All language subtitles for Shoah - 1ère époque (1985).english

Making this film was a long and difficult battle.
I could not have waged it without the support
and the faith of a number of men and women,
some of whom are now gone.
This film is theirs as well.

I thank the members of my crew,
those men and women who took part
in the campaigns of research, reporting, filming.
Especially Ir�ne Steinfeldt-L�vi
and Corinne Coulmas, who seconded me, even
risking their personal safety in times of danger.
And Ziva Postec, who worked beside me day
after day for five years, on the editing of the film.

My gratitude also goes to Yehuda Bauer,
Professor of Contemporary Jewish History
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
and Ra�l Hilberg, Professor of Political Science
at the University of Vermont in Burlington (U.S.A.)

The story begins in the present at Chelmno,
on the Narew River, in Poland.
Fifty miles northwest of Lodz,
in the heart of a region that once had
a large Jewish population,
Chelmno was the place in Poland
where Jews were first exterminated by gas.
Extermination began on December 7, 1941.

At Chelmno 400000 Jews were murdered
in two separate periods:
December 1941 - spring 1943:
June 1944 - January 1945.
But the way in which death was administrated
remained the same throughout: The gas vans.

Of the 400000 men, women and children
who went there, only two came out alive:
Mordechai Podchlebnik and Simon Srebnik.
Srebnik, a survivor of the last period,
was a boy of thirteen when he was sent
to Chelmno.

His father had been killed before his eyes
in the ghetto in Lodz; his mother
died in a gas van in Chelmno. The SS placed him
in one of the << Jewish work details >>,
assigned to maintaining the extermination camps
and that were in turn slated for death...

With the ankles in chain, like all his companions,
the boy shuffled through the village of Chelmno
each day. That he was kept alive longer
than the others, he owed to his extreme agility,
which made him the winner of jumping contests
and speed races that the SS organized
for the chained prisoners.

And, also, to his melodious voice:
Several times a week, when the rabbits
kept in hutches by the SS needed fodder.,
young Srebnik rowed up the Narew,
Chelmno's river, under guard,
in a flat-bottomed boat,
to the alfalfa fields at the edge of the village.
He sang Polish folk tunes and in return
the guard taught him Prussian military songs.

Everyone In Chelmno knew him.
The Polish farm folk and German civillan as well,
since this Polish province was annexed to the Reich
after the fall of Warsaw, germanized and renamed
Wartheland. Chelmno was changed to Kulmhof,
Lodz to Litzmannstadt, Kolo to Warthbr�cken, etc...
German colonlsts had settled every where
in Wartheland, and there was even a German
grade school in Chelmno itself.

During the night of January 18, 1945,
two days before Soviet troops arrived,
the Nazis killed all the remaining Jews
in the << work details >> with a bullet in the head.
Simon Srebnik was among those executed.
But the bullet missed his vital brain centers.
When he came to, he crawled into a pigsty.

A polish farmer found him there.
The boy was treated and healed
by a Soviet Army doctor.
A few months later Simon left for Tel Aviv
along with other survivors of the death camps.
I found him in Israel and persuaded him
to return to Chelmno with me.
He was then forty-seven years old.

"A little white house..."

"Lingers in my memory..."

"Of that little
white house..."

"I dream each night..."

He was 131l2 years old. He
had a lovely singing voice

and we heard him.

When I heard him again,
my heart beat faster,

because what happened
here... was a murder.

I really re-lived
what happened.

It's hard to recognize,
but it was here.

They burned people here.

A lot of people
were burnt here.

Yes, this is the place.

No one ever left here again.

The gas vans came in here...

There were two huge ovens,

and afterward, the bodies
were thrown

into these ovens, and the
flames reached to the sky.

To the sky?

Yes.

It was terrible.

No one can describe it.

No one can

recreate what
happened here.

Impossible! And no one
can understand it.

Even I, here, now,

I can't believe I'm here.

No, I just can't believe it.

It was always this peaceful
here. Always.

When they burnt 2,000 people
- Jews... every day,

it was just as peaceful.

No one shouted. Everyone
went about his work.

It was silent. Peaceful.

Just as it is now.

"You, girl, don't you cry."

"Don't be so sad."

"For the dear summer
is nearing..."

"and I'll return with it."

"A mug of red wine,
a slice of roast,"

"that's what the girls
give their soldiers."

"When the soldiers
march along,"

"the girls open their doors
and windows."

They bought the Germans made
him sing on the river.

He was a toy to amuse them.

He had to do it.

He sang, but his heart wept.

Do "their" hearts weep
thinking about that now?

Certainly, very much so.

They still talk about it
around the family table.

It was public,
so everyone knew of it.

