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Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann Trial in 1961: Testimony of Four Treblinka Survivors

Adolf Eichmann proudly wearing his skull-and-crossbones SS officer's cap during the war, and in hiding in Argentina after the war.

As no Ukrainian was ever a member of the SS, no Ukrainian ever wore the skull-and-crossbones insignia.  The Waffen SS must be distinguished from the SS � the Waffen SS was a combat group manned by all the peoples under Nazi occupation (at a higher rate by the French and the Dutch, for example, than by Ukrainians); it was under the direction of Himmler, but otherwise unrelated to the SS.

http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/EichmannAdolf/
   

Photo of false identification papers used by Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.  Note signature, "Ricardo Klement".
http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/eich22.htm

The Key Players at Eichmann's Jerusalem Trial in 1961
Presiding Judge: His Honour
Judge Moshe Landau

http://remember.org/eichmann/landau.htm
Also sitting: His Honour
Judge Benjamin Halevi

http://remember.org/eichmann/halevi.htm
Also sitting: His Honour
Judge Yitzchak Raveh

http://remember.org/eichmann/raveh61.jpg
 
For the Prosecution: The Attorney
General, Mr. Gideon Hausner

http://remember.org/eichmann/hausner.htm
For the Defence:
Dr. Robert Servatius

http://remember.org/eichmann/servatius.htm
The Defendant:
Adolf Eichmann

http://www.jerusalem-archives.org/period5/5-33.html

At the Eichmann trial, four witnesses testified concerning Treblinka:

  1. Ya'akov Wiernik
  2. Kalman Teigman
  3. Eliahu Rosenberg
  4. Avraham Lindwasser

Of these four witness, photographs are readily found for the first three:

Ya'akov Wiernik, date unknown:
Ya'akov Wiernik in Alexander Donat (Ed.), The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, Holocaust Library, New York, 1979, p. 147.


Kalman Teigman, 1961 and 1996:
Kalman Teigman testifying at the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961. Kalman Teigman looking fit in 1996, leading to the question of why he had not been called to testify at the Demjanjuk trial nine years earlier in 1987.
Teigman is quoted in 1996:  "I followed the Eichmann trial all the time, and even visited the courtroom a few times to listen to the other witnesses.  The testimonies, of course, were all very similar, since we all had gone through the same things, some more, some less.  After my testimony, like most witnesses, I was a little relieved.  On the other hand, I thought about it for a long time and could not free myself.  It was all very difficult and it haunted me for a long time."  http://remember.org/eichmann/teigman.htm


Eliahu Rosenberg, 1961 and 1996:
Eliahu Rosenberg testifying at the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann trial 1961. Eliahu Rosenberg in 1996.  Rosenberg is the only one of the four Eichmann Treblinka witnesses to testify at the 1987 trial of John Demjanjuk in Jerusalem.
Rosenberg is quoted in 1996:  When I entered the courtroom and entered the witness-stand, only after I received the first questions from Gideon Hausner and from the Judges did I look into Eichmann's face. I thought to myself, here I have the privilege, to fulfill the wish of the victims to tell the world what had happened in Treblinka, and here I stand opposite one of the greatest criminals and I am going to testify against him.  http://remember.org/eichmann/rosenberg.htm


The transcript below was taken from: State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Record of Proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 1992.  The Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann Trial in co-operation with the Israel State Archives and Yad Vashem � the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.  Printed in Israel at Keter Enterprises, Jerusalem.

Spellings of names in the Eichmann trial transcript are not always the same as in other documents.  For example, the Eichmann transcript "Ya'akov Wiernik" has appeared in other documents on the Ukrainian Archive as "Jankiel Wiernik," "Yankiel Wiernick," "Yankel Viernick," "Yaakov Vernik," and at Nuremberg, "Jacob Vernik."



Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1202
Testimony of Ya'akov Wiernik of Treblinka


Attorney General  We now come to the Treblinka extermination camp.  I call Mr. Wiernik.

Presiding Judge  Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness  Yiddish.
[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge  What is your full name?

Witness  Ya'akov Wiernik.

Attorney General  You live in Rishon leZion, 73 Rehov Nordau?

Witness Wiernik  Yes.

Q.  And you are a carpenter?

A.  Yes, and a construction worker.

Q.  When did they bring you to Treblinka, Mr. Wiernik?

A.  On 23 August 1942.

Q.  And how long did you remain there?

A.  Until 2 August 1943.

Presiding Judge  How old are you now?

Witness Wiernik  Seventy-two.

Q.  And are you still a construction worker?

A.  No.  I am now living on a pension.  In Israel, I worked for "Amidar."

Attorney General  Mr. Wiernik, when you came to Treblinka, the camp was not yet in existence?

Witness Wiernik  When I came there, there were only three gas chambers.  The large kitchen was not yet there.  I constructed various barracks, I built the guard room, I built the door, the entrance gate.

Q.  You built that?

A.  Yes, I and my companions.

Q.  After the War, immediately following the War, you drew a sketch of Treblinka?

A.  Yes.  This is it, here.  I drew it.  I prepared it when I was

Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1203
Testimony of Ya'akov Wiernik of Treblinka


still underground, after my liberation in 1943, I drew it.  I was working in Warsaw, in the Tshitza Palace.  I worked as a Pole.

Attorney General  I submit the sketch which the witness made at the time.

Presiding Judge  This will be marked T/1300.

Attorney General  At a later stage, when you were already in Israel, you built a copy, a model, after the sketch, and this exists in Kibbutz Lohamei Ha-Getta'ot?

Witness Wiernik  Yes.

Q.  And the photograph of this model, which is kept in the museum of Kibbutz Lohamei Ha-Getta'ot, that is the photograph which you see on the wall of the courtroom?

