Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-066-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08

Q. What are these numbers on the huts? [He points to them.]

A. I put them there.

Q. That was not in Treblinka?

A. I put them there so that it would be easier to identify
them.

Q. Was this the path along which the people walked?

A. This was the Schlauch (hosepipe).

Q. And this and that?

A. Here people went out through the side.  They went into
the gas chambers.  When the gas chambers were not yet in
existence, they went in this way. [He indicates the spot.]

Q. What is this hut numbered 10?

A. This is what they called the "Lazarette."  What was the
Lazarette?  They used to bring elderly people there, and
underneath they put timber.  They would seat the people on a
bench, the back of their necks facing this way, and shoot
them so that they would fall inside.

Q. What is this?

A. These were the graves.  Before they constructed the gas
chambers, towards the end of 1942, they used to gas the
people and then put them into these pits.

Q. And what is this?

A. These are also graves.

Q. And what were these irons?

A. These were the grids.  They were made this way with low
concrete bases and iron rails on them, and they would lay
the people on the rails, light a fire, and burn them.

Q. And were these your barracks? [Points to them.]

A. Here the people of the second camp lived.  I also lived
there.

Q. What is this?

A. Here we made an entrance for the members of the SS and
all those who were there on behalf of the SS.  They made use
of this entrance only.  Above the gate, there was still a
sign, "The Jewish State."

Presiding Judge: A Jewish city or a Jewish State?

Witness Wiernik:   I do not know German, but it was Jewish
State.

Attorney General: Mr. Wiernik, were the people of Camp 1
always allowed to enter Camp 2?

Witness Wiernik:   They were never allowed to enter Camp 2
from Camp 1.

Q. And also not from Camp 2 into Camp 1?

A. No.

Q. But a few artisans had free access?

A. A few persons as well as myself used to go in.  There was
a time when they did not allow anyone to enter.  But there
was also a time when there was nobody to work there, and
then I went there, together with a few others.

Q. And you also acted as a liaison between the underground
in the first camp and the underground in the second camp,
and you passed messages on from one camp to the other?  Is
that correct?

A. I was the liaison between the one and the other.  We used
to keep it secret.  At midday we used to meet the others -
we used to stand in groups; I used to talk with my people
and they with their people.  And those who were standing at
a distance did not know whom we were talking to.  And in
this way we maintained the connection between one camp and
the other.

Q. And you participated in the uprising which ended in an
escape?  Is that correct?

A. Yes, yes.  When people escaped from there, I also escaped
- it was on 2 August 1943.

Q. Who was the leader of the uprising in Treblinka 1?

A. Galewski took part, together with some others.

Q. And do you recall Dr. Chorazycki?

A. I did not see Dr. Chorazycki, but I was told that he
committed suicide.

Q. And what happened in Treblinka 2?

A. I was in Treblinka 2, as well as Djielo and Ya'akov.  We
were a group of five who used to maintain daily contact
about what was going on.

Q. Did any of them survive?

A. I know that there were survivors... I do not know their
names.  Throughout the whole world, there ought to be some
eighteen to twenty men.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to
the witness?

Dr. Servatius:  No, I have no questions to the witness.

Attorney General: I ask the Court to accept these
photographs as exhibits and to number them.  They may be
rolled up.  We presented them here so that the witnesses
would be able to identify them.  It is, of course, the same
model, but photographed from two different angles.

Presiding Judge: These will be exhibits T/1301 and T/1302. I
would request a Hebrew translation, and also one in a
language with which Dr. Servatius is familiar, concerning
the Polish markings on the sketch.

Attorney General: I understand that it belongs to T/1300.

Presiding Judge: Yes.

Judge Halevi:  Did you join the underground?

Witness Wiernik:   In Treblinka?  Certainly.  I was the
liaison between the one camp and the other.

Q. I mean after the escape - which underground did you join
after the escape?

A. After I escaped, I came to Warsaw. I had a Christian
acquaintance, and I went to him - he was a writer named
Stefan Przibishevski.

Attorney General: I am aware of these matters.  This will
undoubtedly help the witness.  He has a certificate from the
Polish Armia Ludowa, of which he was a member.  And that
will clarify the situation.  If the Court is interested, he
can hand it in.

Judge Halevi:  I understood that you made your sketch during
that period?

Attorney General: He has a certificate.  It will immediately
explain to which underground he belonged.

Witness Wiernik:   I worked for the Warsaw municipality
after my return.

Attorney General: The underground pseudonym of the witness
appears there, as well as his real name, in order to certify
that he was a member of the Polish People's Army, the Armia
Ludowa.

Judge Halevi:  [to witness] When you were a member of the
Armia Ludowa, was it then that you drew this sketch?

Witness Wiernik:   I prepared it when I was working in
Warsaw in the Tashitza Palace.  The SS was there on the one
side, and I was a night watchman against air attacks - I
also have a certificate about that.  I used to sit there at
night.  Nobody disturbed me, and I gradually made that
sketch.

Q. Do you remember in what month and what year you drew this
sketch?

A. It was in 1944.  It took a long time.  I also wrote A
Year in Treblinka.  In 1944, it was already in America, via
the underground.

Attorney General: The brochure about Treblinka was published
both in Polish and in English.

Judge Halevi:  Did you make the sketch only as a memento or
for some practical purpose?

