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Dedicated toThomas (Toivi) Blatt
Thomas Toivi Blatt (left) – Izbica, Poland 1995(Chris Webb Private Archive)
For
Shirley
Heather
Mark
Maisie
Table of Contents
Foreword
The Holocaust has never been so widely researched and discussed as it is today.Each year on 27 January an International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated throughout the world. The focus of Holocaust ceremonies istheinfamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Poland where an estimated 960,000 Jews were killed. Many films, novels and lessons in schools and at universities focus on this camp too. However,there were other camps, much less well known, such as Sobibór which was exclusively an extermination camp and operated from 16 May 1942 to 17 October 1943. Up to 250,000 Jews were killed in this camp. On 14 October1943, a revolt by approximately600 prisonerswas made in an attemptto escape. Shortly after this the camp was closed.
In this meticulously researched, and very well written monograph, Chris Webb tells the grim story of this camp, which was part of the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland during 1942–43. This work also includes the unique Jewish Roll of Remembrance. Other previously published books on the Sobibór death camp have brief biographies of the survivors,but to my knowledge, noneof theserecord the victims in the way that is presented here.
It is a book that is not onlyimportant for scholars, but also to teachers and lecturers of the Holocaust and this completes the trilogy of books written by Chris Webb on the three AktionReinhardt camps in Poland, Bełźec, Sobibór and Treblinka.
Professor Frank McDonough
Liverpool John Moores University
July 2016
Author’sIntroduction
Chris Webb – HMD Northampton University 2010Photograph: Claire Feldman)
The Sobibór Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis, in order to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry, as part of theAktion Reinhardtprogramme headed by Odilo Globocnik, theSSand Police LeaderofLublin. On October13,1941 Heinrich HimmlerReichsführer-SSmet with Globocnik and Friedrich-WilhelmKrüger, HigherSSand Police Leader East at theFührer‘sHeadquarters in Rastenburg, and Himmler ordered Globocnik to commence the murder programme.
Following the construction of the extermination camp at Bełźec, in south-eastern Poland during November 1941–March 1942, the Nazis planned a second exterminationcamp at Sobibór, and the third and most deadly camp was built near the remote village of Treblinka.Sobibór was similar to the first camp in Bełźec in design, although in Sobibór most of the living quarters for theSSwerecontained within the camp itself,unlike at Bełźec where theSSliving quarters werelocated outside the camp. Sobibór was regarded as an overflow camp of Bełźec and the Jews from theLublin district and in time,Jews from Austria and Germany werealsomurdered there. FollowingRFSS—HeinrichHimmler’s visit in 1943, Jews from France and Hollandmet the same fate.This account of the Sobibór death camp is not for the faint hearted, it tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind. This account ranges from the survivors and the victims, to theSSmen who carried out the atrocities. One cannot fail to be moved by the personal accounts of the survivors, those that survived this man-made hellon earth, their loved ones may haveperished in this factory of death, but they escaped to tell the world what happened there.
What makes this work special is the researchwhich has been gatheredon the survivors, who by good fortune, courage and determination survived Sobibór and built new lives for themselves, new families, but every day bore the scars of this terrible place. What is particularly chilling looking through thewww.Joodsemonument.nl website is the recording of the destruction of whole families, often on the same day. The mass murder was chilling and the Nazis production line of deathwasrelentless and remorseless.
For the victims, details of their lives have been found, and re-told to keep their memory alive, to showthat they are not forgotten. In some cases we have found comprehensive information, whilst sadly for some, only scant details are known. The book covers the construction of the death camp, the physical layout of the camp, as remembered by both the Jewish inmates and theSSstaff who served there, and the personal recollections that detail the day to day experiences of the prisoners and theSS. The cruel and barbaric murder process is described in great detail, as well as the confiscation of the valuables and possessions of the unfortunate Jews who crossed thethreshold of this man-made hell. The courageous revolt by the prisoners on October14,1943 is re-told by the prisoners and the GermanSS, with detailed accounts of the revolt and its aftermath.
The post-war fateof the perpetrators, or more precisely,those that were brought to trial and some information regarding the more recent history of thesite itself,concludes this book. There is a large photographic section, of rare and some unpublished photographs and documents from my private archive.
As I write this book, it is eerie that I can hear the sound of machine-gun fire from the nearby army ranges; looking out of my upstairs study window, surrounded by trees. My mind wanders; thinking of the dense forest that Sobibór lies within, and all those years ago, local people heard machine gun fire, coming from the forests that surrounded the death camp.
This book has been written as a companion piece to the Treblinka death camp, which was co-written with Michal Chocholaty, which was published in 2014 and my book on the Bełźec death camp which was published during 2016, both by Ibidem-Verlag. They have been a fantastic publishing house to work with, and I must thank Valerie Lange for her tremendous efforts and support over the years. It has been a real pleasure working with her and her colleagues on all three books.
The trilogy ofbooks serve as a memorial to each individual who was murdered in these horrendous ‘factories of death’.
Chris Webb,
Whitehill, England – 14 October 2016
With Grateful Thanks
Many people have helped me in my research, sadly some of them are no longer with us, and I am thinking of them as I pen these words. Myfirst acknowledgement is tomy father,Frederick John Webb, who was born in 1918, and lived through the Second World War. It was hewho first stimulated my love of history in general and the Second World War in particular.In 1971, he boughtmethe book ‘The FinalSolution’by Gerald Reitlinger,and that started me on my way, in the field of Holocaust research. Before I set out the historical timeline, I must thank Professor Matthew Feldman, for his support and friendship and tohis wife Claire for the fine photograph of me at the Holocaust Memorial Day at Northampton University in January 2010.
My heartfelt thanks go to Frank McDonough, Professor of International History at Liverpool John Moores University, who has kindly written the foreword to this book. Frank has written acclaimed books on Sophie Scholl, and The Gestapo. I must also place on record my thanks to Tania Helene Mühlberger, who ably proof-read the book and made so many useful and helpful suggestions to improve it. I must finally thank Clare Spyrakis, who has designed the cover of this book and has now been responsible for the covers for all of my three books on the Aktion Reinhardt camps.