A.  Yes.  That is an exact photograph.

Q.  And now, please tell the Court, what is in this picture?  [He points to the photograph.]

A.  That was the entrance.

Q.  Is this where people entered?

A.  Yes. This is where they remained standing.  In the courtyard, there were the two large barracks, 1 and 2.  They brought the women in to the left, and the men were kept outside.  They made the women remove all their clothes.

Q.  Did you say that the women went into the one barrack and the men into the other?

A.  The men remained standing outside.  On either side, there were two large written notices to the effect that money and valuables had to be handed over, and whoever failed to do so would be put to death.

Q.  What happened to the women?

A.  Over here [he indicates] the hair was cut off.  At the end, a small area was fenced off.  Here their hair was cut off, and then they were taken to the gas chambers.  Here [points to it] was a building with three gas chambers; in the large building there were ten gas chambers.  The doors were closed, and it lasted some forty to forty-five minutes.

Q.  Were these the gas chambers?  [Points to them.]

A.  These were the ten gas chambers which they built when I was there, and these were the three gas chambers.  The machines stood at the edge.

Q.  Is this the same building which we see here?

A.  That is the same.

Q.  It is the same, but we see the Shield of David?

A.  That was the front, the side where people entered.

Q.  Who made the Shield of David?

A.  That was made by the metal-workers of the first camp.

Q.  You say there were two camps, Treblinka 1 and Treblinka 2?

A.  They were separated from each other.

Q.  How were they divided?

A.  Here was the entrance; here is the first camp [points ot it].  All this belongs to the first camp.  And here is the second camp.  These were the barracks where we lived, and there were the gas chambers.

Q.  And the gas chambers were here?

A.  The gas chambers were in the second camp.

Q.  What is this?

A.  These are the barracks where we used to live, three hundred and fifty to four hundred men.

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 want 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

Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1204
Testimony of Ya'akov Wiernik of Treblinka


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 this correct?

A.  I was the liaison between the one and the other.  We sued 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.  After the escape � which underground did you join?

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?

Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1205
Testimony of Ya'akov Wiernik of Treblinka


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.  The a certain Scharführer 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.


Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
1202 1203 1204 1205 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1211 1212 1212 1213 1214 1215 1215 1216 1217 1218

THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1205
Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


Attorney General  I call Mr. Kalman Teigman.

Presiding Judge  Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Teigman  Yes.
[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding 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 trade is that of 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

Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1206
Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


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.

Q.  Did you believe that you were in an extermination camp?

A.  At the beginning I did not believe it.  When I arrived, I saw what was going on there.  Later on, the train again moved on, and we continued our journey for almost the whole night.  Towards morning, we reached the station at Malkinia.  By then, I was standing near the window, and I noticed that Polish men, railway workers, were making signs to us that we were travelling to our deaths.  They drew their hands across their throats, as a sign for being slaughtered.  At all events, no one wanted to believe it.  "How could it be that they could take young, fit people and send them straight to their deaths?"  We did not want to believe this.

Once again, the carriages moved, and we came to a certain place.  Suddenly we heard shouts in German: "Everybody out, and take all your possessions and parcels with you."  Of course, they began immediately hitting people with their rifles and clubs, shooting people who did not manage to get out quickly, most of them elderly people, sick persons, and those who had fainted, and those met their deaths in the freight cars or near the platform.  And then we assembled on the platform, and they made us run in the direction of the gate.  The gate led into a large yard.

Q.  Was this already inside Treblinka?

A.  Yes, this was inside the Treblinka camp.

Q.  Please look behind you.  Are you able to identify the illustration behind you?

A.  Yes, only a certain part, not the whole picture.

Q.  Do you recognize a certain section?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Do you recognize the part through which you entered?

A.  Yes.  I recognize it.

Q.  Would you please show the Court where it is?

Presiding Judge  Perhaps it would be more convenient in the second illustration.  Compare the two illustrations.

Witness Teigman  The train came in up to this point [he points it out on the sketch] in this direction, through the gate which was here.  Here was the platform.  From the platform, we continued walking towards the gate.  At this point, there was a fence with a gate, and here was the yard.  Thats right: Here there was a well, and two huts also stood here.  These are the two huts which were placed inside the yard, and near them there was a well.  I am almost certain that this is how it was.  Here there was a garage, a motor repair shop, a hut where they repaired vehicles.  Here, later, were the buildings in which we lived, the staff and the prisoners.  Here were the workshops.

Attorney General  What was the name of this section of the camp where you were?  By what number was it called?  Treblinka 1 or Treblinka 2?

Witness Teigman  They called it Camp 1.

Q.  And the second section?

A.  They called the second section Camp 2.

Q.  And you were in No. 1?

A.  Yes.

Q.  You arrived at the platform.  What happened to you at the platform?

A.  As I have already said, they opened the freight cars and shouted at us to come out and take with us our personal belongings and parcels.  A large number of people were killed on this platform or inside those freight cars, such as those who fainted or those who were not quick enough.  On the double, at lightning speed, they made us run towards the courtyard in which those two huts stood.  Next to the gate, men were standing, men of the SS and Ukrainians, and here, right away, the sorting began.  They shouted to the women to go to the left, and to the men to go to the right.  I did not want to part from my mother soon.  Precisely at the gate, I received a blow on my head from something, I think it was

Ya'akov Wiernik Kalman Teigman Eliahu Rosenberg Avraham Lindwasser
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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1207
Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


from a stick, and I fell down.  I got up immediately, for I did not want to receive another blow, and by then my mother was no longer at my side.

Q.  After that, did you see your mother again?

A.  After that, I did not see her again.

Q.  How many young people were there with you?

A.  When we entered the camp, out of the entire transport, they took four hundred people � of course, after sorting, after selection.  Two hundred remained in Camp 1, and two hundred young people were sent to the camp where there were the gas chambers.  This I learned afterwards, for I did not know about it at the beginning.

