PART 1 Valuables

 

Chapter 1

“Mach schnell! Board the trains, no delay!” The SS guard shouted the same phrase over and over again while the Jewish prisoners obediently moved en masse onto the railcars. It was October 13, 1942, a brisk afternoon, with the leaves just altering into browns and reds. As the golden sphere of the sun began its descent behind the dark hills to the west, menacing Ukrainian guards in green uniforms prodded the crowd with an occasional jab from the butt of their rifles. The Nazis sought to transport the Jews from Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia to a resettlement farm to the east.

Six-foot-two and built well, Rudi Masarek, with blond hair and bright-blue eyes, tenderly grabbed the hand of his beautiful young bride Gisela. Just married, he promised her he would never leave her side. Rudi, the heir of an affluent family business, did not have to leave his home and travel to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, but he did it solely to be with Gisela. Rudi was only half-Jewish and had decidedly Scandinavian features. He could have been the poster boy for an Aryan youth, the kind of person the Germans loved, with a strong, determined face.

Delicate Gisela, on the other hand, possessed darker features. A true beauty in Rudi’s eyes. Both her parents were Jews and she pleaded with Rudi to live his life without her. The societal rules in Czechoslovakia at the time inferred that men like Rudi could easily escape the German occupation under pretense of being a Gentile. Yet Rudi would not entertain the idea. He loved Gisela with all his heart and wanted nothing more than to spend every waking moment with her, even if it had to be at Theresienstadt. Once married, their fate together was sealed; under Nazi law, Rudi was now considered a full Jew.

Rudi had a hard time explaining to family and his best friends why he made the choice to go with his wife, and he often fumbled with words when trying. It was as if Gisela was part of him now and he had to be with her. Their fates were tied together, and he always wanted to be in her presence. Rudi knew he also did not have to wear the Star of David embroidered on his clothing, but beginning on their wedding day, he stitched it on his coat and told Gisela he would wear it until they could both take off their stars together.

“Hold my arm, Gisela,” Rudi said kindly. They entered the railcar and realized there was no more room, but the guards kept pushing in more people behind them. Thankfully it was a passenger car with seats, unlike the stories they had heard of other Jewish transports using cattle cars with barbed wire and only wood floors on which to sit. However, all the seats were taken and people were standing in the aisles, holding onto poles or the wall. They began to press into others as more and more people were crammed inside by the guards.

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 their 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 whip 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.

The first instructions were shouted by guards peering into their opened door, “Raus! Get out! Everyone out! Aber schnell! Keep your hand luggage. Leave trunks and large bags in place. You will fetch them later. Quickly, you must move quickly!”

Passengers poured out of the car. Rudi and Gisela shuffled toward the doorway until it was their time to step down. Rudi glanced back and saw Hans Freund holding his son and helping his wife shuffle to the door.

“Mommy, I’m cold,” Hans’s son cried out.

“I hope he won’t catch a cold,” said Hans to his wife as they prepared to leave the railcar.

The young Masarek couple stepped down out of the train. They each held a small bag of personal belongings. The platform was long and wide. There are perhaps twenty-five cars unloading right now, Rudi speculated.

Several of the guards continued to yell the same instructions to those still departing the railcars. Then one of the guards uttered words that iced Rudi where he stood.

“Men to the left, women to the right!” the guard shouted.

“Rudi!” Gisela screamed as she flung herself at him.

Rudi wrapped his strong arms around his fragile bride. “I know Gisela, I know! But I don’t know what to do.”

“Men to the left, women to the right! Children are to stay with their mothers!”

The scream from the guard was louder now and sounded as if he was walking toward them.

“We have to part for now! I love you, Gisela, and I promise to come find you as soon as I am able. Think of Austria. Think of your grandfather’s farm.” Rudi quickly kissed her ear, neck, and cheek as the guard grabbed tearful Gisela away from him.

“I love you, Rudi!” Gisela shrieked.

“I love you, Gisela!”

Nearby, Hans said goodbye to his wife and curly-haired boy. He stroked his soft cheeks and kissed the lad and mother all over, just before they were torn apart by a Jewish worker.

“Goodbye for now,” Hans said. “I will be with you soon.”

Rudi surmised the situation, wondering if there was a possibility of escape. There were watchful eyes everywhere, and there were Jewish helpers with blue bands on their arms who seemed complicit with what the Nazi guards were shouting. Why do they help our enemy? Why do they separate families like this?

Children were crying, the elderly were being carried off to what looked like a hospital area, and men and women tried to follow the directions of their captors while pleading for something to drink. Rudi watched Gisela as she moved with a mass of women away from the platform and toward a large wooden barracks. There were thousands of men left standing on the platform. Gisela glanced back at Rudi, who could clearly see the fear she carried. Then she was lost from view.

Hans also stood nearby, watching his family depart with the others. His son waved to him and Hans waved back. Then they were gone.

Suddenly a guard shouted, “Undress! Undress! Take off your shoes and tie them together! Place your clothes on this pile over here. Wait in line over there. Hurry, hurry! You must disrobe and prepare for delousing! Take along your money, documents, jewelry, and watches. Hurry, don’t delay.”

