's very little subtlety
to this numbering system.
1243
01:46:21,292 --> 01:46:25,889
We're going from 9228 to 9229,
1244
01:46:25,963 --> 01:46:32,096
to 9230, to 9231, to 9232.
1245
01:46:32,303 --> 01:46:36,900
Hardly...
Hardly any, uh, originality here.
1246
01:46:36,974 --> 01:46:38,851
It's just very regular traffic.
1247
01:46:40,811 --> 01:46:42,358
[ Lanzmann ]
Death traffic.
1248
01:46:42,438 --> 01:46:44,236
[ Hilberg ]
Death traffic.
1249
01:46:48,694 --> 01:46:52,870
And, here, we see that,
1250
01:46:54,658 --> 01:46:57,753
starting out in one ghetto,
which obviously is being emptied,
1251
01:46:57,828 --> 01:47:00,172
the train leaves for Treblinka.
1252
01:47:00,831 --> 01:47:05,837
It leaves on the 30th of September, 1942,
1253
01:47:06,253 --> 01:47:10,349
18 minutes after 4:00,
by schedule at least,
1254
01:47:10,674 --> 01:47:16,226
arrives there at 11:24
on the next morning.
1255
01:47:18,724 --> 01:47:21,193
This is also a very long train,
1256
01:47:22,144 --> 01:47:25,273
which may be the reason that it takes so slow.
1257
01:47:25,356 --> 01:47:29,953
It's “50 G.” That's, uh, "funfzig Guterwagen, ”
1258
01:47:30,027 --> 01:47:33,122
50 freight cars filled with people.
1259
01:47:33,197 --> 01:47:36,326
That's an exceptionally heavy transport.
1260
01:47:37,284 --> 01:47:41,380
Now, once the train
has been unloaded at Treblinka...
1261
01:47:41,705 --> 01:47:43,799
And you notice there are two numbers here:
1262
01:47:43,874 --> 01:47:46,878
11:24... that's in the morning...
1263
01:47:46,961 --> 01:47:52,764
and 15:59, which is to say,
almost 4:00 in the afternoon.
1264
01:47:53,342 --> 01:47:58,098
In that interval of time,
the train has to be unloaded, cleaned
1265
01:47:58,180 --> 01:48:01,400
and turned around.
- It has to be... It has to be very fast.
1266
01:48:02,059 --> 01:48:03,936
It has to be turned around.
1267
01:48:04,019 --> 01:48:06,238
And you see, here, the same numbers appear
1268
01:48:06,313 --> 01:48:12,116
as the 'Zeerzug, ” now empty train,
goes to another place.
1269
01:48:12,861 --> 01:48:17,207
And it leaves at 4:00 in the afternoon
1270
01:48:17,282 --> 01:48:20,502
and now goes to that other place,
which is yet another small town,
1271
01:48:20,577 --> 01:48:23,205
where it picks up victims.
1272
01:48:23,872 --> 01:48:29,720
And there you are at 3:00 in the morning.
1273
01:48:30,587 --> 01:48:33,887
It leaves on the 23rd at 3:00 in the morning
1274
01:48:35,300 --> 01:48:37,553
and arrives there the next day.
1275
01:48:40,514 --> 01:48:43,814
What is that? it seems to be
the same train, as a matter of fact.
1276
01:48:43,892 --> 01:48:46,691
- This is quite obviously the same.
- it is the same train,
1277
01:48:46,770 --> 01:48:48,818
which gets every time another number.
- The number...
1278
01:48:48,897 --> 01:48:51,525
The number has to be changed,
quite obviously. Correct.
1279
01:48:51,608 --> 01:48:55,488
Then it goes back to Treblinka,
and this is again a long trip.
1280
01:48:55,571 --> 01:49:00,077
It arrives in Treblinka,
now goes back to yet another place.
1281
01:49:00,743 --> 01:49:04,338
Then the same situation, the same trip.
1282
01:49:06,040 --> 01:49:07,917
And then yet another.
1283
01:49:09,918 --> 01:49:11,670
It goes to Treblinka
1284
01:49:12,004 --> 01:49:17,431
and then arrives in Czestochowa
on the 29th of September.
1285
01:49:17,509 --> 01:49:19,728
And then the cycle is complete.
1286
01:49:22,598 --> 01:49:25,192
And this is called a 'Fahrplananordnung, ”
1287
01:49:25,267 --> 01:49:28,988
and if you count up the...
the number of, uh,
1288
01:49:30,647 --> 01:49:33,491
not empty numbers, but full ones, PKRs...
1289
01:49:33,567 --> 01:49:35,069
There's one.
1290
01:49:35,486 --> 01:49:37,079
There is one.
1291
01:49:39,239 --> 01:49:40,536
Here.
- But why?
1292
01:49:40,616 --> 01:49:43,244
- That's two. That's three.
- Why such a...
1293
01:49:43,494 --> 01:49:44,746
- That's four.
- Why...
1294
01:49:44,828 --> 01:49:48,628
We may be talking here
about 10,000 dead Jews
1295
01:49:48,832 --> 01:49:51,711
on this one Fahrplananordnung right here.
1296
01:49:51,794 --> 01:49:54,923
- More than 10,000.
- Well, we will be conservative.
1297
01:49:55,005 --> 01:49:56,131
Yes.
1298
01:49:56,215 --> 01:50:00,846
But why such a document
is so fascinating, as a matter of fact?
1299
01:50:01,345 --> 01:50:04,349
Because I was in Treblinka,
and to have the two things together,
1300
01:50:04,431 --> 01:50:06,183
Treblinka and that document...
1301
01:50:06,266 --> 01:50:09,019
Well, you see,
when I hold a document in my hand,
1302
01:50:09,103 --> 01:50:11,777
particularly if it's an original document,
1303
01:50:12,523 --> 01:50:16,278
then I hold something
which is actually something
1304
01:50:16,360 --> 01:50:19,079
that the original bureaucrat
had held in his hand.