Q.  Do you want to add something about the Lazarette?  Did something happen in connection with the Lazarette immediately after you arrived?

A.  Yes.

Presiding Judge  Where was that?

Witness Teigman  I see it here.  [He points it out.]  And, in fact, it was here, at the end of the camp, next to the second gate.  This Lazarette was a pit that had been dug out and fenced with barbed wire, and near it, at the entrance, stood a hut painted white, with markings of the Red Cross, and there was also a sign there, Lazarette.

Q.  That we do not see here, so it seems.

A.  We do not see it here, there is only a number here, 10 or something.

All these people who were killed on the platform, or those who fainted or who still showed signs of life but were unable to walk, we had to carry them to the Lazarette.  They cynically gave it this name, as if they were going to the doctor.  There was this pit, and we had to throw all these bodies into the pit.  Those who were still alive were shot at the edge of the pit and were thrown inside.

Attorney General  You may now return to the witness stand.  On the following day, you went out to work?

Witness Teigman  Yes.

Q.  What kind of work?

A.  At first, we had to take logs of wood and to carry them from place to place.  Afterwards, they sent us to sort out personal effects.

Q.  What personal effects?

A.  The personal effects of the people they had brought there, the victims who had gone to the gas chambers.  They left all these articles in our camp, Camp 1, before they entered the...

Q.  What was the quantity of personal effects that you saw, when you first came there?

A.  An enormous quantity.  There were actually heaps outside on the ground, several storeys high.

Q.  Clothes, personal possessions?

A.  Clothes, personal possessions, children's toys, shoes.  I think there was nothing that ... everything that one could see was there � medicines and instruments, everything.

Q.  Meanwhile, did further transports arrive on the day following your arrival?

A.  Yes, all the time.

Q.  Transports were arriving all the time?

A.  At first, there were many transports, almost every day.  There were also instances of two transports a day.  Later on, after a number of months, the number of transports decreased, there were fewer.

Q.  And so, you say, your work was to carry logs of wood?

A.  It was only at the beginning that they gave us that work.

Q.  Afterwards, what was your work?

A.  We worked in sorting personal effects.  There were also people whose work was in preserving fur coats; we also worked on renovating aluminum ware.

Q.  Where did all these articles go?

A.  As far as we knew, as the talk went in the camp, all of it went ot Germany.

Q.  Who shot the people at the Lazarette?

A.  There were SS men: Scharführer Mentz or Minz � I do not remember his exact name; they called him Frankenstein, since he had a face which really was frightening to look at � I think his name was Scharführer Minz.  The second was Scharführer Miete, he was from Berlin.  The third was Sharführer Blitz.  And they were helped by one of the Ukrainians, but I don't remember his name.

Q.  Once a transport of children arrived, do you remember?

A.  Yes.  A transport of children arrived.  There were two freight cars.  The children were almost suffocated, actually.  We had to remove their clothes and take them � that is to say, we transported them � into the Lazarette, and there the SS men whom I have mentioned shot them.  It was said that these were orphans who came from an orphanage.  I don't know.

Q.  Generally speaking, what was the size of the transports?

A.  Generally, sixty freight cars would arrive, and into each freight car they put about one hundred persons.  I imagine that there were up to six thousand persons, or even more.

Q.  Was it always Jews only?

A.  No.  There was also a transport of Gypsies.

Q.  One?

A.  In fact, there were two, but I remember one well.

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Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


Q.  Apart from the Gypsies, were all the others Jews?

A.  They were Jews.

Q.  Do you remember a transport of Jews from Grodno?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What happened?

A.  The transport of Jews from Grodno arrived, that is to say, it was already the second transport.  It arrived towards evening.

Q.  Before that, was it preceded by another transport?

A.  The transport that preceded it was much larger, apparently from the environs of Warsaw � I don't know.

Q.  Did they go to the gas chambers?

A.  They went to the gas chambers.  After that came the transport from Grodno.  This was already towards the evening, and the people who entered the courtyard between those two huts refused to undress.  They were told to remove their clothes, to tie their shoes well together; they were given rope, wire, and they were strict about that.

Q.  That they should tie their shoes together?

A.  That they should tie their shoes together.

Q.  Were the people there told why they were being asked to do this?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What did they tell them?

A.  There was also a large notice in the yard which said that all the people were going to take a bath, that they would be disinfected, and all their papers, valuables and money should be handed in to the camp safe which was there on this path that led to the gas chambers.  They called it Himmelstrasse (Road to Heaven), or Schlauch (hosepipe), or Himmelallee (Avenue to Heaven).  This building was a small hut.  These people who had to receive all the papers, all the money, and all the documents stood there.

Q.  Can you point out where this Schlauch or this Himmelallee was situated?

A.  Yes.  I can see it [points to the sketch].  Here we see a certain line, these two buildings.  And here is the Schlauch, this Himmelallee.

Q.  And here [pointing] the people walked after they had already undressed?

A.  Yes.  Here the people entered this path, it was called Schlauch or Himmelstrasse.

Q.  Can you identify it in the second picture also?

A.  In the second picture, one sees it differently from here [points to it].  The people inside the small building who received all the documents and money used to be called Goldjuden (gold Jews).  The person in charge was someone named Scharführer Suchomit.  I believe he was from Sudetenland, for he spoke with a Viennese or Austrian accent.

Q.  Was it there that they told the people that they would be taken to work, and that they had to take a bath?

A.  First of all, they were going to take a bath, and afterwards they should come to retrieve their belongings, and then they would go out to work.

Q.  Did the people who reached that point still believe that this was the truth?

A.  There were some who, I think, still believed, for at first there was no reaction.

Q.  Even after the blows at the railway station, after the whipping?

A.  People were confused, for it was done at tremendous speed.  I think the people did not even have time to think.  Each one fled and ran fast, so as not to receive blows.  But perhaps we can pass on to the transport from Grodno.