Rudi and Hans undressed along with the other men and stood in line. There were SS sergeants scanning the crowd and occasionally picking out men and sending them away from the line.

When one of them noticed blond-haired and blue-eyed Rudi, and tall Hans, each with a well-built and healthy exterior, the guard shouted to them, “You two, you don’t belong in this line. Walk over there and get dressed again. I will deal with you in a moment.”

Rudi and Hans did not know if this was a good thing to happen or not, but it gave them the sense that something fishy was going on. They walked over to the sizable pile where they had undressed and tried to find their own clothes. There were twenty to thirty chosen men who were told to redress themselves. The rest of the men in the large group were forced to pick up armfuls of clothing from the mountain of clothing items deposited from the passengers, then ran naked with them down to the wooden barracks where the women were sent.

Once dressed, Rudi tapped the shoulder of one of the Jewish workers holding a whip.

“Excuse me, sir, but where will the women and children end up after they are processed?”

“They’re going to the showers for delousing,” replied the surprised worker. “Don’t worry about them. They will be all right. In fact, they are going to have it better than you.”

What is that supposed to mean? Rudi wondered. The Jewish man’s face was not convincing. Perhaps it was because he did not look Rudi in the eye when he made his statements.

“Here’s a warning: don’t ever touch a kapo again if you know what’s good for you. You’re from the west and I will give you a pass this once. We kapos have a job to do and we don’t mind doing it well, so stay clear of us from now on unless you want a beating.”

Rudi soon found out there were a handful of Jewish men serving as kapos—also known as collaborators—who essentially worked for the Nazis and would beat their fellow Jews as viciously as one of the German guards. Rudi had heard about that sort of abuse taking place in the Warsaw ghetto but had never experienced it in Theresienstadt.

The SS sergeant who picked Rudi and Hans out of the line came back to the men and gave them instructions.

“All right,” he said with a sort of distasteful grin. “You here who have been chosen today…my name is Sergeant Miete, and you will do as I say without question. First off, nobody walks here at Treblinka. Whenever you move about, unless you are in your bunk or at a worktable, you will move at a run. Second, if for any reason you do not immediately obey what we say you will end up in the Lazarette; your kapos will explain what that means to you. Now, help your fellow Treblinka workers unload all the trunks and suitcases off the train. If you find dead bodies in the railcars, load them onto the lorries. Then you will bring every item on this platform down to the wooden warehouse to be sorted through. You will not stop until this entire area is clean, understand? And don’t eat the food; it is to be sorted and stored like everything else. In fact, don’t steal anything or you will be taken to the Lazarette. Move out!”

The group of men ran as fast as they could to the train and jumped into the railcars to empty the luggage. Then they grabbed armfuls of clothing and hauled them down into a large courtyard near the wooden barracks where the women and children had been taken. Rudi and Hans hoped to see their wives in the barracks, but when the door opened and they peeked inside it looked empty, apart from some Jewish workers sweeping and sorting. Where had everyone been taken?

In the middle of the courtyard there were such large piles of separated goods from the passengers that it was staggering. There was one pile nearly fifteen feet high with thousands of pairs of shoes in it. There was another mound, even wider and taller, where people had hurled their clothes and belongings to the top. This small mountain took up a huge swath of the courtyard. Surely the clothes must have come from several trainloads of passengers, thought Rudi, and could not have formed only from the group who unloaded today. Seeing the mound took his breath away, realizing the number of people it represented.

Next to the mountain of clothing were bundles of different apparel, sorted and strung together in cubes, then crudely stacked into a pyramid shape. Men’s coats in one bundle, women’s dresses in another. What kind of factory is this? Rudi wondered.

The new workers were next ordered into the large wooden structure where their families had disrobed. They had to bring the discarded clothing—which filled the room—back outside into the courtyard. There were still a few Jewish workers inside cleaning the area, and each of them had a red armband on their sleeve.

The two men from Prague found out that the red armbands designated those Jews who worked in the wooden sorting barracks. They assisted with the new arrivals to help them undress and store their clothing properly. The Jewish workers with blue bands only helped at the loading platform.

Hans approached one of the workers and asked, “Please, sir, my wife and small boy were taken to this building a few hours ago. Can you tell me where they are now?”

The worker looked at Hans, then glanced around the work site to ensure they were not attracting the attention of any of the guards or kapos. The man said to Hans, “Don’t you see what’s happening here? These are all the clothes of the passengers. You shouldn’t ask this question; it is the secret of Treblinka,” he whispered. The man was very hesitant and deliberate with his words.

Rudi stood near to Hans and asked the next question, saying, “But the kapo told me they would have it better than us. What did he mean by that?”

“In a way, yes, but he was lying, as the kapos like to do. Just be thankful you were picked out and helping us today. And never trust a kapo!”

The men realized they had attracted the attention of one of the guards, who was headed their way, so they quickly disbanded and hurried to grab armfuls of clothing in order to run with them outside, but they were too late.

“Hey, you there,” called a guard with an SS field cap pulled tightly down over his entire forehead. “What is that you were talking about and not working? Tell me!”

