The Holocaust

by Martin Gilbert

He ordered that eight men were to open the doors of the lorry. The smell of gas that met us was overpowering. The victims were gypsies from Lodz. Strewn about the van were all their belongings: accordions, violins, bedding, watches and other valuables.

  After the doors had been open for five minutes orders were screamed at us, ‘Here! You Jews! Get in there and turn everything out!’ The Jews scurried into the van and dragged the corpses away.

  The work didn’t progress quickly enough. The SS leader fetched his whip and screamed, ‘The devil, I’ll give you a hand straight away!’ He hit out in all directions on people’s heads, ears and so on, till they collapsed. Three of the eight who couldn’t get up again were shot on the spot.

  When the others saw this they clambered back on their feet and continued the work with their last reserves of energy. The corpses were thrown one on top of another, like rubbish on a heap. We got hold of them by the feet and the hair. At the edge of the ditch stood two men who threw in the bodies. In the ditch stood an additional two men who packed them in head to feet, facing downwards.

  The orders were issued by an SS man who must have occupied a special rank. If any space was left, a child was pushed in. Everything was done very brutally. From up above the SS man indicated to us with a pine twig how to stack the bodies. He ordered where the head and the feet, where the children and the belongings were to be placed. All this was accompanied by malicious screams, blows and curses. Every batch comprised 180–200 corpses. For every three vanloads twenty men were used to cover up the corpses. At first this had to be done twice, later up to three times, because nine vans arrived (that is nine times sixty corpses).

  At exactly twelve o’clock the SS leader with the whip ordered: ‘Put your shovels down!’ We had to line up in double file to be counted again. Then we had to climb out of the ditch.

  We were surrounded by guards all the time. We even had to excrete on the spot. We went to the spot where our belongings were. We had to sit on them close together. The guards continued to surround us. We were given cold bitter coffee and a frozen piece of bread. That was our lunch. That’s how we sat for half an hour. Afterwards we had to line up, were counted and led back to work.

  What did the dead look like? They weren’t burnt or black; their faces were unchanged. Nearly all the dead were soiled with excrement. At about five o’clock we stopped work. The eight men who had worked with the corpses had to lie on top of them face downwards. An SS man with a machine gun shot at their heads. The man with the whip screamed: ‘The devil, get dressed quickly!’

  We dressed quickly and took the shovels with us. We were counted and escorted to the lorry by gendarmes and SS men. We had to put the shovels away. Then we were counted again and pushed into the lorry.

  The journey to the Schloss took about fifteen minutes. We travelled together with the men from Klodawa and talked very quietly together.

  I said to my colleagues: ‘My mother wanted to lead me to a white wedding canopy, she won’t even have the experience of leading me to a black one.’ We cried softly and spoke in whispers so the gendarmes sitting at the back shouldn’t hear us.

  On the first day the following happened: it was ten in the morning. A certain Giter from Bydgoszcz, a fat individual, resident in Izbica during the war, belonged to the group of ‘eight’ and was unable to keep up with the speed of the work. The SS man with the whip ordered him to undress. He flogged him and others till they lost consciousness. His body looked black as spleen. He had to lie down alone in the ditch where he was shot.

  It turned out that there were many more rooms in the Schloss. We numbered twenty in our room, with fifteen more in the adjacent one. There weren’t any other enforced grave diggers. As soon as we came into the cold and dark cellar we threw ourselves down on the straw and cried about everything that had befallen us. The fathers wept from pain at never seeing their little ones again. A fifteen-year-old boy by the name of Monik Halter embraced and kissed me. Weeping, he said to me, ‘Ah, Schlomo, even if I die a victim, my mother and sister should at least stay alive.’ Meir Pitrowski, forty years old from Izbica, my neighbour on the straw, kissed me and said, ‘I have left my dear wife and eight children at home. Who knows if I’ll ever see them again, and what is going to happen to them.’

  Gershon Prashker, a fifty-five-year-old from Izbica, said, ‘We have a great God up in heaven and must pray to him. He won’t desert us—that’s why we must all now together say the prayer of confession and penitence before death.’ Amid great pain and tears we recited the prayer. It was a very depressing sight. The sergeant-major knocked at the door, shouting, ‘Quiet, you Jews or I shoot!’ We continued the prayer softly with choking voices.