In the mid-1990’s,I was fortunate enough to make contact with Michael Tregenza, an English writer and historian who had relocated to Lublin in Poland. Michael is a well-known expert onAktion Reinhardt, in particular Bełźec. It was with Michael as aguide that I first went to Bełźec in 2000, and two years later the fledgling ARC group, which I co-founded, went to Sobibór and Treblinka for the first time. I have consulted many documents and photographs that Michael has given to me over the years, connected withAktion Reinhardtin this book.
Ifirst visited the Sobibór death camp in 2002 as part of the ARC group that produced thewww.deathcamps.orgwebsite. Amongthe group was the late William ‘Billy’ Rutherford whomade a scale model of the Sobibór death camp, which thankfully he filmed and passed onto me, prior to his death in 2011. Martin van Liempt and Robert Kuwalek, who were part of the ARC and H.E.A.R.T. groups, have also both sadly passed away. They bothprovided much information on the transports from the Netherlands to Sobibór and general information on the camp. They also gave mespecific information on some of theJewswho were sent there, and they both provided much encouragement and support.
I must also thank Dr.Robin O’Neil, who, as a recognized expert on Bełźec andAktion Reinhardt,gave me material from his own extensive collections, including post-war testimonies by formerTrawnikimänner, who served inAktion Reinhardt. Through Dr.Robin O’Neil I was able to make contact with the late SirMartin Gilbert, who very kindlymade a number of his maps available to both ARC and myself, and one of his maps graces this book. Iam delighted to include this. Sir Martin very much fired my imagination with his numerous books on the Holocaust, and in particular his 1997 book, ‘Holocaust Journey,’ which is a fantastic read. His passing in 2014 was a great loss.
As a result ofmy work with H.E.A.R.T. (HolocaustEducation andArchive Research Team) which I co-founded with Carmelo Lisciottoin 2006, I was fortunate enough to make contact with Thomas (Toivi) Blatt, a survivor from Sobibór, and I donated some historical photographs for his 2010 Polish edition book on Sobibór. I was also blessed with making contact with the late Jules Schelvis, who was selected on the ramp at Sobibór to work at the Dorohucza Labor Camp. I mention these two men, whose books on Sobibór have been an excellent reference and much quoted from in my book. In addition the scholarly work on the threeAktion Reinhardtdeath camps, Bełźec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, by Yitzhak Arad, and Miriam Novitch’s book on Sobibór have also contributed to this book.
Turning to Holocaust and Historical Institutions, I cannot thank enough the support and provision of material from amongst others, Zvi Oren,Dafna Itzkovichand Judy Grossman at the Ghetto Fighters House in Israel,who kindly allowed me to use images from their extensive photo archive. Zvi Oren has supported my research for a great number of years and I thank him whole heartedly. David Silberklang, Emmanuelle Moscovitz and Shaul Fererro at Yad Vashem, Israel, have also helped and I am most grateful to them as well.
I must also pay recognition to my long-standing supporter,Marek Jaros fromtheWiener Library in London. Also I am grateful to Michael Abdo at theHessisches HauptarchivWiesbaden, Germany,for copies of Dr.Irmfried Eberl’s letter from Sobibór andsupplying the rare photographs of Hubert Gomerski in Sobibór. I am also grateful toFlorian Schwanningerand Peter Eigelsbergerat theSchloss Hartheim, for a number ofraredocumentsof Sobibór Personnel, who also served at Hartheim.
I am alsovery thankfulto the NIOD and the Remembrance Centre of Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands for their assistance in my research on the Jews deported from the Netherlands from Westerbork in order to compile the Roll of Remembrance.I must thank personally, Guido Abuys, from Camp Westerbork and Marieke Zoodsma from the NIOD in Amsterdam for all of their help, in relation to information supplied regarding Dutch Jews and German Jews who had settled in Holland, but were later deported to Sobibór. In respect of the NIOD, they helped me enormously with copies of German documents, particularly regarding the escape and shoot-out letter from the Cholm Police Chief, dated January 7, 1943. They have simply been superb.
I cannot thank enough Dr. Llewellyn Brown for his efforts in obtaining a copy of the letter sent to Dr. Helmuth Knocken concerning deportations from France to Sobibór from the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris, which ended a long and difficult search.
Whilst rather late in my research I was lucky enough thanks to Tomasz Hanejko, the Belzec Museum Director, who put me in contact with Tomasz Oleksy –Zborowski, who works for the SobibórMuseum, in Włodawa, who was able to help me with a number of questions, that have been unresolved for years. I must also place on record my thanks to Marek Bem, for his book on Sobibór that has provided invaluable information, on the early days of the camp’s existence.
ToCameron Munro, Robert Parzerand the late Artur Hojan from theTiergartenstrasse 4 Association,my heartfelt gratitudefor their support and friendship over the years, as I look back with affection onour manyHolocaust relatedtripsto Poland and other countries. They have supported me with this book and my general research into the Holocaust. Cameron, Artur and myself visited Sobibór together in 2004 and it was a memorable visit. Cameron very kindly let me use some of his photographs from our trip in this book,as did Paul Denton,and Robert Parzer confirmed with Grafeneck that Rudolf Beckmann, who served in Sobibór, was pictured next to Willy Mentz, in a photograph from 1940. Robert also pulled out all the stops, to provide documentation and information in various German archives, and I am extremely grateful for all his efforts.
Writing about the destruction of so many families, it is no surprise that you think about your own family.So it is with much love and gratitude for their fantastic support over the years, that my lovely wife Shirley and our beautiful daughter Heather and her husband Mark deserve a special mention. I am truly blessed to have them in my life.