Hans matter-of-factly confessed, “I asked him where my wife and son are. Will you tell me?”

It was the way he said it, Hans and Rudi knew instantly, that the guard took it as a sign of boldness and disrespect. He lifted his whip and let it fling across the tender spot between Hans’s neck and shoulder. Then, as suddenly as he was angered, his entire expression changed and he smiled.

“Now, now, don’t worry about those tender little lambs you brought with you. They are fine. Your wife is working in the laundry in Camp 2. Your son is playing with the other tots who arrived. Go back to work. Work will make you happy.”

The guard made an abrupt about-face then walked away, mumbling to himself, “Work will make you happy, work will make everyone happy.”

Their thoughts now scattered, Hans and Rudi attempted to work without anyone noticing how deeply disturbed they were by what had happened to them so far at Treblinka. They struggled to reason out what they had been told and what they were forced to do, but there was so much they did not understand.

They knew that at least two or three thousand people must have departed the train with them that day, yet they could not deduce where they had disappeared. In the large wooden sorting room where the women and children had gone, there were some barbers with red armbands who were taking suitcases of hair out into the courtyard. Hans thought of his son’s curly hair and soft cheeks and almost wept, but they had to keep moving.

They had been working tirelessly when finally one of the guards mentioned food. The two men waited in a long line with dozens of other Jewish workers. Holding a dirty bowl handed to them by another laborer, they were given some soup and bread, then were again forced to sort clothing and make more bundles.

All around the courtyard, men in street clothes were running this way and that with large bundles of clothing on their backs. Their eternal first day seemed like a nightmare.

At long last the foreman ceased the work and they were taken to a sleeping barracks. The new workers had to quickly find a place to sleep in because the doors were being locked and soon it would be lights-out. It was here they began to meet other men from Prague. One of the men asked Rudi, “Hey, you there, tall Bohemian, you look more Nordic than Jewish. What are you doing here?”

Rudi fumbled with his words, something about Theresienstadt and being only a partial Jew. He and Hans soon learned that three of the other men were from Prague and they stuck together: Richard Glazar, Karel Unger, and Robert Altschul. They invited Rudi and Hans to bunk near to them and a friendship began to form.

These three other Czechs were also transported from Theresienstadt, also young and strong and tall, also numbed by the events transpiring around them. Richard and Karel were only twenty-one years old; Robert was twenty-seven and a medical student, selected to work in the camp pharmacy with the doctor.

After introductions, Hans explained that he had come with his wife and son and could not get a direct answer out of anyone about where they had been taken. Rudi, feeling forlorn and fatigued, stayed silent.

Robert, with a deep and compassionate voice, solemnly explained, “Men, if you had family members who went through the processing building and had their hair cut without a guard calling them out for work like you were…I’m sorry, but they are lost.”

“What do you mean lost?” Hans asked indignantly. “I am tired of all these expressions people use. Lost? Please tell me directly, do they shoot them all?” There was panic in Hans’s words and his eyes.

“No, they do not shoot them. None of us have been there. We do not know exactly what happens on the other side of the sandy embankment.”

Richard and Karel glanced at each other with knowing looks. On the day Karel arrived, his parents and his younger brother were forced into the tube. Karel was still trying to reconcile the event to make sense out of it. Richard had come alone, but he doubted the rest of his family was still alive, wherever they were.

Robert placed his hand on Hans’s shoulder. “Others have told us that there are large gassing chambers at the end of the walkway that we call the tube. So when the people from the trains think they are receiving showers, they are actually gassed.”

This was too much for Hans to comprehend. It had confirmed all of his suspicions about the secret of Treblinka. He brought a fist up to his face and bit his knuckles. He pictured his young son with his soft cheeks, and his precious wife whom he promised to protect.

Rudi silently sat down on the bunk and pictured Gisela in his mind. He was awash with pain as he thought about the fact that his young wife was expecting their first child. He surmised she had died perhaps just moments after their sad goodbye. Rudi bent over, holding his stomach and swaying a little bit. His head was down so the others could not see his face. The lights turned out, and the male barracks building was locked for the night. Their first day at Treblinka had come to an end.

 

Chapter 5

Franz Stangl sat alone in his quarters. He drank from a large glass of brandy. It was his daily medicine, the only way he survived his assignment at Treblinka. He missed his wife terribly, and his children. He missed his beloved Austria. If only I could receive a transfer! Stangl often thought.

His uniform was pressed and laid on the table, ready for tomorrow. His boots were already shined. The brandy helped him not to dwell too deeply on any of the events of the day. He was happy for his workers; not only did they receive many delicious packages of food out of the Prague train, there were thousands of suitcases to sort through over the next few days and weeks. He was glad to be able to keep them employed and fully occupied; these duties meant life to his workers.

He also knew that idle hands were the cause of many troubles, so his goal as the kommandant was to make sure everyone kept working. As long as there were mountains of clothing to bundle in the sorting yard, then there would be Jewish workers running here and there all day, every day. He would walk around and inspect them. He would pretend that he cared about his assignment…that he was happy to be at Treblinka. He had made many changes for the better at the camp because that was who he was, a stickler for neatness and organization. But the camp had not always been so organized.

