Trains to Treblinka Read online

  Clearing his head from the memory, Franz Stangl finished his glass of brandy and decided to write a letter to his wife.

  My dear Theresa,

  How are you today? I have lived another uneventful day here at Treblinka. I get up in the morning, I walk my rounds, I do the paperwork, and in all these things there is something desperately missing and nagging in my mind, and it is you. I miss you very much. The sun shined brightly today but it was cool this morning, a beautiful day it would be if I was not here and away from you. Please squeeze Brigitte and Renate for me. I miss them so. I look forward to my leave in a few weeks. Please write. It has been almost two weeks since I have heard from you. There is not much entertainment here to pass the boredom. We do our jobs and then go to bed. I am thinking of making some gardens and perhaps a zoo next spring, if I am still here.

  Your Paul

  Pajamas on, he crawled into his silk sheets and softly pounded his goose down pillow a few times before he laid down his head. He would inspect Camp 2 tomorrow and make sure they were staying on schedule. The camps must always be in top shape.

  Chapter 6

  Rudi Masarek could not find it within himself to speak casually to the others for several days. He was in such intense pain—like an automaton doing the daily work without a soul.

  Hans Freund, despite losing his only son and wife, seemed to pull himself together more quickly. He spoke to the others in the barracks at night, but they could see he was in a state of shock. His nervousness conveyed a lack of acceptance; he had not yet come to terms with Treblinka. It took several nights before they first heard him weep…when the evil facts seared his emotions. After his outpouring of anguish, Hans was better. He was depressed, but also more settled.

  Besides the excruciating trauma of dealing with their loved ones’ deaths, the simple act of sleeping in the male dormitory was also a challenge. Every evening several men would kill themselves. Others, merely trying to endure until the next day, heard the gasps and commotion from the suicide attempts, which occasionally failed. Sometimes it was a father and son, sometimes two best friends. One morning twenty men were carried out of the large barracks because of suicide. Grappling with the reality of Treblinka was too much for them.

  Rudi and Hans were not absolutely sure that their wives were dead. There was a possibility that the two women had been pulled out of the disrobing area or the tube, but the odds were slim and they knew it. They had searched among the female workers who were launderers and cooks, and even asked them if they had seen their wives, all to no avail. They had very little hope, and every day their situation grew bleaker. However, none of the Jewish workers knew exactly what transpired on the other side of the sandy berm where Camp 2 was located. The Czech Jews were told that once a worker stepped foot in Camp 2 they were never allowed to depart from it. Camp 2 housed the darkest secrets of Treblinka.

  All the Jewish workers had specific jobs to do. Carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, dentists, cobblers, bakers, doctors, and even musicians were spared to contribute their gifts to camp life. Rudi was assigned to the tailor shop and worked under an SS guard named Franz Suchomel. Richard and Karel reported each day to the sorting warehouse, working mostly with men’s clothing. They were humorously referred to as “Karel and Richard from Men’s Better Overcoats.” Hans usually worked with Rudi, but sometimes worked in the sorting warehouse. Robert worked with Dr. Chorazycki, originally a nose and throat doctor, but currently working as an emergency room physician for those coming down with typhus fever caused by lice.

  One Friday, however, they were all scheduled to work together. A shipment of five thousand Jews was coming in the morning and needed to be processed quickly because another shipment of close to seven thousand was coming in the afternoon. At five in the morning they were awakened by an alarm and given hard, dark bread and hot, artificial coffee in a tin cup. At six o’clock the kapo in charge formed the men in columns in the roll-call yard, called the appelplatz. When both the living and those dead from suicide were counted and the number was verified as accurate, they were released to march to their duty assignment.

  The five Czech men were tasked to work at the sorting site near the wooden barracks where women and children were to be undressed and sheared. Two of the guards, Miete and Kuttner, were especially hard on the Jewish workers that morning, hitting them on their backs with whips and swearing at them, threatening to bring them to the Lazarette. Miete shot one Jew in the chest to prove his point—a warning to all of the workers that they were just as expendable as those coming off the transports.

  Hans asked Robert why they were not going up near the tracks to help process the passengers.

  “Because we are newcomers,” Robert stated matter-of-factly. “Only the blue bands are allowed to go there because of the intensity of it. Same with the red armbands in the barracks with the women.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Hans.

  “Not everyone can do it. Some of our brothers were tasked to help disrobe the women and cut their hair, but they wept and told the women the truth—that they were going to their deaths. The guards don’t appreciate that. And for the blue bands, you can’t imagine what a regular processing is like until a group from the east arrives. The guards use whips, and rifles, along with the Doll’s attack dog to motivate people.”

  “You have a guard named the Doll?” inquired Hans.

  “Yes. He was given that nickname because he has the face like that of a porcelain doll with sparkling eyes. His actual name is Kurt Franz and he is the second in command. Most of the guards have nicknames here—you’ll learn. Kuttner is called Kiewe. Miete is known as the Angel of Death. These three are mental deviants; they are the worst here—all sadists!