Chris Webb
Whitehill, England
October 2016
Abbreviationsusedin the Footnotes
BA
Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive), Germany
CDJC
Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris, France
GFH
Ghetto Fighters House, Israel
HHS
Holocaust Historical Society, UK
NA
National Archives Kew, UK(Formerly the Public Records Office - PRO)
NARA
National Archives Washington DC,United States of America
NIOD
Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies,Amsterdam, The Netherlands
USHMM
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,United States of America
WL
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide London
YVA
Yad Vashem Archives, Israel
The Author–Whitehill 2016
The Author, Chris Webb has studied the Holocaust for over 45 years. This book on the Sobibór death camp, is the latest book in his trilogy of the threeAktionReinhardtcamps, all published byibidem-Verlag, Germany. Chris has co-founded a number of Holocaust websites, as well as acted as a consultant on a number of documentaries shown on television regarding the Holocaust. He has also donated images from his extensive private archive. He is a Research Associate for the Centre of Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University.
PartITheHellCalled Sobibór
Chapter I‘Aktion Reinhardt’(An Overview)
Einsatz Reinhardt,or as it is better known,Aktion Reinhardt[1]was the code name for the extermination of Polish Jewry in the formerGeneralgouvernementand the Białystok area. The term was used in remembrance ofSS-ObergruppenführerReinhard Heydrich, the co-ordinator of theFinal Solution to the Jewish Question, translated asDie Endlösung der Judenfrage,that involvedthe extermination of the Jews living in the European countries occupied bytheGermanmilitaryduring the Second World War. Members of the Czech underground resistance fighters, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš,ambushed Heydrich in his car on May27,1942, in a suburb of Prague,whileen-route to his office inthe capitalfrom his home at Panenské Březany. Heydrich died from hiswounds at Bulovka Hospital on June4,1942.[2]
Four days after his death,approximately1,000 Jews left Prague in a single trainthatwas designated AaH (Attentat aufHeydrich). This transportionwas officially destined for Ujazdów, in the Lublin districtofPoland,though the passengersweregassed at the Bełżec death camp. The members of Odilo Globocnik’s resettlement staff henceforward dedicated the murder program to Heydrich’s memory, under the nameEinsatz Reinhardt.[3]
TheHead ofAktion ReinhardtwasSS-BrigadeführerOdilo Globocnik. TheSSand Police Chief of the Lublin District was appointedto thispositionbyReichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler. At theFührer’sHeadquarters in Rastenburg (a town in presentdayPoland known as Kętrzyn), Heinrich Himmler, Friedrich-Wilhelm KrügerandOdilo Globocnik met on October13,1941,and at this meeting Globocnik was authorized to build a death camp at Bełżec.Bełżecwas the first death camp built using static gas chambers, the first massExterminationCamp in the East;Kulmhof(a town in present day Poland known as Chełmno),used gas vansto murder the Jewish victims from early December 1941.[4]
On January20,1942,at a villa in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, Heydrich organized a conference on ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Question’. The conference was postponed from December8,1941,asHeydrich wrote to one of the attendees Otto Hoffmannthat it had been necessary toreschedulethe conference ‘on account of events in which some of the invited gentlemen were concerned.‘[5]Those attending the Wannsee Conference included the director-generals of the relevant ministries, senior representatives of the German ruling authorities in the occupied countries, and senior members of theSS, including Heinrich Müller,Head of theGestapo, and Adolf Eichmann,Head of Department IV B4,the Jewish Section of theGestapo.
*
The man who was appointed to leadAktion ReinhardtwasOdilo Lothario Globocnik. Hewas born on April21,1904 in Trieste, the son of an Austro-Slovene family, aConstructionEngineer by trade. He joined the NaziParty in Carinthia, Austria in 1930 and after the banning of the Nazi Party in Austria in 1934, earned the reputation as one of the most radical leaders of its underground cells. In 1933,Globocnik joined theSS, which also became a prohibited organizationin Austria in 1934, and was appointedDeputyGauleiter(Deputy Party District Leader).[6]
After serving several short terms of imprisonment, for illegal activities on behalf of the Nazis, he emerged as a key figure in the pre-annexation plans for Austria, serving as apivotalliaison figure between Adolf Hitler and the leading pro-Nazi Austrians.[7]Globocnik’s star wasin the ascendencyand he was appointed to the covetedstrategicposition ofGauleiterof Vienna on May24,1938. His tenure was short-lived and on January30,1939 he was dismissed from thissuperiorposition for corruption, illegal speculation in foreign exchange and tax evasion—all on a grand scale.[8]
After demotion to a lowlySSrank and undergoing basic military training with anSS-Standarte, he took part with his unit in the invasion of Poland. Eventually pardoned by Himmler, who needed such unscrupulous characters for future ‘unsavoury plans’,Globocnik was appointed to the post ofSS- und PolizeiführerofLublin on November9,1939. Globocnik had been chosen by theReichsführer–SSas the central figure intheAktion Reinhardtprogram,not only because of his ruthlessness, but also because of his virulent anti-Semitism.