Stangl recalled on his first visit to Treblinka, when approaching the perimeter of the camp, he was astounded at all the dead bodies along the side of the road. He was also startled by the stench. The smell of decomposing bodies made him want to vomit. For some unknown reason, the corpses were left to rot in the hot sun, all along the tracks for the last kilometer before the gate to Treblinka.

Inside Treblinka’s main gate Stangl was shocked to discover hundreds of dead bodies littered all across the unloading platform. It was Dante’s Inferno! When Stangl walked away from his car toward the camp proper, international currency of various denominations flowed around his feet. At one side of the yard was a large mound with over a thousand rotting corpses. It was Dante come to life!

Stangl did not stay long at Treblinka on his first visit; his senses could not stand it. Everything at the camp was disorganized; it went against his highly structured concept of how to do police work and how concentration camps should be run. The man in charge obviously had no discipline. Stangl traveled to headquarters to see Odilo Globocnik at once. He remembered their conversation in vivid detail.

“I cannot do what you have assigned me to do,” Stangl declared.

“Why not?” growled Globocnik.

“It is an impossible task. You would need a large work crew there for a month to make an impact. It is the end of the world there!”

“It is supposed to be an end of the world for them!” Globocnik rebuked. He was in charge of all the top-secret camps in Poland, with his mission coming straight from Heinrich Himmler. He needed followers to acquiesce, not cause problems. Mission accomplishment was all he desired, not sentimentality.

Beneath Globocnik’s countenance was a bedrock of antagonism brittle enough to bust the drill bits of reasonable appeal, but Stangl tried again anyway. “I would like to transfer back to Austria. You don’t understand…the mess of things there…at Treblinka.” Stangl’s tone held slightly less resolve. It was beginning to sink in that he was not being given a choice. Globocnik would not permit him to leave Poland. Stangl would be forced to work for Globocnik until the war was over; he simply knew too much.

Globocnik shook his doughy face and gave Stangl a cynical smile. “Get a room for yourself for the night and we will discuss it all in the morning. You will then travel back to Treblinka tomorrow to see what can be done. What Treblinka needs is a good organizer. You can do that for me. We will talk about it tomorrow. Dismissed.”

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 passengers 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.

 

Chapter 7

Tchechia had been at Treblinka for several weeks. During that time, she had eaten better at the camp but had still lost weight from all the running and working from dawn until dusk. She worked first in the laundry, washing the linens of the Nazi overlords and the Ukrainian guards. She and three other young women also washed items from the kitchen and were often asked to either help the mess staff during meals or attend to patients in the small medical clinic. Tchechia’s distinctive blond hair drew the attention of the SS guards, but she was mostly left alone by the workforce of the camp.

The job she liked the best—though not assigned to her very often—was sweeping the SS quarters and emptying their trash. Tchechia felt it was her duty to try to spy on the Nazis to see if she could discover anything about the war, or about the future of the concentration camp where she worked. Once, she found a newspaper left open on the kommandant’s desk. She could not make out all the German words, but she determined it was about the war in Stalingrad, and that the Germans were stalled out and not making much progress.

Bronka was managing to get by as a seamstress and performed limited tailoring. She worked alongside Rudi Masarek and several other Jewish men who had been chosen out of a transport to perform camp labor. Rudi was a master with clothing since he had worked in the shirt business with his father in Prague. He taught Bronka trade skills since she had never worked as a seamstress before.

“You are much more talented than I will ever be,” said Bronka.

“You will learn,” Rudi responded to her in a kind tone. “The important thing to remember is to keep one eye just ahead of where you are stitching so you do not veer off course and make a mistake.”

“Like I have already done a few times,” said Bronka with a slight smile.

Bronka appreciated Rudi’s kindness to her. She knew he was in similar despair as she, mourning the loss of loved ones. At first Bronka thought that perhaps her parents and siblings could be somehow working in Camp 2, and that maybe she would see them again. But as time marched on and every day she continued to see the masses pour out of the trains, stripped, chased down the tube by guards with whips, and no sign of any of these thousands of people, she knew only one fate had befallen her family.

Bronka felt encouraged by Rudi while at work, but she realized that he had his own emotional stressors. Everyone at Treblinka mourned the loss of loved ones. It was especially hard for her at night before going to sleep, when she had time to think about her family. She wept just after lights-out, before she slept, as she thought of her younger sisters and sweet mother. One of the women in her barracks hanged herself to escape the pain. Bronka was slightly envious of her, yet she recognized she herself did not have the capacity to end her life that way.

Rudi had confided in Bronka that there may be a day coming when they could escape, and this gave her some hope. He whispered to her one day, “Remember to always feel the fabric for aberrations where there might be gold. We are saving it to help those who escape.”

“Who gets to escape?” asked Bronka. She was encouraged for the first time since she could remember.

“No one who would be obvious to the guards,” Rudi answered. “We can only send out people they have not noticed, those who stand at the back of the formation. In this way we can fake the numbers for the head count without them knowing. I don’t think any women could be sent out because there are too few of you. Suchomel would know immediately that you had escaped if you did not show up for work in the morning.”