  At 7.30 in the evening they brought us a pot of thin kohlrabi soup. We couldn’t swallow anything for crying and pain.

  It was very cold and we had no covers at all.

  One of us exclaimed, ‘Who knows who among us will be missing tomorrow.’ We pressed close together and lapsed into exhausted fitful sleep haunted by terrible dreams. We slept for about four hours. Then we ran about the room freezing cold and debated the fate that was in store for us.

  Thursday, 8 January 1942

  On Thursday, 8 January, early in the morning, the gendarme knocked and asked maliciously: ‘Ah, you Jews; did you sleep well?’ We replied that we had been unable to sleep because of the cold.

  At 7.30 the cook brought us hot but bitter coffee with dry bread. We got the coffee in a large cauldron, which we had to scoop out with our cups. Some of us drank it but most didn’t want that breakfast. They said they were close to death anyway.

  At 8 o’clock we heard the arrival of many people. They were high-ranking SS men. The gendarmes reported to one of them that the Jews had remained quiet throughout the night. The SS man ordered him to open our cellar door. (The door had three locks and a chain.)

  The officer screamed, ‘All Jews clear out!’ and remained alone in the corridor. (We had assumed the SS would be afraid of a desperate reaction on our part.)

  As we left the cellar, our numbers were checked. In the courtyard we had to line up in double file. The second SS man checked the number of grave-diggers once again. Then we had to board the lorry. (Two vehicles always conveyed us to our place of work and back, a tarpaulin-covered lorry and a low passenger car with panes at the side, in other words a limousine. There was, naturally, a further car with SS men.) We stood in the lorry, behind us were six gendarmes with machine guns, ready to shoot. The courtyard, into which we came out of the cellar, was strictly guarded by gendarmes with machine guns for as long as I remained in Chelmno.

  When we drove to work we were followed by a carload of SS men. On arrival we got exactly the same treatment as the day before. After getting off the lorry we were counted. Eight of us who weren’t strong enough for digging were selected. These eight stepped out of the ranks quite calmly, their heads lowered. Naturally we had to undress; then all of us had to go to the same place of work as on the day before. The only things we were allowed to keep on were shoes, shirt, trousers and underwear. (One man who wore two shirts was viciously beaten.) We placed our belongings on one spot. Half an hour later came the next transport, with the remaining grave-diggers, who had been in the other cellar room. They had to go through the identical procedure.

  The place where we found ourselves was surrounded by armed gendarmes ready to shoot. The entire forest was patrolled by gendarmes. The tiniest false move on our part gave the gendarmes cause for the most dreadful and cruel behaviour. The ‘eight’ were working twenty paces from us. One of them, Mechel Wiltschinski from Izbica, nineteen years old, called over to me, ‘Stay healthy. I hope you remain alive. We are leaving this world. I hope you’ll get out of this hell.’ The remainder of the ‘eight’ didn’t utter a sound, they only sobbed dejectedly.

  Two hours later the first lorry arrived full of Gypsies. I can state with one hundred per cent certainty that the executions had taken place in the forest. In the normal course of events the g
as vans used to stop about one hundred metres from the mass graves. In two intances the gas vans, which were filled with Jews, stopped twenty metres from the ditch. This happened once on this Thursday, the other time on Wednesday the 14th.

  Our comrades from among the ‘eight’ told us there was an apparatus with buttons in the driver’s cab. From this apparatus two tubes led into the van. The driver (there were two execution gas vans, and two drivers—always the same) pressed a button and got out of the van. At the same moment frightful screaming, shouting and banging against the sides of the van could be heard. That lasted for about fifteen minutes. Then the driver reboarded the van and shone an electric torch into the back to see if the people were already dead. Then he drove the van to a distance of five metres from the ditch.

  After five minutes ‘Big Whip’, the SS leader, ordered four of the work detail to open the doors. A strong smell of gas prevailed. Five minutes later he shouted, ‘Hey, Jews, go and lay Tefillim (i.e. throw out the corpses)!’ The dead bodies were heaped up higgledy-piggledy. They were still warm and looked asleep. Their cheeks weren’t pale; they still had natural skin colour. The men who had to do this work told us they didn’t feel cold, because they dealt with warm bodies.

