Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-08/tgmwc-08-69.05
Last-Modified: 1999/11/22

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has been informed that the
witness who was referred to yesterday, Wieland, is in a
prisoner-of-war camp or in prison near London, England, and
he can therefore be brought over here to be examined at
short notice. The Tribunal, therefore, wishes the
defendants' counsel to make up their minds whether they
desire Colonel Westhoff and this man Wieland to be brought
here during the prosecution's case for them to cross-
examine, or whether they prefer that they should be brought
when the defendants are presenting their cases. But, as I
have stated with reference to all witnesses, they can only
be called once. If they are examined as part of the
prosecution's case, then all the defendants must exercise
their rights, if they wish to do so, of interrogating the
witnesses at that time. If, on the other hand, the
defendants' counsel decide that they would prefer that these
witnesses should be called during the defence case, then,
similarly, the witnesses will only be called once, and the
right of examining them must then be exercised.

At the same time, the statement or the report which was
presented yesterday, and which the Tribunal ruled to be
admissible, will be read in the course of the prosecution's
case at such time as the prosecution decide.

DR. NELTE (counsel for defendant Keitel): Mr. President, may
I be allowed to make a statement only after discussion with
my colleagues. I hope this will be possible in the course of
the afternoon.

THE PRESIDENT: I understand you want to consult the other
defendants' counsel before you let us know. Very well; you
will let us know at your convenience. Go on, Colonel
Smirnov.

COLONEL SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I would like to proceed with
the interrogation of the witness.

(The witness takes the stand.)

THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?

THE WITNESS: Rajzman, Samuel.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I hereby
swear before God, the Almighty, that I will speak before the
Tribunal nothing but the truth, concealing nothing of what
is known to me, so help me God, Amen.

(The witness repeated the oath.)

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:

Q. Witness Rajzman, will you please tell the Tribunal what
your occupation was before the war?

A. Before the war I was an accountant in an export firm.

Q. When and under what circumstances did you become an
internee of Treblinka Camp No. 2?

A. In August 1942 I was taken away from the Warsaw ghetto.

Q. How long did you stay in Treblinka?

A. I was interned there for a year, until August 1943.

Q. That means you are well acquainted with the rules
governing the treatment of the people in this camp?

A. Yes, I am well acquainted with these rules.

                                                   [Page 17]

Q. I ask you to describe this camp to the Tribunal.

A. Transports arrived there every day; their number depended
on the number of trains arriving, sometimes three, four, or
five trains filled with Jews from different  countries -
Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece and Poland. Immediately on
arrival, the people had to leave the trains in five minutes
and line up on the platform. All those who were turned out
were divided into groups: men, children and women, all
separate. They were all forced to strip immediately, and
this procedure continued under the lashes of the German
guards' whips. Workers who were employed in this operation
immediately picked up all the clothes and carried them away
to barracks; then the people were obliged to walk naked
through the street to the gas chambers.

Q. I would like you to tell the Tribunal how the Germans
called the street to the gas chambers?

A. It was named "Himmelfahrt" Street.

Q. That is to say, the "road to heaven"?

A. Yes. . . . If it interests the court, I can present a
plan of the camp of Treblinka, which I drew up when I was
there and I can point out to the Tribunal this street on the
plan.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think it is necessary to put in a
plan of the camp, unless you particularly want to?

COLONEL SMIRNOV: Yes, I also agree that it is not really
necessary.

BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:

Q. Please tell us, witness, how long did a person live after
he had arrived in the Treblinka Camp?

A. The whole process of undressing and the walk down to the
gas chambers lasted, for the men eight or ten minutes, and
for the women some fifteen minutes. The women took fifteen
minutes because they had to have their hair cut off before
they went to the gas chambers.

Q. Why was their hair cut off?

A. According to the ideas of the authorities this hair was
to be used in the manufacture of mattresses for German
women.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that there were only ten minutes
between the time when they were taken out of the trucks and
the time when they were put into the gas chambers?

THE WITNESS: As far as men were concerned, I am sure it did
not last longer than ten minutes.

BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:

Q. Including the undressing?

A. Yes, including the undressing.

Q. Please tell us, witness, were the people brought to
Treblinka in trucks or in trains?

A. They were brought nearly always in trains, and only the
people from neighbouring villages and hamlets were brought
in trucks. The trucks bore the sign "Expedition Speer," and
came from Vengrova Sokolova.

Q. Please tell us, what was the appearance of the station at
Treblinka later on?

A. At first there were no sign-boards whatsoever at the
station, but a few months later the commandant of the camp
built a first-class railway station with sign-boards. The
barracks where the clothing was stored had signs reading
"restaurant," "ticket-office", "telegraph," "telephone,"
etc. There were even train schedules for the departure and
the arrival of trains to and from Grodno, Suvalki, Vienna
and Berlin.

Q. Did I rightly understand you, witness, that a kind of
"make believe" station was built with sign-boards and train
schedules, with indications of train departures to Suvalki,
etc.?

                                                   [Page 18]

A. When the persons came out from the trains, they really
had the impression that they were at a very large station
from which they could go to Suvalki, Vienna, Grodno or other
places.

