Victim and executioner

"The train entered through a special gate. It was made of wooden battens interwoven with barbed wire. The wires were camouflaged with green branches. The train stopped, and the doors of all the wagons were immediately opened simultaneously. We found ourselves in the Treblinka execution pit." [4;72-72] He was one of approximately 5 Warsaw Jews deported that day for execution. His case was not exceptional, and he was neither the first nor the last of the hundreds of thousands of Jews the Germans planned to murder as part of the "Großaktion," sending their victims to the Treblinka II extermination camp for that sole purpose. Perhaps many prisoners contemplated escape as soon as the train pulled onto the camp siding. Only to be extinguished as the blows rained down upon them. The author of the quoted words, despite unfavorable circumstances, managed to escape. This alone, however, proved his uniqueness, but above all, his ability to recount—as soon as he managed to reach Warsaw after his escape—what he had seen and experienced. His accounts, saturated with emotion and intimate experience, were received and recorded at the turn of 1942 and 1943 by Rachela Auerbach, a journalist working with Oneg Shabbat.

"When I entered the camp and got out in the square, I found myself knee-deep in money," he said of his first impressions of a "working" visit to Treblinka. "I waded through banknotes, coins, precious stones, jewels, and clothes." [2;135] After all, the "Final Solution" had many faces. Regardless of the scale of the criminal actions and objective problems (technical and logistical), or disputes over "competence" (which occurred within the hierarchical Nazi system, starting from the highest officials and ending with the SS men directly implementing the "project" in the extermination camps), it was transformed into a failure-free system. [3;501] Was it based on ideological considerations, justifying the sense of annihilating hundreds of thousands of people simply because of their nationality or origin? Or was the parallel, actual, or perhaps overarching, goal of the creators of the criminal machine to seize literally everything, all Jewish property? He mentioned "enormous, simply fantastic sums." He explained: "Everyone wanted to grab something for themselves, wanted to control it." [2;140] His cold, dispassionate accounts were received and recorded at the turn of 1970 and 1971 by Gitta Sereny, a journalist specializing in Holocaust studies.

Various circumstances determined this. They arrived on the same day, August 26, 1942. On one side was Abram Jakub Krzepicki – a young Polish Jew serving in the Polish Army during the September Campaign. On the other, Franz Paul Stangl – a citizen of the Greater Reich from Austria and an SS man, a policeman by profession, a criminal by vocation, and the future commandant of the Treblinka II extermination camp. The former was the victim, the latter the executioner. One place, but seen from a different perspective. One created on the basis of an inherently criminal system…

Treblinka II began functioning as the last extermination camp. As in Sobibór and Bełżec, the process of mass murder went hand in hand with the plunder of Jewish property. In the common understanding and the official version promulgated by the Nazi authorities, all goods were treated as belonging to the "victors": clothing, everyday items, and valuables. After their owners were murdered, they were transported to Germany. It was about them that Abram Jakub Krzepicki spoke as soon as he arrived at the camp: "The first thing that caught our eye was a huge mountain of rags. My heart pounded in my chest. So many rags, and what happened to the people?!" [4;73] Myths about gold intertwined with the poverty-stricken reality. The poor, as well as the "rich," took with them on their final journey everything they still possessed that was of any value. What they hadn't yet managed to sell on the ghetto's black market: the remnants of their possessions, family heirlooms from the past, their savings. Because, just as before in the ghetto, on the way to the camp, they believed that thanks to them they would have a chance of survival. Did they not know it was a death camp? Or rather, they refused to entertain the thought?

Krzepicki repeatedly spoke of the riches he encountered during his time in the camp. If one were to count the gold rings, engagement rings, and ownership certificates for the Tłomackie workshops stolen by the Germans, or assume that each of the condemned men carried a $50 banknote on their way to the extermination site, would such data, when compared with the estimated numbers of those murdered, indicate the wealth or poverty of those executed? The clothing was revealing. He spoke of his work in the Lumpenkommando, a team that prepared what remained of the murdered victims for transport to Germany: "These things sorted themselves according to social class as the subsequent transports arrived at Treblinka. First there were the belongings of the poor, beggars, and residents of the refugee centers; then came the better things, which had once belonged to wealthier people. At first, we sorted through very dirty, lice-infested clothing and underwear. Starving vermin crawled over us from head to toe." When they had cleared half the storage facility, they realized they had just begun sorting through things that had once belonged to people from a different social class: "We reached more decent, better things. There were also things belonging to German Jews from Berlin and Vienna. These Jews, as you can see, had been transferred to Warsaw before the 'action'." [4;92]