  After the ‘eight’ had finished their work with the dead and in the van they put on Gypsy clothes because of the cold and sat down on top of the corpses. It was a tragic-comic sight. The ‘eight’ were in any case forbidden to mix with the others. At lunchtime they used to be left in the ditch. They were given cold bitter coffee to drink and a piece of bread. It was done like this: one of the gendarmes poured coffee into a cup with a long ladle. After the first man had drained the cup it was refilled for the next one, and so on. The ‘eight’ were treated like lepers.

  After half an hour the second van with Gypsies arrived. It did not halt at a distance of twenty metres from us, but a hundred metres further away this time, so we shouldn’t hear anything. (The muffled screams had unsettled us.)

  Until lunch we had ‘processed’ five vans, and another four in the afternoon. (We counted the vans.) Our lunch consisted of cold, bitter coffee and frozen dry bread. The working day ended at 5 p.m. Before we left the ditch the ‘eight’ were made to lie on top of the dead Gypsies, face downwards, and a gendarme shot them through the head with a machine gun. Immediately afterwards we returned to the Schloss, which was 100 metres from the highway, so that curious villagers shouldn’t notice anything.

  With us rode seven gendarmes in front, and three at the back. The seven who sat in front alighted first (in the courtyard of the Schloss). They surrounded the lorry with machine guns. Then the other three gendarmes alighted. Finally we had to get down and line up in twos. We were counted and led into the same dark cellar. It was cold and dim in the cellar. We told each other, ‘This is a veritable paradise (in comparison to the dreadful graveyard).’ At first we sat in the dark on the straw, shivering with emotion at our terrible fate.

  Fifteen-year-old Monik Halter from Izbica clung to me the whole time. He embraced me, kissed me and said to me, ‘We’re all lost,’ and repeated his wish that his sacrifice should enable his mother and sister to remain alive.

  Others said, ‘Once again eight innocent souls have left this world.’ The time passed amid sobs, wails and groans.

  At about seven in the evening the chef brought a cauldron of kohlrabi soup and filled our bowls. A few of us, who were hungry, had some soup, but the majority didn’t touch it. Bitter tears flowed into the soup plate.

  Together with the food a night-light was placed in our room. Nearly all of us said we were prepared to spend our lives in this terrible place, if we could thereby save our dear ones and survive to see punishment meted out to the murderers.

  Meanwhile the gendarme ordered us to sing. At first we disobeyed. However when he threatened to shoot and opened the door, my two neighbours Meir Pitrowski from Izbica, and Jehuda Jakubowicz from Wloclawek, who had lately been resident in Izbica, begged me to stand up and sing.

  I myself don’t know from where I drew the strength to get up because I was very tired. I addressed my comrades in a feeble voice: ‘Friends and honourable people, get up and sing after me; first we shall cover our heads.’

  They stood up.

  We covered the slop pail with a white shirt. Angrily the impatient gendarme, who stood in the open door, ordered us to sing at last. I therefore began to sing ‘Hear! O Israel, the eternal one is our God, the eternal one is unique’. Those assembled repeated each verse in depressed tones.

  Then I continued: ‘Praised be his name and the splendour of his realm for ever and ever’, which the others repeated after me three times. We felt as if we were at the end of our lives. Sadness and fear gripped us. All were as sombre as if before the Last Judgement. We were very much mistaken in thinking we had now sung enough. The gendarme insisted that we go on.

  I said: ‘Friends and honourable people, we shall now sing the “Hatikvah”.’ And we sang the anthem with our heads covered. It sounded like a prayer. After this the gendarme left and bolted the door with three locks.

  We couldn’t stop crying and said that the world had never ever known such barbarism. To liquidate Jews and Gypsies in such murderous fashion, and to force us to sing on top of it. We hoped they would end up like ‘Haman’. The Almighty should put an end to this terrible fate.

  Mosche Asch, a worthy man from Izbica, said, ‘We are a sacrifice, indicating that the time of the Messiah is at hand.’

