Trains to Treblinka Read online

  Near to the Masareks were the Freunds, another young Czech family. The husband, Hans, held his small curly-haired boy, and his young wife. Though married and a father already, Hans’s light-red hair and freckles gave him a boyish appearance. He could have passed as a fifteen-year-old. The two families were neighbors in the overly populated quarters of the work camp, and often chatted at the end of the day just before lights-out.

  Before their incarceration, Rudi had served in the Czech Army as a lieutenant; Hans had worked in textiles with his father. Jews who had served in the military or had powerful connections were rounded up inside Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia at local train stations, then made the trek to the small work community in Theresienstadt.

  “How long do you think we will have to stand here?” Gisela asked Rudi, trying not to sound too upset and become a burden.

  “If they are taking us to a camp near Warsaw, then it shouldn’t be more than one full day,” answered Rudi. He could not imagine having to tell Gisela she must stand for two to three days, and he hoped that those sitting would exchange places with them after a few hours. “Perhaps by tomorrow’s supper we will be there, having our first meal.”

  Gisela smiled at him, but Rudi could see in her eyes the dismay of having to leave their familiar surroundings.

  Hans spent the first couple of hours entertaining his son to keep him from crying. However, the original warmth from the mass of bodies that permeated the train dissipated with the early morning air surrounding the railcar. The boy’s cheeks were cold, so his mother wrapped him inside her coat and held him close while Hans kept an arm around her.

  Rudi and Gisela tried to rest. Rudi crouched down on one knee whereby Gisela could sit and lean her head into his broad chest. The monotonous metallic rhythm of the train served to lull most of the passengers to sleep. We must be in Poland by now, Rudi thought.

  Through the window, the outline of the trees could be seen against the horizon; the break of dawn would come soon. Rudi dozed off and on, even with the unsupported, erect carriage of his muscular back swaying with the moving train. Each time he awoke he was reminded of the horror of the mass migration in which he and Gisela were forced to participate. He was angry. His military training as an officer taught him to lead and to resist aggression, but he could not see his way clear this time. There were always too many guards, and a tightly controlled environment. The slim odds of escaping with Gisela never gave him enough hope to consider a workable plan. They were being led, against their will, and he could not do a thing about it, except to stare at the early morning fog drifting through the passing fields.

  Clickety-clack. Along the rails the train continued throughout the night and rolled into its second and then third day of the journey. It was Thursday, October 15th. Everyone who was packed on the train was hungry, tired, and irritated; babies were crying, adults were shouting at their captors, the aged were offering prayers to the Almighty. Every so often the train had to stop at signals to allow other trains to pass through. When this happened some of the guards jumped down onto the platforms where passengers pleaded with them for water or for food. Occasionally, for money, a guard could be convinced to forfeit some drinking water for the privileged few who could pay him. The rest continued to suffer. Some of the Ukrainian guards began to taunt the passengers and make fun of them.

  The Masareks and the Freunds were at wit’s end. Due to their restricted movement, they were forced to urinate, and worse, to pass waste at their feet and the feet of those standing nearby—it brought them to new levels of embarrassment and indignity. As more travelers added to the mess the stench became horrific. One poor woman had dysentery and could not keep herself contained. Hans continued to coddle and woo his young child, giving his dear wife a break. No one could sit or kneel anymore because of the smelly matter on the floorboards. They leaned into each other, and occasionally toppled this way and that as the train lurched forward or came to a momentary stop.

  People asked inquisitively of the guards if they were going to Ukraine or to Poland, and the guards simply laughed at the question. Most believed they had traveled a greater distance than Warsaw, so if they did not stop today then it suggested they would travel onward to Ukraine. Others did not care to speculate; they just wanted freedom from the train.