He said that was
true german irony,

people were being killed,
and he had to sing.

That's what I thought.

What died in him in Chelmo?

Everything died.

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

So he must forget.

The other survivor:
MORDECHAI PODCHLEBNIK

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

And let's not talk
about that.

Does he think it's good
to talk about it?

For me it's not good.

Then why is he talking
about it?

Because you're
insisting on it.

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

and he didn't even
read them.

He survived, but is he
really alive, or?

At the time, he felt
as if he were dead,

because he never thought
he'd survive,

but... he's alive.

Why does he smile
all the time?

What do you want him
to do... cry?

Sometimes you smile,
sometimes you cry.

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

Why was she so curious
about this story?

HANNA SAIDL - ISRAEL -

Daughter of MOTKE SAIDL,
survivor of VILNA (LITHUANIA)

It's a long story.

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

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

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

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

I questioned him. I never
stopped questioning him,

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

It came out haltingly.

I had to tear the details
out of him,

and finally,
when Mr. Lanzmann came,

I heard the whole story
for the second time.

The place resembles Ponari:
The forest, the ditches.

It's as if the bodies
has been burned here.

Except there were
no stones in Ponari.

PONARI: Forest where most
of the Vilna Jews were massacred.

But the Lithuanian forests

are denser than
the Israeli Forest, no?

Of course.

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

Is there still hunting
here in Sobibor forest?

Yes, there are lots
of animals of all kinds.

Was there hunting then?

Only manhunting.

JAN PIWONSKI

Somes victims tried
to escape.

But they didn't know
the area.

At times people heard
explosions in the minefield,

sometimes they'd find a deer

and sometimes a poor Jew
who tried to escape.

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

But it wasn't always
so silent here.

There was a time when
it was full of screams

and gunshots,

of dogs' barking,

and that period
especially

. is engraved on the minds
of the people

who lived here then.

After the revolt, the Germans
decided to liquidate the camp

and early in the winter
of 1943,

they planted pines that were
three or four years old,

to camouflage all the traces.

That screen of trees?

Yes.

That's where the mass
graves were?

When he first came
here in 1944,

you couldn't guess
what had happened here,

that these trees hidden
the secret of a death camp.

How did he react, the first
time he unloades corpses,

when the gas van
doors were opened?

What could he do? He cried.

The 3rd day, he saw
his wife and children.

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

The Germans said he was
strong enough to work,

that he wouldn't
be killed yet.

Was the weather very cold?

It was in the winter of
1942, in early January.

At that time, the bodies
weren't burned, just buried?

No, they were buried and
each row was covered with dirt.

They weren't being
burned yet.

There were around
four or five layers.

The ditches were
funnel-shaped.

They dumped the bodies
in theses ditches

and they had to lay them out
like herrings, head to foot.

So it was they who dug
up and burned

all the Jews of Vilna?

Yes.

In early Jan. 1944, we began
digging up the bodies.

When the last mass
grave opened,

I recognized my whole family.

Who in his family
did he recognize?

Mom and my sisters.
3 sisters with their kids.

They were all in there.

How could
he recognize them?

YITZHAK DUGIN:
Survivor of VILNA

They'd been
in the earth 4 months

and it was winter.

They were very well
preserved.

I recognized their faces,
their clothes too.

They'd been killed
relativerly recently?

And it was the last grave?

The Nazi plan was for
them to open the graves

starting with the oldest?

The last graves
were the newest

and we started with the oldest
those of the first ghetto.

In the first grave there
were 24,000 bodies.

The deeper you dug,
the flatter the bodies were.

Each was almost a flat slab.

When you tried to grasp
a body, it crumbled,

it was impossible to pick up them.

We had to open the graves,
but without tools.

They said: "Get used to
working with your hands".

With just their hands?

When we first opened
the graves,

we couldn't help it,
we all burst out sobbing.

But the Germans almost
beat us to death.

We had to work at
a killing pace for two days,

beaten all the time,
and with no tools.

They all burst out sobbing?

The Germans even
forbade us to use

the words "corpse"
or "victim".

The dead were blocks
of wood, shit,

with absolutely
no importance...

Anyone who said "corpse"
or "victim" was beaten.

The Germans made us
refer to the bodies

as "Figuren", that is

as puppets, as dolls,

or as "Schmattes",
which means "rags".

Were they told
at the start

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

The head of the Vilna
Gestapo told us:

"There are 90,000 people
lying there,

"and absolutely no trace
must be left of them."

It was at the end
of November 1942.

They chased us away
from our work,

and back to our barracks.
Suddenly,

from the part
of the camp called

the death camp,

flames shot up. Very high.

In a flash,
the whole countryside,

the whole camp
seemed ablaze.

