Organization of the Underground in the Extermination Area
The leaders of the underground, Galewski, Kurland and others,
gathered in the square near the lazarett in the southwest section of
the camp. Most of the prisoners were in this section, which was also
close to the extermination area, a fact that was supposed to
facilitate contact with rhe underground people there.
The assembly of the prisoners and their organization for escape
during the uprising were also to take place in the southern part of
the camp. A shortcoming of the concentration of the leaders of the
revolt in the southern part of the camp was their remoteness from the
place where the removal of the arms was carried out and from the
attack on the SS and Ukrainian quarters.
At 14:00 hours the removal of the arms and their transfer to various
places got under way. Sadowicz, a member of the "organizing committee,"
was in charge of this operation. A group of youngsters, among
them Markus and Salzberg, made their way into the arms store and
filled sacks with grenades, firearms and ammunition. The sacks
were passed out through the window and loaded on garbage carts. on
which they were taken to the nearby garage, where two other members
of the underground worked -- Rudek Lubernicki and Srenda Lichtblau.
From the garage some of the weapons were transferred in pails and
carts of building materials to the assembly points of the combat
groups, especially to the area where the leaders of the revolt were
located. (Platkiewicz, op. cit., pp. 548-549; Sereny, opt cit., p.
246; Rajzman, op. cit., p. 221; Kon,, op. cit., pp. 537-538) Up
until about 15:30 everything went according to plan, but then the
operation was disrupted. A SS man called Kurt Kuttner suddenly
appeared in the area of the prisoners' quarters. After having a
short talk with the prisoner in charge of Barracks Number 2, Kube,
who was known to be an informer, Kuttner seized a young Jew and found
money in his pockets. He began to interrogate the youth and to beat
him. Word was immediately dispatched to Galewski and his colleagues,
and they, fearing that Kube may have noticed unusual activity in the
camp and had told Kuttner, and fearing that the youth might break
under interrogation and give away the uprising, decided to eliminate
Kutlner on the spot and proceed directly to the second stage of the
revolt, before Kuttner would be able to alert the camp guards. This
decision was reached even though part of the arms had not yet been
removed from the storeroom and the rest had not all been distributed.
Committee member Salzberg conveyed the decision to the underground
people who were near the prisoners' quarters, and one of the men
killed Kuttner with a pistol shot. That shot was the signal for the
outbreak of the insurrection. (Testimony of Strawczynski, op. cit.,
p. 57; testimony of Schneidmann,, op. cit., p. 4)
From that moment the "organizing committee" was no longer in control.
The groups of fighters acted separately. Rudek Lubernicki and Stenda
Lichtblau set fire to the large fuel tank, and when it exploded all
the nearby buildings caught fire. The two also immobilized an
armored vehicle in the garage. The prisoners' quarters and the ware-
houses were also set aflame, and the group working in the potato silo
hurled hand grenades at the SS quarters. The explosions and gunshots
were heard in all parts of the camp. Prisoners began running in the
direction of the square and the eastern and southern fences of the
camp. The Ukrainian guards and SS opened fire from the guard towers
and elsewhere, and some of the insurgents who were armed returned the
fire. Several Ukrainians were wounded and their weapons taken from
them. The few grenades and meager ammunition that the rebels had was
running out very quickly. The camp was going up in flames and in
total disarray, and the prisoners began to break through the fences
and get themselves over the anti-tank obstacles, throwing blankets
and coats on the barbed wire. Many of those fleeing in the area of
the fences were hurt and fell, but the others trampled over them and
continued to run. All the members of the "organizing committee,"
including Galewski, and other members of the underground who were
actively involved in the revolt, were the last to make for the
fences; most of them were hit and fell within the camp. (There are
several versions concerning tne death of Galewski. Leon Perelstein,
a prisoner who escaped from the camp together with Galewski, relates
that after they had gone a few Kilometers, Galewski felt that he did
not have the strength to go on. He took some poison out of his
pocket, swallowed it and died on the spot. See YVA, 0-16/106,, p. 5.
Rachel Auerbach, however, wntes that Galewski killed himself after
being surrounded. See her book, Be-Huzot Varsha 1939-1943, Tel Aviv,
1954, p. 346, note 106. Also see testimony of Strawczynski, op.
