The Nazis realised at an early stage that there was a need for permanent and experienced working groups
of prisoners to ensure that the death camp operations ran smoothly. Jewish specialists were able to work
at their individual skills, as long as they were fit and served a purpose; arbitrary executions became a rarity.
However the execution of those who fell ill continued.
At
Belzec, the first operational death camp within the
Aktion Reinhard sphere, camp commandant
Christian Wirth developed guidelines for the extermination
of the Jews and for the supervision of the Jewish work brigades. Those unable to work were exterminated.
Moshe Bahir, who arrived in
Sobibor in
May/June 1942
with a transport of Jews from
Zamosc, wrote:
“
To my great good fortune I was part of the second transport, some of whose
members were selected as permanent workers. Before that, they would take out 200 men from each transport
to load the belongings. As soon as the work was finished, they shot them. I however, was privileged to be
counted among the permanent workers of the camp.”
In charge of each working group was a
Kapo, chosen from among the prisoners. The
Kapo
was responsible for the work the prisoners performed, and the prisoners had to obey his orders.
He wore a yellow armband bearing the black letters "KAPO", and was armed with a club or a whip.
Larger work teams were sub-divided, and each sub-group was headed by a foreman (
Vorarbeiter),
whose black armband bore his title. An SS man from among the German staff of the camp was in charge
of each prisoner work group. In some cases one SS man supervised two or three of the work groups.
Platform workers (Bahnhofskommando)
This group of 40 - 50 prisoners worked at the train platform. The team’s job was to open the freight car
doors and transmit to the passengers the orders of the SS men who received the transports to disembark
from the train. After the deportees disembarked, the team’s workers removed the bodies of those that had
died en route and in
Treblinka transferred them to the "
Lazarett",
or into metal carts that ran on rails into
the extermination area. At
Belzec, a Jewish work brigade carried on
stretchers the bodies of those that had died to a special grave close to the eastern boundary of the camp.
In all of the camps, two or three prisoners would clean each freight car, and within 10 - 15 minutes the entire
train had been cleaned. In
Treblinka the platform workers team
wore blue armbands and were known as “the blues.”
Oscar Strawczynski wrote about his arrival
at
Treblinka:
"
We run out as fast as we can to avoid the whips lashing overhead,
and find ourselves on a long, narrow platform, crowded to capacity. All familiar faces — neighbours
and acquaintances. The dust is so tremendous, it obscures the sunlight. A smell of charred flesh
stifles the breath. Unwittingly, I catch a glimpse of the mountains of clothing, shoes, bedding and
all kinds of wares that can be seen over the fence. But there is no time to think... The dense mass
of people is pushed towards and jammed through a gate. At this time I just have one thought -
not to lose my dearest ones in all this chaos. I succeed in keeping together my wife, two beautiful
children, mother and father. Little do I know that these are our last minutes together, that behind
that gate we would be torn apart and we would never see each other again...
In that great tumult I do not notice that the work on the platform, such as clearing the people
and leftover luggage from the trains, and herding and pushing the crowd toward the gate,
is performed by a detachment of around thirty Jewish men wearing blue armbands. This is the
detachment of “Blues”, commanded by Kapo Mayer.
On the platform there are also SS men, the
Ukrainian Wachmänner (watchmen) of
Treblinka.”
Thomas Blatt wrote this about his reception by the
Sobibor Bahnhofskommando:
“
I heard people singing, and I jumped down and went outside.
The gate opened wide, and in marched a group of about twenty robust youths. They wore dark blue
overalls and fancy caps, with the letter 'B' embroidered within a yellow triangle. The leader
held a whip and issued a sharp command in German: 'Abteilung! - Halt!’ A few steps forward
and the group halted; with the next command, everyone dispersed.
If I had not heard them speak Yiddish after they broke ranks, I would have mistaken them for
German soldiers. Though I had seen them with my own eyes, I still couldn’t believe they were
really Jews. I found out later that the 'B’ stood for Bahnhofskommando, the train brigade.”
Transport Square Workers (Transportkommando)
This group of about 40 prisoners was engaged in the activities carried out on the square where
the victims undressed. They directed the victims, relayed the German’s orders to undress, and
distributed string for tying shoes together, so that the shoes could easily be re-used without having
to sort through thousands of pairs.
The team workers aided in the undressing of small children and in taking the clothes and baggage
left by the victims to the sorting areas or stores. They also carried deportees who were ill or too
weak to make their own way to the gas chambers to the "
Lazarett", where the victims were
executed by a shot in the back of the head. In
Treblinka
the "
Lazarett" was located in the reception area, in
Sobibor in a former chapel inside the extermination area, and in
Belzec in the extermination area, by the eastern boundary.
