Chapter 19
When Zelo and Adasch first walked up to Camp 2, they both knew they were lucky to be alive…lucky they were not instead taken to the Lazarette. The first immediate impact to their senses was the stench. Though only a few meters from where they had lived before, the smell was more of an assault on their senses at their new quarters. They had witnessed plenty of misery in Camp 1, but in no way did it mentally prepare them for what they experienced in Camp 2.
They learned that there were two main gassing chambers. Each chamber possessed nickel-plated metal showerheads in the ceiling, and small orange terra-cotta tiles on the floor. During gassings, each chamber was crammed with 350–400 people at a time. Babies and small children were routinely tossed inside over the occupants’ heads once it was too tight to fit any more adult-sized bodies. The doors tightly closed and a shout proclaimed, “Ivan, water!” A petrol-driven engine immediately started up, which sent carbon monoxide gas into the pipes that was released through the showerheads in each chamber.
The process to suffocate the unsuspecting Jews took roughly thirty to forty minutes. Then the order would be given to open the hermetically fitted iron doors facing Camp 2 so that the removal of bodies could begin. On days when the Nazi guards felt especially cruel they would delay the full treatment of gas in order to spread out the torture over six to twelve hours…then laugh about it.
When the guards could no longer hear any screaming, the extermination mission would be accomplished. “All asleep!” they shouted. The Jewish workers would then open the doors and the bodies closest to the door would fall out.
Immediately after his arrival, Zelo was introduced to the labor he would perform for hours on end, every day—the processing of corpses. A large team of Jews spent their days hauling bodies from the gassing chambers to the large roaster racks to be burned. The Nazi mission at Camp 2 was to exterminate and dispose of the thousands of pitiful souls who had not been selected as Jewish workers at Camp 1.
Zelo was assigned to the transport squad. Once the gassing operation was cleared for removal the transporters ran everywhere. They ran to the large multichambered brick building. They hustled to extract the clammy corpses out of the rooms and place them outside. They loaded two adult bodies or three child-sized bodies onto a stretcher, and then ran toward the large burning pits. En route they would halt to allow amateur Jewish dentists extract teeth and thoroughly check all body cavities for gold, porcelain, and other precious substances. Then the men proceeded with their stretchers toward the grilling racks. A few weeks before Zelo arrived, the bodies were merely thrown into an enormous pit and covered with sand. But now, Camp 2 was following an order from Stangl to burn every corpse and dispose of the ashes.
Zelo now understood the entire path of processing people through Treblinka. While still working in the lower camp, Zelo was tasked to chop pine branches in the woods. When the wagon was full, it was hauled up to the tube. The workers were instructed to carefully weave the branches throughout the fence to disguise the barrier.
Once, while peering through the tube, Zelo saw the processing of women and children being roughly herded down the channel. Ahead they could see a large Star of David and a dark ceremonial curtain, which declared in Hebrew, “This is the Gateway to God.” Completely naked and with their arms raised, the passengers were kicked and hit with the butts of rifles while they clambered up five large concrete steps, through the doorway, and into the multichambered building.
Despite the obvious difference between the camp operations, Zelo realized there were some similarities. The men were locked in their barracks each night—morning roll call was held at 5:30 a.m. for strict accountability, there were kapos who helped supervise the upper-camp Jews, there were nearly a dozen women who worked at the upper camp as launderers and cooks, and there were guard towers with Ukrainians changing shifts several times a day. Everyone ran, everyone feared for their lives, and the German SS guards were sadists.
The stories Zelo heard those first few days from some of the other Camp 2 workers greatly troubled him. He became more determined than ever to continue planning for the uprising. He set about to rally the leaders of the upper camp with all of the information he possessed as a leader and former resident of Camp 1.