  The guard opened the door again and the German cook, a civilian, fetched a pail of black bitter coffee, which he poured into the bowl. (We had poured the remains of the kohlrabi soup into the slop bucket.)

  Each of us took a piece of bread and some coffee.

  After fifteen minutes the gendarme asked us to sing again. We tried to get out of it by pleading tiredness but to no avail. He ordered us to repeat after him: ‘We thank Adolf Hitler for everything!’ We did so. Then we had to repeat: ‘We thank Adolf Hitler for our food.’ Then he demanded that we sing again. We sang the ‘Hatikvah’, and afterwards the twenty-sixth Psalm. (That was our response to the torment in our souls.) Then he bolted the door again. We slept late into the night.

  I woke in the middle of the night probably from cold or nightmares. I began thinking everything over again. I wanted to scream: ‘Where is God in heaven? How can he see our torment and permit the slaughter of the innocent. Why doesn’t he perform a miracle?’

  Then it occurred to me that I had to escape from this prison. I carried a tiny flame to the walled-up window and tried loosening a brick with a knife. But my efforts were in vain. The frost which also penetrated the interior had frozen the bricks fast. After two hours of trying I lay down again disappointed.

  By five in the morning everybody was awake because of the cold. We had a conversation. Getzel Chrzastowski, a member of the Bund, and Eisenstab, both from Klodawa (Eisenstab owned a furriers in Klodawa), had lost their belief in God because he didn’t concern himself with injustice and suffering. In contrast others, myself included, remained firm in our belief and said, like Mosche Asch, that the time of the Messiah was at hand.

  Friday the 9th in the morning we were again given bitter coffee. Asked if we had enough bread we said yes—we had some left over from before. At 8 a.m. the SS men appeared and were told that the Jews had spent an uneventful night. After the door was opened we had to go out and be counted.

  The courtyard was already ringed round with gendarmes carrying machine guns. (It was the first time that the barrels of the guns were trained on us. We caught a terrible fright, thinking we were about to be shot.)

  In the courtyard we saw two large carts full of gypsies with their wives, children and all their possessions. We were quickly loaded into a lorry in order to deny us the opportunity for communicating with the Gypsies. This, incidentally, was the only occasion on which we saw a transport with live victims.

  We stood towards the front of the lorry, seven gendarmes with machine guns beh
ind us. A car with eight SS men followed.

  At our place of work we were surrounded by gendarmes. We undressed as before. We were counted, after which eight people were selected from out of our ranks.

  We picked up the axes and shovels and started work. The bottom of the ditch was about 1.5 metres wide, the top five metres and its depth was five metres. The mass grave extended a long way. If a tree stood in the way it was felled.

  Friday, 9 January 1942

  On the third day of our tragic experiences the work was particularly difficult and harsh. Within an hour the first van with dead Gypsies arrived, twenty minutes later the second. ‘Big Whip’ raged without let-up. Whilst working we were able to get a little closer to the ‘eight’. Among them were Abraham Zelinski from Izbica, thirty-two years old, Gawerman from Izbica, seventeen years old, Zalman Jakubowski from Izbica, fifty-five years old, and Gershon Praschker from Izbica. Around five o’clock there wasn’t much to do, and they did not rush us as usual. Gershon Praschker who was down below in the pit got up, took his prayer book, and covering his head with his hand began to pray.

  At about eleven in the morning they said to us: ‘Our death is a tragic death, a sacrifice on behalf of our relatives and of the whole Jewish people. We shall be in this world no more.’

  On this day we ate at 1.30 p.m.

  The temperature was down to twenty degrees below freezing. The gendarmes lit a fire to thaw out our bread. The bread tasted smokey and burnt. Lunch was very brief because another van with Gypsy victims had arrived.

  In the afternoon ‘Big Whip’ went deeper into the forest to drain a bottle of schnapps. When he returned he started to scream: ‘Damn it; you don’t want to work,’ and began hitting out with the whip. He drew blood from the grave-diggers. Blood flowed from their heads, faces, brows and noses. Their eyes were swollen. On this day we buried seven to eight transports (batches) of Gypsies. We finished work at 5.30. The ‘eight’ were killed as usual.

  We had to dress quickly and were chased back into the lorry. Then we were counted a number of times; this was obviously taken very seriously.