In Lublin, Globocnik surrounded himself with a number of his fellow Austrians,SS-Officers like Herman Julius Höfle, born in Salzburgon June 19, 1911.Höfle became Gobocnik’sDeputy inAktion Reinhardt, responsible forthe Personnel and the organization of Jewish deportations, the extermination camps and the re-utilization of the victim’s possessions and valuables. Höfle was later to play a significant role in mass deportation actions in Warsaw and Białystok. Ernst Lerch from Klagenfurt became Globocnik’s closest confidante and adjutant. Georg Michalsen from Oppeln in Silesia was another adjutant and he, too, participated with Höfle in thedeportation of Jews from the ghettos in Warsawin 1942and Białystokin 1943. Another member of this group was Amon Göth, who cleared the Tarnów,Krakówand Zamośćghettos, and later became the notoriousCommander of PłaszówArbeitslagerin Kraków, in March 1943.[9]
TheHeadquarters ofAktion Reinhardtwas located in theJulius Schreck[10]KaserneatLitauer Strasse 11, close to the city centre in Lublin, and Höfle not only worked,butalsolived in this building, in a small room on the second floor.Alsolocatedin Lublin,werethe buildingswhere the Jewish belongings and valuables were stored, at Chopin Strasse, the former ‘Katholische Aktion’and at the sorting hangers located at theAlter Flugplatz(Old Airfield) just outside Lublin.[11]
The most infamousMember ofAktion ReinhardtwasSS-ObersturmführerChristian Wirth, the firstCommandant of Bełżec and later Inspector oftheSS-SonderkommandosAbteilungReinhard. Before his transfer to Poland, Wirth had been a leading figure in ‘Aktion T4,’ the extermination of the mentally and physically disabled in psychiatric institutions in the Reich. The role of the ‘T4’euthanasia program was fundamental to the execution ofAktion Reinhardt, the great majority of the staff in the death camps served their ‘apprenticeships’ in mass murder at the euthanasia institutes of Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim,andPirna / Sonnenstein,where thementally ill anddisabled victims had been murdered in gas chambers. The seniorOfficers in bothAktion T4andAktion Reinhardtwere all police officers withSSranks, and with Himmler’s approval,SS-NCO’s had emptied the gas chambers and cremated the bodies of the victims. This work they carried out wearing civilian clothes. TheSSauthorities also supplemented the forces guarding the death camps, and the transports using formerRed Army Prisoners of War, mostlyVolksdeutsche(ethnic Germans)and Ukrainians who were trained attheTrawnikiSScamp, and were particularly suited to this kind of activity.
On November1,1941,theconstruction of the firstAktion Reinhardtdeath camp began near the village of Bełżec, 125 kilometres south-east of Lublin, and became operational in mid-March 1942. Construction of the second camp, at Sobibór, between the cities of Włodawa and Chełm on the River Bug, north-east of Lublin,came into operation at the end of April 1942. The third and last of these camps was located near thevillagetrain stationofTreblinka[12], about 100 kilometres north-east of Warsaw. All three campssharedsome common vital facts: they were all situated on or close to main railway lines for the speedy delivery of the victims to their deaths and they were located in sparselypopulated regions. The true fate of the Jews was initially hidden from them,bythe announcementthat they were being ‘transportedEast for resettlement and work’.TheAktion Reinhardtdeath camps were very similar in layout, each camp being an improvement on its predecessor, and the extermination process developed at Bełżec by Christian Wirth was implemented at the other two camps.
On March 27, 1942, Dr. Josef Goebbels, Minister for Propaganda in the Reich, wrote the following entry in his diary about the deportations of the Jews in Lublin, which marked the commencement ofAktion Reinhardt:
Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in theGeneralgouvernementare now being evacuated Eastward.The procedure is pretty barbaric and is not to be described here more definitly. Not much will remain of the Jews. About sixty percent of them will have to be liquidated. Only about forty percent can be used for forced labor. The formerGauleiterof Vienna (Globocnik), who is to carry out this measure, is doing it with considerable circumspection and in a way that does not attact much attention.... theghettos that will be emptied in the cities of theGeneralgouvernementwill now be re-filled with Jewsthrown out of the Reich. The process is to be repeated from time to time.[13]
ThePersonnel assigned toAktion Reinhardtcame from a number of sources,SSand policemen who served under Globocnik’s command in the Lublin district, otherSSmen and members of theT4Euthanasia program.[14]Yitzhak Arad quotes in his bookBełżec, Sobibór, Treblinkathat a total of 450 men were assigned tothe Lublin District for police duties, and this totalincluded 92 men from theT4Euthanasia program,[15]as stated by Globocnik in his final statement to Himmler regardingAktion Reinhardtin 1944. However, atotal of103menfromT4, either from theT4headquaters or the numerous institutions,have been identifiedduring more recent researchas having served in theAktionReinhardtmass murder program.
TheOld Airfield (Alter Flugplatz)in Lublin was also used throughoutAktion Reinhardtas a mustering centre for personnel transferred from the euthanasia institutions in theReich, members of theSS,and Police to staff the three death camps. They were usually met by Wirth personally, on occasions accompanied byKarlReichleitner from Sobibór andFranzStangl from Treblinka. According to witnesses, at these selections of personnel, all threemenwore the uniforms ofSchutzpolizeiOfficers and none of them mentioned anything about which units they were joining, or where they were to be based. At the depot the newcomers were dressed inWaffen-SSuniforms, but withoutSSrunes on the collar patches. The male nurses amongthem were first sent to theSStraining camp at Trawniki, near Lublin, on a two-week basic military training course.[16]
Most of theseindividualshad served in the euthanasia program, and theywere assisted by 90–120 UkrainianGuards, who were trained at the TrawnikiSSTraining camp, and wore black uniforms. Some of the Ukrainians were given other duties, including the operation of the gas chambers. Amongst these were the infamousIvan Demjanjuk, Feodor Federenko,Ivan Marchenko and Nikolay Shaleyev. Most of the Ukrainians were Soviet Prisoners of War, who had volunteered to serve the Germans. Some of them were of German ethnic extraction, the so-calledVolksdeutsche, who were appointedPlatoon orSquadCommanders, in the main.[17]
In the course ofAktion Reinhardtapproximately 1.6 million Jews lost their lives in the three camps. Jewish property to the value ofRM178, 045, 960 was stolen by the Nazis, and many individualSS,Policemen andGuards helped themselves to valuables, so the true figure will never be known.