  Rudi could tell that Gisela was suffering. Her face looked thinner and there was hunger in her eyes and mannerisms. Rudi looked at her small stomach and hoped to God they would arrive at their destination soon. He glanced at the Freunds, and sensed they were at their limit with the child between them. He slept restlessly, and sometimes whimpered. Hans frequently caressed the boy’s smooth cheeks. How much more could they endure?

  At last the brakes squealed. The train came to a stop then moved forward again. Part of the train behind detached while their car, and those attached to the front, began to move backward through a large gate. Another screech of the brakes and a whistle, then it became quiet for a moment. They noticed the scrub pine trees anchored into the sandy earth all around the train. There was a green fence near a little brick station, and an immense train platform. The sign out front said treblinka. The train did not move again.

  Chapter 2

  Franz Stangl, kommandant of Treblinka, stood off to the side of the rail station and went unnoticed as the train from Theresienstadt pulled in to unload its contents. Neatly dressed with a pressed white jacket, deer leather gloves, riding pants, and shiny black boots, Stangl held a small riding crop and tapped it against the top of his boots. There was a smile on his face that morning. This will be a good day for the workers, he thought.

  Stangl’s leadership at Treblinka made him the immediate supervisor of twenty-four SS men, and approximately 120 Ukrainian guards used as an auxiliary police force. The Ukrainians were employed mostly for the guard towers and patrols, tasks the regular SS men did not want to do. Stangl had worked as kommandant of the Sobibor concentration camp for six months before coming to Treblinka to get things “cleaned up.” The money and other valuables taken from the Jews at Treblinka had not been properly transferred back to the Nazi hierarchy by his predecessor, but that obstruction was immediately fixed when Stangl took over. He was a faithful lieutenant.

  Austrian-born Franz Stangl was the son of a dragoon for the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army. As a boy, Stangl used to look at his father’s uniform with loathing; it seemed to him his father was more obsessed with his former military service than he was with the present, and with his family. Yet now Stangl stood in a uniform himself.

  Stangl had been married for seven years. However, this current duty and his previous assignment at Sobibor took him away from his wife, who remained at Linz, in Upper Austria. He had developed a love for horses, which he rode often, even at Treblinka. Working at Treblinka was a top-secret mission. There were only a handful of men who were allowed to know what was happening there. Stangl reported directly to another Austrian, Odilo Globocnik, who everyone knew was a personal friend of Heinrich Himmler, the national leader of the SS and the Gestapo.

  That morning, Stangl entertained himself by watching his workers assist with processing the new arrivals. Like dye diffusing into a glass of water, the passengers quickly spread across the massive train platform. A few SS men floated around to keep eyes on everything and maintain control. There were also twenty armed Ukrainian guards on the unloading platform, accompanied by forty to fifty Jewish workers wearing bluish armbands to assist with the new arrivals. Additionally, nurses and litter teams were on hand to aid the infirmed. A railcar opened directly in front of Stangl and, just as he presumed, the Jews who were disembarking were dressed well and carrying luggage.

  The transports from the west were so very different than those from the east in terms of wealth. When Jews came in from France, Holland, Germany, or Czechoslovakia, there were vast amounts of food, clothing, and valuables that accompanied them. When Gypsies or Jews from rural Russia or Ukraine unloaded, they barely had anything besides the rags on thei
r bodies. Stangl knew that his workers were happy to receive trains from the west because they would eat like kings for a few days, and the clothing would not be so infested with lice.

  While supervising the well-oiled machine he had created, the kommandant reflected on the day he first arrived at Treblinka. What a mess!

  He had performed admirably since then, Stangl thought: cleaned up Treblinka, limited the shootings, and sent all the valuables to headquarters where they belonged. His supervisor, Odilo Globocnik, was wise to choose him. “So dependable,” Globocnik said of him. Stangl had ensured that all the valuables delivered to Treblinka were properly organized and re-shipped out to support the war effort. His predecessor had not been such a professional.

