“What is going on?” Wirth demanded. Erbel just shook his head.
“The camp is being overrun” said Sergeant Major Hahn. “Anybody who steps outside is killed.”
“I just came from outside” said Wirth with false bravado, knowing full well that the Sergeant Major was right.
“You’re lucky” said Der Spiess.
“We are organizing an attack on Camp 4” croaked Erbel lamely.
“Most of the firing seems to be coming from there” said Hahn. “We could use some of your men.”
“What about the new Ukranian company?” asked Wirth. “Nobody can contact them. They have probably fled” said Hahn.
“Who is to lead this attack?”
Erbel turned and looked directly at Wirth. “I expect you to lead it” said the Commandant. “That’s why you were sent here. You said so.”
“I was sent here to muck out the mess you’ve made of this place.”
Erbel suddenly became energized. “Mess?” he asked. “You call Treblinka a mess? It is an extermination camp. We slaughter people. What did you expect?”
Wirth admired Erbel’s sudden rationality, but had no intention of countenancing it. “Your job is to exterminate Jews” said Wirth calmly. “Like cattle at a slaughterhouse. Any common tradesman could run this place better than you. I have no intention of pulling your coals out of this fire. Attack Camp 4 yourself.”
Wirth turned and walked to the door with the firm intention of getting out Treblinka in one piece. Whatever force had struck this miserable place, it was clearly beyond the SS guard and the Ukranians to handle. Some elite paratroop force had evidently infiltrated the Lubin District and was hitting its installations. It would take a comparable force of crack German troops to bring them to heal, and those troops were not available at Treblinka. Wirth was intent on running away as quickly as possible Better to live and make his excuses to Globocnik than die in this charnelhouse.
Erbel up incredulously as Wirth opened the door on his way out.
“Where are you going?” the Commandant demanded.
“Treblinka is yours to command not mine” said Wirth. “I’ll tell Globocnik that you died well.” Wirth shut the door and trotted toward the front entrance, careful to keep buildings between him and the deadly fire that still came from the towers in Camp 4.
Faint and near to collapse, Erbel gripped the edge of his desk and glared at Der Spiess. “Well Hauptsturmfuhrer” said Erbel, his voice a trembling in fear and anger “it is up to us to sort this situation out. Prepare an assault on Camp 4. Gather all available men. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Hahn considered ignoring the order, but saw little practical alternative. He couldn’t just flee like Wirth, who would certainly turn him in for cowardice if they both survived. If he did nothing, he would die anyway. Hahn presented a wan SS salute and reluctantly went to the door. Erbel remained at his desk, frozen in place.
Hahn stepped outside the building, hugging the wall and cast about for surviving soldiers. He carefully threaded his way to the prisoners’ compound picking rrp five terrified men in the process. They were happy to follow anybody with a plan. At the prisoner’s compound Hahn found fourteen more cowering men, who had declined Wirth’s order to engage the enemy. The rest of the platoon from Lubin were dead or, like Wirth, already fled.
Sergeant Major Hahn gathered the men by a barrack and described the assault that they were duty bound to make on Camp 4. Every few moments during his speech an enemy grenade exploded or rifle popped. The shaken SS men winced with each blast. Just looking at these men told Hahn that the assault would be little but a forlorn hope.
The ranking sergeant in Wirth’s platoon asked about his lieutenant. “Why isn’t Untersturmfuhrer Wirth leading us? Is he dead?”
“He ran away” said Der Spiess honestly. “Just like an officer.” He looked at the nervous men before him. “Look now” said Hahn, who had spent two years in the trenches during the last war “you are coming with me, or I’ll shoot you down right now.”
Hahn assembled his reluctant troop near the Himmelgang. There were sixteen men total. The only practical way to assault the sub-camp was down the HimmeIgang—the same passageway Hahn and his men had used to drive thousands of Jews to their deaths. Hahn now had little doubt of what awaited him on the other side of the passageway, but duty and a lack of imagination gave left him with no alternative. He sighed and wished he was drunk.
In the towers within Camp 4 Yatom had remained content snipe at the Germans and Ukranians scurrying about in the main camp. After the difficult initial attack, things had gone much better for the Israelis. It had taken the Germans a long time to figure out that the night offered them no protection.
By the time they began to seek cover, hide or run away the sayeret had killed or wounded scores. Even after the Germans realized they had to seek refuge, Nir’s grenades slew them in their hideouts or drove them into the killing ground.
Yatom had reckoned that the Germans nrust eventually counter-attack the Israelis in extermination lager by coming through the Himmelgang, but as the fight wore on, he wondered whether he was wrong. Yatom wanted the Germans to attack. His men were ready for it. It was doomed to fail, and once the Israelis broke it, whatever resistance remained in Treblinka would surely collapse. Using the thermal scope, Yatom scanned the Treblinka again. It appeared deserted—whatever Germans remained had hidden well.
Shapira reported in that he had run off the Ukranians and was ready to move into Treblinka as soon as Yatom gave the order. Yatom was about to do just that when Roskovsky excitedly radioed that he’d seen movement near the exit of the Himmelgang. Calmly, Yatom radioed the teams to hold fire and allow the Germans to move through the tunnel into the encampment.
Within the passageway Sergeant Major Hahn sweated nervously in the middle of the assault column. Ahead of him was a section of Wirth’s men. They had pushed slowly and reluctantly up the Himmelgang, fearing Hahn’s MP-40 as much as what lurked at the other end. Behind him the rest of Wirth’s men and a few Ukranians grimaced in the gloom. Hahn didn’t like his chances anymore than the men in the passageway with him, but he was an old fashioned sort, who accepted the obligations of rank and aimed to see things through. He’d survived two years in the trenches—and he told himself that this was no more risky than going over the top. Finally the corporal in front of Hahn turned and whispered that the column had reached the entrance to Camp 4.
“Then Rottenfuhrer” said Hahn with a dramatic pause “instruct the column vanguard to begin the assault.”
Hahn’s order slowly worked its way up the line and the column began another hesitant move forward. The vanguard wasn’t so much assaulting the target as crawling into it meter by meter. Hahn followed, crawling now on his belly, mouth dry, his stomach cramping in fear. Up ahead he saw the first of Wirth’s men in the extermination camp, either lying prone or crouched in the dust. They should have been shooting at the towers but the barrels of their rifles and machine-pistols remained silent. Finally Hahn reached the end of the passageway and looked around. The towers loomed above him dark and silent. He now allowed himself the same hopeful thought that had induced his men to lie about and hold their fire—maybe the raiders had fled. He crawled out a couple of meters and waved on the men behind him. Surrounded now by nearly twenty well armed SS men, Hahn shook off his fear. Of course, the raiders had fled. They stayed only while safe in their positions, but with the arrival of a genuine SS attack they had turned and run, like any partisans. Hahn stood up to his full height and said firmly ”Aufmarsch!”