Soon after Zelo’s arrival he became the lead conspirator of Camp 2. He possessed the rugged good looks and confidence of leadership and influence, a man who was at ease with himself and others. Friendly yet determined, his countenance suggested he would not take any dissonance or two-faced posturing from others. The guards, rather than taking offense to his chutzpah, approved of it, placing the mantle of leadership on Zelo by making him a kapo within the first month of his arrival.
Zelo knew he had to keep in communication with Camp 1 if the revolt was to remain unified and succeed. He became close friends with Jankiel Wiernik, the camp carpenter. Jankiel alone was trusted by the Nazis to go back and forth between the two camps because they needed his building expertise at the lower camp. He would speak to Rudi when working on his construction project at Camp 1, then report back to Zelo in the upper camp at night. In this way, the two camps stayed connected.
The work in Camp 2 was awful to endure. But Zelo’s hope for retaliation and freedom inspired the Jewish workers there to keep laboring hard to stay alive.
Chapter 20
Because the transports had slowed down to a trickle, the Doll decided to get the people in Camp 1 working on additional improvement projects. The zoo, which now had foxes, squirrels, pigeons, peacocks, and other animals, continued to expand, so Jewish workers were tasked with constructing shelters for the new arrivals. The Doll also developed an orchestra, along with entertainment shows to be performed after evening formations, such as skits and boxing.
SS guards were all instructed by the deputy kommandant that while on vacation they should look to bring back as many instruments they could find. The camp also harvested many violins and brass instruments from the trains to use for the upcoming concerts. Soon an entire orchestra was formed from workers who were skilled musicians before their incarceration.
The Doll was notified that a famous Warsaw musician, Arthur Gold, had arrived on one of the transports. Franz immediately pulled the talented Jewish worker aside and told him about his exciting plans. Gold would be the conductor of the new Treblinka orchestra. The Doll had a podium built for the orchestra leader, and instructed him to work with the other musicians to compose a Treblinka hymn within two days.
But this was not the end to all of the Doll’s plans. “From now on we will have a cabaret,” he said to the Jewish workers at Camp 1. “Do not laugh, I am quite serious about this. We will have boxing matches, skits, singing…and I want to have a wedding. Yes, I will pick two people to get married, and then after the ceremony we will give them some alone time in the barracks. It will be called the wedding barracks!”
The Doll was quite pleased with himself with this announcement. It did not occur to him that in another time and place this might have been considered humorous. But in Treblinka, nothing could amuse the men and women who were in constant fear for their lives. Weddings, honeymoons, and sex were not on the minds of the workers. The austere conditions constantly reminded them that they were prisoners and not free to be entertained by shows and ceremonies. They each hoped to simply live one more day, thinking that perhaps something could alter their fate.
There continued to be no trains arriving at Treblinka. The cooks, tailors, carpenters, medical assistants, sorters, plumbers, maids, and goldsmiths did not have nearly enough to do. So work, in the form of amusement, was being laid before them.
On the Sunday of the first concert, Camp Kommandant Stangl sat in the center of the front row, surrounded by the Doll, Kuttner Kiewe, Miete, Mentz, Suchomel, and the others. With orchestra conductor Arthur Gold at the front and little Edek at the back, the entire orchestra sat on camp chairs clutching their used instruments, each dressed in white jackets with blue lapels.
As Arthur Gold, a master violinist and composer, lifted his baton to begin the concert, a memory flashed in his mind of the magnificent Polish National Symphonic Orchestra that had assembled a few years before the war. With an international presence, Arthur Gold’s compositions routinely played on radios across Europe. Now he was a prisoner inside Treblinka conducting an assemblage of prisoners, none of them playing their own instruments, and all of them afraid for their lives. In the air was the nauseating smell of roasting bodies, and concertina wire lined the perimeter of the square. With all the dignity Gold could muster, he flung out his arms and began the show.
The highlight of the concert were solos by the tenors—trained opera performers from Warsaw who were somehow recognized by fans when pulled off the trains and diverted away from the tube. The orchestra music itself was average, but considering it came forth from those with little time to practice together, it was remarkable. The Nazis knew that Gold had done well with the resources given him.
