Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling (18 page)

It seemed the suffering would never end. Between these latest meagre shipments of human transports, and amid the SS boredom and human suffering, the sadist Franz now decided to introduce a boxing programme. Prisoners were forced to punch one another as part of so-called training sessions. A ring was set up in the
Appelplatz
, and matches were held on Saturday afternoons after recitals from the camp orchestra. Around the ring, chairs were positioned for the SS. Prisoners were made to watch and applaud. Franz forced barbers, tailors, rabbis and ‘shit masters’ into the ring to beat each other amid jeers and cries. Sometimes he went into the ring himself but the prisoners were not allowed to punch back.

It was during these bouts that Wolowanczyk, a twenty-year-old Jewish tough from the Warsaw underworld makes his first appearance in the testimonies of survivors. One afternoon, Franz pulled Wolowanczyk into the ring, but Wolowanczyk was able to avoid the punches. Witnesses recorded that Franz grew angry and grabbed him by the lapel. He was ordered to remain still, but when Franz swung, Wolowanczyk threw himself to the ground. Franz missed, lost his footing and fell. The deputy commander of Treblinka then pelted him with stones and bricks, and kicked and beat him mercilessly. Hershl watched this apparent murder in horror. However, when the beating was over, Wolowanczyk ‘gave himself a shake and walked off ’, according to one witness. The Jewish Underground soon enlisted Wolowanczyk for special tasks.

* * *

News seeped in from the extermination area into the lower camp, relaying the information that the task of burning the excavated corpses was almost complete. In the continued absence of transports, that meant the work of Treblinka would soon end. The number of prisoners in the lower camp was also dwindling. Some had been transferred to the body-burning corps, others had been murdered in the Lazarett and others still had simply died from disease or exhaustion. One day, a message came from the extermination area stating that if a time was not fixed for the rebellion, the prisoners in the death camp would act alone. Galewski knew that if a rebellion broke out independently in the extermination area, all the prisoners in the lower camp would be killed. It was time to act. The Organising Committee, with Hershl present, met again for cards that night in the car body shop. Hershl writes:

So confident were the SS that the Jews in the death camp would shortly be eliminated without difficulty, they held a party to mark the approaching fulfilment of Himmler’s orders. They fired salvos into the air beside the excavators and held a banquet. Many prisoners concluded that these would be their last days on earth.

On the night of either Friday 30 July 1943 or Saturday 31 July, it was agreed the uprising would take place on the afternoon of Monday 2 August. It was also determined that with proper planning, all the SS could be overcome separately, quietly and at the same time. The leaders assumed correctly that within a very short time, German security forces would be called in to pursue the escapees, and their chance of avoiding capture was far greater at night. Thus, zero hour was fixed at 4.30pm. Sunday afternoons were reserved for Franz’s boxing bouts, so Monday was the first available opportunity. Moreover, the passage of Polish prisoners from the Treblinka penal camp, who returned from work at Malkinia at 4.45pm, was taken into account. The idea was to stop the train, free the prisoners and persuade them to join the uprising.

According to the plan, the weapons would be acquired on Monday afternoon. A key to the armoury was already in their possession. The
putzer
would remove the weapons and distribute them among the fighting groups, and this time they would collect the detonators. Weapons would also be acquired from the Ukrainian guardhouse. The SS men would be eliminated as quickly as possible. The prisoners would then take control of the camp and set it ablaze before abandoning it. The Ukrainians at the guard posts and watchtowers would have to be killed, but the rest would be captured alive and held in their barracks until the time came for them to flee. The Jews hoped that once the SS were killed, the Ukrainians would submit. The rate of desertion among the Ukrainians was high already, increasing in direct proportion to the number of German military defeats on the eastern front. Many were fearful that they would be executed once the camp was closed.

Hershl described the events of the eve of the rebellion.

There was little sleep that night. Most of the prisoners had already packed small sacks of belongings and valuables for their escape. ‘At four in the morning, we fear that our plan is in danger of collapsing … There is enormous tension among the Jews.’