Witness Wiernik:   I made my notes while I was still in the
camp.  I made notes of everything.  I saw that nothing was
known about the camp, so I wrote A Year in Treblinka.

Q. And you handed over all the material to the underground
for their use?

A. They sent it over.  I wrote it in Polish, and it was
published in Warsaw at the beginning of 1944, in ten or
twelve thousand copies.  And the copies were sent over to
America.  They were sent to London.  Professor Garka
received the copies and sent them on to America.

Presiding Judge: Can you tell us what is the scale of this
model?

Witness Wiernik:   The length of the camp was about one
kilometre and its width five to six hundred metres.

Q. And this is the entire camp that we see here?

A. That is the entire camp.

Q. What was the length of the large building containing the
gas chambers?

A. The gas chambers of the large building were seven by
seven.  The entire building was thirty-six metres in length
and eighteen metres wide.

Q. You could not see the inside of the building of the gas
chambers?

A. When the doors were open, I did see them.

Q. When they removed the dead bodies, could you look inside
the gas chambers?

A. Yes.  The doors were open - they were open almost
completely, and when they were opened, the dead bodies fell
out, since they had been lying there crowded together.  Into
a room of 1.90 metres, they forced many inside.

Q. Can you describe the inner structure?

A. It was a room.  The floor was somewhat sloping.  When the
people inside were suffocated, they used to wash the floor
with a hosepipe or a bucket of water.  When they removed the
bodies, they had been suffocated.

Q. Where did the gas enter?

A. That is in the sketch.  Here was the gas engine, the
engine which forced the gas in.  And there were pipes with
valves.  They would open the valve into the chamber where
the people were.  There was an engine of a Soviet tank
standing there, and in this way the gas was introduced.
Here were the doors where people entered from one side, and,
on the other, this was the large door which opened along
almost the entire wall.  And, after forty to forty-five
minutes had passed, they would stop, they would open the
door, and the dead bodies would fall out.  And here was a
spare engine next to the three.  Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 26 were
the engines that generated the electricity, and there, too,
there was a motor.

Q. I understand from this that the gas was produced on the
spot, or was it brought in ready-made from outside?

A. The gas was produced on the spot.

Q. The burning of the bodies - was it always in the manner
in which you described it, or was it perhaps in crematoria,
inside buildings?

A. Until the end of 1942, they did not burn those who had
been gassed, but they would bury them in enormous pits.  The
bodies were placed inside.  Only at the beginning of 1943
did they make various experiments of how to burn them, and
they did not succeed.  Then a certain Scharfuehrer arrived,
an SS man, and he brought this model for the grids, and he
always used to stand near the fire and shout:"Tadellos,
tadellos!" (perfect, perfect!).

Q. And were they burned only in this way?

A. Yes.  This is the way they burned them.

Presiding Judge: Are there any further questions in
connection with the questions the witness was asked by the
judges?

Attorney General: No, Your Honour.

Dr. Servatius:  I have no questions to the witness.

Presiding Judge: Thank you, Mr. Wiernik.  You have concluded
your testimony.

Attorney General: I call Mr. Kalman Teigman.

Presiding Judge: Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Teigman:   Yes.

[The witness is sworn.]

Presding Judge:  What is your full name?

Witness: Kalman Teigman.

Attorney General: Mr. Teigman, you live in Tel Aviv, at 8
Rehov Hasadna?

Witness Teigman:   No.  In the meantime, I have changed my
address.

Q. Please tell us what your address is.

A. My address is: Bat Yam, 25 Rehov Herzl.

Q. And your profession is a mechanical fitter - that you
have not changed?

A. Yes.

Q. When the World War broke out, you were in the Warsaw
Ghetto, and on 4 September 1942, you were transferred to
Treblinka?

A. Yes.

Q. Until when were you there?

A. Until the outbreak of the revolt, on 2 August 1943.

Q. Please describe for us your journey to Treblinka,
accompanied by your mother.

A. It was on 3 or 4 September.  They removed me, together
with my mother, from the premises of the factory where I was
working in the Warsaw Ghetto.  It was a factory for
calculating machines, Astra Werke - adding machines.  They
removed us from the premises of the factory and took us to
the square which we called the Umschlagplatz.  We stood
there for several hours and towards evening, they loaded us
on to freight cars.  They squeezed about one hundred people,
or even more, into each car.  The lack of air made breathing
very difficult.  A number of people certainly fainted, at
least that is what was said.  Light hardly entered - there
was a small window there, and I had the impression that
there was chlorine in these cars.

Q. What cars were they?

A. Freight cars.  We were really choking.  I think it was
eight o'clock in the evening when the train moved.  We
travelled for a number of hours.  I do not remember exactly
how long, and then the train came to a halt.  The doors were
opened, and Ukrainians came into the cars.  They could not
get inside, for there were so many people, and hence they
stood on the edge of the car, near the door.  They asked
those standing near the door for valuables, money, and
jewellery, struck them with their rifles, with clubs, and
robbed them of whatever they could.  After that, they got
off the cars, and then people who were standing close to
that window said that a number of people had jumped off the
cars and had begun to escape.  Indeed, we heard shots, and
evidently this story was true.

Q. Did you know where they were taking you to?

A. At first, we did not know.

Q. Did you know it was an extermination camp?

A. I did not know it.

Q. How old were you then?

A. Twenty.

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