Following the concert was a boxing match between a large worker and small one for comedic effect. Then there was a reading of a newspaper with humorous stories given as asides. The final act was the wedding. As promised, the Doll picked out two of the younger Jewish workers and had them tie the knot. Thankfully Bronka and Tchechia were not chosen out of the few women available. Richard, Karel, Rudi, Hans, and Robert were similarly relieved. They did not want to participate in the Nazi ceremony, even if it was a sham.
The expression on the faces of the two workers chosen was of such disgust it drew the ire of some the SS in attendance. It was not much like a traditional wedding; no ceremonial expressions and no singing. Just a pronouncement and it was over. The two were sent off to the barracks to be alone. The Doll had accomplished his show for the day, and now the conclusion of the spectacle produced something else as well—pure terror in the hearts of all the workers. What would they do next?
Chapter 21
“We have to act now!” exclaimed Rudi Masarek. “Something is up. Something terrible. The time is now, either today or tomorrow. We have to take action.”
It was a warm, late spring day, 1943. The Czechs were at their daily planning meeting for the revolt, led by Rudi. Several men were standing guard at the doors. The meeting was uncharacteristically taking place in the morning. The workers were instructed to remain in the barracks, which in itself was unsettling. The excuse the Nazis used was that there were no trains.
“Why the sudden rush, Rudi?” asked Richard.
“It is Galewski. One of the female workers told our camp elder that she overheard the Doll talking to Stangl. He said with the lack of trains, they did not need as many workers.”
“This could be a setup,” chimed in Robert. “They could be prodding us to see if we begin to act crazy.”
“Regardless, they may choose to take two hundred of us to the Lazarette just for good measure. I think we are beginning to borrow time we do not have. I know we have the two pistols, but is there any news on the lock and the arms room?”
The revolt organizers had received two pistols and some ammunition from peasants who lived near the camp. The exchange took place in a clandestine manner; the peasant would discreetly hide packages for the Czechs at a distance, then held up two or three fingers if they wanted twenty or thirty dollars for them. In return, the money was hidden nearby at a later time.
Regarding the arsenal, it was surrounded by Ukrainians, but the lock had been “mysteriously” jammed. One day, little Edek, on orders from the revolt committee, dashed past the arms room and frantically shoved metal shavings into the lock when no one was looking. When it was discovered the lock did not work it immediately drew the suspicion of their Nazi overlords.
They commissioned the Jewish locksmith to remove the door to his shop where he was to repair the lock, but they did not trust him. Ukrainian guards supervised the locksmith so no additional keys could be made. However, the locksmith’s entire family had disappeared down the tube at Treblinka, so he was sympathetic to the Czech men’s plans.
Despite the watchful eye of the Ukrainians, the locksmith took an incredible risk by secretly making a wax impression of the key when the guards were distracted. From the impression, he was able to create an additional key. The Ukrainians were none the wiser. The locksmith gave one key to the SS, and one to the organizers for the revolt.
“Yes, we have the key,” replied Karel. “We can have some of the young men, perhaps Edek and several others, break into the arsenal and steal the grenades.”
“Do it,” Rudi said stoically. “It is now or never. I will alert the upper camp; as soon as we have the grenades in our hands the revolt begins.”
That very day, little Edek and three of his friends nervously walked over to the guard’s living quarters where the arms room was located. Their attempt at a nonchalant stroll was comical, but no one was around to notice as the guards were all on their rounds. They hoped that if a guard caught them out of the corner of his eye he would presume they were on a routine mission to assist the cooks or the nurses.
Edek’s team inserted the prized key—it worked! Quickly they loaded two cases of grenades into the bottom of a wheelbarrow and covered it with some trash. Again, as casually as possible, they strolled back to where the organizers anxiously awaited their arrival. The uprising would begin in a few moments.