Oscar Strawczynski wrote about the
Transportkommando at
Treblinka:
“
But there, on that sorrowful transport square, there is no time for tears
or feelings. I scarcely have time to hand my wife the carefully hidden blanket for the children.
A brutal hand grips my shoulder and I am hurled to the other side of the square. I manage to
stay with my gentle father. The place is packed with people. On one side are women with
small children, on the opposite side, men, forced to kneel. In the middle there are SS men,
Ukrainians with weapons in their hands as well as a group of about 40 men with red armbands.
These are Jews - the detachment of “Reds”. In Treblinka
slang they are called “Chevra Kedusha” (Society for Last Rites).
Kapo Yurek was their leader, a
Warsaw rickshaw driver, so corrupt and
debauched, no deed was too foul for him. This brute would not hesitate to take aside a girl,
already naked, on her march to the “bath”. Promising to save her, he would do the worst, then
push her back into the line. He is dressed elegantly, as that type of person could easily
afford to be in Treblinka. He works his whip frequently
and with gusto on Jewish heads. As foul and corrupt as he was, his language was even worse.
The vernacular of the Warsaw
underworld was nothing new in Treblinka.
There were great artists in that field, but no one could surpass
Yurek. In short, he was quite a notable of
Treblinka’s aristocracy. Most of the “Reds” were
recruited from the Warsaw underworld, and did
not fall far short of their Kapo.”
The Gold Jews (Goldjuden)
This group comprised approximately 20 people, most of them former jewellers, watchmakers,
and bank clerks. Their task was to receive and sort the money, gold, valuables, foreign currency,
and bonds taken from the deported Jews. Some of this group worked at the undressing area,
receiving money and valuables from the victims on their way to the
gas chambers. Members
of this group had to carry out body searches on women after the latter had stripped and before
they were taken to the gas chambers. The women had to lie on a special table, where they would
be thoroughly searched, including their genitalia.
One section of this group worked at the square and stores where the belongings left by the
victims were sorted and checked. They received the money and valuables and prepared them for
shipment from the camp. These “Gold Jews” were
considered extremely privileged, because
they could secretly siphon off money and valuables of considerable worth, even in the camp.
For their part, the SS personnel needed them to secure their own share of the wealth that
passed through the camp.
Samuel Willenberg
wrote about the
Goldjuden at
Treblinka:
"
The prisoners responsible for collecting and sorting the
gold, jewellery, money and other valuables which had reached the transport square were
known as Goldjuden, and wore yellow shoulder bands to distinguish them. At any one time,
several of them would wander about the sorting-yard collecting any valuables we had
found in the clothing. Goldjuden were considered the elite of the prisoners; their work was
relatively tranquil, they sat in a closed, warm hut under the supervision of SS man
Franz Suchomel, a German from the
Sudetenland, who spoke good Czech. Suchomel
usually assigned Czech Jews who came from
Terezin (Theresienstadt) to this Kommando.
Ordinary prisoners were not admitted to the hut where the Goldjuden did their work.
The Goldjuden were better dressed than the other prisoners, going about in elegant coats,
colourful scarves and leather gloves. They looked more like bankers than prisoners,
especially when carrying the briefcases in which they stored the valuables found in the
clothing of people who had just been murdered.”
The Hair Cutters (Friseure)
This group comprised those prisoners who cut the hair of the women victims before they
entered the gas chambers. They numbered about twenty men, mostly professional barbers. In
Sobibor the barbers’ shop was located in a special barrack in the
middle of the “tube”, and in
Belzec was in a
barrack close to the gas chambers. At
Treblinka, in the initial
stages of the camp’s existence, the hair cutting was carried out in the gas chambers. Subsequently the
barbers worked in the barracks near to the entrance gates to the “tube” where the women undressed.
The hair-cutting was carried out at the end of the barrack, separated from the other section by a partition wall.
Abraham Bomba wrote about the barbers’
Kommando at
Treblinka:
“
This was about four weeks after I was in
Treblinka. It was in the morning around ten o’clock,
when a transport came to Treblinka
and the women went into the gas chambers. They chose some people from the working people
over there, and they asked who was a barber, who was not a barber. I was a barber for
quite a number of years, and some of them knew me – people from
Czestochowa and other places.
So naturally, they chose me and I selected some more barbers who I knew, and we got together.
