TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

54 Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf: Treblinka
building. Inside the steam-room there is a large vat which produces the
steam. The hot steam comes in to the chambers through pipes installed
there, each having a prescribed number of vents. While this machinery of
death is in action, the doors and valves are hermetically closed. The floor
in the chambers has a terra-cotta inlay which becomes very slippery when
water is poured over it. There is a well next to the steam-room, the only
well in the whole area of Treblinka B. Not far from the death-house, south
of the barbed-wire and wooden fences, there is a grave-diggers’ camp. The
grave-diggers live in barracks (19) next to which are the kitchen buildings.
On both sides of the camp there are two guard-houses (17-20). The remaining
area of Treblinka B is destined for the murdered victims. A part of
that area is already a large cemetery (22, 23, 24). At first, Poles employed
in the camps dug the graves; later, as the slaughter was intensified and the
need for more ditches grew, special digging-machines (bulldozers) were
brought, which ran day and night at grave-digging. A Diesel-motor supplies
the energy and its rattle is a characteristic sound at Treblinka B.
The supervisors and execution-staff are small in numbers. The slaughter-house
is commanded by an S.S. man of the rank of major (his name is
Sauer). The German staff, consisting of S.S. men, are in terror of their
chief. The moment they see him from the distance they drive the Jewish
workers as well as the victims on their way to death with even greater energy.
Altogether, there are ten Germans and thirty Ukrainians.
The German crew changes from time to time; sometimes S.S. men from
various towns of the General Government who were active at the deportations
there, arrive at the camp.
In addition to the German-Ukrainian Lagerschutz, there is also the
Jewish auxiliary, part of whom are busy at the sorting place for the clothing
of the victims (Lumpensortierungsplatz), and part of whom act as
grave-diggers. They empty the execution chambers and bury the dead; the
rest work at the arrival-square. The groups of the Jewish auxiliary service
are headed by group-leaders whom the Germans call ‘kapos.’ They are
relatively better fed than the rest and wear a triangular yellow patch at
their knees to distinguish them from the others.
The personnel of the Jewish auxiliary service undergoes almost daily
changes. Rarely can a Jew stand that service for more than two weeks, due
to the inhuman treatment they receive at the hands of the Germans. They
are constantly tortured and whipped; corporal punishment (25 strokes) is
very frequent as well as the shooting of the weak ones who lose their fitness
to work. This is done mostly by the chief himself. Every day there is a
roll-call. The German asks who does not feel strong enough to carry on
with the work? A few men step out of the row, report their unfitness and
beg him – as though for a favor – to be shot. The executions take place at a
special spot; the victim himself stands erect over a grave while the chief