1305
01:50:19,154 --> 01:50:22,954
It's an artifact. it's a leftover.
it's the only leftover there is.
1306
01:50:23,200 --> 01:50:25,828
- Yes.
- The dead are not around.
1307
01:50:31,208 --> 01:50:33,461
[Cattle Mooing ]
1308
01:50:34,753 --> 01:50:36,881
[ Dogs Barking ]
1309
01:50:45,722 --> 01:50:50,398
TREBLINKA - THE STATION
1310
01:50:56,984 --> 01:51:00,784
[ Hilberg ]
The Rekzhsbahn was ready to ship, in principle,
1311
01:51:00,863 --> 01:51:04,493
any cargo in return for payment.
1312
01:51:05,701 --> 01:51:09,581
And, therefore, the basic key,
price-controlled key,
1313
01:51:09,830 --> 01:51:13,255
was that Jews were going to be
shipped to Treblinka,
1314
01:51:13,333 --> 01:51:17,338
were going to be shipped to Auschwitz,
Sobibor, or any other destination,
1315
01:51:17,421 --> 01:51:22,473
so long as the railroads
were paid by the track kilometer,
1316
01:51:22,551 --> 01:51:24,599
so many pfennig per mile.
1317
01:51:24,803 --> 01:51:28,808
And the basic rate was the same
throughout the war,
1318
01:51:29,766 --> 01:51:35,239
with children under 10 going at half fare,
children under four going free.
1319
01:51:35,314 --> 01:51:38,488
And the payment had to be made
for only one way.
1320
01:51:38,734 --> 01:51:42,534
The guards... The guards, of course,
had to have return fare paid for them
1321
01:51:42,613 --> 01:51:45,457
because they were going back
to their place of origin.
1322
01:51:46,867 --> 01:51:51,543
Excuse me. The children were shipped
in the extermination camps...
1323
01:51:51,622 --> 01:51:54,341
The children under four...
- ...went free.
1324
01:51:54,416 --> 01:51:58,387
They had the privilege to be gassed freely?
1325
01:51:58,462 --> 01:52:00,885
Yes, transport was free.
1326
01:52:00,964 --> 01:52:06,061
And, in addition to that,
because the person who had to pay,
1327
01:52:06,136 --> 01:52:10,232
the agency that had to pay,
was the agency that ordered the train,
1328
01:52:10,307 --> 01:52:14,028
and that happened to have been
the Gestapo, Eichmann's office...
1329
01:52:14,269 --> 01:52:21,198
Because of the financial problem
which that office had in making payments,
1330
01:52:21,276 --> 01:52:25,747
the Reichsbahn agreed on group fare.
1331
01:52:25,822 --> 01:52:29,076
So the Jews were being shipped
in much the same way
1332
01:52:29,159 --> 01:52:33,460
as any excursion fare would be granted
if there were enough people traveling.
1333
01:52:33,538 --> 01:52:36,417
And the minimum was 400,
a kind of charter fare.
1334
01:52:36,500 --> 01:52:39,174
400 was the minimum.
1335
01:52:39,419 --> 01:52:41,968
So even if there were fewer than 400,
1336
01:52:42,047 --> 01:52:44,766
it would pay to say that there were 400,
1337
01:52:44,841 --> 01:52:48,937
and, in that way,
get the half fare for adults as well.
1338
01:52:49,471 --> 01:52:51,223
And that was the basic principle.
1339
01:52:51,306 --> 01:52:53,855
Now, of course, if there was
exceptional filth in the cars,
1340
01:52:53,934 --> 01:52:55,436
which might be the case,
1341
01:52:55,519 --> 01:52:58,693
if there was damage to the equipment,
which might be the case,
1342
01:52:58,772 --> 01:53:00,900
because the transports took so long,
1343
01:53:00,983 --> 01:53:05,329
and the inmates, to the extent
of five or ten percent, died en route,
1344
01:53:05,529 --> 01:53:09,454
uh, then there might be
an additional bill for that damage.
1345
01:53:09,533 --> 01:53:11,877
But, in principle, uh,
1346
01:53:12,202 --> 01:53:17,424
so long as payment was being made,
transports were being shipped.
1347
01:53:17,499 --> 01:53:20,298
Sometimes, the SS got credit.
1348
01:53:20,377 --> 01:53:23,551
Sometimes, the transport
went out before payment,
1349
01:53:23,922 --> 01:53:27,517
because, as you see, the...
the whole business was handled,
1350
01:53:27,592 --> 01:53:31,472
as in the case
of any other charter traffic, especially,
1351
01:53:31,555 --> 01:53:34,980
or any really personal traffic of any kind,
1352
01:53:35,058 --> 01:53:36,560
through a travel bureau.
1353
01:53:36,643 --> 01:53:42,741
Mitteleuropaisches Reisebiiro
would handle some of these transactions:
1354
01:53:42,816 --> 01:53:45,911
the billing procedure,
the ticketing procedure.
1355
01:53:46,236 --> 01:53:49,206
Or if a smaller transport
was involved, the SS would...
1356
01:53:49,281 --> 01:53:54,003
Excuse me. It was the same bureau who was
dealing with any kind of normal passenger?
1357
01:53:54,077 --> 01:53:55,829
- Absolutely.
- It was dealing with the Jews too.
1358
01:53:55,912 --> 01:53:58,165
Just the official travel bureau.
1359
01:53:58,248 --> 01:54:02,173
Mitteleuropéisches Reisebiiro
will ship people to the gas chambers,
1360
01:54:02,252 --> 01:54:06,928
or they will ship vacationers
to their favorite resorts.
1361
01:54:07,215 --> 01:54:10,094
And that was basically the same office
and the same operation,
1362
01:54:10,177 --> 01:54:12,646
the same procedure, the same billing.