TheAktion Reinhardtmass murder program ended officially in November 1943 and Himmler ordered Globocnik, who was now HigherSSand Police Leader for the Adriaticcoastal regionin Trieste, to produce a detailed ‘Balance Sheet’ for the murder program. Globocnik did this,and Heinrich Himmler, in response, thanked Globocnik for his ‘services’ to the German people.[18]
After theyhadfinished theirgruesomework in Poland, most of the men were sent to northern Italy to fight partisans. Many of them served in the Risiera di San Sabba police camponthe outskirts of Trieste in Italy, where Jews were murdered in gas vans, beaten or shot and their bodies cremated in ovens in the former rice mill.[19]
The key members ofAktion Reinhardtmostly escaped justice.Globocnik and Höfle both committed suicide, whilstWirth and Reichleitner(the secondCommandant oftheSobibór death camp)were killed by partisans. Amon Göth was tried and sentenced to death for crimes committed in the PłaszówConcentrationCamp inSeptember 1946. Dr.Irmfried Eberl, the firstCommandant of Treblinka,committed suicide, but FranzStangl[20](the firstCommandant of Sobibór and secondCommandant ofTreblinka)and Kurt Franz(the third and finalCommandant of Treblinka)were brought to trial andwerebothfound guilty of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.Gottlieb Hering the second Commandant of Bełżec death camp and later Commandant of Poniatowa JewishLaborCamp, died on October 9, 1945 in unknown circumstances in the waiting room at theKatherinenHospital in Stetten im Remstal, Württemberg, Germany.
As for the members of theSS-Sonderkommandosat the three death camps, a number of major figures like Karl Frenzel from Sobibór, and Heinrich Arthur Matthes, August Miete and Willy Mentz who served at Treblinka received life sentences at trials held in West Germany during the mid-1960’s, whilst many others received prison terms of less than ten years. It is fair to say the vast majority of theSSmen and Ukrainians who served within the framework ofAktion Reinhardtwere never brought to justice, and in the trial of the Sobibór garrison in Hagen during 1965–66, twelveSSmen faced justice. Karl Frenzel was sentenced to life imprisonment, whilst others were sentenced to terms of imprisonment for a few years, and many were acquitted. Kurt Boldender committed suicide whilst in prison and Gustav Wagner, probably the most feared of the Nazi Garrison in Sobibór fled to Brazil and he also committed suicide in October 1980.[21]
Chapter IITheConstruction ofTheSobibór Death Camp
Sobibór is a smallhamletin a densely wooded area on the Chełm–Włodawa railway line, 8 kilometres south of Włodawa, in south-eastern Poland. TheRiverBug, the border between theGeneralgouvernementand theReichskommissariatUkraine, was 5 kilometres east of Sobibór. The whole area was thickly wooded, swampy andsparsely populated.[22]
According totheSobibórStationSwitchman,Jan Piwonski, during early 1942,SS-HauptsturmführerRichard Thomalla from theSSCentral Construction Office (SS- Zentralbauleitung)in Zamość andBauratMoser from Chełm arrived in Sobibór. The two men took measurements and entered the forest onthe other side of the tracks.[23]
In March 1942, a new railroad spur was constructed, which ended at an earthen and sand ramp, the ramp was opposite the village station building.The ramp, which was 120 metres long and provided enough space for one locomotive and eleven wagons to be accommodated on the spur, led into the camp. The train halted at a buffer, which can still be seen to this day.
Jan Piwonski,who worked for theEastern Railways (Ostbahn)at Sobibór station as an assistant switch-man,recalled theshunting arrangements connected with the arrival of transports of Jews, in an interview with Claude Lanzmann in the film ‘Shoah’:
Yes. On German orders, Polish railmen split up the trains. So the locomotive took twenty cars and headed towards Chełm. When itreached a switch, it pushed the cars into the camp on the other track we see there. Unlike Treblinka, the station here is part of the camp.[24]
There appears to be some conflict with the number of freight cars the ramp could accommodate, was it eleven or twenty?According to a number of testimonies, the ramp at the Treblinka death camp was 200 metres long and could accommodate 20 wagons and the locomotive. Given that the ramp at Sobibór was only 120 metres long, it is more probable that only eleven freight cars and the locomotive could be accommodated at Sobibór.
The camp fence with interwoven branches was built in a manner which ensured that the railway spur and the ramp—which were located inside the camp—, could not be seen by passengers at the station and rail passengers on the trains.The deportation trains entered the ramp on a single track through a gate and disappeared behind the “green wall.“In the station area three large buildings existed—the station, the forester’s house, and a two-storey post office. There was also a saw-mill and several houses for workers, as well as a tall forester’s observation tower and a small Catholic chapel.
As construction work progressed, undertaken by 80 Jews from nearby ghettos, such as Włodawa and Wola Uhruska, the site was periodically inspected bySS-HauptsturmführerRudolf Nauman, head of theWaffen-SSCentral Construction Office in Lublin.[25]
Jan Piwonskirememberedthe construction of the camp:
The next morning the Jews had to dig holes, and the farmers from the village brought poles, which were used to make a fence. The poles were about 3 metres high. After the poles had been put in place, barbed-wire was put up around them and pine branches were woven through the wires. The Jews put up the barbed-wire, while the farmers put the pine branches in place.
The next day a GermanSSsoldier, who spoke very good Polish, came to the station cafeteria. He came from Poznan or Silesia.[26]When the woman behind the counter asked him what was being built there, hereplied that she would find out soon enough, itwas going to be ‘a good laugh.’[27]
Another source of information regarding the construction of the death camp at Sobibór came from Z. Krawczak, who had been a prisoner in the Jewish Labor Camp at Krychów since June 1941. He escaped from Krychów and emigrated to Switzerland, where he wrote an account of his experiences during the occupation. Krawczak wrote that a fewSSmen, under the command of Strumph, who was formerly the Commandant of the Jewish Labor Camp in Sawin near Chełm, arrived from another Jewish Labour Camp in Osowa, some 7 kilometres west of Sobibór. They arrived with a group of 120 Jews from Chełm to construct the death camp at Sobibór.