Rudi and Bronka worked for a thirty-five-year old SS guard named Franz Suchomel, who had previously served in Germany’s euthanasia program, and of this fact he reminded his team often. It was a veiled threat. Suchomel was not as physically abusive as some of the other guards such as Miete or Kuttner, but he kept discipline with verbal threats and attempted to guilt the Jewish workers into performing well for the camp. Rudi and Bronka did not feel liked by Suchomel, but he tolerated them more than the others, and tried to protect his team from the more sadistic guards. However, he failed to give them what they so desperately craved: reason to believe they would survive Treblinka.

Bronka spoke to Tchechia at night and told her about the escape plans being worked on by Rudi and some of the other men.

“I wish I could leave tonight,” said Tchechia one evening. “I cannot stand the way the guards all look at me. I don’t think I will last much longer.”

“I am sure that it can’t be tonight,” said Bronka thoughtfully. “Rudi said there are too few of us women, that it would be too obvious if one of us vanished. With the men, if the head count is questioned at the end of the day, they just lie and explain that the Doll or Miete sent someone to the Lazarette. But that wouldn’t work for us.”

“Maybe one day there will be a revolt,” said Tchechia. “Until then, I will continue to look for ways to steal secrets from the guards. They do not realize that as they watch me, I am also watching them. I see their patterns, when they are gone and how frequently.”

“Be careful, Tchechia!” warned Bronka. “Don’t cross them, and don’t stare back at them. They will hurt you.”

“I want to kill these pigs, every last one of them. They are murderers and deceivers. You know, they tell the women that the water is getting cold so they must hurry down the tube. They also have the Star of David above the bathhouse door so that people are not afraid—the liars!”

“Please be careful,” said Bronka. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

One day, Tchechia reported to work at the infirmary to assist Dr. Chorazycki, the fifty-seven-year-old camp physician. When she walked into the room, the doctor took a good look at her and said, “You do not look Semitic.”

Tchechia attempted a smile that failed and replied, “I’ve been told that before.” She tried to keep in stride with the doctor as he walked through the small clinic, checking on his patients, most of whom had typhus. “You are the opposite of me; you look Jewish, but I hear you are not,” said Tchechia.

“I was born Jewish,” countered Chorazycki, “but I converted to Catholicism as an adult.”

“Why are you here?” asked Tchechia. She wondered about this man who, according to Bronka, was complicit with the men organizing escapes.

“Already a doctor, I was procured by the Russians during the great war. Then I was a captain and chief physician in the Polish army during the Bolshevik war. During peacetime, I started a private practice in Warsaw. My family and I worked to help rebuild our sovereign nation. For thanks I was forced into the ghetto, and lived there for over a year. You know the rest,” he said soberly, connecting eyes with her for an instant.

Tchechia nodded.

“We are the lucky ones,” he declared sarcastically, glancing away again.

Tchechia thought about what he said. She felt that she herself was just beginning at life, but he had already lived a full one. Unfortunately they were both at Treblinka at the same point in time. And would likely never leave, she thought.

Tchechia wondered about this man, so confident in his medical skills and his worldview. He had seen so much, yet he was forced to work for sixteen hours a day in a cramped infirmary, never knowing which day might be his last. She found it admirable that he kept a strong, defiant attitude.

Over time, Tchechia grew fond of Dr. Chorazycki and was always glad when asked to work in the infirmary. She felt the doctor also liked it when she helped him. This made Tchechia happy and gave her something to look forward to. But there was something in his actions, and in his tone when he spoke. Something desperate. She knew that, like Bronka’s Rudi, the doctor would be important if there was an uprising.

 

Chapter 8

Franz Stangl walked over to the SS table carrying his white porcelain plate filled with meats, small potatoes, cauliflower, and fresh bread. He sat across from his deputy, Kurt Franz, along with August Miete, Willi Mentz, Franz Suchomel, and Kurt Kuttner. No one spoke while they put their first few bites into their mouths. It was a long day, having processed so many prisoners.

Stangl had taken his beautiful mare for a ride around the countryside that morning. It was one of the few pleasures he enjoyed at the camp. It reminded him of when he was a young man, before the war, and before he had ever heard of the name Treblinka.

He had seen good times and bad times throughout his life. Working with a man named Christian Wirth at the euthanasia center at Hartheim was terrible. He had met coarse men before, but Wirth was absolutely foul and degenerate. Some of the other leaders had put Stangl’s mind at ease when he arrived at Hartheim. He was told the patients being euthanized were carefully selected by a team of physicians as unrecoverable. Wirth, however, countered all of their words as sentimental rubbish. “We must do away with useless mouths!” Wirth would proclaim. Stangl was thankful he was in charge of Treblinka, and Wirth was miles away. But dealing with subordinates could also be a challenge.

Stangl finally started the conversation. “I have spent some time at the upper camp today. They are running out of room for their work. I called Globocnik. He said if we have no more room we are going to have to start burning.”

The Germans sitting around Stangl gave a slight moan at the thought of it.