1363
01:54:12,721 --> 01:54:15,349
- No difference?
- No difference whatsoever.
1364
01:54:15,682 --> 01:54:18,561
And, as a matter of course,
everybody would do that job
1365
01:54:18,643 --> 01:54:21,567
as if it were the most normal thing to do.
1366
01:54:22,189 --> 01:54:24,066
But it was not a normal job.
1367
01:54:24,149 --> 01:54:26,447
No, it was not a normal job.
1368
01:54:26,902 --> 01:54:29,155
As a matter of fact, you know, even, uh...
1369
01:54:29,237 --> 01:54:33,242
even the complicated currency
procedures were followed
1370
01:54:33,325 --> 01:54:36,499
in much the same way
as with any other transaction,
1371
01:54:36,578 --> 01:54:40,173
if borders had to be crossed,
and that was very frequent.
1372
01:54:40,415 --> 01:54:41,917
For instance?
1373
01:54:42,167 --> 01:54:46,513
Well, I think the most interesting example
is, of course, Greece,
1374
01:54:46,588 --> 01:54:51,719
the... the transports from Saloniki, Greece,
in the spring of 1943,
1375
01:54:51,802 --> 01:54:57,309
involving some 46,000 victims
over a considerable distance,
1376
01:54:57,391 --> 01:55:00,941
so that, even with group fare,
the bill came to almost two million marks,
1377
01:55:01,019 --> 01:55:02,817
which was quite a sum.
1378
01:55:03,146 --> 01:55:06,650
And the basic principle, you see,
with such traffic,
1379
01:55:06,733 --> 01:55:10,363
is that which is employed
in the usual customary way,
1380
01:55:10,821 --> 01:55:13,415
even to this day, all over the world.
1381
01:55:13,490 --> 01:55:16,790
One pays in the currency
of the place of origin,
1382
01:55:16,868 --> 01:55:22,591
but, then, one has to pay
the participating railroads en route
1383
01:55:22,666 --> 01:55:24,668
in their own currencies.
1384
01:55:25,293 --> 01:55:28,923
So...
- From Saloniki, they had to cross Greece.
1385
01:55:29,005 --> 01:55:31,508
- They had to cross Greece.
- In Greece, it was drachmas?
1386
01:55:31,591 --> 01:55:35,266
In Greece, it was drachma,
and then you might have to go through the...
1387
01:55:35,345 --> 01:55:38,849
- Yugoslavia.
- Yes, the Serbian and Croatian railroads.
1388
01:55:38,932 --> 01:55:43,233
And you might have to then go
through the Re/chsbahn and pay in mark.
1389
01:55:44,187 --> 01:55:48,784
Now, ironically, the problem was, you see,
that the military commander in Saloniki,
1390
01:55:48,859 --> 01:55:50,327
who was in charge,
1391
01:55:50,402 --> 01:55:55,454
so he, in a sense, was the ultimate person
responsible for paying for these things,
1392
01:55:55,532 --> 01:55:57,250
didn't have the mark.
1393
01:55:57,325 --> 01:56:01,171
And he didn't have the Reichsmark,
although he did have the drachma.
1394
01:56:01,246 --> 01:56:04,841
The drachma, you see, he had
from the confiscated Jewish property
1395
01:56:04,916 --> 01:56:07,465
which was used to pay for these things.
1396
01:56:07,544 --> 01:56:09,888
This was a self-financing principle.
1397
01:56:09,963 --> 01:56:14,218
The SS or the military
would confiscate the Jewish property
1398
01:56:14,301 --> 01:56:18,647
and, with proceeds, especially
from bank deposits, would pay for transports.
1399
01:56:18,722 --> 01:56:20,599
This means that the Jews themselves...
1400
01:56:20,682 --> 01:56:22,776
- Absolutely.
- ...would pay for their death?
1401
01:56:22,851 --> 01:56:25,730
You have to remember...
You have to remember one basic principle:
1402
01:56:26,188 --> 01:56:30,068
There was no budget for destruction.
1403
01:56:31,860 --> 01:56:32,952
Yes.
1404
01:56:33,028 --> 01:56:37,249
So that is the reason that
the confiscated property had to be used
1405
01:56:37,324 --> 01:56:38,951
in order to make the payments.
1406
01:56:39,034 --> 01:56:40,001
All right.
1407
01:56:40,076 --> 01:56:42,829
The property of the Jews
in Saloniki was confiscated,
1408
01:56:42,913 --> 01:56:45,837
but the proceeds were
in local Greek currency.
1409
01:56:46,333 --> 01:56:49,007
The Reichsbahn, of course,
would want payment in mark.
1410
01:56:49,085 --> 01:56:52,760
How, then, do you change
the drachma into mark?
1411
01:56:53,048 --> 01:56:57,019
Now, you have exchange controllers,
right within occupied Europe.
1412
01:56:57,093 --> 01:56:59,346
The only way it could be done, of course,
1413
01:56:59,429 --> 01:57:03,855
is if somebody
in this occupied zone obtained mark.
1414
01:57:04,351 --> 01:57:05,853
But how could they?
1415
01:57:06,102 --> 01:57:08,776
This was not
such a simple thing in wartime.
1416
01:57:09,356 --> 01:57:12,860
And, therefore, for once,
there was a default.
1417
01:57:12,943 --> 01:57:17,574
The railroad had shipped all of these Jews
to Auschwitz without compensation.
1418
01:57:42,973 --> 01:57:45,271
[Whistle Blows]
1419
01:57:53,108 --> 01:57:56,578
[Whistle Blows]
1420
01:58:02,492 --> 01:58:05,917
[ MUIIer, In German]
The “special detaifs” life depended
1421
01:58:05,996 --> 01:58:09,466
on the trainloads due for extermination.
