TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter II: The Development of the Idea of Treblinka as an Extermination Camp 67
ence to. In a statement given between October and December, witness Szymon
Goldberg described the following method of killing in the “gassing cabins”
of Treblinka: 154
“The Jews were poisoned in that the air was pumped out – there was a
machine for pumping out the air – and gas [i.e., exhaust fumes] of a vehicle
were introduced. Ether was burned and this vapor introduced inside.
Then there was also chlorine.”
On October 12, 1945, witness Henryk Reichmann put on the record: 42
“The killings were carried out either by pumping out of the air or by introduction
of CO. Once, when fewer transports were arriving, the Germans
conducted an experiment: They pumped out the air without introducing
poison. When the doors were opened after 48 hours, we found some living
people inside.”
The statement of the witness Stanis�aw Kon of October 7, 1945, was similar
in content: 155
“The killing took place by means of pumping out the air or by the introduction
of engine exhaust gases.”
In January 1946, Rachel Auerbach, a member of the Jewish Central Historical
Commission, published her aforementioned book, which was later issued
in English under the title In the Fields of Treblinka in 1979 by Alexander
Donat. There, the way the gas chambers worked is described as follows: 156
“The motor, installed in a workshop near the bathhouse, could be
started now. First, a suction pump was brought into play to draw the pure
air from the chamber. After that, the pipe to the reservoir of exhaust gas
from the motor could be opened.
[…] At the last moment, it seems, when the pump started to suck out
breathable air, all self-control broke and there was an outbreak of collective
hysteria inside the gas chamber.”
A succinct example of the hopeless confusion, which then prevailed among
the eyewitnesses as to the method employed in Treblinka for the extermination
of Jews, is the testimony of Samuel Rajzman. Rajzman, characterized by
A. Donat the “Nestor of the Treblinka survivors,” 157 was questioned on September
26, 1944, by the military examining judge of the military prosecutor’s
office of the 65th Soviet Army, First Lieutenant of Justice Jurowski. He stated
that he had arrived in Treblinka on September 27, 1942, and remained there
until August 2, 1943. Therefore, according to his statement, he spent more
154
Wydawnictwo Centralnej �ydowskiej Komisji Historycznej (ed.), Dokumenty i Materia�y,
op. cit. (note 40), p. 179.
155
Z. �ukaszkiewicz, op. cit. (note 32), p. 47.
156
A. Donat, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 35f.
157
Ibid., “Acknowledgements,” p. 5.