  While the second and third cars continued to unload, scores of bedraggled people of all ages came pouring out. Wide-eyed youth, aged people assisted by Stangl’s Jewish workers, and middle-aged couples often with young children or infants in their arms; everyone came out of the train wondering where they were, and what was going to happen to them next. A mass of people continued to pour over every inch of the platform. Guards began shouting. One used a whip to get their attention. Dead bodies were carried out of the railcars and placed onto wagons. It was chaotic, and after an hour of observation Stangl decided to turn his attention toward getting something to eat at the new bakery. A Jewish baker from Vienna made extra tasty pastries exclusively for the kommandant.

  Chapter 3

  When the train stopped at Treblinka, Tchechia noticed that the crude Lithuanian guards who had accompanied the transport to prevent escapes were no longer in sight. They had all exited the train before passing through the final gates of the camp. When the doors opened to the landing platform, the train’s occupants were met by Ukrainian guards with whips and rifles.

  “Raus! Raus! Get out! Quickly now, women to the right, men to the left.”

  What first struck Tchechia as she waited her turn to depart was the bright sunlight and influx of new air once the door had opened. Those near the door quickly lifted out the woman who had been shot along with another older gentleman who had died on the trip. This way the bodies would not be trampled upon when the passengers departed. The guards did not like the delay.

  “Leave them alone! Get out at once! Step on those who are in the way!”

  Tchechia stepped down and then looked back to watch Bronka’s father shepherding his wife and little ones off the train. One by one he grabbed the younger children with his large hands thrust into their armpits and unloaded them to the platform. Then Bronka grabbed her two younger sisters’ hands and moved in Tchechia’s direction.

  The guards stood by the railcar doors and used the butts of their rifles to smash people in their heads or backs if they were not moving fast enough. While it was invigorating to finally be free of the train, the physical torment and a new, odious smell of death had shocked and nauseated them. People tripped over each other and screamed at the chaos. Several shots were fired into the crowd at those who moved too slowly, or in the wrong direction. The numerous Jewish workers with blue armbands were also yelling instructions and trying to assist the armed guards. It served its purpose to heighten everyone’s anxiety into a hysteria.

  “Women to the right, men to the left! Women to the right, men to the left! Children are to stay with their mothers!”

  Tchechia watched as Bronka’s father hugged his wife and daughters, then grabbed his son’s hand and disappeared into an ever-growing mass of men. More and more railcar doors were opened; hundreds upon hundreds of passengers continued to enter into the mass of people. The guards separated families and marched them out of the area. The women and children departed the platform and walked through a large gate covered with pine branches. They entered a courtyard with mounds of different types of clothing and were instructed to proceed into a nearby wooden building for processing.

  Tchechia stayed close to Bronka, thinking, If nothing else, perhaps I can help her take care of her sisters.

  Inside the building there were Jewish workers with red armbands and German SS guards who closely watched everyone entering the large warehouse. When Tchechia entered the building she saw women and children undressing, right there in front of the male guards. More yelling. More instructions. Women were told to remove all clothing and place it into piles: shoes in one place, dresses in another, underwear over there, and coats by the door. Up ahead, already undressed women were forced into another room where a guard yelled something about haircuts for delousing. They were headed for the showers, but for some reason were told to keep their valuables, jewelry, and identification papers with them.

  While Tchechia began to undress, a nasty-looking SS guard with drool at one corner of his mouth walked up to her holding a whip.

  “What is your name?”

  “Tchechia.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Lemberg.”

  “You do not look Jewish,” the guard said matter-of-factly.

  Tchechia did not respond. She continued to undress while keeping eye contact with Bronka. Once naked, Tchechia grabbed all her clothing and scurried over to the piles where she deposited her belongings into the designated spaces. Then she moved over to the line where the women were waiting to have their hair cut.

  Just before Tchechia entered the shearing room, a Jewish worker with a red band on his sleeve tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You there, come over here,” he said.