“How?” asked his number two, also known by the camp workers as the Doll. “We do not have a crematorium. It is easy to say something from a distance, but Globocnik is not here having to manage it.”

“We are going to have the workers make ovens, essentially large roasting pits,” said Stangl. “It will be quite an operation. They will probably need more men there to get this up and going. A crematorium will be built eventually, but until then we will use the roasting pits.”

“And what do we do with all the ash?” Kuttner asked. He was a staff sergeant in charge of day-to-day operations. Before his tenure at Treblinka, he had worked as chief of police at a German military prison.

“Spread it around,” replied Stangl evenly. “The workers will have to devise a way to blend it into the earth. Perhaps a layer of ash, a layer of soil. Have them experiment. Or we could take wagonloads down to the river, but I would prefer to keep it in the fields.”

The men continued to eat their meals, thinking of the upcoming change to operations. They all knew it would bring an unbearable stench to both camps. Working at Treblinka would become all the more a hardship tour if they were forced to smell death every day.

“There is something else,” continued Stangl. “It is time to tweak our practices with the workers.” Before he could get out his next words he noticed an eye roll from Miete. “What I mean to say is that since operations are running smoothly, it would be good to keep most of the workers we have now.” Stangl could tell by their faces that they wanted more explanation.

“They are specialists. They have overcome the shock of arriving at Treblinka and are useful to us. For instance, the gold Jews. They are craftsmen. We need to keep them around.” Stangl then glanced at Suchomel, who ran the tailor shop. “I hear there are some tailors who are quite skilled. We also have a Viennese baker who made us this fine bread tonight. I want to keep him.”

“We have a concentration camp to run, and that requires discipline,” said Kuttner carefully.

“I realize that more than any of you, and infractions, of course, will not be tolerated,” countered Stangl. “But for the day-to-day operations we want to keep most of the workers we have.”

“This is how revolts happen,” cautioned Kuttner. “If we keep the same prisoners together for a period of a time, they form relationships and begin to trust each other. Routinely moving them around and making examples out of them is how we keep them loyal and obedient.”

Stangl waved his hand a little at Kuttner as if he was annoyed. Then staring down at his food, he said, “Just humor me. Let’s keep the majority of the workers we have. They are serving us well. I hear we have recruited two concert violinists and an operatic tenor from Warsaw. Let’s keep them! Perhaps we can have a concert. These workers know their jobs and perform them quickly. Just cut back on anything unnecessary, that’s all. Cut back.”

The other officers all left en masse, having a few words with each other outside the mess building. Stangl knew it would be hard for a couple of them to adapt, but they hopefully got the point. He wanted efficiency, even at the risk of an uprising, which was minimal at most. In order to have a revolt the Jewish workers would need strong leadership, something impossible in a place like Treblinka.

 

Chapter 9

Soon after Rudi and Hans arrived, another former Czech army officer alighted onto the rail platform. His name was Zelo Bloch. Out of five thousand people on the morning train, Zelo was the only man chosen by the SS to stay and work; the other men were stripped and departed down the tube. Zelo’s young wife was also not chosen, and after a piercing look into her husband’s eyes she ran into the wooden barracks and was never seen by him again.

That night, the Czech men invited Zelo to bunk in their area. When it came time for lights-out, Zelo asked them about the passengers who were not selected to work. Richard cleared his throat and began to share with Zelo what most likely happened to his wife once she was out of his sight. The other men were curious what the newcomer would say, or if he would weep, but Zelo remained calm. The lights were turned out and they could not hear him whimper.

Richard continued. “This is not a work camp, Zelo.”

“I understand,” Zelo said softly.

They were his last words of the evening, and he was lying.

Zelo was unique in that the Nazis did not need any additional workers on the specific morning he was picked out of the line. It was most definitely his brute strength and magnificent strong jaw the Nazis noticed. Zelo looked like a winner with his flowing black hair and mustache. Thankfully for the Czech contingent, not only did Zelo look like a leader, he brought with him a military mind, a winsome personality, and a forcefulness the group did not know they were missing until he arrived.

There were designated leaders, such as camp elder Galewski, but Zelo quickly became the one from whom others drew strength. People trusted him. His attributes made Zelo their leader, not only of the Czech contingent, but of the entire male barracks. It was not just his looks and mannerisms; it was something deeper, intangible, and it gave Zelo much respect. There was a lot to adore about Zelo: he honestly cared for other people and looked them in the eye when speaking to them. Because of this, people bestowed authority on him and looked up to him for leadership.

While all the Czech men had befriended Zelo at once, it was Robert who became the closest to him. The two men became thick as thieves. Zelo was the idea man who brought strength, will, and determination. Robert was the intellectual who thought everything through and analyzed the individual pieces. With this combination, it wasn’t long before all the Czech men were conspiring about escaping from Treblinka.

“So what is the situation here?” asked Zelo, his brown eyes shining in the candlelight.

Richard started. “We have seen several people escape in ones or twos to send word back to Warsaw regarding what this camp is all about. We are able to smuggle from the luggage almost as much gold and currency as we need to bribe the Ukrainian guards. But they are sometimes not very dependable.”