It was already dark.

We went into our barracks,

and ate...

And from the window,
we kept on watching

the fantastic backdrop
of flames

of every imaginable color,

red, yellow, green, purple.

And suddenly one
of us stood up.

We knew

he'd been an opera
singer in Warsaw.

His name was Salve, and...

facing that curtain
of fire, he began

chanting a song

I didn't know:

"My God, my God,

"why hast Thou forsaken us?

RICHARD GLAZAR -
BASEL (SWITZERLAND)

"We have been thrust
into the fire before,

"but we have never
denied Thy Holy Law."

He sang in Yiddish,

while, behind him, blazed

the pyres

on which

they had begun then,
in November 1942,

to burn the bodies
in Treblinka.

That was the first time
it happened.

We knew that night

that the dead would
no longer be buried,

they'd be burned.

TREBLINKA

When things were ready,
they poured on fuel,

and touched off the fire.

They waited for a high wind.

The pyres usually burned
for 7 or 8 days.

There was a concrete
platform some distance away,

and the bones
that hadn't burned,

the big bones of the feet,
for example,

we took...

There was a chest
with two handles,

we carried
the bones there,

where others

had to crush them.
It was very fine,

that powdered bone.

Then it was put into sacks

and when there
were enough sacks,

we went to a bridge
on the Narew river,

and dumped the powder.
The current carried it off.

It drifted downstream.

PAULA BIREN - CINCINNATI
U.S.A. Survivor of AUSCHWITZ

The Jewish cemetery
is LODZ today

AUSCHWITZ: The town

Mrs. Pietryra,
you live in Auschwitz?

Yes, I was born here.

And you've never
left Auschwitz?

No, never.

Were there Jews in Auschwitz
before the war?

They made up 80%
of the population.

They even had
a synagogue here.

Just one?

Just one, I think.

Does it still exist?

No, it was wrecked.

There's something
else there now.

Was there a Jewish
cemetery in Auschwitz?

It still exists.
It's closed now.

It still exists?

Yes.

Closed?
What does that mean?

The don't bury there now.

Was there a synagogue
in Wlodawa?

Yes, and it's
very beautiful.

When Poland was ruled
by the csars,

that synagogue
already existed.

It's even older than
Catholic church.

It's no longer used.

There's no one to go to it.

These buildings
haven't changed?

Not at all. There were
barrels of herrings here,

and the Jews sold fish.

There were stalls,
small shops,

Jewish business,
as the gentleman says.

That's Barenholz's house.

He sold wood.

Lipschitz's store was there.
He sold cloth.

This was Lichtenstein's.

What was there, opposite?

A food store.

A Jewish store?

There was a notions
shop here,

it sold thread, needles,
odds and ends,

and there were also
three barbers.

PAN FILIPWICZ

- Was that fine house Jewish?
- It's Jewish.

And this small one?

Also.

And the one behind it?

These were all Jewish.

This one on the left, too?

That one too.

Who lived in it?
Borenstein?

He was in
the cement business.

He was very handsome,
and cultivated.

Here there was a blacksmith
named Tepper.

It was a Jewish house.

A shoemaker lived here.

What was his name?

Yankel?

Yes.

You get the feeling Wlodawa
was a Jewish city.

Yes, because it's true.

The Poles lived farther out
the center was wholly Jewish

What happened to
the Jews of Auschwitz?

They were expelled
and resettled,

but I don't know where.

What year was that?

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

This apartment also
belonged to Jews.

According to our
information,

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

nearby, in Benzin and
Sosnowiecze, in Upper Silesi.

Yes, because those were
Jewish towns.

Does she know what happened
to the Jews of Auschwitz?

I think they all ended
up in the camp.

That is, they returned
to Auschwitz?

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

All kinds of people
from everywhere

were sent here.

All the Jews came here...
to die.

What's they think
when Wlodawa's Jews

were all deported
to Sobibor?

WLODAWA - Sobibor: 10 miles

What could we think?

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

How so?

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

they foresaw their doom,
he doesn't know how.

Even before the war
they had a premonition.

How were they taken to
Sobibor? On foot?

It was frightful.
He watched it himself.

They were herded on foot to
a station called Orkrobek.

There they put the old
people first

into waiting cattle cars,

then the younger Jews,

and finally the kids.

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

Were there a lot
of Jews in Kolo?

A great many.

More Jews than Poles.

And what happened
with the Kolo Jews?

Was he an eye-witness?

PAN FALBORSKI

Yes. It was frightful.

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

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

some were even killed.

A cart followed the convoy
to pick up the corpses.

Those who couldn't walk,
the slain?

Yes, those who'd fallen.

