Rajzman, Samuel Rajzman.
What did you do before the war?
Before the war I was an accountant at an export firm.
When did you turn up at Treblinka and how did you get there?
In August 1942 they picked me up in the Warsaw Ghetto.
How long were you at Treblinka?
For a year. Until August 1943.
Describe the Treblinka camp.
Trains arrived every day, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes five of them. All the travellers were Jews. Jews from Czechoslovakia, from Germany, from Greece and Poland. As soon as the trains stopped, the people had to disembark at once, within five minutes. On the platform they were sorted into groups, men in one group, women in another, children in a third. Then they ordered them to take off their clothes. While the people hurried to strip off their clothing, the German guards snapped their whips. Then the old camp inmates would come. They would collect the clothing and take it to the barracks. The people walked naked along a special path to the gas chambers.
What did the Germans call the path?
Himmelfahrtstrasse.
The Street of the Heavenly Path? The Road to Heaven?
Something along those lines. I can draw you where the path went.
No need. How long did people live after they arrived at Treblinka?
Not long. From when they stripped off their clothes to when they arrived at the gas chamber, at most ten minutes. The men. Fifteen minutes for the women, because first they had to have their hair cut.
Why did they cut the women’s hair?
There was talk that they were using the hair to make mattresses for German women.
I cut women’s hair.
You are?
Abraham Bomba. I was a barber before the war. At Treblinka I cut mens and women’s hair, mostly women’s. After the war I opened a hair salon in the basement of New York Grand Central Station.
Where did you cut the women’s hair?
First in the gas-chamber, before they gassed them, later in the undressing barracks. When they stripped them naked the women were first examined, then sent to us for a haircut. The women were always naked when we cut their hair.
How were they examined, by whom?
They were laid on tables and their intimate parts were examined. Those were not professionals, not doctors. They were supposed to find out if the women hid any valuables, gold, money, jewellery, in their vaginas. These men used leather gloves for their examinations, so the women bled terribly.
How many barbers did the work?
I don’t remember precisely. Some were professional barbers, others were not. There was this Jewish Camp Elder, engineer Galewski. He told us what to do.
What did he say?
He said we should make believe we’re giving the women a real haircut, so they wouldn’t know they were going to be gassed, so they would believe that after the haircut they were going to take a shower. He said, don’t make them look like monkeys.
How much time did you have for each haircut?
Two minutes. It was very painful. Some barbers recognized their wives, their mothers, their grandmothers, and they just had to go on cutting. And they weren’t allowed to say a word. Not even hug before their dear ones were to be gassed. It was very hard to watch. It was horrible. It was awfully painful.
Rajzman, describe the railway station at Treblinka.
At first there were no signboards whatsoever at the station, but a few months later Kurt Franz, the camp commander, ordered they be put up. The barracks where the clothing was stored had signs reading “RESTAURANT”. Then there were signs for “TELEPHONE”, “POST OFFICE”, “WAITING ROOM”. There were even train schedules for the departure and arrival of trains from, say, Vienna and Berlin.
How did the Germans at Treblinka behave with the victims?
They each had their duties. For example, Scharführer Mentz, Willi Mentz, was in charge of the Lazarett. Weak women and children who couldn’t make it to the gas chambers on their own were killed at the Lazarett. There was a Red Cross flag flying at the Lazarett entrance. Mentz specialized in killing and he didn’t let anyone replace him when there was killing to be done. Mentz loved to kill. I remember, they brought him two sisters, one ten, the other two years old. When the older girl saw that Mentz was pointing a revolver at her sister, she threw herself at his feet and pleaded with him not to do it. Then Mentz didn’t kill the two-year-old, he flung her into the oven alive and shot the older one. Once they brought to the Lazarett a woman and her daughter who was about to give birth. They laid the pregnant woman on the ground, and around her gathered S.S. men to watch her labour. The birth lasted about two hours. Then Mentz asked the baby’s grandmother whom he should kill first, her or the baby. The woman said, Kill me. She pleaded with Mentz, Kill me. But of course Mentz first killed the baby, then he killed the baby’s mother, then in the end he killed the grandmother.
Do you know who Kurt Franz was?
Unfortunately, I do. I also know his dog Barry. Kurt Franz was a savage murderer. One of the worst in the camp.
Substantiate that statement.
The train from Vienna arrived. I stood on the platform as people were led out of the wagons. An older woman approached Kurt Franz, produced an identity card and said, I am Sigmund Freud’s sister. Assign me to office work. I am frail and old, she said. Franz studied the card very thoroughly, and then said, Yes, ma’am. This is an error. Look, he said, here is the train schedule. You have a train to Vienna in two hours. Leave all your valuables and documents, Kurt Franz said, and go and take a shower, he said. When you get back your ticket to Vienna and all your things will be waiting for you. Naturally, the woman went into the bathhouse and never returned.
You were saying, Glazar?
Tölpel. His name was Moritz Tölpel. He was very short, nearly dwarf-like, almost completely bald and a bit of an oddball. So, Moritz Tölpel stands there during roll call, his trouser legs dragging on the ground. He stands there, cringing. Kurt Franz — Lalka — takes his measure, and says: Yes, you’re the one. A Ukrainian guard manages to dig out a smelly old robe from the grisly pile of clothing belonging to the men, women and children who had already been murdered, and tells Tölpel, Put that on. The garment drags on the ground. Tölpel can’t even take a step. He trips, falls, gets up, falls, and Lalka howls, Step, march, one-two! and keeps snapping his whip. Then a guard digs out a black hat that used to belong to a rabbi long since dead, a grimy Halbzylinder, pins a shiny half-moon onto it, then into the tiny hand of dwarfish Tölpel he thrusts a heavy club. A sign will be put on each of the latrines, Lalka says. “TWO MINUTES FOR SHITTING. WHOEVER TAKES LONGER LIVES A DAY SHORTER” Then Bredow hangs a large kitchen clock around Tölpels neck and says, Here he is, our Treblinka “Scheiss-Meister”, and Lalka howls: From now on you are Commander of the Shit! You are now the grand sovereign over everyone and their shit. Anyone who takes longer than two minutes, do with them what you will!