TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter II: The Development of the Idea of Treblinka as an Extermination Camp 57
Mann – zwei Leichen’ (one man, two corpses), meaning that each gravedigger
has to bury two corpses. He ties the legs or the arms of the body
with his belt and running, pulls it from the scoop to the ditches, throws it in
and, again running, returns for the next load. Formerly the graves were
right at the death-house so that the burying of corpses could take place
quickly. As new victims were added, the grave-line moved ever further to
the east and the pulling of the corpses to the graves takes longer and
longer. After the ditch is filled, the grave-diggers quickly cover the bodies
with earth and the digging-machine nearby prepares the next grave.
The execution of the men is identical. They also are driven through the
road in the woods to their death. The victims react differently while being
driven in the direction of the death-house; some repeat loudly psalms of
penitence, confess their sins; others curse God; but a sudden shout of the
Germans and the blows falling upon the backs of the doomed men immediately
brings silence on the whole crowd. Sometimes all the victims cannot
get into the overcrowded chambers; then the Germans keep the rest in the
woods near the slaughter-house. These people see and hear everything but
there is no attempt at self-preservation.
This is irrefutable proof of the atrocious terror wielded over their victims
by the Germans.
The new death-house provides for the liquidation of 8,000 to 10,000
victims. If we consider that right now 2,000,000 murdered Jews, or the
greater part of Polish Jewry, are already buried in the area of Treblinka,
the disturbing question arises: for whom do the S.S. intend that new house
of death; who are to utter their last breath in the slaughter-house? Most
probably the death-machine, once started, will not limit itself to murdering
Jews. At present, the specter of death in steam chambers rises before the
Polish population; there have already been some signs of it: according to a
report of an eyewitness, the Germans exterminated a group of Poles in
death-house No.1, in the second half of August.”
On August 8, 1943, The New York Times reported, referring to an article
that appeared in a London newspaper: “2,000,000 Murders by Nazis Charged.
Polish Paper in London Says Jews Are Exterminated in Treblinka Death
House.” The subtitle reads: “According to report, steam is used to kill men,
women and children at a place in the woods.” The article was based upon a
contribution published on August 7 in the magazine Polish Labor Fights,
which was nothing other than the report of November 15, 1942. This is indubitably
clear from the quotes in the NYT article. 133
In 1944, Rabbi Silberschein published an eight-page report about the camp
“Tremblinki” (a garbling of Treblinka). Although many features suggest that
the source for this report is mainly the same as the one of November 15, 1942,
133 The New York Times, August 8, 1943, p. 11.