Where did this happen?

The Jews were collected
in the Kolo synagogue.

Then they were herded
to the station,

where the narrow-gauge
railroad wen to Chelmno.

It happened to all the Jews
in the area, not just in Kolo.

Absolutely. Everywhere.

Jews were also murdered
in the forests

near Kalisz,
not far from here.

ABRAHAM BOMBA, survivor of
TREBLINKA - TEL-AVIV

TREBLINKA by road

He was born here

in 1923,

and has been here
even since.

He lived at this very spot?

Right here.

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

Naturally.

You could go up close or
watch from a distance.

CZESLAW BOROWI

They had land on the far
side of the station.

To work it, he had
to cross the track,

so he could see everything.

Does he remember the first
convoy of Jews

from Warsaw
on July 22, 1942?

Yes.

He recalls the first
convoy very well,

and when all those Jews
were brought here,

people wondered, "what's to
be done with them?"

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

When people began to
understand what was happening

they were appalled, and they
commented privately

that since the world began,

no one had ever murdered so
many people that way.

While all this was happening
before their eyes,

normal life went on?
They worked their fields?

Certainly they worked,
but not

as willingly as usual.

They had to work,

but when they saw all this,
they bought,

what if our house is
surrounded and we're arrested.

Were they afraid for
the Jews, too?

Well, he says,
it's this way:

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

They saw that happened to
the Jews: The convoy came in

and then went
to the camp, and

the people vanished.

He had a field under
100 yards from the camp.

He also worked during
the German occupation.

He worked his field?

Yes.

He saw how they were
asphyxiated,

he heard them scream,
he saw that.

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

What did he say?

They couln't stop
and watch.

It was forbidden. The
Ukrainians shot at them.

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

They could.

So occasionally he could
steal a glance,

if the Ukrainians
weren't looking.

He worked with
his eyes lowered?

Yes.

He worked by the barbed wire
and heard awful screams.

His field was there?

Yes, right up close.

It wasn't forbidden
to work there.

So he worked,
he farmed there?

Yes. Where the camp is now,

was partly his field.

It was off limits, but they
heard everything.

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

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

You get used to anything?

Yes.

Now he thinks... impossible.

Yet it was true.

So he was the convoys
arriving.

There were 60 to 80 cars
in each convoy

and there were
two locomotives

. that took the convoys
into the camp,

taking 20 cars at a time.

And the cars came
back empty?

Yes.

Does he remember?

Here's how it happened:

The locomotive picked up 20
cars and took them to the camp

That took maybe an hour,

and the empty cars
came back here.

Then the next 20 cars
were taken, and meanwhile,

the people in the first 20
were already dead.

They waited, they wept,

they asked for water,
they died.

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

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

Where was that?

Here. When the convoys
arrived, they gave water to

Who gave the Jews water?

We did, the Poles.

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

Wasn't it dangerous
to give them water?

Very dangerous.

You could be killed for
giving a glass of water.

But we gave
them water anyway.

Is it very cold
here in winter?

It depends.

It can get to minus 15,
minus 20.

Which was harder on the
Jews, summer or winter?

Waiting here, I mean.

He thinks winter, because
they were very cold.

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

In summer they stifled:
It was very hot.

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

Were there corpses
in the cars on arrival?

Obviously.

They were so packed in that
even those still alive

sat on corpses for
lack of space.

Didn't people here who
went by the trains

look through the cracks
in the cars?

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

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

How did the Jews
try to get out?

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

Through the windows.

They removed
the barbed wire

and came out
of the windows.

They jumped, of course.

Sometimes they just
deliberately

sat down on the ground,

and the guards came and
shot them in the head.

They jumped from the cars...
What a sight!

Jumping from the windows.

There was a mother
and child.

- Jewish?
- Yes.

She tried to run away

and they shot her
in the heart.

Shot who... the mother?

Yes, the mother.

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

He says that now he can't
understand how a man

can do that to another
human being.

It's inconceivable,
beyond understanding.

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

and forbade giving any.

The Jewish woman had asked
for water...

threw her pot at his head.

The Ukrainian moved back,

maybe ten yards, and opened
fire on the car.

Blood and brains were
all over the place.

Lots of people
opened the doors,

or escaped through
the windows.

Sometimes the Ukrainians
fired through the car walls.

It happened chiefly
at night.

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

the Ukrainians wanted
things quiet,

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

So the Jews shut up and
the guard moved off.

Then the Jews started talking
again, in their language,

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

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

Their language.

No, ask him:

Was the Jews' noise
something special?

They spoke Jew.

Does Mr. Borowi
understand "Jew"?

No.

Did he hear screams
behind his locomotive?