“What about weapons?” Zelo was obviously thinking larger than just one or two.

“All the extra weapons and explosives are stored in the arms room,” said Robert. “However, the challenge is that it is located right next door to where the Germans sleep. If we do anything, it will have to be during the day and include a decoy operation.”

“Any sympathizers among the Germans?” asked Zelo hopefully.

“Not really,” said Karel. “There are some who don’t beat us as badly as the psychopaths, but there are no trustworthy Germans, if that’s what you mean.”

“What about key people in the workers’ group?”

“We have Galewski who is honorable and we can trust,” Karel answered. “He has already had a positive influence, helping with the escapes so far.”

“There is Dr. Chorazycki who I work with,” said Robert. “He hates all the Nazis and has already spoken to me about a revolt. He said that he will do whatever he can to help if there is a plan. Plus, the SS come to him for medical attention and to seek his advice, so if the SS trust him then he will be able to help us.”

“That’s good,” said Zelo. “We need to plan a larger-scale assault on the camp leadership. Regarding the weapons, do you think we can get a key made for the arms room somehow?”

The question itself injected a shot of excitement into the small group.

Rudi, as if awakened from a dream, answered with a gleam in his blue eyes, “I will check it out and see what I can do about the key.”

“Excellent!” said Zelo. “On the day of the grand revolt, we will cut their phone lines and somehow barricade the entrance to prevent reinforcements from coming. If we take all of their weapons, we could do quite a lot of damage. I think that if we unite together, not just a few of us, but the entire group, we could kill most of the SS and guards, and then escape into the woods beyond this camp. Every night let’s meet to tally our inventory of what we have stolen and discuss how we have progressed with our strategy.”

The men looked at each other with new hope and resolve. Their minds were forced to think about the necessity and reality of actually escaping, and what that would be like. The workers all understood that the guards were liars; the promise that they might live to see their freedom did not hold any truth. Treblinka was a killing machine. No one who was ever sent to Treblinka could escape it. The Jewish workers had been told by one of the guards the camp was a top-secret mission, and each of the SS were handpicked for this assignment.

Robert speculated that perhaps it was not only the workers who were in danger of being eliminated but also the guards. He wondered if at some point, when Treblinka ever ran out of Jews to kill and had to close down, that Hitler might also kill all the SS and Ukrainian guards, simply to cover up his tracks and hide his dirty secrets. Perhaps no one was ever meant to live after Treblinka.

Their breakaway plan to disarm and kill the guards was something they enjoyed thinking about—the death of the Doll, Kiewe, Miete, and Mentz. Unfortunately it could mean their own deaths as well. Zelo’s conviction that they should all escape in a grand revolt brought them a hope they had not held since their arrival. It must be possible.

They had heard about prison uprisings before in their history classes. The key, they knew, was to catch their captors unawares. If any of the SS or the Ukrainians were to suspect their plans, or worse, catch any of them storing money or weapons, great reprisals would surely follow—perhaps even a mass execution like none that had previously been seen. While Zelo brought great hope to the men, his plans also brought increased risk. All these thoughts swirled around in their heads for hours after lights-out.

 

Chapter 10

Reveille, and early morning roll call on the appelplatz.

Report to assigned positions.

Hear a locomotive enter Treblinka station.

Listen to the gunshots and screaming from the loading platform.

See the men and women separated, then forced to undress and run down the tube.

Handle the new clothing and valuables.

Gather everything together into bundles to ship.

The violent days at Treblinka all took on the same form. It was an endless barrage of chaos, carnage, and monotony. But there was something new happening in Camp 2 that was impacting everyone. The Czech contingent heard that Jewish workers in the upper camp were forced to build tremendous roasting pits to burn the bodies taken out of the shower chambers. Depending on the wind direction, a horrible stench would sometimes permeate every part of the main work camp. A few of the Jewish workers vomited as they ran doing their chores.

Richard, Karel, Hans, and Zelo reported to the sorting work detail. The passengers to be processed that day came from Western Europe and were loaded with valuables, usually hidden in secret pockets or knapsacks. Myriads of supplies were formed into piles in the sorting yard:

lighters in one pile,

compacts in another,

soaps,

matches,

silver pens in one pile and gold pens in another,

silver watches,

gold watches,

and one platinum watch pocketed by a work Jew for a future bargain with a Ukrainian.

Wallets here,

belts there,

flashlights in a pile of their own.

Bottles are organized together by color.

All currency was stuffed into different suitcases;

zloty in one,

marks in another,

francs in a third,

and guilders in a fourth.

An additional suitcase was available for diamonds, which was guarded by an SS, who kept reminding the workers not to pocket anything or they would be shot in the neck by Mentz at the Lazarette.

Despite being eyed suspiciously throughout the day by various guards, the Czechs were able to pocket quite a bit of currency and diamonds they found hidden in the clothing, and even in some loaves of bread. On Zelo’s orders, everyone was to bring as many valuables as possible each night to their meeting to be used for the future uprising.