We worked inside the gas chamber for about a week or ten days. After that they decided that
we will cut their hair in the undressing barrack. It was not a big room around 12 feet square;
we waited there until the transport came in. Women with children pushed into that place.
We, the barbers, started to cut their hair, and I would say all of them already knew what was
going to happen to them. We tried to do the best we could – to be the most human we could.
We cut the hair with scissors and comb, without any clippers. Just like a man’s haircut, I would say.
There were no mirrors, there were just benches - no chairs, just benches – where we worked,
about sixteen or seventeen barbers, and we had a lot of women in. Every haircut took about two
minutes, no more than that, because there were a lot of women to come in and have their
hair cut. We were quite a number of us professional barbers, and the way we did it, was with
big movements, because we did not want to waste any time.”
Thomas Blatt wrote about the barbers’
Kommando
at
Sobibor:
“
Our job in this section done, SS-Oberscharführer
Karl Frenzel randomly chose four prisoners,
myself included, and led us to the hair-cutting barrack, less than twenty feet from the gas
chambers. Inside were simple wooden chairs. Josef Wolf,
a short dark, middle-aged SS man, stood in the centre of the room. I was given large shears
and told to wait. The women began to enter. I didn’t know what to do.
'Just snip quickly in bunches,’ a comrade told me, 'it does not need to be close to the head.’
I was terribly shy. I had never seen a nude woman before. Like all fifteen year- olds, I wanted to,
but I felt embarrassed for the naked and humiliated women. I tried not to look directly at them,
and they looked down and tried to cover themselves.
Not all the women reacted the same way. One woman resisted, refusing to move. When a Nazi
hit her with a whip, she attacked him with her fists and nails, but the German bullet was faster
and killed her instantly. Now most were resigned and passive. A teenager wept at the loss
of her lovely locks, asking not to have it cut too short. They were going to die in only a few
minutes and there was nothing we could do. After the women left, we packed the hair into
potato sacks, which were then taken to a nearby storeroom.”
The Sorting Team for Clothing and Belongings (Lumpenkommando)
This was the largest labour team, numbering some 80 - 120 people (
Treblinka),
and was subdivided into several smaller groups. The team worked in the square where the victims’ belongings were piled,
and in the storage sheds. Their main job was to collect the victims’ clothing and belongings,
examine them, sort them by categories, tie them in bundles of 10 - 25 units for each category,
prepare them for shipment, and load them onto freight cars. The team workers were given a
personal number, which they wore on their collars, and which they had to list on each bundle
they prepared. The clothing was first examined for documents, photographs, hidden money,
and valuables, as well as the yellow star or any other mark which could identify the clothing and
other items as having belonged to Jews. All these were to be removed; any sloppiness in not
removing all traces of the Jewish markings would result in the person responsible paying for his mistake with his life.
Illustrations from
Samuel Willenberg and
Richard Glazar demonstrate the work of the sorting
Kommando in
Treblinka:
“
Like peddlers in a Persian market who trumpet praise of their wares,
the foreman Kapos shouted `Work, work faster!’ Their roaring reverberated across the
vast yard. Like everyone else, I worked at breakneck speed. Anything I touched had to be
sorted not only by type of cloth but even by quality. Worthless rags were thrown onto special
white sheets, tied into bundles and lugged to open storage areas in the middle of the yard.
These white bundles stretched in piles for hundreds of meters, creating eerie avenues of coats,
jackets, dresses and other garments.
At a murderous pace, accompanied by the mad cries of the foreman, we worked and sorted
all these personal effects. Now and then we found various documents – birth certificates,
passports, money, family photos, letters from relatives, diplomas, university degrees,
professional certificates, doctors’ licences. I sorted glasses, knives, spoons, pots, and scissors,
stuffing them like everyone else into suitcases at my side. Bent double, we worked like madmen.
Suddenly, as if by order, the foremen began to scream `Koirem! Koirem!’ - a vulgarization of the
term from the Hebrew liturgy meaning bend - and everyone began working even more frantically.
We tossed the belongings of murdered Jews into the air, creating an impression of rapid progress.’
`Late in the afternoon Küttner bursts into Barrack `A’ like
some enormous piece of hot iron slag and has all the sorted bundles counted, thus
ascertaining that there are a total of 132 bundles of men shirts, instead of the reported 205.
Missing are 73 bundles of men’s shirts, packed ten to a bundle. There is a small pile of
approximately 20 items yet to be sorted. Apart from these there are no shirts in
Treblinka, or sports jackets either. With a final
clicking of his heels, First Sergeant Küttner looks
up from his journal. 'The two supervisors from Barracks `A’, forward. As a punishment they
will be sent to Camp 2 as common labourers.'