Obviously, since the
locomotive was next to the camp.

They screamed,
asked for water.

The screams from the cars
closest to the locomotive

could be heard very well.

Can one get used to that?

- No. -

It was extremely
distressing to him.

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

The Germans gave him
and the other workers

vodka to drink.

Without drinking, they
couldn't have done it.

There was a bonus

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

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

HENRIK GAWKOWSKY

He drank every drop he got
because without liquor

he couldn't stand the
stench when he got here.

They even bought more liquor
on their own,

to get drunk on.

From the station to the
unloading ramp in the camp,

how many miles?

Four.

ABRAHAM BOMBA

We traveled for two days.

On the morning
of the second day we saw

that we had left
Czechoslovakia

and were heading east.

It wasn't the SS
guarding us,

but the Schutzpolizei,

the police,
in green uniforms.

We were in ordinary
passenger cars.

All the seats were filled.

You couldn't choose.

There were all numbered
and assigned.

In my compartment there was
an elderly couple.

I still remember:
The good man

was always hungry and
his wife scolded him,

saying they'd have
no food left

for the future.

RICHARD GLAZAR

Then, on the second day,

I saw a sign for Malkinia.

We went on a little farther.

Then, very slowly, the train

turned off of
the main track,

and rolled at a walking
pace through a wood.

While he looked out,

we'd been able to open
a window.

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

Cows were grazing...

And he asked
the boy in signs,

"Where are we?"

And the kid made
a funny gesture. This!

Across the throat.

A Pole?

A Pole.

Where was this?
At the station?

It was where the train
had stopped.

On one side
was the wood,

and on the other
were fields.

And there was a farmer
in a field?

We saw cows

watched over
by a young man,

a farmhand.

And one of you
questioned him?

Not in words, but in signs,
we asked,

"What's going on here?"

And he made that gesture.
Like this.

We didn't really

pay much attention to him.

We couldn't figure out
what he meant.

Once there were foreign
Jews... they were this fat...

This fat?

Riding in passenger cars.

There was a dining car,
they could drink,

and walk around, too.

They said they were going
to a factory.

On arrival they saw kind
of a factory it was.

We'd gesture...

Gesture how?

That they'd be killed.

These people made
that sign?

He says the Jews didn't
believe it.

But what does
that gesture mean?

That death awaited them.

The people who had
a chance

to get near the Jews did
that to warn them...

He did it too?

That they'd be hanged,
killed, slain.

Yes.

Even foreign Jews from
Belgium, Czechoslovakia,

from France too, surely.

And from Holland...

These didn't know,

but the Polish Jews knew.

In the small cities
in the area,

it was talked about.

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

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

All the Jews.

He says the foreign Jews
arrived here in passenger

they were well dressed,
in white shirts,

there were flowers in the
cars, and they played cards.

From what I know,
that was very rare,

Jews shipped
in passanger cars.

Most arrived
in cattle cars.

It's not true.

It's not true?

What did Mrs. Gawkowska say?

She said he may not have
seen everything.

He says he did.

Once, at the Malkinia
station, for example,

a foreign Jew left
the train

to buy something at the bar.

The train pulled out and
he ran after it...

To catch up to it.

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

those Jews who were calm,
unsuspecting,

and he made
that gesture to them.

To all the Jews,
in principle.

He just went along
the platform! Ask him!

Yes. The road was
as it is now.

When the guard
wasn't looking,

he made that gesture.

Ask Mr. Gawkowski
why he looks so sad.

Because I saw men marching
to their death.

Precisely where are we now?

It's not far... a mile
and a half from here.

What, the camp?

What's that dirt road
he's indicating?

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

Did Mr. Gawkowski, aside
from the trains of deportees

he drove from Warsaw
or Bialystok

to the Treblinka station...

Did he ever drive
the deportee cars

into the camp from
the Treblinka station?

Did he do it often?

Two or three times a week.

Over how long a period?

Around a year and a half.

That is, throughout
the camp's existence?

This is the ramp.

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

and he has the 20 cars
behind him.

No, they're in front of him.

He pushed them?

That's right,
he pushed them.

In February 1942, I began

working here as
an assistant switchman.

The station building,
the rails, the platforms

are just as they were in
1942? Nothing's changed?

Nothing.

Exactly where did
the camp begin?

JAN PIWONSKY

I'll show you exactly.

Here,

there was a fence that ran
to those trees you see there.

And another fence, that ran
to those trees over there.

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

That's right.

Where I am now is 50 feet
from the station,

and I'm already
outside the camp.

Yes.

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

Yes.

On German orders, Polish
railmen split up the trains.

So the locomotive
took 20 cars,

and headed toward Chelm.