Q.  Let us go back now to the transport from Grodno.

A.  Amongst them there were men who called out to the others not to get undressed.  Apparently, they realized what was going on and they knew.  And so they refused.  Then the Germans and the Ukrainians began beating them.  They also shot them.  I also remember SS men and Ukrainians who were sitting on the roofs of the two huts I mentioned, with automatic weapons, and they also fired into the crowd.  Despite all this, the people were not ready to undress.  We stood some distance away and saw it all.  We were near the yard.  Later we heard an explosion.  Apparently, someone had thrown a grenade or I don't know what.  At any rate, they removed a seriously wounded Ukrainian from this yard.  Afterwards, the Germans somehow overpowered them and put them onto this path by force.  But most of them walked in their clothes.

Q.  When was this?

A.  This was several months after I reached Treblinka.  I don't remember exactly when.

Q.  In 1942?

A.  Still in 1942.

Q.  What did they do to the women, to the women's hair?

A.  The women who came to the camp, as I have said, had to go to the left and to enter one of the buildings in the yard.  There they had to undress and to continue walking.  There was also a room there.  In a section of the room, there were men who were called "barbers."  They had to cut off the hair of these women before they entered this path.

Q.  Please tell me, did the people who were brought in the transports undergo some kind of selection in the camp, either for work or dispatch?

Q.  There was no selection, apart from those who were taken out for work.  Each time they took a number of people for work.

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Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


Q.  For work in connection with the extermination?

A.  Exactly.

Q.  Was there no other work in this camp?

A.  There was no other work.  It was all connected with the extermination.

Q.  Do you remember the late Dr. Chorazycki?

A.  I remember him very well.

Q.  Who was he?

A.  He was a doctor.  I think he came from Warsaw.  I'm not sure.  He attended to the Ukrainians and also to the Germans.

Q.  Was he together with you in Treblinka 1?

A.  Yes.  I remember that, on one occasion, one of the commanders, named Kurt Franz � he was an Untersturmführer, at first an Oberscharführer and afterwards he was promoted � searched him.  I don't know why he did this.  Perhaps someone had informed against him, or perhaps this was just a routine search which they made on most of the inmates of the camp; money was found on his person.  Chorazycki knew right away what was in store for him: Where money was found, people were instantly shot, killed or hanged.

Q.  Do you know for what purpose he was keeping this money?

A.  He was one of those who wanted to carry out an armed revolt.

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 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.

Q.  [Holds up a photograph]  Who is this?

A.  That is Kurt Franz, definitely.

Presiding Judge  This photograph will be marked exhibit T/1303.

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

Witness Teigman  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, Scharführer 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 Zügen 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 the 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.

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Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


Q.  We shall ask someone who as 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 Camp 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.  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 revolt.

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.

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Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


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 some 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?

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Testimony of Kalman Teigman of Treblinka


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, that was next to the second hut.

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

A.  Yes.  There were instances when 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.

Presiding Judge  Did this team remain there permanently, or was it replaced?

Witness Teigman  Actually, they were replaced.  But, at the end, when they took us into the building, after Stangl's speech, they retained the team permanently, in fact.  But, day after day, they would execute some and add others to the team.

Q.  For a special reason, or just at random?

A.  Usually, there were special reasons.  And there were also times when they did so for their amusement.  It is impossible to define this accurately.

Presiding Judge  Thank you, Mr. Teigman, you have concluded your testimony.


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THE EICHMANN TRIAL: PROCEEDINGS   Session No. 66   06-Jun-1961   p. 1212
Testimony of Eliahu Rosenberg of Treblinka


Attorney General  I call the next witness � Mr. Eliahu Rosenberg.
[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge  What is your full name?

Witness  Eliahu Rosenberg.

Attorney General  You are a storeman by profession?

Witness Rosenberg  Yes.

Q.  Where do you work?

A.  At Jaffa port.

Presiding Judge  How old are you now?

Witness Rosenberg  Thirty-five.

Attorney General  Until 1942, you were in Warsaw?

Witness Rosenberg  Yes.

Q.  And on 11 July 1942, you were deported to Treblinka?

A.  It was in the summer.

Q.  When you reached the railway station at Treblinka, in the midst of the great confusion, did a Jew come up to you and say something to you?

A.  He did not say it to me, but to his friend, and acquaintance of his, in Yiddish: "Moshe, chap a besem un rateve sich!"  (Moshe, grab a broom and save yourself!)

Q.  And what did that man do?

A.  This man took hold of a broom that was lying at the side, went into the freight cars and began sweeping cars.

Q.  What did you do?

A.  I overheard this.  At that time, an SS man arrived, by the name of Lolka, that's how he was called there.

Q.  Who was he?

A.  Kurt Franz.  He passed by with a Peitsche (whip) in his hand, and took men from the ranks who were sitting on the floor, several men, about thirty of them.  When I saw this, I jumped into this group, with a parcel in my hand, and I stood there together with them.

Q.  Were your mother and three sisters in the same transport?

A.  Yes, Sir.  When we alighted from the freight cars amidst the shouting, they transferred my mother and my sisters to the left-hand side.  I managed to exchange one word with my mother: "If you reach any place, write a letter to a Pole named Kowalsi in Warsaw, and I shall also send a letter to you, and in this way we shall know where we are."

Q.  You thought you would meet again?

A.  I thought we would meet again, and that I would know where she was.

Q.  You did not know that you were in an extermination camp?

A.  No, Sir, I did not know.

Q.  Did you see your mother or your sisters after this?

A.  No, Sir.  I got to know that they were in a particular grave.

Q.  Where were they buried � in Treblinka?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What happened to the group which you joined?

