The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-066-06


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

Q. And for this reason he kept the money?

A. Yes, he kept the money for this object.  Chorazycki knew
what his fate would be.  He fell upon Kurt Franz, even
though he was a man of advanced age, and Kurt Franz was
powerful and tall.  Chorazycki jumped away from him, fled
from this hut, but he did not run far before he fell.
Apparently, he had taken some poison pills, or something
else.  They summoned all the detainees and personnel to
assemble for a roll call.  We were obliged to watch how they
flushed Chorazycki's stomach, in order to revive him, to
wake him up, and to torture him anew.  The faithful
assistant of Kurt Franz, a Ukrainian, Zugwachmann Rogozo,
pulled out Chorazycki's tongue with some sharp instrument or
a hook, I don't remember exactly.  Kurt Franz poured water
into his mouth from a bucket, after which he jumped on him
with his boots, in order to flush out his stomach.  In the
end, two members of the group had to raise Chorazycki by the
legs in order to remove the water from his body.  They
repeated this operation several times.  But they did not
manage to resuscitate him.  After all their efforts failed,
they undressed him and continued beating him with clubs,
after which they sent him off to the Lazarette.

Q. Did Kurt Franz have a nickname?  Do you recall how you
used to call Franz?

A. In Polish, he was called Lolka - he was a handsome man,
tall, powerful.

Attorney General: [Holds up a photograph] Who is this?

A. That is Kurt Franz, definitely.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1303.

Attorney General: This Franz amused himself with the
prisoners.  Can you describe this?

A. Yes. He had a large dog named Barry.  Upon a shout of
Jude or Mensch, schnapp den Hund! (Man, catch the dog!), the
dog would attack people and actually tear off pieces of
their flesh.

Q. Were there many cases of escape from the camp?

A. Yes, there were.

Q. How did they end?

A. Most of those who succeeded in escaping were working in
loading personal effects on to the freight cars.  And it was
in this way that they tried to escape.  But they did not
always succeed.  Few succeeded, others were caught.  I
remember when they caught two men and hung them up by their
legs.  They remained hanging in this way for several hours -
I don't remember exactly how long.  SS men and Ukrainians
would come from time to time, flog them and beat them.
Eventually, one of the SS men, Scharfuehrer Joseph
Zehetreter - he was called Zet from Frankfurt am Main (he
was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany) - came there
and shot them.

Q. At the railway station of Treblinka, were there means of
camouflage?

A. Yes.

Q. Please describe them.

A. I think that half a year after I reached Treblinka, they
altered the platform completely and planted flowers there.
There was also a hut there.  They put doors on it.  They
also added a large clock and a railway timetable.  They also
put up signs with arrows indicating where the trains were
going to: "Zu den Zuegen nach Bialystok und Wolkowysk" (To
the trains to Bialystok and Wolkowysk).  In this way, they
arranged matters so that those arriving would actually not
know where they had come to.

Q. As if it were a transit station to other places?

A. Yes, as if it were a transit station to other places.

Q. When did they begin burning bodies at Treblinka?

A. I know that they began burning bodies several months
after we arrived there.  They spoke about it in the camp.

Q. Did they also disinter the bodies of people who had been
killed before?

A. Yes.  I know about that.

Q. But you did not see it?

A. I did not see it.  That was in Camp 2.

Q. We shall ask someone who was in Camp 2.  Please tell us
about the plan for resistance and the uprising.

A. We began talking, in fact, about the plan for resistance
immediately after we reached the camp.  For, in my opinion,
any man who is imprisoned in a camp or any other place at
once thinks of escaping.  But, at the beginning, this was
not possible, since we did not know one another, and people
were simply afraid to talk to each other, because there were
many informers.  And, in addition to that, we - this group,
this team - worked up there and slept in one of the huts,
which I described previously, in the yard.  Hence, at the
beginning, it was very difficult.