1422
01:58:09,833 --> 01:58:13,588
[Whistle Blows]
1423
01:58:25,015 --> 01:58:27,609
When a lot of them came in,
1424
01:58:30,478 --> 01:58:33,027
the “special detail” was enlarged.
1425
01:58:43,867 --> 01:58:46,711
They couldn't do without the detail,
1426
01:58:47,037 --> 01:58:50,667
so there was no weeding-out.
1427
01:58:52,292 --> 01:58:56,468
OSWIECIM (AUSCHWITZ)
THE STATION TODAY
1428
01:58:56,880 --> 01:59:00,885
But when there were fewer trainloads...
1429
01:59:00,967 --> 01:59:02,685
[Train Whistle Blows]
1430
01:59:04,387 --> 01:59:09,894
It meant immediate extermination for us.
1431
01:59:15,649 --> 01:59:18,653
We, in the “special detail,” knew
1432
01:59:18,735 --> 01:59:21,614
that a lack of trains
1433
01:59:22,072 --> 01:59:24,791
would lead to our liquidation.
1434
01:59:26,368 --> 01:59:28,996
[ Train Clacking Continues]
1435
01:59:46,096 --> 01:59:50,351
- FILIP MULLER -
The “special detail” lived in a crisis situation.
1436
01:59:50,433 --> 01:59:54,404
Every day,
1437
01:59:54,479 --> 01:59:58,359
we saw thousands
and thousands of innocent people
1438
01:59:58,608 --> 02:00:01,578
disappear up the chimney.
1439
02:00:02,487 --> 02:00:06,958
With our own eyes,
we could truly fathom
1440
02:00:07,659 --> 02:00:10,538
what it means to be a human being.
1441
02:00:11,287 --> 02:00:13,710
There they came,
1442
02:00:13,790 --> 02:00:19,012
men, women, children, all innocent.
1443
02:00:20,046 --> 02:00:23,425
They suddenly vanished,
1444
02:00:23,508 --> 02:00:25,806
and the world said nothing!
1445
02:00:25,885 --> 02:00:30,265
We felt abandoned.
By the world, by humanity.
1446
02:00:30,724 --> 02:00:35,730
But the situation taught us fully
1447
02:00:36,896 --> 02:00:41,527
what the possibility of survival meant.
1448
02:00:42,986 --> 02:00:44,909
For we could gauge
1449
02:00:45,488 --> 02:00:48,617
the infinite value of human life.
1450
02:00:49,743 --> 02:00:52,292
And we were convinced
1451
02:00:52,829 --> 02:00:58,177
that hope lingers in man
as long as he lives.
1452
02:00:58,251 --> 02:01:02,256
Where there's life,
hope must never be relinquished.
1453
02:01:02,338 --> 02:01:06,684
That's why we struggled
through our lives of hardship,
1454
02:01:06,968 --> 02:01:11,644
day after day, week after week,
month after month,
1455
02:01:11,723 --> 02:01:14,567
year after year,
1456
02:01:15,351 --> 02:01:20,027
hoping against hope to survive,
1457
02:01:22,859 --> 02:01:26,454
to escape that hell.
1458
02:01:57,727 --> 02:02:00,105
[ Suchomel, In German]
At that time,
1459
02:02:00,772 --> 02:02:05,073
in January, February,
1460
02:02:06,569 --> 02:02:08,116
March,
1461
02:02:09,239 --> 02:02:12,743
hardly any trains arrived.
1462
02:02:20,083 --> 02:02:23,212
Was Treblinka glum without the trains?
1463
02:02:25,588 --> 02:02:29,513
I wouldn't say the Jews were glum.
1464
02:02:29,592 --> 02:02:32,971
They became so when they realized...
1465
02:02:33,930 --> 02:02:38,356
I'll come to that later,
it's a story in itself.
1466
02:02:40,478 --> 02:02:44,984
- Yes, it's a story in itself.
- it's a story in itself.
1467
02:02:45,066 --> 02:02:46,864
Yes, I know.
1468
02:02:47,360 --> 02:02:49,488
The Jews,
1469
02:02:51,197 --> 02:02:54,246
those in the work squads,
thought at first...
1470
02:02:54,325 --> 02:02:58,000
- Those in the work squads, yes.
- that they'd survive.
1471
02:03:00,039 --> 02:03:04,260
But in January,
1472
02:03:04,919 --> 02:03:06,592
when they stopped receiving food,
1473
02:03:06,671 --> 02:03:12,303
for Wirth had decreed
that there were too many of them,
1474
02:03:12,385 --> 02:03:16,310
there were a good 500 to 600
of them in Camp I...
1475
02:03:16,723 --> 02:03:19,226
- Up there?
- Yes.
1476
02:03:21,185 --> 02:03:24,815
To keep them from rebelling,
1477
02:03:24,898 --> 02:03:27,947
they weren't shot or gassed,
1478
02:03:28,026 --> 02:03:30,825
but starved.
1479
02:03:31,029 --> 02:03:33,452
Then an epidemic broke out,
1480
02:03:33,990 --> 02:03:38,166
a kind of typhus.
1481
02:03:38,494 --> 02:03:42,249
The Jews stopped believing they'd make it.
1482
02:03:42,332 --> 02:03:46,087
They were left to die.
They dropped like flies.
1483
02:03:47,462 --> 02:03:49,681
- Ja.
- It was all over.
1484
02:03:50,173 --> 02:03:53,598
FRANZ SUCHOMEL
1485
02:03:54,010 --> 02:03:56,889
They'd stopped believing.
- Ja.
1486
02:03:57,513 --> 02:04:01,188
It was all very well to say...
1487
02:04:01,267 --> 02:04:04,066
We kept on insisting,
“You're going to live!”
1488
02:04:04,145 --> 02:04:06,523
We almost believed it ourselves.