Once inside, a few members of the revolt committee inspected the grenades. Though everything appeared in order at first glance, it was soon detected that the grenades—so perilously stolen—had no detonators! They needed to be returned, and before the guards retired to their quarters. Edek and his friends walked back toward the arms room, a little quicker this time. All would be well once they returned the grenades and hid the key again.
As they turned the corner toward the arsenal, something was immediately out of order. A Jewish worker known as a sympathetic informer to the Nazis stood nonchalantly in the hallway. Without missing a beat Edek walked over to the Jew and made up a cockamamie story that Kiewe was looking for him. With Edek leading the informer away from the door and out of sight, the grenades were replaced and the door was relocked.
This event was a terrible blow to the uprising plan, but also an amazing feat that instilled much-needed confidence into the organizers. Their time would come soon.
Chapter 22
Stangl hated to make the announcement but there was no way around it. Before the camp began their cremating operations, the bodies were gassed then buried in large pits at Treblinka. Now they all needed to be exhumed and burned.
“By order of the reichsfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler, not only are we to burn the newly gassed bodies, we must now dig up the remains we have buried in the past and burn those bodies as well,” Stangl declared to his fellow SS workers.
He looked around and saw the incredible disdain on everyone’s faces. It would mean a lot of work. And the smell of burning bodies that had putrefied, or had only half-decomposed, would be ghastly, like inhaling death itself.
It was Otto Horn, a former nurse from the euthanasia program, who spoke up first. “Kommandant Stangl, we don’t have the equipment necessary. The pits we excavated were fairly deep and—”
Stangl cut him off, saying, “I have thought of that and I have already ordered some heavy machinery to assist us. We have the one older piece, but two more large excavators should be arriving by rail in the next week or two.”
“Why this turn of plans?” asked Kuttner.
“Well, for one, the shipments have died down and this will give the workers at Camp 2 something useful to do,” replied Stangl. “Essentially this new work will justify keeping them alive. But Herr Himmler’s main reason is to prevent anyone from ever finding out what has been happening here.”
“Are you talking about—?” Suchomel began.
“Yes. The stories in the press are being used as propaganda to our full advantage to display the evil of communism. Himmler knows that the Soviets will do the same to us should they ever retake Poland.”
This statement sobered everyone. Not only was it a shock to realize that, despite all of Hitler’s promises, the war had incurably stalled out in Stalingrad and gone against the Germans but also the thought that the Allies would one day overtake Treblinka and discover what the SS guards had been doing. Both ideas were startling and could not be thought of too long.
The distress on the Doll’s face said it all.
“Yes, I know it will be a massive undertaking,” said Stangl, as if to anticipate Kurt Franz’s hesitation. “We are going to have to burn at least ten thousand bodies a day for a month in order to make a dent in it.”
“Ten thousand a day?” asked Suchomel.
“Yes. The workers at Camp 2 will have to step up. We will augment them with workers from the lower camp. Also, Globocnik is sending over a specialist to help with the process. He should be here tomorrow.”
“The reasoning again?” Franz asked as politely as he could, though he was fuming inside. His anger clouded his mind so he could not remember why they were asked to change operations.
“Katyn.”
The one-word answer from Stangl was all that was needed to convince the guards.
Earlier that year the German Army had uncovered a ditch, nearly one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, in the Katyn forest of Russia. In 1940, the Soviets had murdered thousands of Polish officers, stacked the bodies twelve high, and secretly buried them.
Reich minister Joseph Goebbels used the information as propaganda against the Allies. Heinrich Himmler, as Hitler’s overseer of the Polish death camps, determined never to let this kind of propaganda happen against Nazi Germany. Thus no mass graves and no evidence to be left behind. The bodies buried in Treblinka during the summer and fall of 1942 would have to be excavated and burned, their ashes disbursed, never to be found again.