  “Why?” asked Tchechia. She grew suspicious, and wondered why she was not allowed to have her hair cut and proceed to the showers.

  “Because we need you for work, that’s why. Now quit asking questions and find some clothes to put on. You will be thankful later.”

  The camp worker turned and made eye contact with the SS guard who had first spoken to Tchechia. He was standing there smiling, approvingly. She saw their silent exchange, then quickly moved back to the piles to search for her clothes.

  Tchechia looked around and noticed that, among the masses of women and children, there were several other young girls getting dressed again. She looked for Bronka and saw her speaking to a different SS guard. He was explaining something to her. Bronka was pointing to her mother and sisters who were heading into the shearing room, and it appeared Bronka was pleading with the guard to stay with her family. He kept shaking his head and telling her something. Tchechia quickly dressed and ran over to Bronka.

  “Bronka, what did he say to you?” asked Tchechia.

  “He asked if I was a seamstress and I told him no. He then told me I was certainly a seamstress, and that they needed me to work here at the camp.” Bronka had tears streaming down her face.

  “Don’t cry, Bronka! We can get our showers later.”

  “They’ve taken all of my family away from me, Tchechia. What if they are not going to the showers? What if they are taking them somewhere else and I will not see them again?”

  While Bronka had been negotiating with the guard, her mother and sisters were forced into the shearing room and then disappeared. Bronka did not get to say goodbye.

  “You two there, come with me!” A Jewish worker was rounding up the women who were told to redress. Bronka quickly slipped on a dress that was too big for her, ran to the pile of shoes to grab the first pair she laid eyes on, then followed Tchechia and the man out of the building.

  Tchechia and Bronka were led outside the large building to the courtyard where clothing and other goods were left in large mounds. Tchechia noticed the ground was barely visible in the courtyard due to all the valuables of those who had gone through the back door of the barracks. Besides the innumerable items of clothing, she saw watches, pens, hairbrushes, wallets, and even candy placed in enormous mounds so the Jewish workers could package it all into bundles for shipping back to Germany.

  While the girls worked at organizing the items in the courtyard, there was nothing Tchechia could say to get Bronka to stop her weeping. Finally, one of the Jewish workers who carried a wh
ip and appeared to be a supervisor came over and grabbed Bronka tightly by the throat.

  “Stop crying!” he shouted. “If you don’t stop, you will follow your family into the tube.”

  He released his grip from her neck and moved off in the direction of the train platform. Bronka ferociously tried to catch her breath. As they went back to work, Tchechia noticed the harsh treatment had seemed to knock the grief out of Bronka. Now she appeared more angry than sad.

  When they stopped for a short break, Bronka asked Tchechia, “Isn’t the man who grabbed me a Jew? Then why does he treat one of his own so unkindly? And why does he carry a whip? What kind of place have we come to?”

  “I don’t know,” responded Tchechia. “But the important thing now is to play by their rules and do everything they tell us to do.”

  “And look at all of this stuff,” Bronka continued as if not hearing Tchechia. “We have worked here for an hour and have not put a dent in the piles. This will take years to sort.”

  The two young women went back to work, not understanding what exactly they were supposed to do, or why they were doing it. They had not been shown where they would sleep, and they had not been given any food or water. They were simply told to keep working.

  Chapter 4

  Out of the train window, Rudi Masarek could see a flood of people already on the arrival platform. There were guards shouting and medical people hustling around, but the principal scene Rudi noticed were the bodies—apparently those who had died on the trip—just scattered on the ground with no one attending them.

  Beyond the elongated platform were wooden barracks, and beyond them were fences with barbed wire that appeared to be camouflaged with pine branches. Now with everyone in the railcar standing and excited to depart, mercifully the door was unlocked and opened. Rudi grabbed Gisela’s hand. They had made it. The next phase of the adventure was about to begin. Perhaps it won’t be as grim as Theresienstadt, where they labored many hours a day and were crammed into tight living quarters at night.