Q. Were you permitted to establish contact with Treblinka 2?

A. No.  But, at a later stage, someone, who was also one of
the camp commanders, came to us.  His name was Oberleutnant
Stangl.  He was from Austria.  He made a speech and promised
us that there were new buildings for the team inside our
camp, and there we would have running water, and we would
also be given bunks and would be able to sleep, and whoever
worked would be able to live and go on living.
Within this camp, which contained the new buildings, there
was a group who were called Hofjuden (Court Jews).  This was
a group of experts.  Most of them were from the environs of
Treblinka.  They had erected this camp.  Afterwards, when
the deportations began, they remained inside this camp.  But
they enjoyed longer rest periods, greater liberty - they
were not guarded so strictly,  and they had ample food.
They had a special hut for living quarters.  These men did
not want to come into contact with us.  They did not want to
come near us at all.

But, after this speech by Stangl, a change came about.  He
made a promise to us, and it actually happened.  They
brought us down from this hut up there into other huts,
together with the Hofjuden, and there we really received
blankets and bunks.  And there was running water.  There was
a toilet, even though it was in the yard - but after we had
been locked into the buildings, it was impossible to go out.

Q. Let us return to the story of planning the resistance.

A. When we arrived at this building and met the Hofjuden,
they worked in the courtyard, they worked in the German
quarters, they had access to all places.  We knew that only
with their assistance would we be able to accomplish
anything, to get to a particular place, to escape or to
carry out an armed revolt.

Q. Was there a young man named Moniek?

A. Yes, there was a young man there by the name of Moniek.

Q. What was his job?

A. He was the Kapo of the Hofjuden.  But while it is usually
thought that a Kapo was always an evil person, caused
trouble, and beat up people, Moniek was not like that.

Q. Was he one of the organizers of the revolt?

A. Yes, later on he was one of the organizers of the revolt.
There were a few others - there was also an engineer there
by the name of Galewski - he was the camp elder.  There was
also a young man named Rudek - I don't know his surname -
but I know that he came from Plock, and he told me then that
he had a mother in Palestine.

Q. What was the plan you drew up for the revolt and the
escape?

A. At first, there were two plans.  Two children of the
Hofjuden were employed in polishing the shoes of the
Germans, and they worked in a hut where there was an arms
store.  This store was built by the experts amongst the
Hofjuden, the fitters and the construction workers.  An
extra key to the store had to be made.  And, in fact, they
made a key, and the children were to go into the store, to
remove arms in sacks, and to place them on refuse carts -
guns, bullets, hand grenades and revolvers.  They were to
place the smaller items in buckets, items which could be
carried by hand.  The arms were to be distributed in various
places in the camp, such as in the motor workshop or in the
heaps of potatoes, and similar places.  Thereafter, we were
to ask the SS men to come to all the workshops and these
places, under various pretexts, and to kill them inside the
workshops, and in this way to rid ourselves of most of the
SS men.  And this is how it turned out, in fact.

Q. And in this way you carried out your plan?

A. Not altogether; we wanted to, but it did not succeed
entirely.

Q. Who was the commander of the revolt?

A. I said there were a number of people.

Q. Who were they?

A. There was the engineer Galewski.

Q. Did he survive?

A. He did not survive.

Q. What happened to him?

A. Apparently he was killed during the revolt.

Q. Who else?

A. And there was Rudek, whom I mentioned - he was a
mechanic.

Q. Did he remain alive?

A. He also fell.  There was a young man named Djielo, a Jew
from Czechoslovakia.  It was said that he was a Czech
officer.

Q. What happened to him?

A. He was also killed.

Q. Was the entire command killed?

A. I believe so, for I never came across any one of them.
There was another one, whom it may be of interest to
mention, Rudolf Masaryk - it was said that he was a relative
of the President of Czechoslovakia.  We did not know whether
there was any truth in this.  He was not a Jew, but his wife
was Jewish.  He used to take care of Kurt Franz' dog.