In Camp 2, Zelo Bloch and Jankiel Wiernik received the news of exhumation soberly. They had no option but to lead the men to do precisely what was ordered. The laborious cremation project began immediately. The lone excavator scraped the soil of one of the mass graves and dug for hours, creating a mountain of dirt between Camp 1 and Camp 2. All of the work finished months earlier to fill the pit and smooth it out was now being undone.
When the cavernous grave was finally penetrated, there arose such a stench of gaseous fumes from the half-decomposed bodies that the workers had to cease operations. Eventually the air cleared a little. After the initial shock, the corpses of men, women, and children were exhumed from the foul ground.
A visitor joined the camp to lead the operation. He was an oberscharfuhrer with SS insignia on his sleeve. The workers had several different names for him: the Artist, the Specialist, and frequently he was known as Tadellos, which meant “perfect.” As he instructed the workers and provided guidance, he had an annoying habit of saying tadellos over and over again, even though things were far from perfect in the workers’ minds.
The Artist made changes right away. He laughed at the rudimentary ovens they had been using and ordered them dismantled and hauled away immediately. He then had the workers create at regular intervals dozens of cement posts close to two feet high, to be used as pillars. Six sturdy iron rails from the nearby abandoned tracks were laid parallel on top of the cement pillars for a length of 150 feet, forming an enormous grill. The Artist explained that underneath the rails the prisoners should place dry logs and sticks to be used as tinder for the grill.
Once the Artist was satisfied with the measurements and durability of his new roaster, he had the Jewish workers douse the wood profusely with gasoline. Then, as the carcasses were dug up by the excavator, the women’s bodies were pulled out, hundreds at a time, and put on as the first layer of the grate. Female bodies, especially the fat ones, were found to burn easier than the males, so they were utilized as kindling.
“Tadellos, tadellos!” exclaimed the Artist. In his mind the work so far was flawless.
The excavator pulled out roughly twelve corpses each time it dug. Zelo, Jankiel, and scores of other men were on hand to yank out the female bodies and carry them over to the grate. After the Artist was satisfied that a good base was laid, he ordered the excavator to put all bodies—men, women, and children from the pit—and lay them directly on top of the women. When there were approximately three thousand bodies, the Jewish workers were instructed to douse it with gasoline over and over again.
Once lit, the entire mound of bodies eventually took flame—a colossal roast of death that the Nazis toasted. As Zelo and Jankiel stood by watching, they witnessed unimaginable scenes of burning horror, which included expectant mothers. With his countenance at a new low, Jankiel thought, Lucifer himself could not have created a hell worse than this!
“Tadellos, tadellos!” praised the Artist.
The Jewish men had to keep working; never content, the Artist kept suggesting improvements. The Nazis, however, stood by with brandy and cognac. Feeling the warmth from the fire, their bodies and minds were comforted simultaneously, knowing their crimes were being covered up.
The additional excavators arrived and were put to use immediately. Workers were transferred from Camp 1 to help with the project. New grills were made nearby. Soon mounds with ten thousand bodies at a time were engulfed in flames.
The burnings continued. More excavations of bodies, more mounds created. The fire was so hot that it scorched many of the workers trying to manage it. The large flames could be seen from miles away, and anyone within one hundred feet of them would be burned. The noxious odor often incapacitated those who were in the vicinity, including the workers in Camp 1 and the nearby villages. It was awful, even for the guards, who simply stood and watched over the operation. They were permitted to rotate out every two weeks for special leave, to depart from the haunting inferno of Treblinka. But the prisoners were forced to endure.
Eventually hundreds of thousands of bodies had been burned, their ashes scraped into wheelbarrows with a continuous crew of workers depositing their loads in the adjacent fields or the river. Within the ashes were not only bits and pieces of bone, but also jewels and gold that had apparently been swallowed in a desperate attempt before entering the gas chamber. The work was repugnant, hideous, and the workers at Camp 2 sent a message to Camp 1: “If you do not take action soon, we will take action ourselves.”