Galewski made the rounds of the camp, attempting to calm the prisoners. A fatigue settled in, masking the electric tension. At last, everything was ready. I imagine dread rising from the pit of Hershl’s stomach. I imagine him looking around at the rest of the
Sonderkommando
, his eyes wide open in the dark, his heart pounding. This was all that remained of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had come to this place.

Dawn came bright and dry on Monday 2 August 1943. Hershl had barely closed his eyes; none of them had done so that night. Only a few of the prisoners knew the exact date and time of the uprising. The precise details of the plan to revolt not only changed often, but were kept secret from most prisoners, for fear that they could be revealed to the SS under torture. Yet, as the day wore on, there was palpable excitement in the air that would soon become difficult to mask. Hershl was among the few who knew everything. His testimony reveals that even though he was not among the leaders, he was nonetheless a part of the secret planning and a participant in one of the most courageous escapes of World War II. He told his sons that he had never taken another human life, and from that we can infer that he was not among the few who were armed. The vast majority of prisoners had never fired a weapon. This was a revolt that would be undertaken by people who were already beaten and bullied almost to the point of death and who had no contact– or hope of assistance – from the world outside. That Hershl survived this revolt beyond the camp’s confines is miraculous, but it is also in no small measure owing to those who died so that he might live.

For the SS, this was a day like any other. A Ukrainian flung open the doors of the barracks. A few felt the lashes from his whip. Then came the predictable roll call. The Germans and the Ukrainians barked their orders as usual. That day, there was not a whisper of wind in the air. The trees around the camp stood motionless. The heat was already beginning to build. A cloud of smoke rose from the burning bodies in the extermination area and the nauseating stench of death hovered overhead as usual. The SS may have noticed that the prisoners formed ranks quicker than usual that morning – but if they did, they thought nothing of it. The prisoners looked utterly innocuous, like an army of depleted beggars, their clothes torn and filthy with dirt and sweat. The Underground knew that this would be their last day in Treblinka, and for many it would be their last day on earth. Yet, by the same token, they also knew that an uprising was their only chance of survival. The only hope that remained was to obliterate this death factory and tell the world.

The precise details of what occurred that day vary considerably in the memories of survivors and in the accounts that were laid down. Yet there is broad agreement among them – as well as with the SS perpetrators who have spoken – on the events of this extraordinary day. The details differ for two main reasons. Firstly, the fallibility of memory in the aftermath of such an explosive event and after so long under the brutal conditions of Treblinka must be taken into account. Secondly, the normal routine of this day at a certain point degenerated very quickly into chaos and each prisoner – from his own desperate perspective – looked into the madness and saw something unique.

The sun climbed as the morning progressed. In the workshops, prisoners sharpened knives and axes with a particular zeal. In the storeroom, Jews prepared Molotov cocktails. The work brigades plastered fake smiles on their faces as they greeted the murderers; others were beside themselves and could barely work at all. Foremen begged them to appear busy. At various positions in the camp, other Jews stood wringing their hands together. One of the SS curiously observed two of the
putzer
boys saying goodbye to one another, as another prisoner stood beside them weeping. Galewski fobbed him off with a story about the boys’ mental state.

Meanwhile, Yankel Wiernik, the head of the carpentry squad in the extermination area who would later deliver the first account of Treblinka, persuaded the SS official in charge that he needed some building materials from the storeroom in the lower camp. The Organising Committee now got word to him that zero hour had been set for 4.30pm. Later that morning, Galewski visited the extermination area himself. Stanislaw Kon, who was part of the corpse-carrying squad, recalled: ‘Galewski informs us that today we will finish our work earlier because Scharführer Reuter is going to Malkinia to bathe in the River Bug. He tells us discreetly how we are also preparing for another “bath” today.’ Kon had arrived in Treblinka on 1 October with his young wife and his mother-in-law, both of whom went straight to the gas chambers.