The building material was organized by theDeutschHorstcompany and was transported from the camp in Krychów and from the railway station in Chełm. The management of these supplies came under the authority of the Water Management Inspector, Engineer Franz Holzheimer, who originated from Hannover, and was based in Chełm. The overall construction of the camp was supervised by Moser, an Architect also based in Chełm, who was at a later date transferred to theTechnischeHauptamtin Kraków.[28]
Dov Freiberg, in his book ‘To Survive Sobibór’,gave a very good description of the death camp:
Opposite the branch of railroad tracks stoodLager I, a group of wooden country houses serving as lodgings for the Germans, the kitchen and their canteen. This site was well tended. The fronts of the houses had rows of flowers, low wooden fences and paved paths... further on stood the workshops where the Jews now worked—sewing suits and making shoes for the Germans and their wives.
BetweenLager IandLager IIthe Germans had set up an animal farm, where the Jews raised pigs, fattened geese, and tended horses—all for theSSin the camp. Near the railway tracks, not far from the German lodgings and the Jewish barracks, a big barracks was built to house theUkrainians and next to it, a smaller building—the Ukrainian kitchen. Opposite the barracks stood a small building that served as a guardhouse, whereOberscharführerGraetschus sat, in charge of the Ukrainian guards, and on the other side, towards the German lodgings, stood the weapons warehouse.
InLager IIstood a lovely, big wooden building with a porch extending along its entire front facade. The building faced the yard where the people undressed, and in it were secretaries and the warehouse for money, gold,and valuables. The Jewish Goldsmith worked there, sorting the valuables and packing them for transport. In the same building, there was a medical storehouse as well, where the pharmacist, a Jew, sorted medicines, drugs, perfumes and cosmetics and packed them for transport.
On the other side of the building stood barracks filled with clothing and possessions that had belonged to the people in the transports, and from there was the path to the forest, the path toLager III.[29]
Another detailed description of the camp was provided by Ukrainian Guard Ignat Danilchenko during an interrogation on November 21, 1979 in the city of Tyumen, Russia:
The camp was located near a small railroad station called Sobibór, near the edge of a forest and was designed for mass killing of persons of Jewish nationality from the Soviet Union, Poland, Holland and other nations occupied by the Nazis. Jews from Germany were also killed here.The camp covered approximately four square kilometres and was surrounded by four rows of barbed wire3 metreshigh. There were two entrances into the camp which were closed by wooden gates on the side of the wire barrier facing the railroad siding.One gate was designed to admit railroad trains into the camp, while the other was designed for trucks. There was a smaller gate in the second gate through which Germans and guards passed.
A railroad platform was built in the camp, near the railroad siding, on a level with the doors on the freight cars. This was the spot where the people brought to the camp in railroad cars to be killed were unloaded.The platform was separated from the general territory of the camp by a single row of barbed wire. A passage, also surrounded by barbed wire, led from the platform to an area where the prisoners were ordered to leave their belongings.Another passage 30–40 metreslong, surroundedby barbed wire, led from this spot, the people were led along this passage to so-called “dressing rooms,” where they were forced to strip naked.
The women’s hair was also cut off here. The Germans and the guards took valuables (gold rings, earrings, watchesand so on.) from the prisoners. A passage approximately 3metreswide densely surrounded by barbed wire intertwined with twigs and branches led from the dressing rooms.
The naked people were driven along this passage to a large stone building with what was called the “showers.” Actually, this was a gas chamber where the arriving Jews were killed in six gas chambers (250 persons in each) by exhaust gasses from diesel engines which were located near the gas chamber. I remember hearing from other guards (I cannot remember their names) that there were two such diesels, supposedly from tanks. I did not personally see these engines, and I do not know precisely where they were located in the area of the gas chamber.[30]
Thomas Tovi Blatt who arrived in Sobibór described the main entrance:
The only camp entrances were at the right corner of the front fence, and consisted of two gates: a main gate[31]opened onto the central road in the camp; to its right, a smaller gate opened onto the siding from the main railway line outside of the camps area. Above the main gate was a wooden sign about two feet by eight with the words ‘SS SONDERKOMMANDO’ painted in Gothic letters.[32]
The interior of the camp was divided into aVorlageror garrison area, and four main inner sections, so-calledLager I, Lager II, III, IV,each partitioned with barbed wire fences. The garrison area included the main entrance gate, the railway siding and ramp where the victims were unloaded from the trains.Gottes Heimat(God’s Own Home), the Commandant’s villa stood opposite the villagestation platform, flanked on its right by the guardhouse and on the left by the armoury. TheSSstaff lived in villas, known as“Lustiger Floh“ (The Merry Flea) and“Schwalbennest,“(Swallows Nest) as well as nearby furtherSSquarters, garage, mess hall and other buildings. Barracks for the Ukrainian Guards were just to the north near the Commandant’s villa.[33]
Lager Iwas built directly to the west and behind the garrison area, housed the Jewish working prisoners and their workshops, where some of them worked at sorting clothes, or were shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths, and so on. There was also a carpentry workshop, a painters workshop, kitchen and latrine. A water filled trench on the western side made escape more difficult. The only entrance was a gate leading from the garrison area.[34]
The barracks were built with material taken from the homes of Jews deported from nearby ghettos and from material delivered fromSSwarehouses in Chełm and Lublin. Additional barracks were constructed towards the end of September 1942. Barracks for troops and army horses were converted into quarters with three-tiered bunks for the prisoners. Each prisoner had twelve square feet of sleeping space. Women and men lived in seperate barracks; the exception were three Jewish women who were cleaners in theSSquarters who had a room there.Lager IIwas the so-called reception area. On arrival, the Jews were driven inside this area. This area included the undressing barracks of the victims and the barracks where their clothes and belongings were sorted and stored. The former forester’s house, located inLager II, was used for camp administration and living quarters for some of theSSmen. A high wooden fence, which prevented observation, separated the main part of the forester’s house from the area where the victims passed.