cit., pp. 58-59; Platkiewicz, op. cit., pp. 549-550; Wilenberg,
op. cit., pp. 56-58)
The Uprising in the Extermination Area
The decision to begin the insurrection on August 2 was communicated
to the extermination area several days before. On the day of the
uprising itself, around noon, Wiernik arrived in the extermination
area and confirmed that it was definitely decided that the uprising
would take place that very day. Because of the summer heat, the work
hours for cremating the bodies were from 4:00 A.M. until noon, after
which the prisoners were kept under guard in their fenced-off and
closed barracks. In the extermination area there were usually four
SS men (three of them operating the bulldozers) and another seven
Ukrainian guards. However, when the uprising began only one SS man
was there, as the three bulldozer operators had already finished
their work. In order to enable the members of the underground to be
outside the barracks at the hour set for the revolt, Bloch and
Friedman decided to leave some bodies for burning so that it would be
necessary to continue the work in the afternoon. Friedman, who was
the head of a work group, inforrned the SS man in charge of the
cremations that they had not managed to finish the work, and he gave
permission to a group of thirty men -- most of them members of the
underground -- to go out to work again at 3:00 P.M. (Testimony of
Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 3; testimony of Goldfarb, op. cit.,p. 26)
Four other members of the underground were also allowed to be outside
the barracks, ostensibly for drawing water for the kitchen, with a
Ukrainian guard close by. All of them were tense and ready for the
agreed-upon sign to be given from Camp A.
At about 15:30 a shot was heard from the direction of the lower camp,
immediately followed hy the sound of exploding grenades. The members
of the underground in the extermination area then went into action.
The group of water-drawers killed the Ukrainian guard, and another
group killed the Ukrainian guard who was positioned at the entrance
to the living quarters. Zelo Bloch took one of the rifles and fired
at the guards in the guard towers. The insurgents took over the
guardroom, taking a number of rifles from it. At this stage the
insurgents were successful. While the underground members were
fighting, the other prisoners burst through the fences that were
behind the barracks on the southern side of the camp and began
escaping into the fields in the direction of the forest. A machine
gun fired on them from the guard tower in the southeastern corner of
the camp. Block and Friedman, who stayed behind to cover the
escapees with rifle fire, were killed by the gunfire. The gas
chambers themselves were not damaged in the exchange of fire that
took place in the camp. (Wiernik, op. cit., pp. 59-60; testimony
of Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 3 4; Rajgrodski, op. cit., pp.
115-116; testimony of Sonia Lewkowicz, YVA,0-3/4181, p. 5)
Escape
and Pursuit
On the day of the uprising there were 850 prisoners in the entire
camp. About half, including most of the members of the underground,
were killed trying to escape, gunned down in the camp itself, between
the fences or near them. About 100 prisoners decided io remain in
the camp and made no attempt to escape. Despite the heavy gunfire,
about half of those who tried to escape did manage to get over the
fences. In order to reach the forest they had to cross a distance of
5-8 kilometers. In the meantime Stangl the camp commander, alerted
the German security forces by telephone (because of the disruptions
in the plan the insurgents had not had time to cut the lines). They
arrived from Malkinia, Kosov, the Treblinka labor camp and elsewhere
and cordoned off an area at a radius of 5 kilometers from the camp.
(Sereny,, op. cit., p. 247; Rajgrodski, op. cit., p. 116)
The pursuit, the combing of the area and the roadblocks resulted in
the capture of most of the escapees, most of whom were shot on the
spot. The local population was of no help. Prominent in the
testimonies of the survivors is the assertion that the peasants in
the region caught the escapees, took their money and then handed them
over to the Germans. (Rajzman, op. cit., p. 190; Greenberg, op.
cit., pp. 63-64; testimony of Schneidmann, op. cit., pp. 4-5;
testimony of Tajgman,, op. cit., p. 20) Nevertheless, some of the
survivors of the escape from Treblinka owe their lives to the help
they received from the local inhabitants. (Testimony of Goldfarb,
op. cit., p. 28)
There is no way of knowing the exaet number of prisoners who
successfully escaped and found places to hide. According to various
estimates, about 60-70 of the Treblinka escapees were still alive at
the end of the war. It may be assumed, however, that a larger number
escaped during the uprising but that some met their death under
various circumstances in the year between the uprising and the
liberation of the area by the Soviet and Polish armies, or until the
liberation of all of Poland. Thus, of the 850 prisoners in the camp,
it is probable that at least 100 escaped and successfully eluded the
pursuit forces. This estimate is higher than the figure generally
accepted until now. (See, for example: The Death Camp Treblinka
-- A
Documentary, Alexander Donat, ed., New York, 1979. A list of
sixty-nine survivors is given in this work, but it contains mistakes
and duplications. Testimonies of twenty-seven of the survivors are
in my possession.)
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(2 of 2)
Stangl, the commander of the camp, relates about the
outbreak of the revolt: Looking out of my window I could
see some Jews on the other side of the inner fence--they
must have jumped down from the roof of the ss billets and
they were shooting... In an emergency like that my first
duty was to inform the chief of the external security
police. By the time I'd done that, our petrol station blew
up. That too had been built just like a real service
station, with flower beds round it. Next thing the whole
ghetto camp was burning and then Matthes, the German in
charge of the Totenlager, arrived at a run and said
everything was burning up there too...(Sereny, op. cit.,
pp. 239-241)