In the lower camp, the plan called for the
putzer
boys to start removing the weapons from the munitions storeroom at 2.00pm. However, by the time of the noon roll call, it had become clear to Galewski that the prisoners’ excitement could be concealed no longer and he reorganised the work teams for the forthcoming battle. Such reorganisations were not uncommon and raised no suspicion. Hershl was assigned to work in one of the ghetto workshops with Rajzman. Meanwhile, Galewski strengthened the potato team and the vegetable garden workers with members of the Underground. The vegetable garden was near the weapons storeroom, and the
putzer
were ordered to begin removing the arms immediately.

Now, at the last, a stroke of luck. Hershl writes: ‘On that day, the terrible
Oberscharführer
Franz and forty Ukrainians are due to leave the camp to bathe.’ However, it was discovered that SS guard Müller had been on duty the previous night and had stayed behind to rest in the barracks, next to the weapons storeroom. The
putzer
reported his presence to the agronomist Sadowitz, the committee member who was in charge of the vegetable garden and to whom Galewski had assigned the key role of supervising the removal of weapons. Sadowitz resorted to tricking Müller, whose presence threatened the plan. The agronomist feigned a problem with the potato workers and told Müller that he was needed there.

After Müller left the barracks with Sadowitz, the
putzer
got to work in the storeroom. A horse and cart stopped in front of the munitions depot under the pretext of a garbage pick-up. One
putzer
removed a bar from the back window of the storeroom, and began emptying its contents – two boxes of hand grenades and 37 pistols and rifles – about 80 pieces in total. They did not forget the grenade detonators this time. The weapons, wrapped in sackcloth, were passed through the window and hidden in the cart beneath the garbage. However, Müller returned and they did not manage to remove everything.

The cart was taken to the SS garage, where mechanic Rudek Lubrenitski, another Underground member, took charge of the distribution. The weapons were loaded on to a wheelbarrow and delivered to the other Underground members at their workplaces. The grenades were distributed among the potato workers. Marian Platkiewicz, one of only two women believed to have survived Treblinka, wrote:

At each delivery, Lubrenitski demanded a password; when he said ‘death’ the response was ‘life’. Bottles of gasoline that were to be used as Molotov cocktails were now also distributed among the Underground members.

At the same time, a young man named Bendin, whose day-to-day job was to disinfect the buildings and clothing in the camp, filled his spray canister with gasoline. He went about the camp spraying the barracks, workshops, storerooms and huts. The guards smelled nothing except the burning bodies in the extermination area. Messengers ran to and fro to different parts of the camp.

At around 2.00pm, word passed around the camp that no more Jews would be murdered in Treblinka. Shortly after that, Galewski received a message that preparations were complete in the lower camp. A message was sent out for the prisoners to continue as normal until 4.30pm, when the signal of a single shot would ring out and the revolt would begin.

In the extermination area, the few weapons that had been procured from the Ukrainians were now dug up from the barracks floor and cleaned. The workers carried out their ghastly tasks with great speed and energy, purposefully pulling more bodies from the last pit than could possibly be cremated in one morning. By noon, when their working day concluded in the heat of summer, mountains of freshly dug, decomposing bodies lay piled near the grates. The foreman of the 30-man corpseburning work group – probably Adesh, who had previously been transferred to the upper camp with Zialo Bloch – volunteered himself and his team to work into the afternoon to complete the task. Adesh now negotiated with the SS man in charge – a guard named Karl Petzinger – for double bread rations for his men in return for the extra work, in order to avoid arousing suspicion. Petzinger agreed.

In the afternoon, when the rest of the prisoners had been locked in the barracks, a group of 30 hand-picked men reappeared at the grates in the searing afternoon heat with the tools of their hellish occupation – pitchforks, shovels and axes. At the same time, Bloch, now the kapo of the extermination area, joined the water-carrying brigade, which was allowed out of the barracks each afternoon for a trip to the well. Bloch increased the squad number from three to five men. They worked particularly slowly on the afternoon of 2 August 1943, to ensure they were not locked in the barracks when zero hour came upon them.