A.  When Kurt Franz chose the working party of thirty men, when he finished this selection, he began to shout and ask: "Who came in here without permission?"  Naturally,

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Testimony of Eliahu Rosenberg of Treblinka


none of these men knew who the extra one was.  I was then saved from certain death.  He made a sign to the Ukrainian standing by his side, I don't know what it was, but they began chasing us towards the first camp.  Inside the first camp, they told us to throw down the parcels we had with us, and we began sorting the parcels, an enormous heap of parcels: shoes separately, clothing separately, children's wear separately, gold separately, and all kinds of articles separately.  And I worked in this way the whole day.

Q.  And the next day?

A.  The next day, we went out in the morning � it was 11 o'clock � to a roll-call.  After the roll-call, they directed us to a heap, to do roughly the same thing � to sort out all these goods.  After a short while, SS Scharführer Matthias appeared and shouted: "Twenty men volunteers."  I was standing near him.  I was afraid that as I was standing near him and if I did not step forward, he would take revenge on me or strike me.  I stepped forward.  He said: "You are going out to light work for ten minutes."  They then took us to Camp 2, the death camp.

Q.  Where did they take you?

A.  They took us towards the gate which was camouflaged with pine branches.

Q.  Please look behind you, Mr. Rosenberg, are you able to identify what this picture is?

A.  That is the Treblinka camp.

Q.  Please be good enough to approach the picture.  You say this is the Treblinka camp.  Which way did they take you to the camouflaged gate?  Will you please point to it?

A.  [Points]  The gate was here, at this place, camouflaged with pine branches.  We reached this point.  When they opened the gate, we went in, here.  All of us were automatically in a state of shock, for we saw a pile of corpses.  And the German Matthias began shouting to this group � "An die Tragen" (to the stretchers).  We did not understand what was going on.  We began running around the bodies.  The Germans and the Ukrainians who were present there hit us.  We did not know what we were supposed to do.  The Jews who worked on removing the bodies said to us: "Take hold of the stretchers and put a body on each."  We seized a stretcher, another person and I, I don't know what his name was, we went up to this pile, and we took a body away on a stretcher.  We walked to the graves at this spot � 150 to 200 metres to the grave, and we threw the bodies down below.

Q.  Please show us where you lived in Treblinka 2 subsequently.

A.  In this hut [points to the hut between the building containing the gas chambers and the watch tower].

Q.  What was the depth of the grave into which you cast the bodies?

A.  The grave was six to seven metres deep.  It was built with a slope, in a conical shape.

Q.  And throughout the day you worked moving the bodies?

A.  The entire day I worked in transferring the bodies from the gas chambers to the graves.

Q.  And you also worked on this afterwards?

A.  The work was somewhat strange.  When we left for work in the morning, SS men divided us into working groups.  There were three kinds of labour there: there were the gas chambers, the transfer of the bodies to the graves, and after that, there was the burning of the bodies.

Q.  On the first night, the men who arrived together with you could not overcome the shock?

A.  Correct.

Q.  What did they do?

A.  Many of them hanged themselves with their belts.  One asked the next to pull the chair from underneath him, so that he should not suffer; we helped each other.

Q.  Did you witness the whole process of the extermination?

A.  I saw the entire process.

Q.  Describe it briefly to the Court.

A.  The people arrived from this famous "Himmelstrasse," which led from Camp 1 to Camp 2.  In the Himmelstrasse, SS men, the entire staff of Camp 2, stood there with dogs, with whips and bayonets.  The people walked past in silence.  That was at the beginning, in summer 1942.  They did not know where they were going.  When they entered the gas chambers, two Ukrainians stood next to the entrance � one was Ivan and the other was Nikolai.  They introduced the gas.

Q.  Where did the gas come from?

A.  The gas came from an engine.

Q.  They did not bring it from outside � it was produced on the spot?

A.  It was Ropa � Ropa gas.

Q.  Was it manufactured by an engine, from the exhaust of a diesel engine?

A.  Yes.  It was gas from an engine.  They put in Ropa, which was a kind of oil, a crude oil, and the fumes entered the gas chambers.  The people who were the last to enter the gas chambers, the very last, received stabs in the bodies from the bayonets, since the last persons already saw what was going on inside and did not want to enter.  Four hundred people were put into one small gas chamber.  And when they forced them in, they, on their part, pressed inwards and in this way reached the full capacity, so that only with difficulty could the outer door of the chamber be shut.

When they shut them in, we were standing on the outside.  We only heard cries of "Shema Yisrael," "Father," "Mother"; thirty-five minutes later they were dead.  Two

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Testimony of Eliahu Rosenberg of Treblinka


Germans stood there listening to what was going on inside.  Afterwards they said, "Alles Schläft" (They are all asleep).  They ordered us to open the door.  We opened the door and removed the bodies.

Q.  At a certain stage they began burning the bodies in the camp.  Is that correct?

A.  That was in February 1943.

Q.  Did someone visit the camp?

A.  In January 1943, Himmler arrived with a group of senior officers.  They inspected the camp.  After their visit an order was given to remove the bodies from the graves.

Q.  After the visit, did they begin exhuming the bodies from the graves?

A.  After the visit, they began removing the bodies from the graves with dredgers.

Q.  Where did they remove them from � are you able to point that out on the sketch?

A.  Yes.  Here [he points to the pits] were the graves, and here were the incinerators.  The dredgers removed the bodies, dumped them on the ground, and here, using wooden stretchers, we threw the bodies and parts of bodies down next to the incinerators and with pitchforks threw the bodies into the incinerators which were set alight with matches.

Presiding Judge  What are these walls between the pits � was this how it was?

Witness Rosenberg  These were piles of sand which were dug from the graves.