When it reached a switch,

it pushed the cars into the camp
on the other track we can see.

The ramp began there.

So here we're
outside the camp,

and back here we enter it.

Unlike Treblinka, the statio
here is part of the camp.

And at this point
we are inside the camp.

This track was
inside the camp.

And it's exactly as it was?

Yes, the same track.

It hasn't changed since then.

Where we are now is what was
called the ramp, right?

Yes, those to be
exterminated were unloaded.

So where we're standing is

where 250,000 Jews were
unloaded before being gassed.

Yes.

Did foreign Jews arrive here
in passenger cars, too?

Not always.

Often the richest Jews,

from Belgium, Holland,
France,

arrived in passenger cars,

sometimes even in 1st class.

They were usually better
treated by the guards.

Especially the convoys
of Western European Jews

waiting their turn here,

Polish railmen saw the women
making up, combing their hair

wholly unaware of what
awaited them minutes later.

They dolled up.

And the Poles couldn't tell
them anything: The guards

forbad contact
with the future victims.

I suppose were there fine
days like today.

Unfortunately,
some were even finer.

RUDOLF VRBA, survivor of
AUSCHWITZ - NEW YORK

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU

And suddenly it started:
The yelling and screaming.

"All out, everybody out!"

All those shouts,
the uproar, the tumult!

"Out! Get out!

"Leave the baggage!"

We got out stepping
on each other.

We saw men

wearing blue armbands.

Some carried whips.

We saw some SS men.

Green uniforms,

black uniforms...

We were a mass,

and the mass swept
us along.

It was irresistible.

It had to move
to another place.

I saw the others undressing.

And I hear: "get undressed!
You're to be disinfected!"

As I waited, already naked,

I noticed the

SS men separating
out some people.

These were told
to get dressed.

A passing SS man suddenly
stopped in front of me,

looked me over, and said:

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

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

"You can be a kapo...
a squad leader."

BIRKENAU: The ramp

We were taken to a barracks.

The whole place stank.

Piled about five feet high

in a jumbled mass,

where all the things people
could conceivably have brought.

Clothes, suitcases,

everything

stacked in a solid mass.

On top of it, jumping
around like demons.

People were

making bundles,

and carrying them outside.

I was turned over to one
of these men.

His armband said,
"Squad Leader".

He shouted,
and I understood

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

and take it somewhere.

As I worked, I asked him:

"What's going on? The undressed
ones... Where are they?

And he replied:
"Dead! All dead!"

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

He'd used the Yiddish word.

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

He didn't say it very loud,

and I saw he had tears
in his eyes.

Suddenly he started
shouting,

and raised his whip.

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

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

but just to rush outside
with the package.

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

He'd been at the rear
of the train,

in a section that had been
uncoupled and left outside.

I needed someone.
Near me. With me.

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

He'd been spared too.

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

He looked at me,

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

He had learned
on the way there.

Your meeting with Carel:

How long after your arrival
did it happen?

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

Then I left the barracks,

and had my first look
at the vast space

that I soon
learned was called

"the sorting place".

It was buried under mountain
of objects of all kinds.

Mountains of shoes,
of clothes, 30 feet high.

I thought about it
and said to Carel:

"It's a hurricane,
a raging sea.

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

"We must do nothing

"but watch
for every new wave,

"float on it,

"get ready
for the next wave,

"and ride the wave at all
costs. And nothing else."

Greenery, sand
everywhere else.

At night, we were
put into a barracks.

It just had a sand floor.

Nothing else.

Each of us simply dropped
where he stood.

Half-asleep, I heard

some men hang themselves.

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

Just as it wast normal
that for everyone

behind whom the gate
of Treblinka closed,

there was death,
had to be death,

for no one was supposed

to be left to bear witness.

I already knew that,

three hours after

arriving at Treblinka.

BERLIN

INGE DEUTSCHKRON.
Born in BERLIN

Lived there throught
the war.

(in hiding beginning
in February 1943)

Now lives in ISRAEL

FRANZ SUCHOMEL:
SS unterscharfuhrer

Are you ready?

- Yes.
- Then we can...

We can begin.

How's your heart?
Is everything in order?

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

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

We'll have to break off.

Of course.

But your health,
in general, is...

The weather today
suits me fine.

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

You look to be in good
shape, anyway.

Let's begin with Treblinka.

Certainly.

I think that's best.

If you could give us

a description
of Treblinka.

How did it look
when you arrived?

I believe you
got there in August?

Was it August 20 or 24?

The 18th?

I don't know exactly.
Around August 20.

I arrived there
with seven other men.

From Berlin?

From Berlin.

From Lublin?