In the lower camp, tension mounted among the Jews. They laboured and wiped the sweat from their faces. The Ukrainians in the watchtowers sat sunning themselves. Suchomel, the German sergeant, was on a break and was observed pedalling past the ghetto on a bicycle. Soon after he passed, just before 3.30pm, an unexpected incident occurred.

Küttner, the feared commander of the lower camp, made a sudden and unexpected appearance in the ghetto. What was observed next was shocking – a conversation between Küttner and Kuba, the barracks kapo and a feared informer. The pair entered the barracks for a private conversation and suspicion arose that Kuba had sensed a rebellion was imminent and had passed on what little he knew to Küttner. The information was dispatched quickly to Galewski, along with a request for an armed man to be sent to kill Küttner. Galewski sent them Wolowanczyk, the twenty-year-old thug from the Warsaw underworld.

As Küttner was leaving the barracks he came upon two prisoners who should have been elsewhere during working hours. Küttner searched them and found their pockets stuffed with money and gold. Some versions have Küttner taking the two men behind the barracks and beating them mercilessly. Other versions tell of more prisoners being arrested. According to Hershl’s account:

Just as Wolowanczyk slipped into one of the workshops, Küttner was marching his prisoners through the ghetto gate toward the Lazarett. Rajzman, who was present in the workshop as Wolowanczyk entered, wrote in his testimony: ‘One of us went to the window and shot at Kiewe with a pistol. Kiewe died on the spot.’

Küttner, in fact, did not die that day, although he may have appeared dead. He lay bleeding and wounded at the gates of the ghetto. It was Wolowanczyk’s pistol shot that triggered the Treblinka rebellion.

* * *

The single shot rang out into an abrupt silence. The entire camp stood as if petrified for an interminable few seconds. The prisoners in the work groups stopped what they were doing, as did the SS and Ukrainians. The Underground combat units outside the ghetto were confused, because the rebellion was not supposed to begin for another 45 minutes. Kurland and Galewski were in Sorting Square, too distant to dispatch centralised orders to other units, thus rendering any chance of a coordinated attack impossible. Now a short exchange of fire between Suchomel and armed prisoners rang out. Rajzman recalled: ‘Franz Suchomel appeared on his bicycle. He was also shot, but inaccurately, and he responded with fire.’ Now, in the absence of orders, several groups decided to initiate attacks by themselves. Hershl writes: ‘After a short discussion we decide to launch the revolt this very minute.’

Prisoners rushed out of the workshops and ran through the gateway of the ghetto, past the bakery and on to Kurt Seidel Strasse. Hershl was among them. I imagine him with a Molotov cocktail in his hand. A few of the prisoners were armed with rifles; others carried axes, shovels and garden rakes. A grenade appeared on the asphalt. It bounced and rolled toward the SS barracks, which earlier that day had been sprayed with gasoline. The grenade stopped and then exploded. The barracks burst into flames and the first ‘Hurrah’ went up.

Flames shot into the burning sky. A second grenade was thrown, then a third, which exploded on the asphalt of Kurt Seidel Strasse. The hurrahs grew louder and rose over the camp. The sound of gunshots grew louder. The Ukrainians in the watchtower, after recovering from their initial surprise, began firing at the Jews, who were swarming through the camp. Many of them were mowed down there and then: ‘The signal to fight is given and the Ukrainian SS open heavy fire on the Jews. But the Jews remain firm. They throw hand grenades and position their machine-guns.’

On the ground, most of the Ukrainian guards ran for cover as the prisoners rioted through the camp; some Ukrainians fell. The insurgents began operations against their pre-determined targets. Other prisoners opened fire at the Ukrainian guards in the watchtowers, although with little success. Lebrenitiski and Stenda Lichtblau, a fellow Underground member, set fire to several gasoline drums; the blaze spread to nearby buildings. The air shook with explosions. Black clouds of smoke filled the sky. Prisoners were running in every direction.