Attorney General  Please return to the witness stand, Mr. Rosenberg.

During the time you were in Treblinka, did a transport arrive every day?

Witness Rosenberg  In 1942, a transport arrived every day, until the winter of 1943.  Then the daily transports stopped, and they used to arrive once in two or three days.

Q.  How many men worked with you in removing the bodies from the gas chambers?

A.  In Camp 2, there were roughly two hundred men.

Q.  How many were engaged in this work?

A.  All of them.

Q.  Did the people who arrived at Treblinka remain there overnight, or were they exterminated the same day?

A.  They were exterminated the same day.  And when a large transport arrived, they put them into the gas chambers, and we took them out the next morning.  They did not remain alive until the following morning.

Presiding Judge  I did not understand that.  When were these people from the last transport exterminated � that same evening?

Witness Rosenberg  When the last transport arrived, it was already night-time � they evidently were afraid to let us work at night, so they put us into our huts, and those who arrived in the evening were put into the gas chambers at night, and we transferred them to the graves in the morning.

Q.  When did they introduce the gas?

A.  At night.

Attorney General  Where did the people who were exterminated in Treblinka come from?

Witness Rosenberg  At the beginning, they came from Poland, from Warsaw, Czestochowa, from the small towns.  Afterwards from almost the whole of Europe � they came from Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland and Serbia.

Q.  How do you know that?

A.  When I removed the bodies from the gas chambers, the people, mostly women, had hidden all kinds of documents and money in their private parts, and they fell out afterwards, and we saw them.  There were many cases of people from the gas chambers who remained alive.

Q.  What happened to them?

A.  Those who survived were mainly children, small children who slipped to the floor, and when we opened the gas chambers and removed the bodies, we saw children underneath who had remained alive.  The Germans took them away and shot them.

Dr. Servatius  I have no question to the witness.

Judge Halevi  Which part of the camp did Himmler visit?

Witness Rosenberg  We were then spread throughout the entire camp; we were engaged then on all sorts of tasks.  The Germans came that day and made us go into our hut.  It was about 11.00 a.m.  This is the hut here [indicates it on the sketch].  On the other side, there were small apertures in the door.  The hut was open.  Himmler stood precisely on this spot with all his entourage.  From here, it was a distance of seven to ten metres, and I looked at him.  He stood speaking there for about ten minutes, he gave some orders, he indicated something with his hand and left.

Q.  Who put the people into the gas chambers?

A.  I have already pointed out that these buildings were the gas chambers.  There were three chambers in this one.  Four hundred people went in here.  The people came from the Himmelstrasse, from the place we called Schlauch, they went in here, there was a corridor inside, and they were pushed into the gas chambers.  Ukrainians and Germans pushed them with bayonets, so that they should enter more quickly, so that they should press inside fast, and after that they shut them in.

Q.  Did SS men do that � or the Ukrainians?

A.  Both together.


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Testimony of Eliahu Rosenberg of Treblinka


Q.  Were the Ukrainians in uniform?

A.  Yes, they were in uniform.

Q.  What uniform?

A.  Black.

Q.  Like that of the SS men?

A.  No, the SS men wore green uniforms.  And they had a symbol � the Death's Head.

Q.  And who introduced the gas � only the two Ukrainians?

A.  Yes, Ivan and Nikolai.

Q.  Always?

A.  Yes, always.

Presiding Judge  In each such building were there several chambers?

Witness Rosenberg  I have already said that this building had three chambers.  Here, there were five on this side and five on that side.  Once � and I remember this well � all the gas chambers were operating.  Ten thousand people entered all at once, within forty-five minutes.  This was a transport of thirteen thousand persons who had arrived on that day.

Q.  Was each chamber hermetically sealed?

A.  Yes, every chamber was sealed absolutely hermetically.

Q.  How?

A.  Here, there was a kind of folding door.  Before the people went inside, we closed it.  This was a door that opened downwards.  We extracted the "clins."

Q.  What are "clins"?

A.  They were pieces of wood that used to hold the doors in place.  When the door was folded and fell to the bottom, there were actually two boards there.  One was on top of the door and the other at the bottom, and again, with these pieces of wood, these clins, we closed it hermetically and stood to the side.  After thirty to forty minutes...

Q.  Did you attend this hermetic closing?

A.  Yes, Sir.  We closed it from the outside.  Before that, the Germans stood on the ramp and watched what was going on inside.  When they said "alles schläft," we opened it up and stood aside for three minutes until the fumes had dispersed, and then we removed them.  We threw them down from this ramp.

Presiding Judge  Mr. Rosenberg, you have concluded your testimony.


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Testimony of Avraham Lindwasser of Treblinka


Attorney General  I call Avraham Lindwasser.

Presiding Judge  Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Lindwasser  Yes. [The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge  What is your full name?

Witness  Avraham Lindwasser.

Q.  How old are you now?

A.  Forty-two.

Attorney General  You live in Givatayim, and you are an electrician by profession, is that correct?

Witness Lindwasser  Yes.

Q.  You work for the Ministry of Defence � is that correct?

A.  Yes.

Q.  On 28 August 1942, you arrived at Treblinka from Warsaw?

A.  Correct.

Q.  Was there some notice at the station, in German and Polish?

A.  Correct.

Q.  What did it say?

A.  "Jews, after you have bathed and changed your clothes, the journey will continue to the East, to work."

Q.  Did they allow you to alight quietly?

A.  No.

Q.  What happened?

A.  They opened the freight cars, we heard the order: "Get out," there were shouts.  We began getting off.  They struck us with clubs all the time we were getting off, so that they did not give us an opportunity to understand where we were or what was happening; we were chased straight away to the square, and there we were ordered to hand over our money and jewellery; we were then told to remove our shoes.