1489
02:04:06,606 --> 02:04:10,452
If you lie enough,
you believe your own lies.
1490
02:04:10,526 --> 02:04:11,903
Yes.
1491
02:04:12,862 --> 02:04:15,866
But they replied to me,
1492
02:04:15,949 --> 02:04:21,877
“No, chief, we're just reprieved corpses.”
1493
02:04:31,631 --> 02:04:35,807
[ Glazar, In German]
The “dead season,” as it was called,
1494
02:04:36,386 --> 02:04:43,736
began in February 1943,
1495
02:04:44,936 --> 02:04:49,066
after the big trainloads came in
from Grodno and Bialystok.
1496
02:04:50,650 --> 02:04:52,778
Absolute quiet.
1497
02:04:54,404 --> 02:04:59,501
It quieted in late January,
February and into March.
1498
02:04:59,575 --> 02:05:00,918
Nothing.
1499
02:05:01,411 --> 02:05:04,665
Not one trainload.
1500
02:05:07,291 --> 02:05:10,215
The whole camp was empty,
1501
02:05:14,257 --> 02:05:19,354
and suddenly, everywhere,
there was hunger.
1502
02:05:23,766 --> 02:05:29,023
It kept increasing.
1503
02:05:33,943 --> 02:05:37,322
And one day when the famine
was at its peak,
1504
02:05:38,781 --> 02:05:45,630
OberscharfUhrer Kurt Franz
appeared before us
1505
02:05:47,957 --> 02:05:49,550
and told us,
1506
02:05:50,376 --> 02:05:57,100
“The trains will be coming in again,
starting tomorrow.”
1507
02:06:09,645 --> 02:06:11,488
We didn't say anything.
1508
02:06:11,564 --> 02:06:14,738
We just looked at each other,
1509
02:06:15,068 --> 02:06:20,996
and each of us thought,
1510
02:06:21,532 --> 02:06:23,409
“Tomorrow
1511
02:06:25,828 --> 02:06:29,082
the hunger will end.”
1512
02:06:32,668 --> 02:06:35,672
At that period,
1513
02:06:36,798 --> 02:06:41,679
we were actively planning the rebellion.
1514
02:06:42,553 --> 02:06:46,308
We all wanted to survive
until the rebellion.
1515
02:06:52,355 --> 02:06:57,202
The trainloads came from
an assembly camp in Saloniki.
1516
02:06:58,611 --> 02:07:03,242
They'd brought in Jews
from Bulgaria, Macedonia.
1517
02:07:05,368 --> 02:07:06,961
These were rich people:
1518
02:07:07,036 --> 02:07:11,041
The passenger cars bulged
with possessions.
1519
02:07:14,961 --> 02:07:21,936
Then an awful feeling gripped us,
1520
02:07:22,552 --> 02:07:24,896
all of us, my companions
as well as myself.
1521
02:07:24,971 --> 02:07:30,774
A feeling of helplessness,
1522
02:07:30,852 --> 02:07:33,947
a feeling of shame.
1523
02:07:36,149 --> 02:07:39,449
For we threw ourselves on their food.
1524
02:07:40,069 --> 02:07:47,453
A detail brought a crate
full of crackers,
1525
02:07:48,077 --> 02:07:50,830
another full of jam.
1526
02:07:50,913 --> 02:07:55,089
They deliberately dropped the crates,
1527
02:07:56,210 --> 02:07:58,963
falling over each other,
1528
02:07:59,046 --> 02:08:06,146
filling their mouths
with crackers and jam.
1529
02:08:15,313 --> 02:08:20,945
The trainloads
from the Balkans brought us
1530
02:08:21,194 --> 02:08:23,822
to a terrible realization:
1531
02:08:27,450 --> 02:08:30,420
RICHARD GLAZAR
1532
02:08:31,037 --> 02:08:34,917
We were the workers
in the Treblinka factory,
1533
02:08:35,458 --> 02:08:37,631
and our lives depended
1534
02:08:38,169 --> 02:08:43,096
on the whole manufacturing process,
1535
02:08:43,841 --> 02:08:47,391
that is, the slaughtering process
at Treblinka.
1536
02:08:52,600 --> 02:08:57,151
[ Lanzmann, In German]
This realization came suddenly
1537
02:08:57,230 --> 02:08:59,483
with the fresh trainloads?
1538
02:08:59,565 --> 02:09:02,409
Maybe it wasn't so sudden,
1539
02:09:03,444 --> 02:09:07,165
but it was only
with the Balkans trainloads
1540
02:09:07,240 --> 02:09:10,665
that it became...
1541
02:09:12,036 --> 02:09:15,961
so stark to us, unadorned.
1542
02:09:16,540 --> 02:09:18,417
Why?
1543
02:09:18,960 --> 02:09:22,464
24,000 people,
1544
02:09:25,383 --> 02:09:30,264
probably with not a sick person
among them,
1545
02:09:33,766 --> 02:09:38,146
not an invalid, all healthy and robust!
1546
02:09:39,021 --> 02:09:43,117
I recall our watching them
from our barracks.
1547
02:09:44,360 --> 02:09:48,740
They were already naked,
milling among their baggage.
1548
02:09:48,823 --> 02:09:51,042
And David...
1549
02:09:51,701 --> 02:09:54,045
David Bratt said to me,
1550
02:09:54,537 --> 02:09:56,255
“Maccabees!
1551
02:09:56,330 --> 02:09:59,709
The Maccabees have arrived in Treblinka!”
1552
02:10:03,587 --> 02:10:07,967
Sturdy, physically strong people,
1553
02:10:10,261 --> 02:10:12,889
unlike the others...
1554
02:10:13,889 --> 02:10:18,395
- Fighters!
- Yes, they could have been fighters.