In another place – the "bathroom" – there was also no shortage of "wealth": "Cash was also scattered on the floor: large and small, Polish złoty, foreign currency, securities. We were ordered to gather it all together 'as it went' and take it to the piles in the square by the track." He also spoke of the final form of rebellion by the condemned just before their deaths: "On the roads and paths of Treblinka, large quantities of torn banknotes were also found, which the Jews destroyed and threw away when they realized what Treblinka was. This was their last protest and last revenge before entering the gas chamber" [4;83]. However, the most shocking and simultaneously terrifying symbol of Treblinka were the "dentists" and the "boxes." The "dentists" were tasked with filling the boxes with freshly removed fillings or bridges, wedding rings, rings, and chains. A few minutes after the gassing, just before the "junk" was thrown into a mass grave. Evidence of the executioners' pettiness, greed, and lust. Krzepicki stated: "They profited from everything... If a murdered Jew happened to be a famous lawyer, an outstanding doctor, or had talent, he inherited a nicer pen, a more expensive shirt, a platinum crown instead of a gold one." He assessed the situation unequivocally: "They all became millionaires in Treblinka." [4;93,95]

This did not mean that they were the only ones who profited from the crimes. The inhabitants of villages neighboring Treblinka also joined in this process. They bartered with prisoners working outside the camp, in the forests. Guards supervising the prisoners served as intermediaries. This form of "cooperation" brought tangible benefits. Polish peasants and their overseers received gold, while the prisoners received food: " People want to draw money from Treblinka. A large-scale trade ensues, people buy everything from the Treblinka prisoner: gold, papers ." [4;136] In the Polish peasant's imagination, those who managed to escape from the camp must have possessed considerable wealth. Therefore, Krzepicki – already a fugitive – often struggled to obtain any help from Poles. In fact, he was robbed by them. He encountered someone who selflessly provided help only once: "It was the only case I have ever encountered of a peasant helping a Jew" [4;159]. And only thanks to him did he manage to escape the cycle of extermination. Another Treblinka prisoner, Richard Glazar, wrote graphically about such phenomena: "The entire area is upside down, and somewhere in the middle, in the sands and forests above the bend of the Bug River, Treblinka reigns supreme. The entire area, from end to end, parasitizes on this great slaughterhouse contaminated with mammon." [2;92]

Krzepicki saw and experienced much before he managed to escape. The time it took to reach Treblinka II ranged from a dozen to several dozen hours. As they approached their destination, the minds and bodies of the people—transported in hopeless conditions—became increasingly aware of their demise. Enslaved, they were forced to abandon their pasts when they were forced into cattle cars. The future, in their so stifled consciousness, was unpredictable. They lived—if such a term can be used in the conditions created by the Germans—solely in the present. A very uncertain one, encompassing not days or even hours, but only the "here" and only the "now": first in the train car, soon at the unloading yard, then in the undressing room and on the way to the execution site, until their very end, when they reached the final destination of their lives—extermination. The very first impressions explained the subsequent events: "What caught our eye was a huge mountain of rags. My heart pounded in my chest. So many rags, and what happened to the people?! " [4;73] For most of the condemned, the answer came immediately...

In this, the Germans were unique: within the framework and to implement their plans, they developed and perfected the "art" of mass killing. If the primary goal of their actions was to kill, their means was the "child" of modern social engineering – terror. It was located within the restricted zone of the extermination camp. Its actual boundaries – not so long ago established by Jewish prisoners – could be seen by arriving victims through the barred, barbed-wire windows of the train cars. The condemned experienced its symbolic boundaries immediately after the train stopped. These boundaries were encompassed by the concepts of tempo – roll call – selection.

Pace. This was a permanently ingrained element of the camp's operation, one of the fundamental principles of the prisoners' mental and physical destruction. It was ubiquitous. Usually supported by a whip or other instrument to inflict pain, and sounded like: "Faster! Faster!" Events took on—literally—a murderous pace. From the moment they had to leave the terrible, yet nevertheless real, world—the wagon—in a single movement. They crossed an invisible border. And entered—Franz Paul Stangl admitted—"a veritable Dante's Inferno." [1;135] They had to perform the imposed tasks in haste, without respite, in fear. Everyone. Both those who were about to be annihilated and a handful of those the Germans allowed to remain temporarily: "Every now and then an SS man would walk along the lines, dealing lightning-fast blows left and right." [4;92] The same command was permanently ingrained, constantly repeated: "Faster! Faster!"