To the second camp – to the death camp. They’ll be dead to us.”
The Forest Team (Waldkommando) and the Camouflage Team (Tarnungskommando)
A special group known as the
Waldkommando, which numbered a few dozen prisoners,
was set up to cut wood for heating and cooking in the camp. It was put to work in the dense forests
that were near the camp. When the cremation of corpses started, the team was enlarged, for it had to
supply the wood for the pyres on which the corpses were burned.
In
Treblinka a second prisoners’ group worked outside the camp.
It was called the camouflage
Kommando and numbered approximately 25 members. Its task
was to camouflage with branches the camp’s outer and inner fences, especially the fences around the
extermination area and the “tube”. The team workers would cut branches in the forests and weave
them into the barbed-wire fences. Since it was constantly necessary to replace dried-out branches
with fresh ones, the camouflage work was continuous.
These groups of prisoners left the camp confines under a strong guard of Germans and Ukrainians.
Thomas Blatt described the
Sobibor Waldkommando:
“
I decided to try the Waldkommando next. The work performed
there also took place outside the barbed wire of the camp. This particular group supplied wood
for the crematorium by cutting down trees and digging out the stumps. Although this area was
heavily guarded, we were out of view of the guards in the towers. Maybe, just maybe, there
was a chance to escape. I had been looking for an opportunity to merge into the
Waldkommando to check the possibilities there.
One morning I asked Foreman Podchlebnik
to permit me to join his group. I was accepted. The group was composed of 20 Polish Jews
and 20 Dutch Jews. Each morning we went to the forest about three miles outside the camp.
It turned out that we were in fact heavily guarded, one guard for every two prisoners.
True we had weapons – axes and saws to cut down trees – but the Ukrainians had a special
strategy in guarding us. They stood at a greater distance from the prisoners than usual,
their weapons ready at all times."
The work was tortuous, supervised by the SS men
Hubert Gomerski and
Werner Dubois.
Gomerski in particular
was known for his cruelty. On
20 July 1943, there was an attempted
escape from the
Sobibor Waldkommando, as described
by
Thomas Blatt:
“
Finally, we were ordered to stop and form a semi-circle in the
centre of the meadow between Lager II and Lager III. Now I noticed a group of
people sitting on the grass with their hands behind their heads. SS-Untersturmführer
Johann Niemann made a speech:
`Some prisoners in the Waldkommando tried to escape. Only the Dutch Jews showed their
integrity by not trying to run away. As a reward for this, they will be allowed back to work and they
will not be punished. In a moment, the recaptured Polish Jews of the Waldkommando
will be executed and this will be the destiny of anyone who even dreams of running away.’
A few yards from the condemned stood two Ukrainian assistants who carried out the executions.
Two at a time, the prisoners were motioned forward. Apathetically they moved to the appointed place.
All spent their last seconds of life looking straight ahead at the pointed rifles. Of all those sacrificed,
only one protested - Podchlebnik, the foreman of the
Waldkommando. A second before he was executed, he spat towards the Germans and
yelled `Remember, there will come a time when we will be avenged!’”
Other Commands:
Groups of prisoners were engaged in the construction of barracks, in stringing barbed wire fences,
and in paving roads inside the camps.
In the autumn and winter a special potato
Kommando was established, at least in
Treblinka. To prevent the
potatoes from spoiling, special cellars were built. Some prisoners worked in the vegetable garden,
or in the pigsty, chicken coop, or cowshed. A few prisoners were employed in cleaning and
disinfecting the huts and toilets.
There were also prisoners who supplied direct personal services to the SS and Ukrainians.
They included doctors, dentists and several barbers. A small group of boys was employed to
polish and clean the shoes and uniforms of the SS personnel. These boys worked in and
around the SS barracks.
In addition there were groups of skilled workers, such as tailors, shoemakers, smiths, mechanics,
carpenters, and others, collectively known as the “Court Jews” (
Treblinka).
Work Commands in the Death Camp Area
The Gas Chamber Body Disposal Team
This group of several dozen men (
Treblinka)
had the job of removing the bodies from the gas chambers
and taking them through the rear doors to the concrete ramps built alongside the chambers.
There they laid out the bodies for removal by the body transport team. The body disposal team’s
work was the hardest, both physically and emotionally. After gassing, the hundreds of people
packed standing up in the gas chambers became a solid block of bodies. Separating and
removing them was extremely difficult. At times the workers who entered the chambers immediately
after they were opened were themselves poisoned by the residue of gas remaining there.
