TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter II: The Development of the Idea of Treblinka as an Extermination Camp 59
room was from the open square. A door led from the dressing room to the
baths, from here a door led to the experimental chamber for gases for suffocation,
and from there a door to the ovens. The ovens were connected
with a railway, which led to the cemetery (see plan).
A large pedestal had been erected on the open square. There were almost
no workshops and only a few job positions in this camp.
The Guard Service – The Treatment
An SS detachment under the command of Hauptmann Sauer supplied
the guard service in the extermination camp of Tremblinki. The composition
of the staff of the detachment changed frequently.
The inmates performed various tasks in connection with the requirements
of the camp. They were terribly maltreated and abused at this and
had to endure the most inhuman punishments imaginable for every petty
violation of the house rules or other mistake. Not all worked, most of them
waited in the cells only as long until the gassing facility was able to take
them. But sometimes they were killed even sooner in another manner. The
Germans shot several Jews on a daily basis, above all the commandant
Sauer himself. Every afternoon he had his executioners assemble the Jews
who still remained alive. Then he asked: ‘Who is weak, who can no longer
work?’ The Jews made no answer at all to this: whoever had had enough
simply stepped forward from the line – and was shot down. In this manner,
Hauptmann Sauer had murdered 500 Jewish youths, one after the other, on
a single day in the beginning of September 1942.
The ‘Kapus’
The ‘Kapus’ occupied a special position. It was these Jews upon whom
many important mechanisms of the camp were imposed. Most Kapus had
sorted through the clothing of those who had been transported out of this
life. They did this task at a place called the ‘rag sorting place.’
Others were also working at the railway station with the reception of
those freshly arriving. Others, again, had to work as gravediggers. It happened
not rarely that the Jews so occupied lasted no longer than two weeks
and committed suicide.
The Delivery
Day after day two trains arrived in Tremblinki, completely filled with
Jews. Jews were carried off from all parts of Europe to this place; but the
main contingent was made up of the Jews from Warsaw, north Poland, and
the Baltic.
Every train was 30 to 50 cars long. The emptying of the cars proceeded
at lightning pace. Then the Kapus received the arrivals and read to them
the camp regulations in the Jewish language. At the station building, the