Q.  Who gave the orders?

A.  We heard a voice � who it was, exactly...

Q.  No, but who � to what unit did these people belong?  Were they Germans or others?

A.  Germans, SS men.

Q.  And you did what you were ordered to do?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What happened to you after that?

A.  Suddenly, we heard an order to line up.  We lined up.  We were made to stand there � again, all the time, I want to stress, with blows � they arranged us in rows, in threes.  One of them passed through the ranks � later I heard that he was

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Testimony of Avraham Lindwasser of Treblinka


called the Hauptmann with the glasses, and he did wear glasses.  He began asking us, one by one, what was his profession.  When he reached me, he looked at me � I also wore glasses, in a gold frame.  He asked me if that was gold.  I said: "Yes."  "And do you know what gold is, do you know what silver is, do you know what jewellery is?"  I said: "Yes."  I received a further blow from a club, and he told me to step forward.  Next to me stood a Jew who was an electrical engineer, and he was also ordered to step forward.  The two of us left the line.  Apart from us, none of the transport stepped forward.

Q.  How many people were there in that transport?

A.  It is hard for me to say, but more than one thousand.

Q.  Please look behind you.  Are you able to tell the Court whether you recognize it, whether you can tell what it is?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What is it?

A.  That is the Treblinka camp.

Q.  Can you show the Court where, on the photograph, that incident occurred where that man approached you and asked you whether you knew how to distinguish between gold and silver?

A.  It was at this spot [points to the photograph].

Q.  In front of the huts where the people undressed?

A.  Yes.

Q.  You may return to your place.

When you came there, did you know what was the place you had arrived at?

A.  No.  I knew it was Treblinka, but we did not know the purpose.

Q.  Had you heard about Treblinka in Warsaw?

A.  We had heard about Treblinka.

Q.  Did you know that Jews were being exterminated at Treblinka?

A.  We did not believe it.

Q.  You did not believe it.  Why?

A.  Why?  This would, perhaps, be difficult to answer.  Possibly, it is an individual matter for each person.  One simply could not grasp that such a thing was possible � actual extermination.  Rumours reached Warsaw that the Germans were sending people out to work.  And simply, it was better to cling to this idea.

Presiding Judge  What is the distance between Warsaw and Treblinka, approximately?

Witness Lindwasser  About sixty kilometres.

Attorney General  Did you, already on that day, notice corpses?

Witness Lindwasser  Yes, after I was brought into the death camp.

Q.  Was that Treblinka 1 or 2?

A.  It was 2.

Q.  What did you think it was?

A.  At the beginning, when I entered the place � I was brought in by a German, also one of the SS � whose name I subsequently learned was Matthias.  He took me inside, and we were immediately ordered to take hold of bodies and drag them towards the graves.  At first, I thought that the corpses came from the freight cars, people who had died, who were suffocated in the cars, and I was certain that they were undergoing some kind of disinfection here and then were to be buried.

Q.  Towards evening, you again came across the Hauptmann with the glasses?

A.  Correct.

Q.  What did he say to you when he saw that you were dragging bodies?

A.  Why was I carrying bodies?  After all, I was a dentist.

Q.  You were a dentist?

A.  Yes.  But that was the first time I heard this word "dentist."

Q.  What did he do to you?

A.  He pulled me by the sleeve, seized me by the hand, by the sleeve, dragged me by force, again with blows � I want to stress this, although I have already stressed it � and he brought me to a well.  Next to the well, there were basins with gold teeth and also pairs of forceps for extracting teeth.  He ordered me to take a pair of forceps and to extract the teeth from the bodies by the side of the cabins.

Q.  This was adjoining the gas chambers?

A.  Next to the small gas chambers.

Q.  Before the men transferred the bodies to the pit?

A.  Before they were taken to the pits.

Q.  And you did this?

A.  Yes.

Q.  And you were doing this work until the outbreak of the revolt in Treblinka?

A.  Not exactly.  I was occupied in this work for approximately one month, a month and a half, perhaps less, perhaps more, until once I recognized my sister's body.

Q.  She was lying there, dead?

A.  Yes.

Q.  What did you do then?

A.  Then, the commander of our group was Dr.

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Testimony of Avraham Lindwasser of Treblinka


Zimmermann; I asked him to take me back to the cabin, I could not continue with this.

Presiding Judge  Who was this Zimmermann?

Witness Lindwasser  Dr. Zimmermann was the Kapo of the dentists.

Q.  A Jewish Kapo?

A.  A Jewish Kapo, yes, but nevertheless one deserving of commendation.

Q.  What did you request of him?

A.  That he should take me off teeth extraction and put me on to cleaning the teeth in the cabin, inside the building where we were living.

Q.  Teeth were being cleaned there?

A.  Teeth were being cleaned there.

Attorney General  And you were transferred there?

Witness Lindwasser  Yes.

Q.  How much gold from teeth was sent out of Treblinka each week?

A.  Each week two suitcases were sent off, each of them containing about eight to ten kilograms.

Q.  Where were they sent to?

A.  They were delivered again to this Matthias, who was the chief of our camp � in fact, the chief of our barracks, of the building where we lived � and he told us that they were dispatching them to Berlin.

Q.  Were they gold teeth only?

A.  Gold teeth and also false teeth, that is to say, they were removed from the artificial frame.

Presiding Judge  They used to remove false teeth as well?

Witness Lindwasser  False teeth as well.

Q.  Made of what material?

A.  The artificial frame itself...

Q.  What was the value of this material?

A.  For them, the value was evidently that of the teeth only, for they ordered us to throw the artificial frames into the pits.  We used to remove the teeth only, with a flame.  We used to heat them, the teeth would come out, and the frames were thrown into the pits.

Q.  You removed the gold teeth from the frames?

A.  Not only gold � porcelain also.

Attorney General  Rings, wedding rings?  Did you handle those?