At the north-east corner of this fence began the ‘Tube.’ The so-called ‘Tube’, which connectedLager IIwithLager III, the extermination area, was a narrow passageway, about three to four metres wide and 150 metres long. It was closed on both sides bybarbed wire interwoven with tree branches. Through here the victims were driven into the gas chambers located at the end of the ‘Tube.’ Close to the entrance of the ‘Tube’ was a stable, a pigpen, and a poultry coop. Halfway through the ‘Tube’ was the “barber shop“,where the hair of Jewish women was cut off before they entered the gas chambers.[35]In addition inLager IIthere was a pre-war Catholic chapel which served as the campsLazarett.This was not a field hospital, but a place where those who were disabled, infirm or small children, met a brutal death by shooting at the hands of Paul Bredow, and his Ukrainian murder squad, until he was transferred to Treblinka death camp, in the spring of 1943. On a stretch of land betweenLager IIandLager IIIthere was a landing strip for small aircraft.[36]
Lager III, the so-called extermination area, was on the northwest side of the camp. It included the gas chambers building, including an engine room, burial pits, a barrack for the Jewish prisoners employed there, and a kitchen and dentist workshop. The original gas chambers consisting of three chambers were partially dismantled in the autumn of 1942 and three additional gas chambers were built.[37]
By the end of May 1942, the Nazis constructed a narrow-gauge railroad from a nearby saw-mill and brought in a small diesel locomotive and six small tip-up wagons. The railroad ran from the unloading ramp, past the sorting area where luggage was dropped off, intoLager IIIpast the gas chambers to the burial pits.[38]
Once the 80 Jews had completed the initial construction tasks, they were shot and killed by their Ukrainian guards who had been sent from the TrawnikiSSTraining camp, which was located approxmately 23 miles from Lublin, to guard them.[39]
During the final stages of the initial construction, theSScarried out a number of trial gassings, whichwill becovered in more detail in the later chapter on the gas chambers, the trials were successful, and thus the camp was ready to play its bloody part in theAktion Reinhardtmass murder program.
Sobibór was constantly expanding throughout its history, as the camp took on transports from Western Europe. In addition there was the creation of the so-calledNordlager—North Camp, to handle captured Soviet ammunition. This camp area was rectangular in shape, some 600 metres by 400 metres.[40]
Chapter IIIThe Original Gas Chambers and Camp III
Because no Jewish prisoner fromCamp (Lager)IIIis known to have survived the revolt, nor escaped from the camp at other times, the eyewitness descriptions of the gas chambersandLager IIIat Sobibór rely completely on the testimony of theSScamp staff. Stanislaw Szmajzner received a description from his friend Abraham, who worked inLager III, and this is includedinthis chapter, to at least contribute to our understanding ofthis secret part of the camp.The first gas chambers at Sobibór were based on the same specifications as the original gas chambers in the Belżec death camp, and were described by Erich Bauer on his arrival at the death camp:
When we arrived,Lager IIIhad not been completely fenced off yet, certainly not on the right-hand side, and I am not sure whether any fence had been put up through the woods. The gas chamber was already there, a wooden building on a concrete base, about the same size as this courtroom though much lower, as low as a normal house. There were two or three chambers, in front of which there was a corridor that, from the outside, you accessed via a bridge. The doors were indeed wooden; they were changed later, when the gas chamber was completely rebuilt. The airtight doors arrived only later, I collected them myself from Warsaw, but that was not until the new building went up.[41]
Bauer continued his account:
When the first transport that I was involved with arrived, I was already stationed inLager III, along with Fuchs andAskaris(Ukrainian volunteers). The Jews were separated by gender; the women had to undress first and were led through theSchlauch(Tube) intoLager IIIand the gas chambers. I took the transport fromLager IIthrough the Tube to the back of the chambers and opened the doors.
TheAskarisand the Jewish labor commando ofLager IIIthen pushed the Jews into the chambers and closed the doors once they were full.Then either Vallaster or Getzinger orHödland theHiwis(sometimes Bodessa, also someone by the name of Iwan,called “The Terrible”) would start the engine in the engine room. The pipe connecting the engine to the gas chamber was already in place. Fuchs left the fitting of the peg (open exhaust) until later.
In my opinion it was a petrol engine, a big engine, I think a Renault. At a later stage the engine was started earlier on, but to begin with not until the people were already in the chamber, because theFreiauspuff(open exhaust) option was not available at first. It always took two men to start the engine, the battery alone was not sufficient. Fuchs had built a special contraption. There was an old magnet. One man turned the crank which started up the engine. The flywheel had some sort of crowbar, which was used to start it, while at the same time someone else had to operate the magnetic ignition; that is why two men were required to start it. I cannot exactly remember where the petrol supply tank was situated; I think it was on the wall. I am not sure how the gas was regulated. I think it was somehow fixed in position with a screw. I think it was similar to the way the gas handle was positioned in motor vehicles. It was not necessary for one person constantly to press down on the lever to keep the engine running.
The chambers were permanently connected to the engine; the way it worked was that if a wooden plug was pulled out, the fumes went outside; if the plug was pushed into the pipe, the fumes went into the chamber. The gassing took about half an hour. I assume that about 50 to 60 people went into each chamber, but I am not sure of the exact number. Jewish laborers supervised by the Germans took the bodies out. The supervision was carried out mainly by Vallaster, who was later killed in the uprising, right at the start; he was a very good friend of mine.
It is quite amazing how oblivious the Jews were that they were going to die. There was hardly ever any resistance. The Jews became suspicious only after they had already entered the gas chamber. But at that point there was no way back. The chambers were packed. There was a lack of oxygen. The doors were sealed airtight and the gassing procedure was started immediately. After about twenty to thirty minutes there was complete silence in the chamber; the people had been gassed and were dead.