The Body Transport Team (Leichenkommando)
This was the largest prisoner work team in the extermination area, comprising some one
hundred men (
Treblinka). Its task was to carry the bodies from the
ramps/ platforms of the gas chambers to the mass burial ditches.
After experimenting with various ideas for conveying the bodies, the Germans fixed upon using stretchers as the
quickest method (
Treblinka). Two men carried the stretcher, which looked
like a ladder with leather carrying straps attached. The bodies were placed on the stretchers face up to
facilitate the work of the "dentists".
Elihau Rosenberg
testified at the trial of
John Demjanjuk
(allegedly “Ivan the Terrible”):
“
I managed to make a friend of one of the "dentists", who has
since died, by the name of Lindwasser.
Now when I came to Lindwasser, this "dentist",
he too, was scared to death. I said, `Avraham,
be a little slower in looking for the gold teeth,’ because that was the one second when I
could rest. Somehow I rested the stretcher on my knees, because I was crouching as it were.
For me this one second made all the difference. It did give me this tiny bit of respite.
Later he (Lindwasser) became one of the
Bademeisters, the shower cleaners, who washed the chambers and cleaned the
ramp between gassings. Sitting there on the ramp, he saw
Ivan and Nikolai
perform their tasks and heard death come to those inside the chambers.”
The Gas Chamber and Tube Cleaners
This group cleaned the blood and excrement off of the floor and walls of the gas chambers,
since the chambers had to be clean before a new group of victims was admitted.
They also cleaned the “tube” and scattered fresh sand onto the ground there.
The Dentists (Zahnärzte)
The prisoners’ work team known as the
Dentisten was located between the gas
chambers and the burial ditches. It numbered about twenty to thirty men whose job it was
to extract with pliers the gold, platinum, and false teeth from the corpses. The dentists
also examined the bodies, especially those of women, for valuables hidden in the body’s
orifices. Part of the team worked at cleaning and sorting the extracted teeth and
preparing them for shipment.
The Burial Detail (Beerdigungskommando)
This group of several dozen men worked at the burial ditches. After the victims’ bodies were
thrown into the pit by the body transport workers, the corpses were arranged in rows by the
burial detail. To save space, the bodies were arranged head to foot; each head lying
between the feet of two other corpses, and each pair of feet between two heads. Sand or
chlorine was scattered between the layers of bodies. Approximately one half the team worked
inside the ditches arranging the corpses; simultaneously the other half of the team covered
a layer of bodies with sand. When a ditch was filled, it was topped off with earth and
a new ditch was opened.
During the
spring of 1943, the Germans started to burn the
corpses in
Treblinka, as
Samuel Willenberg recalled:
“
Now the SS men procured a tank full of crude oil and lugged
it into the Todeslager. A few days later we saw black smoke billowing from the
area behind the towering bank between the sorting yard and the death camp. The smoke
rose hundreds of metres into the air. Germans were continually racing up to the Todeslager
[in order to ensure that the bodies were really burning], and a larger number of Ukrainians than usual guarded us.
Galewski, the camp elder knew what was happening:
`The Germans, the bastards, are opening the graves, pouring crude oil on the corpses
and burning them, but it’s not working.’”
After various methods of cremation had been tested, large grills were erected, known as “roasts.”
Jankiel Wiernik (
Treblinka) wrote:
"
Then one day an SS-Oberscharführer,
Herbert Floss, arrived at the camp and introduced
a veritable inferno; he put into operation an
excavator which could dig up 3,000 corpses
at one time. A fire grate made of railroad tracks 100 to 150 metres in length was placed
on concrete block foundations. The workers piled the corpses on the grate and set them on fire.”
The
Kommando at the roasts were known as the burning group (
Feuerkolonne).
They would remove corpses from the stretchers and arrange them in layers on the roast to a height of 2
metres. Another special
Kommando, known as the ash group (
Aschenkolonne),
had the task of collecting the ash and removing the remnants of the charred bones from the grill
and placing them on tin sheets. Round wooden sticks were then used to break the bones into
small fragments. These were then run through a tightly woven screen made of metal wire in order
to prevent any possible identification. Any bones not passing through the screen were
returned for further shattering.
The Kitchen and Service Workers (Treblinka)
A kitchen and a laundry for the prisoners were established in the extermination area, in order to
prevent any contact between the prisoners in the two sections of the camp. A group of craftsmen
was also organised in the extermination area for building and maintenance tasks. A total of 200 -
300 Jewish prisoners worked in the
Totenlager of
Treblinka.
© ARC 2006