  “There’s also an evil SS guard named Mentz who manages the Lazarette. All the guards whip us workers and resort to violence. It’s as if they have to try to outdo one another when in charge. None of the guards want to appear weak. When trains come in from the west, rich with food, furs, and other valuables, the Nazis treat the passengers well to disguise what this place really is. They also pick more men out of the trains as they did with you and Rudi.”

  “Which guard is in charge?”

  “A man named Franz Stangl, but he is not technically a guard. He is the kommandant, and was brought here from Sobibor to get Treblinka functioning well—essentially he is a Nazi pig, but I have never seen him hurt anybody. He just stands there and watches while work is being done, approving. You’ll see him walk around the camp with a white coat and riding pants. He also sometimes stands on the berm and watches the naked souls run through the tube to their deaths. A very odd man, if you care to know my feelings.”

  “So every one of those passengers except Rudi and me, and a few others, all disappeared from the earth last week?”

  “I’m sorry to say but, yes. And believe me, there will be thousands more today. Unfortunately that’s why we’re here.”

  Hans was thunderstruck.

  The morning train arrived and unloaded its passengers, creating pandemonium at Treblinka. Guards shouted. Jewish workers ran every which way for hours, carrying clothing, shoes, foodstuffs, and baggage. Over five thousand passengers were deposited into the Treblinka courtyard that morning. Several naked men were pulled out for work assignments and told to redress themselves.

  The number of men selected for work was very close to the number of those who had committed suicide or were beaten to death the day before by the Doll, Miete, or Kiewe. The kommandant made sure that Treblinka did not surpass a certain number of Jewish laborers—three hundred workers in the upper “secret” camp and seven hundred workers in the lower camp where the men stood now.

  Rudi and Hans fit right in with the other Czechs. When told to carry clothing from the unloading platform to the sorting area, they ran side by side. When told to sort the clothing and make bundles, which would eventually be loaded onto trains, they worked fastidiously together to get more done than what the guards would expect. The
newcomers asked questions about Treblinka when the guards were not watching, so the three veterans educated them on the ways of the camp.

  “Why do we keep hearing shots at the infirmary?” asked Hans. A building with a large red cross painted on it sat to the far right of the unloading area.

  “You mean the Lazarette?”

  “They are one and the same?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did they put a red cross on it if it is to murder people?”

  “Think about it! These men are con artists. Always duping the stupid masses. Believe me, if the people knew what they were really getting into when they alighted the train, there would be a revolt.”

  “The Lazarette is where the smell is coming from,” explained Richard. “That is where we take the infirmed. It is disguised as a field hospital, but in reality it is an execution yard. We have heard that victims sit on a bench that is located alongside a trench and one of the SS guards, usually Mentz, walks behind them and puts a bullet in their neck. The body falls into the trench and is burned. Sometimes the shot doesn’t kill the victim and they end up being burned alive. Trust me, you never want to go there.”

  “Who gets taken there?”

  “Old and crippled people from the trains, those of us laborers who are caught stealing, and people who receive a scar on their face by one of the guards. The wound is called being marked because rival guards will do it to each other’s protégés.”

  “Who are the protégés?”

  “All of us are,” answered Richard. “Whoever picked you out of line; even the evil Miete has protégés. They are all jealous of each other, and if they think one worker is especially liked by his mentor, then that gives them all the more reason to inflict harm on him.”

  Hans shook his head and muttered, “This is crazy!”

  The mountains of underwear, dresses, pants, shoes, and other items were tall enough to cast large shadows from the rising sun. Rudi, Hans, and the other Czechs worked feverishly throughout the morning to fold and bind all the clothes. By the end of the morning the colossal stockpiles were dented by their efforts but still towered over them by at least five feet.

  Men’s shirts, trousers, coats, and shoes were all inspected to determine if they were of good quality. If they passed the test, they were delivered to the tailor shop where the yellow Star of David was cut off and the garment mended so that it looked like it had never been there. They were placed on a special rack in the storeroom where the Nazis and Ukrainians could shop, though no money was exchanged.

  All of the other clothing was bundled into cubes and hauled to the far side of the sorting yard, where there were wooden poles with signs on them placed at ten-meter intervals: rags, silks, cotton, wool. The freshly made bundles—or cubes—were carefully placed on top of each other until little pyramids were formed. Prisoners would climb on top and reach down to continue to stack the clothing higher and higher. Eventually, when trains came to deliver goods west toward Germany, the bundles would be hauled to the platform and loaded onto the railcars.

  While the Czechs worked hard folding clothes and making bundles, they noticed that the Jewish workers who had been at Treblinka longer were very carefully checking every seam and waistline of the clothing. Often, money and other valuables were found. They were told to put any and all paper bills and gold into designated suitcases; however, the Czechs noticed the older workers were stealthily passing items to each other as they were hauling the clothing cubes up to those on top.

  Their old foreman, a deeply blue-eyed gentleman named David Brat, quietly explained to the Czechs that on the next train back to Warsaw, two men would stowaway inside the pyramid of clothes in an attempt to warn those in the ghetto about what was happening at Treblinka. If the men were successfully smuggled out of the camp, they would need lots of gold for bribes along the way to buy their way back into the ghetto.