1555
02:10:22,148 --> 02:10:24,697
It was staggering for us,
1556
02:10:25,359 --> 02:10:31,162
for these men and women, all splendid,
1557
02:10:32,783 --> 02:10:36,663
were wholly unaware
of what was in store for them.
1558
02:10:36,746 --> 02:10:39,249
Wholly unaware.
1559
02:10:44,795 --> 02:10:50,723
Never before had things gone
so smoothly and quickly.
1560
02:10:50,801 --> 02:10:52,178
Never.
1561
02:10:57,099 --> 02:11:00,399
We felt ashamed,
1562
02:11:00,478 --> 02:11:06,781
and also that this couldn't go on,
that something had to happen.
1563
02:11:09,028 --> 02:11:12,282
Not just a few people acting
1564
02:11:13,157 --> 02:11:16,252
but all of us.
1565
02:11:24,919 --> 02:11:31,222
The idea was almost ripe
back in November 1942.
1566
02:11:35,346 --> 02:11:40,318
Beginning in November '42
1567
02:11:41,143 --> 02:11:43,271
we'd noticed
1568
02:11:43,354 --> 02:11:47,655
that we were being “spared,”
1569
02:11:48,692 --> 02:11:51,070
in quotes.
1570
02:11:52,154 --> 02:11:55,078
We noticed it
1571
02:11:55,157 --> 02:11:57,330
and we also learned
1572
02:11:57,827 --> 02:12:03,584
that Stangl, the commandant,
wanted, for efficiency's sake,
1573
02:12:03,666 --> 02:12:06,670
to hang on to men
who were already trained,
1574
02:12:07,753 --> 02:12:11,974
specialists in the various tasks:
1575
02:12:12,049 --> 02:12:14,472
sorters, corpse-haulers,
1576
02:12:14,552 --> 02:12:19,604
barbers who cut the women's hair,
1577
02:12:19,682 --> 02:12:21,184
and so on.
1578
02:12:26,063 --> 02:12:33,413
This in fact is what later
gave us the chance
1579
02:12:34,029 --> 02:12:35,747
to prepare,
1580
02:12:35,823 --> 02:12:39,327
to organize the uprising.
1581
02:12:50,713 --> 02:12:52,886
We had a plan
1582
02:12:52,965 --> 02:12:57,391
worked out in January 1943,
1583
02:12:58,095 --> 02:13:02,066
code-named “The Time.”
1584
02:13:04,185 --> 02:13:06,153
At a set time,
1585
02:13:06,228 --> 02:13:13,157
we were to attack the SS everywhere,
1586
02:13:14,153 --> 02:13:19,250
seize their weapons
and attack the Kommandantur.
1587
02:13:21,869 --> 02:13:25,043
But we couldn't do it
1588
02:13:25,623 --> 02:13:30,094
because things were
at a standstill in the camp,
1589
02:13:30,669 --> 02:13:34,094
and because typhus had already broken out.
1590
02:13:58,197 --> 02:14:02,452
[ MUIIer, In German]
In the fall of 1943,
1591
02:14:04,119 --> 02:14:10,126
when it was clear to all of us
1592
02:14:11,043 --> 02:14:14,388
that no one would help us
1593
02:14:16,006 --> 02:14:19,101
unless we helped ourselves,
1594
02:14:21,679 --> 02:14:25,650
a key question faced us all:
1595
02:14:27,935 --> 02:14:31,280
For us in the “special detail,”
1596
02:14:32,022 --> 02:14:35,492
was there any chance
to halt this wave of extermination
1597
02:14:35,985 --> 02:14:39,660
and still save our lives?
1598
02:14:46,870 --> 02:14:51,842
We could see only one:
1599
02:14:54,044 --> 02:14:58,424
armed rebellion.
1600
02:15:02,845 --> 02:15:05,348
We thought
1601
02:15:06,307 --> 02:15:11,359
that if we could get hold
of a few weapons
1602
02:15:14,481 --> 02:15:19,783
and secure the participation
of all the inmates
1603
02:15:22,239 --> 02:15:24,367
throughout the camp,
1604
02:15:24,450 --> 02:15:28,045
there was a chance of success.
1605
02:15:30,289 --> 02:15:33,293
That was the essential thing.
1606
02:15:36,295 --> 02:15:39,549
That's why our liaison men
1607
02:15:40,674 --> 02:15:47,148
contacted the leaders
of the Resistance movement,
1608
02:15:47,222 --> 02:15:48,724
first in Birkenau,
1609
02:15:48,974 --> 02:15:51,568
then in Auschwitz I,
1610
02:15:53,979 --> 02:15:57,859
so the revolt could be
coordinated everywhere.
1611
02:16:02,571 --> 02:16:04,619
FILIP MULLER
1612
02:16:04,865 --> 02:16:07,414
The answer came
1613
02:16:07,493 --> 02:16:11,623
that the Resistance command
in Auschwitz I
1614
02:16:11,705 --> 02:16:14,754
agreed with our plan
1615
02:16:15,501 --> 02:16:20,177
and would join with us.
1616
02:16:29,264 --> 02:16:34,065
Unfortunately,
among the Resistance leaders,
1617
02:16:35,312 --> 02:16:39,408
there were very few Jews.
1618
02:16:40,401 --> 02:16:43,280
Most were political prisoners
1619
02:16:44,321 --> 02:16:47,416
whose lives weren't at stake,
1620
02:16:48,617 --> 02:16:52,588
and for whom each day of life
lived through
1621
02:16:52,663 --> 02:16:58,090
increased their chances of survival.
1622
02:16:59,294 --> 02:17:03,925
For us in the “special detail, ”
it was the opposite.