Q. And what happened later on to these people?

A. These people were taken directly along the Himmelfahrt
Strasse to the gas chambers.

Q. And tell us, please, how did the Germans behave while
killing their victims in Treblinka?

A. If you mean the actual executions, every German guard had
his special job. I shall quote only one example. We had a
Scharfuehrer Menz, whose special job was to guard the so-
called "lazaret." In this lazaret were exterminated all weak
women and little children who had not the strength to go
themselves to the gas chambers.

Q. Perhaps, witness, you can describe this lazaret to the
Tribunal?

A. This was part of a square which was enclosed by a wooden
fence. All women, aged persons, and sick, children were
driven there. At the gates of this lazaret, there was a
large Red Cross flag. Menz, who specialised in the murder of
all persons brought to this lazaret, would not let anybody
else do this job. There might have been hundreds of persons
who wanted to see and know what was in store for them, but
he insisted on carrying out this work by himself. Here is
just one example of what was the fate of the children there.
A ten-year-old girl was brought to this building from the
train with her two-year-old sister. When the elder girl saw
that Menz had taken out a revolver to shoot her two-year-old
sister, she threw herself upon him crying out and asking,
"Why do you want to kill her?" He did not kill the baby, he
threw her alive into the oven, and then killed the elder
sister.

Another example: They brought an aged woman with her
daughter to this building ...

... the latter was in the last stage of pregnancy. She was
brought to the lazaret, was put on a grass plot, and several
Germans came to watch the delivery. This spectacle lasted
two hours. When the child was born, Menz asked the
grandmother, that is the mother of this woman, whom she
preferred to see killed first. The grandmother begged to be
killed instead. But, of course, they did the opposite; the
newborn baby was killed first, then the mother, and finally
the grandmother.

Q. Please tell us, witness, does the name Kurt Franz mean
anything to you?

A. This man was the assistant commandant of the camp, the
deputy to Stengel, the biggest murderer in the camp. Kurt
Franz was known for having published, in January 1943, a
report to the effect that a million Jews had been killed in
Treblinka, a report which had procured for him a promotion
from the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer to that of
Obersturmbannfuehrer.

Q. Witness, will you please tell the Tribunal how Franz
killed a woman who claimed to be the sister of Sigmund
Freud. Do you remember this incident?

A. A train arrived from Vienna. I was standing on the
platform when the people left the cars. An elderly woman
came up to Kurt Franz, took out a document and said that she
was the sister of Sigmund Freud. She begged him to give her
light work in an office. Franz read this document through
very seriously and said that there must be a mistake here,
he led her up to the train schedule and said that in two
hours a train would leave for Vienna. She should leave all
her documents and valuables and then go to a bath-house;
after the bath she would have her documents and ticket
prepared to be sent to Vienna. Of course, the woman went to
the bath-house, and never returned.

Q. Please tell us, witness, how was it that you remained
alive in Treblinka?

A. I was already undressed, and about, to pass through this
Himmelfahrt Strasse to the gas chambers. Some 8,000 Jews had
arrived with my transport from Warsaw. At the last minute,
before we moved towards the street, an engineer

                                                   [Page 19]

Galevski, an old friend of mine whom I had known in Warsaw,
caught sight of me. He was overseer of workers among the
Jews. He told me that I should turn back from the street,
and as they needed an interpreter for Hebrew, French,
Russian and Polish into German, he managed to obtain
permission to free me.

Q. You were therefore a member of the labour unit of the
camp?

A. At first, my work was to load the clothes of the murdered
persons onto the trains. When I had been in the camp two
days, my mother, my sister, and two brothers were brought
there from the town of Vengrova. I had to watch them being
led away to the gas chambers. Several days later, when I was
loading clothes onto the freight cars, my comrades found the
documents and a photograph of my wife and child. That is all
I have left of my family, only a photograph.

Q. Tell us, witness, how many persons were brought daily to
the Treblinka camp?

A. Between July and December 1942 an average of three
transports of sixty wagons each arrived every day. In 1943
the transports arrived less frequently.

Q. Tell us, witness, how many persons were exterminated in
the camp on an average daily?

A. On an average, I believe, they killed in Treblinka from
10,000 to 12,000 persons daily.

Q. How many gas chambers were in operation?

A. At first there were only three gas chambers, but then
they built ten more. It was planned to increase this number
to twenty-five.

Q. But how do you know that? Why do you say, witness, that
they planned to increase the number of gas chambers to
twenty-five?

A. Because all the building material had been brought and
put in the square. I asked, "Why? There are no more Jews."
They said, "after you there will be others, and there is
still a big job to do. . . ."

Q. What was the other name of Treblinka?

A. When Treblinka became very well known they hung up a huge
sign with the inscription "Obermaidanek".

Q. What do you mean by "very well known"?

A. I mean that the persons who arrived in transports soon
found out that it was not a fashionable station, but that it
was a death trap.

Q. Tell us, witness, why was this make-believe station
built?

A. It was done for the sole reason that the people on
leaving the trains should not get nervous, should undress
calmly, and that there should not be any incidents.

Q. If I understand you correctly, this criminal device had
only one purpose, a psychological purpose of reassuring the
doomed during the first moments.

A. Yes, exactly this psychological purpose.

COLONEL SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to ask this
witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Do the defendants' counsel wish to ask any questions?

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