Chapter 23
Blonde-haired Tchechia Mandel was told she would not be doing kitchen work that day. One of the maids was sick with typhus, so Tchechia was instructed to perform cleaning duties in the SS living quarters and offices. After breakfast she grabbed her cleaning supplies and departed for that part of the camp, dreaming of the revolt and of one day departing from Treblinka with its memories of Benjamin Rakowski and death everywhere.
When she arrived at the living quarters it was quiet. She cleaned several rooms, removed the trash, and took a quick break before she entered the office area. There was never much time to rest during the day, and the workers were instructed to always run from place to place.
Once inside the kommandant’s office, Tchechia wiped down the desk and straightened up the other furniture. All of a sudden the door opened and in walked the kommandant himself.
“Why hello,” greeted Stangl. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine,” answered the startled Tchechia in near-perfect German. She had never encountered Stangl one on one before.
Stangl looked uncomfortable, like he was going to continue the conversation, which Tchechia did not want. She attempted to keep dusting.
“Have you chosen a room for yourself yet?” asked Stangl.
Tchechia stopped dusting. Stangl stood still, looking at her.
“Why do you ask?” answered Tchechia, somewhat condescendingly. She had dealt with these brutes before. She was not too scared to stare at him. Did he want her for himself? Was he trying to flatter her?
“Nothing,” Stangl stammered. Her response and tone had taken him by surprise. “I meant nothing by it. I simply wondered if you had been able to move into one of the new rooms we had built for the workers. I can ask this of you, can’t I? Why shouldn’t I ask?” Stangl became indignant, offended that this Jewish worker would speak to him in the manner that she did.
“May I go?” asked Tchechia.
Again her question startled Stangl, so direct, almost severe. He could tell she was a very smart girl, and one not to attempt to manipulate. He recognized her as the interim camp elder’s girlfriend and that she usually worked in the kitchen or at the clinic. She probably thinks I want to have her for myself now that her boyfriend is gone, he suspected. “By all means. Go. I am not going to keep you.”
Stangl felt ashamed. He knew she thought he was making an advance on her. He also knew that she would have fought him. She was obviously educated, willful, and proud. She had stood up to him like no one else at the camp ever had. He respected her for that, but it also irritated him.
“It was terrible,” Tchechia said to Bronka. “He just looked at me and asked questions.”
“What did you say?” asked Bronka.
“I asked him if I could leave. I wasn’t going to stick around to see what he had in mind.”
“And you didn’t get in trouble?”
“Not yet. I haven’t heard anything about it.”
Tchechia and Bronka sat in their new room before lights-out. The female workers were taken out of the barracks and given small rooms they shared with one or two other people.
“I could have never done what you did,” exclaimed Bronka. “I would have been too scared to even speak to the kommandant. They say he doesn’t ever speak to workers—essentially doesn’t even know they exist. He acts like all this work gets done invisibly.”
“Well, he’s not as bad as Kuttner or Miete or Franz, but he runs this place, so in my mind he is the worst one of them all.”
“He watches things…that is certain. I see him standing on the berm by the tube. He looks down on everyone like he is staring down at his kingdom. He loves to hit the top of his boot with his riding whip.”
Tchechia and Bronka sat deep in thought for a moment. The weather was getting very warm. Trains were trickling into Treblinka about once per week. The guards were still selecting passengers out of the masses, but they were sent immediately to Camp 2. The smell originating from the upper camp had been shocking, like death itself. The girls were thankful they had not been recruited to work there like some of the other women. Camp 1 was upsetting enough.
Bronka was still working as a seamstress with the male tailors under SS guard Franz Suchomel. There were not as many clothes as before, but each train would bring a large number of bundles to sort through and remove the Star of David. Whenever she could, Bronka spoke to Rudi Masarek about the revolt. There had been informers, traitors who were recently killed in their sleep by the organizing committee, and some who were still working in the camp. There was always news in the camp of who was speaking to whom, all in an effort to weed out the informers.