1623
02:17:10,681 --> 02:17:14,106
RUDOLF VRBA
1624
02:17:15,185 --> 02:17:16,812
[ In English]
Auschwitz and Birkenau,
1625
02:17:16,895 --> 02:17:20,490
apart from being a Hinrichtung center,
1626
02:17:20,691 --> 02:17:23,444
a mass -murder center,
1627
02:17:24,319 --> 02:17:27,038
was a normal concentration camp too,
1628
02:17:28,157 --> 02:17:31,752
which had its order, like Mauthausen,
1629
02:17:31,827 --> 02:17:33,420
like Buchenwald,
1630
02:17:33,662 --> 02:17:36,165
like Dachau, like Sachsenhausen.
1631
02:17:39,460 --> 02:17:41,588
But whereas, in Mauthausen,
1632
02:17:41,670 --> 02:17:45,300
the main product
of prisoners' work was stone...
1633
02:17:45,382 --> 02:17:47,384
there was a big stone quarry...
1634
02:17:47,634 --> 02:17:50,854
the product in Auschwitz was death.
1635
02:17:51,305 --> 02:17:56,937
Everything was geared
to keep the crematoria running.
1636
02:17:58,312 --> 02:17:59,279
This was the aim.
1637
02:17:59,354 --> 02:18:03,655
This means that the prisoners would work
on the road leading to the crematoria.
1638
02:18:03,734 --> 02:18:06,032
They would build the crematoria.
1639
02:18:06,862 --> 02:18:10,867
Uh, they would build all barracks
necessary for keeping up prisoners.
1640
02:18:10,949 --> 02:18:12,701
And, of course, apart from that,
1641
02:18:12,785 --> 02:18:15,709
there was an element
of a normal German concentration camp,
1642
02:18:15,788 --> 02:18:20,009
because the Krupp and Siemens factories
moved in and utilized slave labor.
1643
02:18:20,083 --> 02:18:24,384
So the Krupp factories
and Siemens factories were built partly
1644
02:18:24,463 --> 02:18:27,091
directly within the concentration camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
1645
02:18:27,841 --> 02:18:31,220
AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
1646
02:18:31,512 --> 02:18:34,641
The tradition in the concentration camp was
1647
02:18:35,015 --> 02:18:39,020
that there was a considerable amount
of political prisoners:
1648
02:18:40,354 --> 02:18:43,574
trade unionists, Social Democrats,
1649
02:18:43,816 --> 02:18:45,409
Communists,
1650
02:18:45,776 --> 02:18:48,746
ex-fighters from Spain.
1651
02:18:52,491 --> 02:18:55,290
What happened was
a very peculiar development.
1652
02:18:58,163 --> 02:19:01,884
The Resistance leadership in Auschwitz
1653
02:19:02,334 --> 02:19:06,089
was concentrated in the hands of...
1654
02:19:07,422 --> 02:19:09,891
German-speaking anti-Nazis,
1655
02:19:10,801 --> 02:19:13,270
who were German by birth,
1656
02:19:14,137 --> 02:19:18,438
were considered racially pure
by the Nazi hierarchy.
1657
02:19:20,853 --> 02:19:24,483
They got a bit better treatment
than the rest of the camp.
1658
02:19:25,274 --> 02:19:28,244
I don't say that
they were treated with gloves.
1659
02:19:29,486 --> 02:19:32,956
But they managed, with time,
1660
02:19:33,323 --> 02:19:38,921
to gain influence over various
Nazi dignitaries from the SS
1661
02:19:41,081 --> 02:19:43,800
and to use it in a way
1662
02:19:45,419 --> 02:19:49,469
which led systematically
to an improvement of conditions
1663
02:19:49,548 --> 02:19:52,472
within the concentration camp itself.
1664
02:20:03,020 --> 02:20:06,650
Whereas, in 1943... '42...
1665
02:20:07,357 --> 02:20:11,487
in Birkenau, in December and January,
1666
02:20:12,654 --> 02:20:16,875
a death rate of 400 prisoners
per day was common,
1667
02:20:18,577 --> 02:20:20,955
by May 1943,
1668
02:20:21,204 --> 02:20:23,753
not only because of the weather improvement,
1669
02:20:24,166 --> 02:20:27,966
but due to the activities
of the Resistance movement,
1670
02:20:29,171 --> 02:20:31,765
the improvement was so marked
1671
02:20:31,840 --> 02:20:37,722
that the mortality grossly decreased
in the concentration camp.
1672
02:20:41,516 --> 02:20:45,862
And they considered it
a great victory on their side.
1673
02:20:56,657 --> 02:20:59,786
And that improvement of living conditions
1674
02:21:00,953 --> 02:21:03,251
within the concentration camp
1675
02:21:05,207 --> 02:21:12,682
was, perhaps, not so against the policy
of the higher echelons of SS ranks,
1676
02:21:13,298 --> 02:21:18,350
as long as it did not interfere
with the objective of the camp.
1677
02:21:19,596 --> 02:21:23,817
This means production
of death on the arrivals,
1678
02:21:23,892 --> 02:21:26,395
which were not prisoners of the camp.
1679
02:21:30,065 --> 02:21:33,035
There was a rule that if there are
those people in the transport
1680
02:21:33,110 --> 02:21:35,954
who can be utilized for work,
1681
02:21:36,029 --> 02:21:37,872
who are in good physical condition,
1682
02:21:37,948 --> 02:21:40,747
they are not old, they are not too young,
they are not children,
1683
02:21:40,826 --> 02:21:44,046
they are not women with children,
et cetera, they look healthy,
1684
02:21:44,121 --> 02:21:46,920
they should come into the concentration camp
1685
02:21:47,124 --> 02:21:51,504
for replacement of those
who were dying in the concentration camp,
1686
02:21:51,586 --> 02:21:53,179
as a fresh force.
1687
02:21:54,339 --> 02:21:57,593
And I could see the following discussions.
1688
02:21:57,676 --> 02:21:59,678
I once overheard...
1689
02:22:00,178 --> 02:22:02,647
A transport came from...