  This information was exhilarating for the newcomers to hear…that something hopeful was happening. “But how do you account for the discrepancy in the daily roll call?” asked Robert, who was scientifically minded.

  Bucktoothed David explained, “We have camp elder Galewski in on it.” Marceli Galewski was a former engineer from Lodz and looked up to by the workers. The Nazis trusted him to speak for the laborers and they held him responsible for the daily count.

  David continued. “He changes the count between the morning and evening rolls so it looks like the two were never missing. If he is ever questioned about it, he explains that Miete took a couple of workers to the Lazarette that day. His excuse is always accepted.”

  “How do you get them on the trains?”

  “We create a distraction. We have enough kapos on our side, and with Galewski vouching for us it has worked. We sent two away several days ago and it was never detected. So far, we have been lucky.”

  The Czech men watched from the corners of their eyes all the movement in the camp: SS guards yelling, kapos working to maintain order, and then the streams of women and children pouring out from the unloading platform and running toward the large processing barracks. It was hard, as men, not to run over and try to warn or help them. It took everything in them to stand fast, watching these helpless children, mothers, and grandmothers—their people—unknowingly enter the building where they would strip and have their hair cut.

  The Jewish workers could hear the cries from the women in the tube while they were prodded by men with whips. The men knew the women and children must be intensely frightened, wondering what would happen to them. Conceivably, the workers gave those passing through the camp false hope that so many of the men were bundling clothes and helping in the barn, acting as if nothing terrible was happening. Perhaps this is truly a work camp! As soon as the large diesel engine started up again, the Czech men noticed dozens of large suitcases departing the sorting barn containing the women’s hair. It made them feel hollow.

  After that would come the naked men who had been detained on the platform to undress. They poured through the long rectangular warehouse, passing the same place where their wives, daughters, and mothers had their hair brusquely sheared off, and then they were ordered to run through the back door and into the tube to meet the same fate as thousands of others that day.

  The Czechs realized what a very organized procedure the Nazis had created. From emptying people out of the railcars where they were threatened and hurried down the platform and into the large wooden barracks, then yelled at to go through the back-door opening toward the tube. There was nowhere left to run once inside the front door of the barracks. Unless one or two were called out for laundry or cooking duty, all who entered perished. No children were ever called out, the Czechs learned, much to the agony of Hans.

  The Jewish workers received a thirty-minute rest break for lunch. The Czechs gathered together under a large pine tree at the far side of the sorting area. They held their tin plates and cups while their eyes scanned the yard, hoping to be left alone from the Doll, Miete, or Kiewe.

  Hours later, the Czech men finally cleared all of the women’s clothing out of the wooden barracks building and were bundling it for departure on the next westbound train. They didn’t have long to wait as they heard another locomotive entering Treblinka station. They were told to stop sorting and to help with the tightly packed train of thirty railcars because there were not enough blue bands to complete the task before dark.

  And the same scene played out once again. The new passengers were ushered out of the railcars and processed away from the unloading platform. This time, however, the Czech men helped carry dead bodies to the Lazarette to be burned, and then they swept out the railcars of all the blood and excrement. Each car had to be inspected to ensure it was clean before it was reloaded with supplies and departed Treblinka.

  There was an eerie feeling among the Czechs that afternoon, disbelief that all the people who had run past them could have actually gone to their deaths. Could there be another work farm, miles away, where the passenger
s were shipped after their showers? Could there be another destiny for them? Yet they knew it couldn’t be so. There were no trains or busses leading away from Camp 2, and the only noise coming from there, after the screaming in the tube, was a loud tank motor. That day the motor ran all morning, all afternoon, and well into the evening, when it was finally turned off after dark.

  Before the Czechs were locked in for the night, they lined up with approximately one hundred other men as the guards inspected their barracks. In one of the cots an SS guard discovered a large chunk of a ham. Miete, with his thick neck and broad face, confronted the men in the courtyard, threatening that if someone did not confess who took it and from precisely where the ham came, then all would be shot.

  One Polish man stepped forward and said it was his ham, and that he had stolen it from the Ukrainians. Immediately afterward, another Pole stepped forward and said the first man was lying, that it was actually his ham, and that he had bought it from a Ukrainian guard because it was his birthday. Further, he said he would willingly go to the Lazarette.

  The Czech men were stunned by the man’s honesty, but Miete would have none of it. He separated out the birthday boy’s entire row—five men—and marched them all to the Lazarette. After positioning them on the wooden bench, one by one they were shot and fell into the flames of the ever-burning pit. The last man, the one who had confessed about his birthday ham, accidentally slid off the bench and laid on the side of the pit. When the shot to terminate his life was delayed, he yelled out to Miete, “Hurry up! Why don’t you shoot, for goodness sake?”

  The shot never came. He was instructed to get back up, depart the Lazarette, and rejoin the other men as they entered the male barracks. The man who had turned another year older that day stood up, walked out of the pit, and, with uncontrollable shaking, passed by Miete, departing the villainous area where his kind and faithful comrades would forever remain.