Accounts of a Jewish escapee from Treblinka, Jankel Wiernik, residing in Warsaw at 23 Wołyńska Street, aged 53.
On August 23, 1942, I was taken to Treblinka with a larger transport of Jews from Warsaw.On the way, the train stopped briefly in Małkinia, from where it was diverted to a special side track to Treblinka. In Treblinka, the train stopped at the ramp. A group of Ukrainians and Jewish workers were left standing in front of the ramp. The workers tried to warn us, shouting "Vajivrach" (run) in Hebrew. It didn't occur to any of us that we were being led to our deaths. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians were herding everyone from the wagons into the square, lavishing whips and bayoneting on everyone. We immediately noticed huge signs in the square declaring that jewelry and other valuables should be deposited in a specially marked area. Immediately upon arrival, we were divided into two groups. One group consisted of men on the right, the other of women and children on the left. Wooden barracks lined either side of the square. After warning us about the barracks, we were all ordered to undress and prepare for a bath. The clothes were taken out of the camp on the same train. The Germans then announced that the elderly and sick would be sent to the "infirmary" ("lazaretu") A number of people volunteered, saying they would be "bathed" ("kapieli") and "infirmary" ("lazaret") only later.
Luckily, I didn't undress too quickly. A friend of mine, who worked as a grave digger in the camp, explained the truth to me: you don't come back from a bath. I then crept out of the barracks and into the square, where I got mixed up with a group of workers heading for the ramp. The newly arrived transport from Międzyrzec was unloaded at the ramp. Eighty percent of the bodies were corpses. The cause of death was chlorine gas released into the wagons by the Germans. We carried the bodies to the yard. The work continued until evening. Three hundred workers reported for the evening roll call. We sat in a semicircle. A German examined each of us. He sent 150 to the left, the rest, including me, to the right. We were given water to drink and ordered to lie down on the ground to sleep. Moments later, we heard heavy gunfire, targeting the 150 on the left. I worked for three days burying the bodies. The mass grave was 100 meters long, 25 meters wide, and 15 meters deep (100 meters x 25 meters x 15 = 37,500 cubic meters). The grave digger, losing his sticks in the eyes of the Germans, left him, along with the corpse, knocked into the grave with a revolver shot. The gravediggers' pits were filled with people from the daily transports. Workers were assembled three times a day. Everyone was searched for gold, jewelry, knives, or pieces of iron. The offender received 25 lashes and was then sent to the "lazaret." On the third day of my stay in the camp, during the evening roll call, which, as usual, was accompanied by a selection, the Germans ordered all the bricklayers, carpenters, and joiners to report. I volunteered as a carpenter. A group of 150 workers was assembled and given the task of building 10 new gas chambers. The work was supervised by a Ukrainian. I didn't know his name. While working, I was able to move freely around the camp and observe closely.
The Treblinka camp consists of three parts. Treblinka I – the ramp, the area where victims were unloaded and then buried. This area is surrounded on the left and right sides by wooden barracks. The right side was for men, the left for women and children. The camp kitchen for all personnel, which also housed band rooms, a games room, and barracks for the German and Ukrainian crew. Jewish workers also lived in this square. The "Lazaret," located nearby, is a bench on the edge of a grave. The elderly and sick were made to lie on the bench facing the grave and were shot in the neck. The camp is guarded by special watchtowers, where Ukrainians with machine guns stand guard.
Treblinka II - death camp, a square with 13 gas chambers (bathrooms). Gas chamber - 2m high, 7m long, 7m wide. On one side, a normal entrance door. On the opposite side, a trapdoor that opens after people have been gassed. This is also where the corpses are removed. On the roof is a safety hatch, used in the event of chlorine poisoning. After the appropriate amount of chlorine has been added, the hatch closes hermetically. At Treblinka II, during my stay, we built a laundry, a kitchen, and a small Zakopane-style house for the camp commandant. Treblinka II is separated from Treblinka I by deep ditches and dense barbed-wire fences.
Treblinka III - a penal camp for Poles and Jews, 4 km from Treblinka II. I have never been to Treblinka III.
The Treblinka I and II camps had a garrison of 1,000, of whom 250 were in the square (50 SS men, 200 Ukrainians). I don't know their names. The camp commandant, with the rank of Obersturmführer, was nicknamed "Lalka" (Doll), and his deputy, Untersturmführer, was named Franc. I only knew two Ukrainians: Ivan and Nikolai. They were the two worst.