1690
02:22:02,723 --> 02:22:04,942
I think it was from Holland or from Belgium.
1691
02:22:05,017 --> 02:22:08,146
I do not guarantee which one it was.
1692
02:22:08,228 --> 02:22:11,653
And the SS doctor selected a group
1693
02:22:11,732 --> 02:22:14,702
of well-looking Jewish prisoners, newcomers,
1694
02:22:14,776 --> 02:22:17,825
from the whole transport,
which would be gassed,
1695
02:22:18,113 --> 02:22:19,831
which was gassed.
1696
02:22:20,198 --> 02:22:23,702
But the representative SS
from the concentration camp
1697
02:22:23,785 --> 02:22:25,787
said he doesn't want them.
1698
02:22:27,039 --> 02:22:30,134
And there was a discussion between them
which I could overhear,
1699
02:22:30,459 --> 02:22:33,133
in which the doctor was saying,
“Why don't you take them?
1700
02:22:33,211 --> 02:22:37,216
They are ausgefressene Juden
auf der holléndischen Kése. ”
1701
02:22:37,299 --> 02:22:43,807
This mean, uh, “Jews full of...
very, very nourished on Dutch cheese.”
1702
02:22:43,889 --> 02:22:45,937
“They would be good for the camp.”
1703
02:22:46,308 --> 02:22:49,232
And Fries, it was,
HauptscharfiJhrer Fries, answered him.
1704
02:22:49,311 --> 02:22:54,784
[Quoting Fries In German]
1705
02:22:55,025 --> 02:22:57,323
“L can't take those people,
1706
02:22:57,527 --> 02:23:03,000
because nowadays they don't
kick the bucket so fast in the camp.”
1707
02:23:03,075 --> 02:23:05,578
- This means they don't die fast enough?
- That's right.
1708
02:23:05,660 --> 02:23:11,963
In other words, he explained that
the stand of the camp was, say, 30,000.
1709
02:23:13,293 --> 02:23:17,389
If 500 or 5,000 died,
1710
02:23:17,714 --> 02:23:20,513
they were replaced by a new force
1711
02:23:21,093 --> 02:23:24,222
from the Jewish transport which came in.
1712
02:23:24,638 --> 02:23:26,732
But, if only a thousand died,
1713
02:23:27,849 --> 02:23:32,320
well, only a thousand were replaced,
and more went into the gas chamber.
1714
02:23:33,146 --> 02:23:39,529
So, the improvement of the conditions
within the concentration camp itself
1715
02:23:41,488 --> 02:23:44,458
made a higher death rate
1716
02:23:44,991 --> 02:23:48,120
in the gas chamber,
straight into the gas chamber.
1717
02:23:48,203 --> 02:23:50,376
It decreased the death rate
1718
02:23:51,081 --> 02:23:53,630
among the prisoners in concentration camp.
1719
02:23:53,875 --> 02:23:55,377
So, it was clear to me
1720
02:23:55,460 --> 02:23:58,134
that the improvement of the situation
of the concentration camp
1721
02:23:58,213 --> 02:24:05,472
does not impede
the process of mass executions
1722
02:24:06,179 --> 02:24:09,604
of those people
who were brought in into the camp.
1723
02:24:09,891 --> 02:24:13,316
Consequently, my idea, then,
of the Resistance movement,
1724
02:24:13,395 --> 02:24:15,989
of the sense
of the Resistance movement, was
1725
02:24:16,231 --> 02:24:22,159
that the improvement of the conditions
within the camp is only a first step,
1726
02:24:22,404 --> 02:24:26,659
that the Resistance movement
actually wants... is aware...
1727
02:24:26,741 --> 02:24:32,669
that the main thing is to stop
the process of mass execution,
1728
02:24:33,290 --> 02:24:35,133
the machinery of the killing,
1729
02:24:35,208 --> 02:24:39,463
and that, therefore,
it is a time of preparation,
1730
02:24:39,546 --> 02:24:41,548
of gathering of forces
1731
02:24:41,631 --> 02:24:47,013
for attacking the SS from inside,
1732
02:24:47,762 --> 02:24:50,265
even if it is a suicidal mission.
1733
02:24:51,057 --> 02:24:55,107
But, destroy the machinery.
1734
02:24:55,437 --> 02:24:57,531
And in this respect,
1735
02:24:57,606 --> 02:25:01,986
I would consider it as a suitable objective,
1736
02:25:02,736 --> 02:25:04,784
worthy objective.
1737
02:25:05,947 --> 02:25:09,417
And, um, it was also clear to me
1738
02:25:09,492 --> 02:25:12,371
that such an objective
cannot be achieved overnight,
1739
02:25:12,454 --> 02:25:16,209
that there is necessary a lot of preparation
and a lot of circumstances
1740
02:25:16,291 --> 02:25:20,387
about which, being only a small cog
in the whole machinery of resistance,
1741
02:25:20,462 --> 02:25:23,181
I could not know or decide.
1742
02:25:23,256 --> 02:25:26,851
But it was clear in my mind
1743
02:25:26,927 --> 02:25:31,728
that the only objective of any resistance
1744
02:25:31,806 --> 02:25:37,063
within a concentration camp
of the type of Auschwitz
1745
02:25:37,437 --> 02:25:41,067
has to be different from that
in Mauthausen or in Dachau.
1746
02:25:41,775 --> 02:25:44,153
Because, whereas
in Mauthausen and in Dachau,
1747
02:25:44,236 --> 02:25:50,164
this policy of resistance improved
the survival rate of political prisoners,
1748
02:25:50,242 --> 02:25:52,620
the same very noble policy
1749
02:25:52,869 --> 02:25:57,545
improved and oiled
the machinery of mass annihilation,
1750
02:25:57,624 --> 02:26:01,504
as practiced by the Nazis
within the concentration camp.