Private Engel and the the other Ukranian pushed their way the door, twisting and turning to get past the rioting women. The two men reached threshold and tumbled out, preferring their chances against the enemy commandos to being torn limb from limb by the raging mob inside the barrack. Outside, Engel and the Ukranian, suddenly free paused, unsure of whether to surrender or run. Their indecision lasted only a second before Ilan and Bolander cut them down with single shots to the head.
They fell at the feet of Shapira and Yatom who were already hurrying toward the barrack. The commandos pulled out their pistols, and joined by Chaim rushed the barrack door. But before the trio reached the entrance they were almost run over by a phalanx women and girls stampeding out of the building, trampling the corpses of Engel and the Ukranian on the way.
The commandos finally pushed their way through the mob to the barrack door. From inside the barrack the commandos heard a bizarre mix of shrieking and crying, both male and female. Shapira and Chaim went in first, pistols at the ready, leaving Yatom behind at the doorway. Beyond the entrance to the right Shapira saw four or five women atop an SS man, beating, biting and clawing at him while he struggled weakly beneath them. A girl pointed an MP-40 in the German’s direction, ready to shoot him dead if he survived the mauling. Further inside to the left Shapira identified the camp commandant. A tall middle-aged woman, her face covered in blood, was bashing his head repeatedly against the wooden floor. Erbel’s mouth was agape and blood poured from a fractured nose and from the base of his skull. It was hard to say if he was living or dead—but if the former, he wouldn’t last much longer. Against the far wall a dark haired younger woman, lithe and muscular, was using the butt of a Mauser to smash the head of an already unconscious Ukranian guard. Shapira shrugged and walked out of the abattoir. He holstered his pistol as he approached Yatom. “The hostage crisis is over” said Shapira.
A few minutes later, the bloody but victorious women left the barrack, astonished to be greeted by clapping, cheers and whoops from the otherworldly-appearing commandos. The women ignored the strange but affable men and searched for their own friends and relatives amidst the still chaotic square. It was onto this surreal scene that Feldhandler now marched, leading several dozen dazed and ragged Sonderkommandos out of the death passage. Behind them, the gas chambers roared, engulfed by huge fires lovingly set by Feldhandler and his companions.
“Did I miss anything?” asked the puzzled scientist.
Chapter 26
The Bulls and the Bears, assisted by random groups of Treblinka’s former prisoners, mopped up the camp, dispensing justice to any surviving German or Ukranian that they encountered on the spot. Mofaz brought eight forlorn Ukranians and a single German SS man back to the deportation square. Yatom almost wished that he hadn’t bothered, but respected the Major’s discipline and stubborn ethics. Yatom ordered the Germans and Ukranians trussed and deposited in the men’s barrack. What happened to them from there was not his concern.
Yatom wanted to get the sayeret out of Treblinka and back on the road. To this end Yatom and Nir hustled over to the motor pool while Shapira attempted to organize the prisoners in and around the deportation square. Happily, compared to Sobibor, Treblinka offered a veritable cornucopia of transport. The vehicles that brought Wirth and his men to Treblinka were mixed into the camp’s existing motor pool.
All together there were over a dozen cars and trucks and even a pair of Kubelwagons, Nazi Germany’s version of the jeep. Leaving Nir to inspect and organize the transport Yatom headed to Treblinka’s armory, which Fliegel had taken it upon himself to secure. The young Jew impressed Yatom with his seriousness and organization. Yatom told Fliegel to guard the weapons, which would eventually be divvied up between the sayeret and Treblinka’s freed prisoners. He also told Fliegel that his men, the Bears, would be accompanying the sayeret back south, while Sandler’s men would have to stay behind and assist Treblinka’s survivors.
By the time Yatom got back to the deportation square he found his exhausted men scattered here and there around the enclosure. Several were with Mofaz gulping down recently liberated German foodstuffs. Bolander and Ilan appeared to be asleep, or at least resting their tired eyes, while Shapira was engaged in an animated conversation with a petite dark haired young woman, who happened to be covered in blood. Feldhandler was nowhere to be seen. Yatom sent the indefatigable Nir, back from the motor pool, over to join Mofaz and eat, but also to remind the Major to that they needed to move within the next thirty minutes.
Yatom walked toward the woman’s barracks where Shapira and the blood spattered woman were still deeply engaged in conversation. To his surprise they were speaking in vernacular Hebrew. Shapira stood as his commander approached.
“Colonel Yatom” said Shapira with evident glee, “this is Norit Zuckerman. From Kibbutz Ginosar.”
“On the Kinneret?” Yatom asked her, his voice betraying a certain joy of his own. He’d been to Ginosar on several occasions, and associated the kibbutz with pleasant memories. It was a lovely modern place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee with a guest hotel and a fantastic breakfast.
“Yes” said Norit, patiently and with a smile, despite having answered the same question several times in the past hour. Yatom looked at Shapira inquiringly.
“I already asked her what it was like Colonel—in 1937 when the kibbutz was founded.”
“And did you ask her how a member of the yishuv—ends up in Treblinka?”
“You mean an Israeli, don’t you Colonel Yatom?” said Norit.
Yatom made a motion with his finger for Shapira to come with him.
“Entschuldigung, Frauline” Shapira told Norit in exaggerated German. They smiled at one another like school kids.
“Beseder” she replied in insouciant Hebrew. “I should get cleaned up anyway.” Norit stood and walked toward the women’s barack, Shapira’s eyes following her.
“What the fuck is going on lieutenant, and what does she know?”
“She knows we are Israeli, and not likely from the old yishuv” said Shapira, like Yatom, using the term for the Jewish community in the British Palestinian Mandate.
“And?”
“That’s all. She’s figured out that we cannot be Jews from the yishuv or anyplace else within her frame of reference, and yet obviously we are Israeli. She moved to Israel from Germany in 1935 when she was seventeen, and helped found Ginosar. Isn’t that fantastic?”
“Thrilling” said Yatom sarcastically, nervous that the woman already knew too much, though at the same time, like Shapira, a little enraptured by the story.
“She was part of an early Zionist youth movement, left Dresden and her family behind—guessing what was to come.”
“Then what’s she doing in Treblinka?”
“She returned at the last moment, in 1938 to try to get her sister out. But it was too late by then—for all of them. Kristalnacht came and they were caught in the progroms that followed. The whole family was sent to the Warsaw ghetto, then here. Her parents are dead. The girl the commandant threatened is her sister. She led the revolt in there” said Shapira, pointing to the woman’s barrack.