Witness Lindwasser  There were some, but not many.  They hardly reached us.  As far as we knew, they removed them already in Camp 1.

Q.  How did the Germans describe the transports of Jews?  What was the expression?

A.  They called these bodies Die Figuren (the figures), and they called the actual transport by all kinds of disreputable expressions.

Q.  Such as?

A.  "Die Scheisse, die Lumpen" (the shit, the scoundrels), and other such terms.

Q.  What did you do on the first night you reached the place?

A.  After I knew what my job was to be, I could not stand it.  I tried to commit suicide.  I was already hanging by my belt, when a bearded Jew � I don't know his name � took me down.  He began preaching to me, that while the work in which we were going to be engaged was contemptible and not the kind of thing one ought to do, nevertheless, we should tolerate it and ought to make efforts, so that at least someone should survive who would be able to relate what was happening here, and this would be my duty, since I had light work and would be able to go on living and be of help to others.

Q.  Were you working near the gas chambers?

A.  Yes.

Q.  Did you notice anything at the entrance?

A.  The entrance to which chambers?  For while we worked at the gas chambers, inside the corridor of the small gas chambers, we also could see the gas chambers at the end.  On one occasion, I was even taken � again by that Matthias � to the first camp, in order to fetch pairs of forceps for extracting teeth, since extra men had been added to our group.  We passed by the large chambers and, on the way back, I saw a big curtain at the entrance to the large chambers, a curtain used to cover the Ark containing the Torah Scrolls with the Shield of David on it, and on the curtain there was the inscription: "This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter."

Q.  In Hebrew?

A.  Yes.

Presiding Judge  Was that a curtain of the Ark from a synagogue?

Witness Lindwasser  It was a curtain for the Ark � whether it was precisely from a synagogue, I do not know.  But it was of quite large dimensions � it measured three by four metres, something like that.

Attorney General  Was there normally contact between you and Treblinka 1?

Witness Lindwasser  Not normally.

Q.  Were there any people who were able to cross from one to the other?

A.  Definitely.  There was one man.

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Testimony of Avraham Lindwasser of Treblinka


Q.  Who was he?

A.  Ya'akov Wiernik.  He used to perform all kinds of tasks there.

Q.  Do you recall the visit, on one occasion, of a high-ranking Nazi personality?

A.  Definitely.

Q.  When was that?

A.  In December 1942 or January 1943.

Q.  Who was the visitor?

A.  I should like to stress something else.  We were then working inside our hut, and, for some reason or other, they forgot to send us into the building.

Q.  But who was the visitor?

A.  The visitor was Himmler, together with several others.

Q.  Did you identify Himmler?

A.  Definitely.

Q.  How many people were there in the team which removed the teeth from the bodies?

A.  In the first stage, four to six men took part, later on the number was increased to twelve, after they began removing the bodies from the graves.

Q.  And when the revolt broke out, you fled with those escaping?

A.  Correct.

Q.  When was that?

A.  On 2 August 1943.

Presiding Judge  Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions?

Dr. Servatius  Yes.  According to what you said, you saw Himmler in the camp.  How many men were there in his entourage?

Witness Lindwasser  It is difficult for me to remember the exact number.  About four more, amongst them one in civilian clothes.

Q.  What uniform was he wearing?

A.  He wore a leather coat.

Presiding Judge  What colour?

Witness Lindwasser  Bluish.

Dr. Servatius  Was there anything else special about his uniform?  Was there a sign of his rank?

Witness Lindwasser  Generally speaking, I am not familiar with the German ranks.  I was not aware of German ranks apart from Unterscharführer and Scharführer which we encountered there.  I already knew him in the ghetto from his picture, as it appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter.

Presiding Judge  You identified him according to the picture which you saw in the Völkischer Beobachter even beforehand?  How did the Völkischer Beobachter get to you?

Witness Lindwasser  Newspapers such as these reached the ghetto and reached us even before there was a ghetto.  All kinds of pictures of salutes and such like.

Dr. Servatius  What kind of uniforms did the men accompanying him wear � black or green?

Witness Lindwasser  As I stressed, one of them was a civilian.  There were black uniforms.  One was in a brown uniform with a hat like that of the French army, a round cap with a kind of peak.

Q.  Witness, I have before me the contents of your previous statement which you submitted, document No. 1617.  I have before me only a summary in German.  But is says here, inter alia, that together with Himmler there was an officer, tall and lean, who wore a black uniform like Himmler, but Himmler could be distinguished by the fact that he had red lapels.  But, at any rate, what is written in the summary differs from what you have said in the witness box.  Do you wish to amend your previous statement?

A.  I maintain, and maintained in the past, that the tall officer, namely Himmler, was in a leather coat, but underneath his coat it appeared to be red here [he points to his lapels].

Presiding Judge  After all, those are lapels of the jacket, and it says "epaulettes."

Witness Lindwasser  I did not say "epaulettes" � I said lapels, flaps � we used to call them flaps.

Attorney General  In his statement it says "lapels."

Presiding Judge  Perhaps the translation was not exact.

Dr. Servatius  That may be so, but I have the translation that was handed to me, and it does not correspond to what the witness said here.

Presiding Judge  He now says that he wore a leather coat, and under the coat he saw red lapels, that is to say Aufschlëge.

Judge Halevi  He also said that he wore a black uniform underneath the leather coat.

Presiding Judge  [To witness]  What was the colour of the uniform under the coat?

Witness Lindwasser  Black.

Dr. Servatius  And was the officer who accompanied him, the tall and lean one, was he also wearing a black uniform?

Witness Lindwasser  Correct.

Dr. Servatius  I have no further questions.

Attorney General  I have no questions.

Presiding Judge  Thank you, Mr. Lindwasser, you have concluded your testimony.


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