I remember quite clearly that a camouflage net had been draped over the gas chamber. I collected this net myself from the ammunition warehouse in Warsaw. It was thrown over the top of the roof and fixed on to it. When this was, I can no longer say. To start with, we had firand pine trees covering the roof. In front of theLagerwe had also planted some fir trees. That was at the time when Germanaviationunits were flying to Russia. The German pilots were not to be able to see inside. The camouflage net was torn off the roof when the gas chamber was rebuilt. The camouflage net was acquired when the old wooden barracks were still in use, because such a lot of steam was generated.[42]
Franz Stangl recalled the first time he saw the gas chamber building in Sobibór during his interview with Gitta Sereny in 1971, accompanied by his former associate Hermann Michel, whom Stangl had first met in Hartheim:
When wehadbeen there about three days I think, Michel came running one day and said hehad found a funny building back in the woods. ‘I think there is something fishy going on here,’ he said. ‘Comeand see what it reminds you of.’
It was about ten or fifteen minutes’ walk away from the railway station where we were building the new camp. It was a new brick building with three rooms, three metres by four. The moment I saw it I knew what Michel meant: it looked exactly like the gas chamberatSchloss Hartheim.[43]
SS-Unterscharführer,Erich Fuchs,who had served in theBełżecextermination camp,recalled the first trial gassing at Sobibór:
Sometime in the spring of 1942,I drove a truck toLemberg(today Lwow) on Wirth’s orders and picked up a gassing engine, which I took to Sobibór. Upon my arrival at Sobibór,I found near the station,an area with a concrete structure and several permanent houses. TheSpecialCommando there was led by Thomalla. OtherSSmen present included Floss, Bauer, Stangl, Friedl,Schwarz, and Barbl. We unloaded the engine. It was a heavy Russian petrol engine (presumably an armoured vehicle or traction engine), at least 200 HP (V-engine, 8 cylinder, water-cooled).
We installed the engine on a concrete base and connected the exhaust to the pipeline. Then I tried the engine. It hardly worked. I repaired the ignition and the valves, and finally got the engine to start. The chemist, whom I already knew from Belżec, went inside the gaschamber with a measuring device to gauge the gas concentration. After that, a trialgassing was carried out. If my memory serves me right, I think 30 to 40 women were gassed. The Jewish women had to undress in aclearing in thewoods near the gas chamber andtheywere then herded into the gas chamber by the aforementionedSSmen and UkrainianHilfswilligen.
Once the women were inside, I operated the engine with Bauer. At first the engine was in neutral. We both stood by the engine and switched the dial toFreiauspuff auf Zelle(open exhaust to chamber), so releasing the gas into the chamber. As directed by the chemist, I adjusted the engine to a set RPM, making any further accelerating unnecessary. After about ten minutes the 30 to 40 women were dead. TheChemist and theSS-Führergave the signal to shut down the engine. I packed up my tools and saw how the bodies were taken away. They were transported by means of aLorenbahn(narrow gauge railway) leading from the gas chamber to an area farther away.[44]
Franz Stangl also recalled another trial gassing conducted by Christian Wirth:
And then one afternoon, Wirth’sadjutant, Oberhauser, came to get me. I was to come to the gas chamber. When I got there, Wirth stood in front of the building wiping the sweat off his cap and fuming. Michel told me later that he had suddenly appeared, looked around the gas chambers on which they were still working and said,‘Right, we will try it out right now with those twenty-five work-Jews: get them up here.’ They marched our twenty-five Jews up there and just pushed them in, and gassed them. Michel said Wirth behaved like a lunatic, hit out at his own staff with his whip to drive them on. And then he was livid because the doors had not worked properly. Oh, he just screamed and raved and said the doors had to be changed. After that he left.[45]
Stanislaw Szmajznerreceived a description from his friend Abraham,in secret,who worked inLager IIIand this is included for its unique account:
When the thousands of Jews pass through the gate you mentioned, they go down a long corridor and enterLager II. There they are stripped of their last belongings, and made to stand there naked, until they are led into a large shack where they are allegedly going to have a bath. Hundreds of people enter that shack at a time.
When the shack is completely full, the door is locked and hermetically sealed. Then a large diesel motor is set to work, and its exhaust pipe is passed through a hole in the wall, so that the gases of combustion are blown inside, until everyone is asphyxiated.
Before this operation, giant ditches are dug. After the mass extermination, we, the survivors of the same transport you came in, begin to pick up the bodies and throw them into the ditches. Not seldom, the ground has shaken under the weight of that human mass to be buried. Then, the monsters came and shot them, to make sure they were dead.
I am telling you all this because, should you ever escape, you will be able to tell the world everything that happened here, because you must not expect to ever see me again. Whoever comestoLager IIIwill never leave it. This place is the end for each and every Jew in the power of the Nazis.
I cannot describe all the scenes because you would never believe what happens in this horrible place. All of it is thoroughly inconceivable to the human mind. I wish you could see how the sadists like Bolender, Gomerski and one called ‘Red Cake‘ acted. While the slaughter was in progress, these monsters were delirious with happiness, as if they were at the opera. Theyseemedto take delight in looking at so many dead bodies naked and inert.[46]
Moshe Szklarek, who worked as aPutzerin the German canteen, recalled an incident involving Erich Bauer :
Bauer told his comrades of an incident in which a naked woman in one of the gas chambers asked anSS-man who was about to close the door: “What’s that officer doing at the skylight window? How can we wash ourselves when he is peeking in?“
Bauer and his cohorts erupted in laughter. The engine was started bySS-OberscharführerErich Bauer and a Ukrainian Emil Kostenkow. Soon a horrible mass screaming could be heard over the rumble of the engine muffled by the thick walls of the chamber. At first it was very loud and terror-filled; after 20–30 minutes the people were gassed and dead.[47]
Hans-Heinz Schütt described how the victims reacted and how the process was supervised by the camp staff:
Getting the detainees into the gas chambers did not always proceed smoothly. The detainees would shout and weep and they often refused to get inside. The guards helped them on by violence. These guards were Ukrainian volunteers who were under the authority of members of theSS Kommando.
Members of theSSheld key positions in the camp, i.e. oneSSman oversaw the unloading, a furtherSSman led the detainees into the reception camp, a furtherSS