The Germans, wanting to avoid resistance from the victims, who were already exhausted by the journey, beatings, and thirst, when the transport arrived, selected from the crowd all those who volunteered to work in the camp, bringing water, etc., in order to draw out the active element and then lead the entire helpless mass along the well-known, leveled road to death. Men, women, and children stripped naked were herded from the square along the single road, through ditches and riots, connecting Treblinka I and Treblinka II. Along the way, the Germans took infants from their mothers, smashing their heads with stones, and I myself saw Ukrainians cutting off women's breasts or piercing their genitals with bayonets. As many as possible were stuffed into the gas chambers. Then, a hose was connected to the gas chamber's engine from a Soviet tank, and the gas was pumped in. Death lasted 15-20 minutes. Transports arriving in the evening were killed through a safety hatch, where chlorine gas was poured onto the crowded mass of people. The hatch was closed overnight, and death lasted from 10 to 12 hours. It happened quite often that people were pulled out of the chamber alive. Children were the most resistant to chlorine. They were buried alive. Around August 27th, there was a break in transports for about eight days. This time was used to bury the bodies. A special machine called a dredger dug holes, and the bodies were covered with a thin layer of earth. After eight days, larger transports began to arrive again. ... people per day. Transports arrived from Krakow, Częstochowa, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Z... Jews arrived in Pullman carriages and their luggage was brought in special freight wagons. Transports arrived in such numbers until the end of December. In January, there was a certain relaxation. Transports arrived once or twice a week. In February, Himmler was in Treblinka with orders to dig up the corpses and burn them. We tried several times to build a crematorium. The corpses, however, did not burn. Only a specially brought-in SS man from Sobibór constructed an open-air grill, two brick supports on which iron bars were placed. On the ground, rags and wood soaked in gasoline were set alight. The bodies were placed on iron bars. We poured the ashes into pits, and a special machine mixed them into the earth. We pounded some body parts that couldn't be burned with special pestles and then spread them in the field. We sowed lupines throughout the entire area.
In April and May, smaller transports of 1,500 people each arrived. Jews from the General Government (GG) and transports of Bulgarian Jews. Transports from the final action in Warsaw also arrived. At the end of May, two transports of Poles arrived, probably from Gęsiówka.
The young men from the Grodno transport resisted and became SS officers. All the Jews were shot. At the end of July, a transport of 300 Jews arrived. I don't know exactly if they arrived from Hanover or were supposed to be going there. In any case, they were Jews from Warsaw. They were brought in passenger cars to Treblinka III and then, in the evening, transferred to the death camp. These Jews resisted.
According to my calculations, approximately 3,000,000 Jews died in Treblinka. We survived it all. Every night, there were 20-30 suicides among the workers. The Germans especially abused the Jewish intelligentsia. They were specifically chosen to be gravediggers so they could see their nation perish. When the Germans felt like it, a Jewish orchestra of fifteen, led by Arthur Gold, was forced to entertain them. They were also forced to organize boxing matches. Such were our entertainments. Sometimes a Ukrainian would select a worker and nail his ear to the wall with a nail.
After receiving the first reports of resistance in Warsaw and seeing Jews in Treblinka resisting in individual cases, we began to think of rebellion. 1,800 workers, they were (agreed?) to be our uprising. Engineer Galewski from Łódź was our leader. We organized ourselves into fives. Each five had a specific task: a Ukrainian or a German. The signal for the start of the fight was to be a revolver shot.
On August 2, 1943, at 5:30 p.m., the signal was given. Some groups set fire to buildings and gas chambers, while others cut the barbed wire and cleared a path for those escaping. I was part of the group that attacked the SS man. We killed him with axes. We took his rifle, but we had no ammunition for it. We killed about 60 Germans and Ukrainians. We then fled into the surrounding forests. The remaining Germans organized a pursuit. I killed the Ukrainian who was chasing me with an axe, whose revolver jammed. All the Jews escaped, how many... I don't know. The local SS gendarmerie from Sokołów, Kosów (Kosów), and Sterdyń took part in the pursuit. Only in the forest did I learn from a rebellious boy that I was 30 km from Treblinka.
This might be a minor point, but Wiernik is inconsistent with the date he was deported or made it to Treblinka. He most often uses August 22 or August 23, 1942. One of the newspapers gives the date of August 28.
One style of handwriting goes with the engine exhaust gas. The other type goes with chlorine. Maybe the two Wierniks hand-wrestled it out to decide whose version would make it to print.