Those for whom the Germans had not anticipated this temporary existence sensed what would soon await them. "Perhaps it's better that this murderous work is being carried out in such haste?" asked Abram Jakub Krzepicki. As a witness to such actions, he added: "It's possible that if those sentenced to death, who already instinctively feel the murderous enslavement from which there is no escape, had been dealt with longer – because of the eeriness of this place – their pain and fear would have been even greater. As it is done here, people have no time to think." The Germans certainly weren't interested in ending the suffering of the victims. Instead, they had another goal: to prevent those soon to die from even a moment to think about a rescue attempt or rebellion: "They shouldn't have time to realize what they're going to do to them. The arrivals must be disoriented as much as possible and confused." [4;106]

Roll calls. After a period of anarchy (when Irmfried Eberl was commandant until the end of August), from the day Christian Wirth took temporary control of the camp (a dozen or so days, until the first week of September), they became a permanent fixture in the camp's operation. They were synonymous with German order: three times a day, usually lasting two hours. Their sole purpose was to demonstrate to the prisoners their objectivity. In the ranks, they had to stand at attention. If one "didn't please the SS man" [4;84], he had to lie down. In front of the others, he was punished with 25 lashes. After that, if he was still able, he had to return to the ranks. Some—weak, exhausted, thirsty—couldn't bear it any longer. Resigned, they sat on the ground and waited for the next blows. For their end.

Selections. They were a consequence of the imposed pace and a component of roll calls. The culmination of terror. They caused panic among the prisoners: "They hung over us like a sword." From the beginning of the day until its end, they demanded special efforts to avoid being sacrificed by the Germans: "In the morning, we would jump out of bed before waking up, polishing ourselves to look our best. Never, even in the best of times, had I shaved as often as in Treblinka. Every morning, everyone shaved, washed their faces with cologne from Jewish bundles. Some even powdered themselves, and perhaps even put on lipstick. They pinched their cheeks to make them rosy. The stakes were a few more days of life, maybe a few weeks?" [4;93-94] How long could one deceive the reality of the camp when every moment could be their last?

Their efforts were to no avail. Krzepicki and five hundred of his companions were sentenced – by selection – on September 11, 1942. Arriving after work for the evening roll call, they already sensed their end. That day, a new transport arrived at the camp, meaning the Germans would carry out an "exchange": "[The workers] were already ready for any order, any task, any humiliation, but the executioner no longer needed their work. They were worthless and finished, their bodies and lives no longer worth a penny. They were simply scrap, junk, junk." [4;126-128] However, something else happened. Perhaps by chance or the grace of fate? Or rather, thanks to the strong will of Meir Berliner. That day, it was he who turned the tide: knife in hand, he attacked and mortally wounded SS officer Maks Biala. He gave his life to avenge the deaths of his wife and child. He became a hero to the condemned. He was tortured to death before their eyes. Chaos reigned on the roll call square, and panic spread among the Germans. They hid in the barracks and ordered their subordinate guards to begin a pogrom. Blind shots took the lives of dozens of people. Several hundred survived. Among them, Krzepicki. (...)

Paul Wieczorek  

Bibliography: 

1. Serena, Into the Darkness: Conversations with the Commandant of Treblinka, Warsaw 2002;
2. Glazar, Surviving Treblinka, [In:] "Karta. Historical Quarterly”, ed. Z.Gluza, no. 59, 2009;
3. Friedlander, Time of extermination, Warsaw 2010;
4. A.J. Krzepicki, A man escaped from Treblinka… Conversations with a returnee, Warszawa 2017.

Photo: Railway track to the gravel mine where the Treblinka I labor camp was located (public domain)

Prepared by Anna Kilian

Paweł Wieczorek – PhD in Humanities. Specialty: contemporary history. Collaborations: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Jewish Historical Institute, and the Jewish Social and Cultural Association in Poland. Winner of the Jewish Historical Institute's M. Bałaban competition for the best doctoral dissertation (2014). Participant in the international research project "Pogroms against Jews in Polish Lands in the 19th and 20th Centuries" (2013-2016). Author of articles and books. Research interests: Polish-Jewish relations after 1945, Jewish social and political movements, national and ethnic minorities in Poland, the Cold War, totalitarianism. Teacher at the 4th High School in Wałbrzych.