The Holocaust Read Free Page B

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 alimousine. 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 gas 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 frightfulscreaming, 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