Q. What happened to him?

A. Apparently he, too, was killed.

Q. Was he also together with you?

A. He was - all the time.

Q. But did he also plan the revolt?

A. So I was told.  I did not know everything, for not
everybody was in the know.

Q. What was your role in the revolt?

A. I was to reach a particular spot and to receive arms.

Q. How did you carry out the revolt?

A. The revolt was to start at four o'clock in the afternoon,
and between two and two-thirty, those children whom I
mentioned were to enter the store.  And, indeed, they went
in and brought out some arms from the store, mainly hand
grenades, and some revolvers, and also ammunition.  At the
same time, two men went into the building, that is to say
the hut where we lived, and that was forbidden.  These two
men were caught and made to undress.  Money was found on
them; evidently, they wanted to prepare money for
themselves, in case they succeeded in escaping.  They were
caught, and one of the camp commanders stripped them and
began beating them.  This was about half an hour before the
commencement of the revolt.

A great commotion broke out.  All the time people kept
coming back and reported that they were beating them, and
they would certainly reveal information - perhaps they had
already done so - and if that was the case, there was
nothing to lose, we should start right away.  But most of
the people had been advised that the revolt was to begin at
four.  However, as I ascertained - we were told this
afterwards - Rudek fired at the SS man who was beating these
two young men, and subsequently a grenade was thrown.

Q. Was that how it began?

A. This was the signal for the revolt to commence.  And
after that, the explosions began.  There was a young man who
used to disinfect the huts of the Germans and the
Ukrainians.  He had a receptacle on his back, with a
hosepipe, with which he sprayed [disinfectant].  On that
day, this young man was to mix the chemicals with fuel,
petrol, and in fact he did so.  In addition to that, there
was a large tank of petrol near the garage.  I think it must
have contained several thousand litres of petrol.  This tank
was also set on fire.  It exploded and spread flames along
the fence which was covered with dried foliage, and it began
burning.

I was at the workshop refurbishing aluminium utensils.  I
knew that I was to receive arms at the garage.  I ran, in
fact, towards the garage, but I could not reach it, for the
fire from the tank prevented me from getting near.  Then I
turned around and ran in the direction of the Lazarette
towards the second gate.

Q. And you escaped from there?

A. And I escaped from there.

Q. How did you break through the fence?

A. I simply climbed over the fence.  There had already been
people who had escaped that way, and on the fence there were
already blankets and boards, and we climbed over on these.

Q. Did the Germans pursue you?

A. The Germans chased us on horses and also in cars.  Some
of those who escaped had arms.  I also ran with a group that
possessed a rifle and revolvers.  These people returned the
Germans' fire, and the Germans withdrew.  In this way, we
managed to reach the forest which was near this camp.

Q. How many people were saved from Treblinka at the time?

A. I think about a hundred and fifty men fled in the
direction I took.

Q. Was there someone who was a liaison between Treblinka 1
and Treblinka 2, who was able to pass between the two camps?

A. There were a number of people who used to come inside the
camp.

Q. Who, for example?

A. For example, there was one young man - his name was
Shlomo Rosenblum - whom I had known back in Warsaw.

Q. Anyone else?  Perhaps someone who now lives in Israel?

A. I did not know then, but today I know.

Q. But you did not see him then?

A. I did not see him.

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

Judge Raveh:   I did not quite understand what you said
about informers.  Were you afraid of tale-bearing, or were
there actual cases of informing?

Witness Teigman:   We were afraid, and there were also cases
of informers.

Q. What did they inform about?

A. For example, the food they gave us in the camp was like
that in every camp - that was a known fact - but those of us
who worked in sorting out the personal belongings always
found food, and so on...

Judge Raveh:   I understand.

Judge Halevi:  You said that, when you arrived, about four
hundred young people were chosen for work, two hundred at
the second camp.  Were those also chosen as a work team?

A. I think so.  I don't know exactly.

Q. That means they did not go together with those who were
sent to the gas chambers?

A. No, they did not go together with them; those who went to
the gas chambers undressed, and the two hundred went in
their clothes.

Q. You said they undressed.  Where did the men undress?

A. The women undressed in the hut on the left-hand side, and
the men undressed in the yard - next to the second hut.

Q. And, after that, they would take them along this channel?

A. Yes.  There were instances where there was much work or
there was a large transport, and they used the men who had
already undressed to remove the clothes as well from the
women's hut, and after that they sent them to this corridor.

Q. Did they cut the women's hair after they were naked, or
beforehand?

A. It was before they went into the corridor.

Q. When they were still clothed?

A. No - they were already undressed.


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