1
The grim freight waggons transport me there, to that place. They are transporting from all directions: from east and west, from north and south. By day and by night. In all seasons of the year people are brought there: spring and summer, autumn and winter.
The transports travel there without hindrance and without limit, and Treblinka grows richer in blood day by day. The more people who are brought there, the more Treblinka is able to receive them.
I, like all the others, do not know where and for what reason we are travelling. Nevertheless we try, insofar as possible, to find out something about our journey. The Ukrainian robbers who guard us will not do us the favour of replying. The only thing we hear from them is: — Hand over gold, hand over money and valuables! These criminals visit us constantly. Almost every hour another one of them terrorizes us. They beat us mercilessly with their rifle butts, and each of us tries as best he can to shut the murderers up with a few zlotys in order to avoid their blows. That is what our journey is like.
We travel from Lubartów station, some 20 kilometres from Lublin. I travel with my pretty young sister Rivka, nineteen years old, and a good friend of mine, Wolf Ber Rojzman, and his wife and two children. Almost all those in the freight waggon are my close acquaintances, from the same small town, Ostrów Lubelski.
There are about 140 of us in the freight waggon. It is extraordinarily tight, with dense, stale air, all of us pressed against one another. Despite the fact that men and women are all together, each of us, in these crowded conditions, has to perform his natural functions on the spot where he is standing… One hears groans from all four corners, and people asking each other: — Where are we going? Everyone shrugs and replies with a deep oy.
No-one knows where the road leads, and at the same time no-one wants to believe that we are going where our sisters and brothers, our nearest and dearest, have been sent over a period of many months.
Sitting near me is my friend Katz, an engineer by profession. He assures me that we are going to Ukraine and that we will be able to settle in the countryside there and work the land. He explains that he knows this for certain because that is what he was told by a German lieutenant, the manager of a state farm in Jedlanka, 7 kilometres from our little town. The German told Katz this ostensibly as a friend, since Katz had from time to time repaired an electric motor for him. I want to believe it, though I know it is in fact not so.
We travel. The train stops often because of the signals, since it is running outside the timetable and therefore has to wait and let the normal trains through. We travel through various stations, among them Luków and Siedlce. At every opportunity, when the train stops, I beg the Ukrainians, who descend to the platform, to bring us a little water. They do not reply, but if you give them a gold watch, they hand you a sip of water. Many of my friends give them their valuables but do not receive the promised water. I am an exception. I ask a Ukrainian for a little water. He demands 100 zlotys from me for a bottle of water. I agree. In a short while he brings me a half-litre bottle of water. I ask him how long we will be travelling. His reply is: — Three days, because we are going to Ukraine. I begin to think maybe it’s really true… We have been travelling for nearly fifteen hours, though the distance is about 120 kilometres.
It is 4.00 in the morning as we approach a station called Treblinka, which lies some 7 kilometres from Małkinia. We stop.
The cars are sealed and we don’t know what will happen to us. We wait for the train to move again. My sister tells me she is hungry.
But we have little in the way of food. Leaving our town unexpectedly, it was impossible to procure supplies. The same was true in the town of Lubartów. I explain to my sister that we still have a long way to go and we have to restrict our eating as much as possible, or our food won’t last the journey. She agrees, assuring me that she really isn’t so hungry after all.
2
After a short while, the train begins to move. By now it is light outside. We become uneasy because we see that the train is moving backwards. The train moves slowly and we enter a forest.
We look at each other uncertainly. The answer is: who knows?
But soon there appears before our eyes a grim and terrible scene.
A scene of — death. Through a small opening I see great piles of clothes. I realize that we are lost. Alas, it is hopeless. After a short while the door of the freight waggon is abruptly thrown open to the accompaniment of fiendish screams: — Raus! Raus! (Get out! Get out!) I no longer have any doubts about our misfortune. I take my sister by the arm and try to get out of the freight waggon as quickly as possible. I leave everything in the freight waggon.
My poor sister asks me why I am leaving our baggage behind. I reply: — We won’t be needing it… I don’t manage to say even a few more words to her before we hear a murderous shout: — Men to the right, women to the left! I barely have time to kiss her and we are torn apart for ever.
Blows begin raining down on us from all sides. The murderers drive us in rows into an open space and scream at us to surrender our gold, money and valuables immediately. Anyone who tries to conceal anything will be shot. Nearly all of us part with what we still have. Then we are ordered to undress quickly and tie our shoes together by the laces. Everyone undresses as quickly as possible, because the whips are flying over our heads. Whoever undresses a bit more slowly is savagely beaten.
Treblinka is built in a professional way. On arrival it might appear to be an ordinary train station. The platform is long and wide enough to accommodate a normal train of as many as forty cars. A few dozen metres from the platform two barracks stand facing one another. In one, on the right, is stored the food that people bring with them. The barracks on the left is where the women and children undress. The murderers are so considerate that they do not require the women to undress in the open air along with the men. On the way to their deaths, from which there is no return, men and women will meet intimately.
To the left of the platform stand several wooden structures, among them the kitchen and the workshops. Opposite these are the sleeping quarters. Nearby are the barracks where the S.S. men live. The S.S. barracks are provided with every comfort. To the right of the railway platform there is a big space where clothes, shoes, underwear, bedclothes and other things are gathered. Here several hundred workers sort the clothing and carry it to a special place. Every few days the sorted clothing is sent to Germany on lorries.
Opposite the platform where the barracks stand begins the road to the gas chambers, known as the Schlauch (feeder tube). The road is planted with small trees and looks like a garden path.
Down this road, which is covered with a layer of white sand, all must run naked. No-one returns from this road. People driven down this road are beaten mercilessly and stabbed with bayonets, so that after they have been driven down it, the road is covered in blood.