The girls were eager to participate in the revolt. Whatever they were instructed to do they would do it. One request the organizers had for them was that once the revolt started, before they escaped into the woods, they were to use grenades to blow up buildings. This would help the fire spread.
They wanted to leave the camp in the most desperate sense possible. It was hard to think of anything else.
“I keep wondering what we will do when we escape,” said Bronka.
“That’s not hard—run!” Tchechia replied.
“I know. But we will be in the woods for a while, possibly with wounded people needing care. I know the Nazis will search savagely for us until we are captured.”
“Or until the war is over. It is a matter of timing. We have to evade them until the Allies come and take over this part of Poland. Then we will be free. I have heard that the Soviets have started an offensive and are moving west. I intend to find somewhere to hide. We both have money. We should stay together as long as possible.”
“I like that idea,” said Bronka. “You are much more confident than I am. I can run fast, but I have never traveled without my parents.”
“We will be okay,” said Tchechia. “We will stay together, and we will be okay.”
Chapter 24
At Camp 2, the Artist had been at work creating new enormous racks at the edge of the large pits housing the remains of bodies killed in 1942, before the cremations started. Each pit contained tens of thousands of corpses at a minimum, and the largest one held nearly one hundred thousand. Even after a pit was cleared of bodies there would sometimes appear to be some blood in it. When this happened, a Jewish worker would strip naked and descend down into the pit to dig around and look for any additional body parts that were not captured by the excavator.
Next to one of the larger pits where ninety thousand to one hundred thousand people were buried, the Artist created a specially designed rack where up to thirty thousand bodies could be placed at once—ten times the normal amount. All was going well with his plans until a ferocious gust of wind caused the flames to spill over and leap into the mass grave, which ignited immediately. As onlookers stood by, they noticed how the burning blood pooled near the surface, like petrol, intensifying the heat and flames so that over sixty thousand bodies in the large pit were burning at once. The Nazis cheered.
A train made its way into Treblinka station on a warm, sunny morning. The pitiful souls who emptied out of it were the remnants from the Warsaw ghetto. They wore just rags for clothing and had little to no valuables. A few of the women from Warsaw were pulled out from the passengers and sent to Camp 2 to help in the kitchen. They were so distraught from what had happened in the ghetto that it took three days to calm them down enough so they could speak intelligibly about what they witnessed. They described it as complete annihilation.
Of the other passengers, the men and women without any children were sent straight into the tube. For some reason, unknown to the workers, the mothers with children were marched up to Camp 2 by the Doll. When Kurt Franz arrived with his Warsaw prisoners of women and children, he marched them to the rim of the large pit, which was burning out of control.
The Nazis stood there and seemed to enjoy the terror-stricken faces of the toddlers and their mothers, as if it was a sport. Then the Doll and other SS men began grabbing the children and throwing them into the fiery pit, to the torture of their mothers, who passionately begged and pleaded with their captors. These mothers were being given special treatment because they had been some of the last out of Warsaw…and perhaps part of the resistance.
As the women stood there wailing, the Nazi men tormented them, saying, “Why don’t you jump in to save them? Are you cowards?”
Most of the women were now on their knees, clutching tightly to the remaining children and pleading with the guards to spare them, but to no avail. The ones who were not thrown alive into the flaming pit were marched up to the edge and shot so they would fall in. Of the onlookers whose turn would be next, many fainted and were dragged to the edge by a guard and then thrown in. The screams from the pit were bloodcurdling.
While this was occurring in the upper camp, the husbands and fathers were beaten with rifle butts as they transitioned from the tube and entered the gassing rooms. They were packed in at record numbers and allowed to suffer in the stifling hot chamber for a while. As they yelled and shouted, the Nazi guard in charge of the diesel engine decided to wait and have another drink of whiskey first. This way, the victims could experience the full wrath of what was to come.
Thankfully for the workers at the upper camp, a message arrived for Zelo from Camp 1. “The revolt would begin in days.”