Zelo Bloch began to work not only with the other Czechs, but with camp elder Galewski. Zelo learned that Galewski was already devising a plan for a unified revolt, whereby both camps would participate in a coordinated attack, something Zelo had thought impossible since there was no communication between Camp 1 and Camp 2. Galewski told Zelo there was a specialized carpenter named Jankiel Wiernik who was tasked with construction projects at both camps. Jankiel would deliver messages back and forth from Galewski to those in Camp 2 who were committed to a revolt—with Jankiel being one of them.

“I was told that no one who steps foot in Camp 2 is allowed to leave,” Zelo stated.

“Jankiel is special,” said Galewski. “A master workman, and the Nazis need him too much…in both camps. To my knowledge, he is the only one with this privilege. Let us hope he continues to hold their favor, otherwise we are totally cut off from those in Camp 2.”

The Czech men were encouraged with this information, and were happy that Zelo had earned the confidence of Galewski. Knowing that both camps were part of the escape plan seemed to make a revolt more real, and that so many more of them might escape. Galewski routinely told Zelo that they could not leave their Camp 2 brothers alone to die with the horrible retaliation sure to follow.

In the meantime, Galewski helped to organize several escapes, some of which worked, and some of which did not. The gruesome reprisals were put on display for all to see, and take warning. Two men were found hiding underneath some tightly packed clothing bundles inside a train that was about to depart for Warsaw. The escapees were promptly whipped all the way to the courtyard where the other prisoners had been gathered as witnesses. The men were stripped, tied onto poles, and hung upside down, then whipped again and left on the poles until they perished.

On another occasion, when the Czech men’s hopes were still high for escape, they were awakened earlier than normal for a special formation before sunrise. Seven blue-banded Jewish workers who helped on the platform had tried to make an escape. The previous night they stormed the guard at the camp gate nearest town in hopes of several making it past. But before they could overtake the guard he was able to call for help and several SS men came running. All seven prisoners were captured and put under guard for the rest of the night.

Just after roll call the seven blue-banded workers were brought to the front of the formation and the Doll stepped forward to speak to the camp.

“Today is the last day we will mete out a mild punishment,” he declared. “From now on, every kapo and foreman will be directly liable with their own lives if any of their people try to escape. Also, ten men will be shot for every one person who escapes, or tries to escape. Do you understand? For one, ten others! This is very clear for you.”

The Doll had the seven men transported to the infirmary to be shot in the neck and burned. But he made sure the kapos and foremen were all there to witness the execution.

When the job was done, Kurt Franz told the Jewish leaders, “It will not be worth it for you if it happens again. You will be done away with the same way. These are the new rules. Dismissed.”

That same evening Galewski and Zelo conferred and decided that no more escapes should be attempted. They would focus their attention on the entire group departing after setting fire to the camp.

Rudi Masarek dreamed of his wife Gisela. He could see her from a position nearby as she maneuvered through the large disrobing barracks and was ordered to take off her clothes. Now he was standing in the back of the building as Gisela was ushered into the room where she sat with her arms covering her breasts and screaming for Rudi to help her. He did not move; he could not speak.

Gisela’s beautiful hair was quickly chopped four times by a work Jew with a red armband—once in the front, once in the back, and then a rough chop on each side. With no time to mourn for her hair, she was steered out the back door and into the tube with many other women.

Rudi slowly followed, as if drifting behind in a cloud as a ghost, watching as guards herded Gisela down the long path toward the showers. There was a bend in the pathway to the right and then a brick building loomed before those waiting in line. She pleaded with him, crying; she was ordered to raise her arms high above her head by the Nazis on the berm with machine guns. One of the SS guards was using a whip to position the women closer and closer to the brick building.

The heavy door of the building was opened; the women filed inside, shrieking. There was a Star of David just above their heads as they entered the building, but it was a mockery and offered them no protection. Gisela turned and gave one more glance at Rudi as she stepped into the brick building. Immediately, Rudi was in the low-ceilinged building with her, watching and still unable to speak. The women were shoved mercilessly into place until there was no more room and they were pressed against each other, tighter than on the rail trip. The door was sealed shut. There was a pause, silence, and all the women looked up to see an array of metal showerheads protruding from the ceiling, evenly spaced throughout the large room.

Gisela looked at Rudi and with her eyes pleaded with him to help, but his throat was dry, he could not speak, and his legs felt paralyzed. Moments of silent horror passed before a sound of a large diesel motor rumbled up to full capacity. The women watched the showerheads, but there was no water. Suddenly dark fumes and a pungent odor flooded the room. Choking, coughing, crying. Rudi could no longer see Gisela; there was simply a torrent of anguish and wailing while the gas worked its evil on the victims. One final rush of spewing anguish flooded the unconcerned structure before dissolving into an eerie silence.

Rudi startled awake, heart racing and mind exploding. He wanted to run over to the brick building to see if he could save Gisela. But his head cleared and he remembered that she was not there. His beloved wife had perished weeks earlier. He controlled his breathing. He thought of her sad eyes. He could still hear the cries, like screaming vultures in his mind. Blood hammered through his temples. As Rudi turned on his side in the darkness, he noticed a terrible odor that reminded him of what was happening in Camp 2.