From Berlin to Warsaw,
from Warsaw to Lublin,

from Lublin back to Warsaw
and from Warsaw to Treblinka.

What was Treblinka
like then?

Treblinka then was operating
at full capacity.

Full capacity?

Full capacity!

Trains arrived...

The Warsaw ghetto
was being emptied then.

Three trains arrived
in two days,

each with three, four, five
thousand people aboard,

all from Warsaw.

But at the same time,
other trains came in

from Kielce and
other places.

So three trains arrived,

and since the offensive
against Stalingrad was in fear,

the trainloads of Jews were
left on a station siding.

What's more,
the cars were French,

made of steel.

So that while 5,000 Jews
arrived in Treblinka,

3,000 were dead.

In the...

In the cars.
They had slashed

their wrists, or just died.

The ones we unloaded
were half-dead

and half-mad.

In the other trains
from Kielce

and elsewhere,

at least half were dead.

We stacked them
here, here,

here and here.

Thousands of people

piled one on top
of another.

On the ramp?

On the ramp.

Stacked like wood.

In addition,

other Jews, still alive,
waited there for two days:

The small gas-chambers
could no longer handle the number.

They functioned day and
night in that period.

Can you please describe,
very precisely,

your first impression
of Treblinka?

Very precisely.
It's very important.

My first impression
of Treblinka,

and that of some of the other
men, was catastrophic.

For we had not been told

how and what... that
people were being killed there.

That they hadn't told us.

You didn't know?

No!

Incredible!

But true.
I didn't want to go.

That was proved
at my trial.

I was told:

"Mr. Suchomel, there are
big workshops there

"for tailors
and shoemakers,

"and you'll be
guarding them."

But you knew
it was a camp?

Yes. We were told:

"The Fuhrer ordered
a ressettlement program.

"It's an
order from the Fuhrer."

Understand?

Ressetlement program...

No one ever spoke
of killing.

I understand.

Mr. Suchomel, we're not
discussing you,

only Treblinka.

You are a very important
eye-witness,

and you can explain
what Treblinka was.

But don't use my name.

No, I promised.

All right, you've arrived
at Treblinka.

So Stadie, the sarge,

showed us the camp

from end to end.

Just as we went by,
they were

opening
the gas-chamber doors,

and people fell out
like potatoes.

Naturally, that horrified
and appalled us.

We went back and sat down
on our suitcases

and cried like old women.

Each day, 100 Jews
were chosen

to drag the corpses
to the mass graves.

In the evening, the
Ukrainians drove those Jews

into the gas-chambers
or shot them.

Every day!

It was in the hottest
days of August.

The ground undulated

likes waves
because of the gas.

From the bodies?

Bear in mind, the graves
were maybe 18,

20 feet deep,

all crammed with bodies!

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

It was a hell up there.

You saw that?

Yes, just once,
the first day.

We pucked and wept.

You wept?

We wept too, yes.

The smell was infernal.

Yes, because gas was
constantly escaping.

It stank horribly,
for miles around.

Miles?

Miles!

You could smell it all around,
not just in the camp?

Everywhere. It depended on
the wind. The stink

was carried on the wind.

Understand?

More people kept coming,
always more,

whom we hadn't
the facilities to kill.

Those gents were in a rush
to clean out the Warsaw ghetto.

The gas-chambers couldn't
handle the load.

The small gas-chambers.

The Jews had to wait
their turn for a day,

2 days, 3 days.

They foresaw
what was coming.

They foresaw it.

They may not have been
certain, but many knew.

There were Jewish
women who

slashed their daughters'
wrists at night,

then cut their own.

Others poisoned themselves.

They heard the engine
feeding the gas-chamber.

A tank engine was used
in that gas-chamber.

At Treblinka the only gas
used was engine exhaust.

Zyklon gas,
that was Auschwitz.

Because of the delay,

Eberl, the camp commandant,

phoned Lublin and said:

"We can't go on this way.
I can't do it any longer.

"We have to break off."

Overnight, Wirth arrived.

He inspected everything
and then left.

He returned with people
from Belzec,

experts.

Wirth arranged to suspend
the trains.

The corpses lying there
were cleared away.

That was the period
of the old gas-chambers.

Because there were
so many dead

that couldn't be gotten
rid off,

the bodies piled up
around the gas-chambers

and stayed there
for days.

Under this pile of bodies
was a cesspool:

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

and shit.

No one wanted
to clean it out.

The Jews preferred
to be shot

rather than work there.

Preferred to be shot?

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

The dead flesh came off
in their hands.

So Wirth went there
himself

with a few Germans

and had long belts
rigged up

that were wrapped around
the dead torsos to pull them...

Who did that?

SS men.

Wirth?

SS men and Jews.

