“I’ve explained our plans to Sandler and Fliegel” Yatom told Shapira, who remained in the dark as to Yatom’s intentions beyond seizing Treblinka. “The Bears will come with us. The Bulls will stay behind and try to assist the Treblinka survivors in the countryside. In three weeks, Sandler will attempt to rendezvous with one of our forces outside Belzac.”
“One of our forces—what does that mean?” asked Shapira.
“We’ll talk about all that later” said Yatom. “We’ve split the weapons and food between us and the Treblinka survivors. We are heading back south, to the refugees from the train. That’s why Fliegel’s men are with us—those are his people. Sandler and his men are death camp survivors, so they should relate to these people better. Do you agree?” Shapira nodded—it made sense and Yatom had clearly made up his mind anyway. Yatom walked over to Sandler. “You know what to do?”
“Yes” said Sandler. Yatom offered his hand to the young partisan leader. “Gutte Gluck” said Yatom in rough German. Sandler shook his hand vigorously.
“Du auch Sayeret Fliegel” said Sandler. Shapira clapped Sandler on the back and Fliegel gave him a hug. The former Sonderkommando smiled at his friend before walking away to his excellently armed men—having helped themselves to additional MP-40s, machineguns, bandoliers of ammunition and grenades. They now stood at the head of head hundreds of Treblinka’s survivors, also armed with looted weapons, mostly rifles, but with some automatic weapons or grenades.
“Come” said Yatom to Fliegel. “Let’s get out of this horrible place.”
Behind them, Sandler’s men and Treblinka’s former prisoners set fire to the death camp, mingling ashes with ashes.
Chapter 27
Muefler ran north after his escape, toward the Bug, which he remembered crossing during the journey with his former captors. Before he reached the river he began angling to what he guessed was the northwest, using the sound of fighting in Treblinka as a guide. He stayed well away from the camp, but reckoned that a road must lead north from the camp and eventually bridge the river. Mueller found the river at dawn. He walked along the bank until he found the bridge.
Looking back toward the death camp he saw a filthy column of black smoke. That’s probably not so unusual, although its Germans burning today, he thought coldly.
Mueller’s chief concern was that he didn’t join the Treblinka SS in death. Having escaped his captors, the problem now was avoiding execution by his own side, should he be discovered wandering along the road and deemed a deserter. He knew he looked like a deserter—his uniform out of order and ragged, his equipment gone. The last thing Mueller wanted was to run into someone like himself—a hard-hearted sergeant who liked to throw his weight around. He considered ditching the seemingly useless enemy weapon, but ultimately calculated that it would be better tn keep the thing. It might be worth something more than a mere souvenier piece if he could find his way to a higher level of command. Certainly, there would be some interest in what he knew about the disaster befalling the Reich’s “resettlement camps.” The truth was that he was a hero, not a deserter. Mueller had to make sure that whoever found him understood that he deserved a medal rather than a firing squad.
Before he chanced crossing the river, Mueller decided to examine the submachinegun again. It would be useful to have an operational weapon, just in case. After inspecting the gun in the light of day for a few minutes, Mueller identified the safety device behind the pistol grip. He depressed it, and pulled lightly on the trigger. It gave! How clever. Now with a real weapon to hand he stepped out of the weeds and onto the bridge. Mueller crossed the river and walked into the tiny village of Przewoz. The place didn’t look like it had an outhouse much less a police station. He walked through the town undisturbed and unnoticed, sticking to the main road. Mueller followed the road out of the village and walked on a couple of kilometers until he reached the somewhat larger of Malkinia Gorna. He looked around—still a pretty shitty place. He dusted off his battered uniform, and especially his rank badges, hefted the small submachinegun, and marched smartly into the town. He hoped to find a Polish police station or at least a telephone. A single scraggly phone line ran down the potholed road.
He followed the phone line. In the town center, such as it was, Mueller noted that the phone line connected to a postal office, which to his dismay was closed and tightly locked up. God damned lazy Poles he thought. With no real choice, he sat on the steps of the post office and waited for the clerk to arrive.
Three kilometers to the south, Wirth had similar concerns. His uniform was still all of a piece, complete with his officer’s cap and death’s head badge, but it was slowly coming apart, thanks to the attention of seemingly endless patches of thorns. It was the price Wirth paid to stay off the roads through the night, terrified that either the enemy raiders or a jumpy SS patrol might gun him down.
These fears receded with the dawn, replaced by an alarm which mirrored Mueller’s—that taken for a deserter he would be summarily executed by his own people. And unlike Mueller, Wirth actually was a deserter. Still, as an SS officer, he was a little better off than the police sergeant. To mitigate the danger, Wirth decided to assemble a small ad hoc command of fellow fugitives. A group of orderly men under an officer would arouse much less suspicion then bedraggled individuals wandering the countryside. Casting about in the early morning light, Wirth managed to gather together four other stragglers from Treblinka—three Ukranians and a SS corporal from Erbel’s garrison.
They too saw the sense in falling in under Wirth, rather than taking their chances alone.
By mid-morning Wirth and his men found a high road and chanced to walk along it, heading west for the sizable town of Brok.
There Wirth guessed there should be a Polish police garrison, if not an actual German outpost. The little unit of deserters marched behind Wirth along the tumbledown road, finally reaching a road sign showing Brok three kilometers distant.
The men squinted ahead uncomfortably into the evening sun, setting in a rosy glow to the west. They’d heen walking all day, without water of food. Out of the glare a German column appeared on the road, speeding toward the blue—black smoke of Treblinka, still smoldering behind them. The column, consisting of a staff car and a pair of troop trucks, came to a cautious halt several meters from the fugitives. To Wirth’s relief it was made up of Ordnungs Polizei led by a second lieutenant. Wirth not only had superior status as an SS officer, he could pull rank.
Wirth marched up to the staff car where the lieutenant sat. The Polizei officer looked at him warily, and did not dismount, nor salute.
Wirth dressed him down.
“Obersturmfuhrer Wirth, aide to SS Gruppenfuhrer Globocnik!
Get out and salute—or shall I put you on report, Lieutenant.
The junior officer was actually an older heavyset man who looked like a small town traffic cop, uneasy in the wilds of eastern Poland. He was easily flustered by Wirth’s verbal assault. The lieutenant rather comically struggled out to of the vehicle, clicked his heels in the dust and offered a Nazi salute that almost knocked off Wirth’s hat.
“Leutnant Jevers reporting!” shouted the the policeman.
“Apologies Obersturmfuhrer, we could not see you clearly through the dust on the road. I was told to be cautious, as there are partisans afoot.”
“What are your orders?”