SS men and Jews!

Jews too?

Jews too!

What did the Germans do?

They forced the Jews to...

They beat them?

Or they themselves helped
with the clean-up.

Which Germans did that?

Some of our guards who
were assigned up there.

The Germans themselves?

They had to.

They were in command!

They were in command, but
they were also commanded.

I think the Jews did it.

In that case, the Germans
had to lend a hand.

The black execution wall
in the courtyard of block II

at AUSCHWITZ I,
the original camp

Filip, on that Sunday
in May 1942,

when you first entered

the Auschwitz creatorium,
how old were you?

Twenty.

It was a Sunday in May.

It was a Sunday in May.

We were locked in an
underground cell in Block 11

We were held in secret.

Then some SS men appeared

and marched us along
a street in the camp.

We went through a gate,

and around 300 feet away,

300 feet from the gate,

I suddenly saw a building.

It had a flat roof,
and a smokestack.

I saw a door in the rear.

I thought they were taking
us to be shot.

FILIP MULLER:
Survivor of the 5 liquidations

of the AUSCHWITZ
"special detail".

Suddenly, before a door

under a lamp in
the middle of this building.

A young SS man told us:

"Inside, filthy swine!"

We entered a corridor.

They drove us along it.

Right away, the stench,
the smoke choked me.

They kept on chasing us

and then I made out
the shapes

of the first two ovens.

Between the ovens, some
Jewish prisoners were working.

We were in the crematorium's
incineration chamber

in Camp I at Auschwitz.

From there, they herded us

to another big room,

and told us to undress
the corpses.

I looked around me.

There were hundreds
of bodies,

all dressed.

Piled with the corpses

were suitcases, bundles

and, scattered everywhere,

strange, blueish-purple
crystals.

I couldn't understand
any of it.

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

I didn't even know
where I was.

Above all, I couldn't
understand how they

managed to kill
so many people at once.

When we undressed
some of them,

the order was given
to feed the ovens.

Suddenly, an SS man
rushed up and told me:

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

What did he mean,

"Stir the bodies"?

I entered
the cremation chamber.

There was a Jewish prisoner,

Fischel, who later
became a squad leader.

He looked at me
and I watched him

poke the fire
with a long rod.

He told me,
"Do as I'm doing

"or the SS will kill you."

I picked up a poker

and did as he was doing.

A poker?

A steel poker.

I obeyed Fischel's order.

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

ready to do

whatever I was told.

I was so mindless,
so horrified

that I did everything
Fischel told me.

So the ovens were fed,

but we were so
inexperienced

that we left
the fans on

too long.

The fans?

Yes. There were fans to make
the fire hotter.

They worked too long...

The firebrick
suddenly exploded,

blocking the pipes
linking

the Auschwitz
crematorium

with the smokestack.

Cremation was interrupted.

The ovens were out
of action.

That evening,
some trucks came,

and we had to load the rest,

some 300 bodies,

into the trucks.

Then we were taken...

I still
don't know where...

but probably
to a field at Birkenau.

We were ordered
to unload the bodies

and put them in a pit.

There was a ditch,
an artificial pit.

Suddenly, water gushed up
from underground

and swept
the bodies down.

When night came,

we had to stop
that horrible work.

We were loaded
into the trucks

and returned
to Auschwitz.

The next day, we were taken
to the same place

but the water had risen.

Some SS men came
with a firetruck

and pumped out the water.

We had to go down
into that muddy pit

to stack up the bodies.

But they were slimy.

For example, I grasped a
woman, but her hands...

Her hand was slippery, slimy
I tried to pull her,

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

It was the same
for all of us.

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

"Get cracking, you filth,
you bastards!

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

And in these...

how shall I say?
- Circumstances- 2 of my "friends"

couldn't take any more.
One was a French student.

All Jews!
They were exhausted.

They just lay there
in the mud.

Aumeyer called

one of his SS men:

"Go on, finish off
those swine!"

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

There were no crematorium
at Birkenau then?

No, there weren't
any there yet.

Birkenau still wasn't
completely set up.

Only Camp BI, which was late
the women's camp, existed.

It wasn't until the spring of
1943 that skilled workmen

and unskilled laborers,
all Jews,

must have gone
to work here

and built the 4 crematorium.

Each crematorium
had 15 ovens,

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

and a big gas-chamber

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

TREBLINKA

The new gas-chambers were
built in September 1942.

Who built them?

Hackenhold and
Lambert supervised

the Jews who did the work

the bricklaying, at least.

Ukrainian carpenters
made the doors.

The gas-chamber doors
themselves

were armored bunker doors.

I think they were brought
from Bialystok,

from some Russian bunkers.