Living History: 17 Days in Treblinka (Part Two)

An except from "17 Days In Treblinka" by Eddie Weinstein

The following story is an excerpt from the book, 17 Days In Treblinka, written by Eddie Weinstein. Eddie Weinstein wrote his memoirs in Germany in 1947. The original manuscript was written in Yiddish.

If you’d like to purchase this incredible book, here is a link:

“I have told my story in chronological order, as I remember what happened to me, my parents, my brother, my uncles and aunts, and around forty first cousins. I cannot explain the nature of the occurrences that I retell here; I leave it to the readers to draw the conclusions.”

The following is a passage from Chapter 2 of the book. If you’d like to read Chapter 1 first, you can find it here:

“In February 1942, the Germans ordered the Judenrat to provide a first batch of workers for the Wolfer and Göbel company, which was going to build the main highway between Siedlce and Brest-Litovsk for the Wehrmacht. This sent the ghetto into a panic, because until then male forced laborers had usually been allowed to come home at night. The only exceptions were a few people who lived in labor camps established in the summer of 1941 for road repair. Even these camps, however, were close enough that the workers could visit their homes at least on Sundays. This time, however, as everyone knew, the Wolfer and Göbel labor camp was located near Siedlce and was tightly sealed. Since some workers from nearby Sarnaki had already been sent to this camp, information about the conditions there was public knowledge. The main type of work, stone-crushing, was especially arduous, and the workday ran from dawn to dusk. The workers slept in unheated barracks and were given scanty rations. One of the names on the Judenrat's list of Wolfer and Göbel laborers was mine.

My parents asked acquaintances on the Judenrat to try to get me exempted, but in vain. Construction on the highway was expected to begin in the spring; even more labor would be needed then. This left me with no options. Weeping bitterly, Mother gave me a bundle with sheets and a blanket. I took a small amount of bread. Mother urged me to take care of myself and gave me a kiss and a hug. Tears welled in my eyes, too, but I tried to keep the other boys from noticing them. I joined the first transport, composed of 207 young Jewish men.

The conditions in the camp were not significantly different from what we had been told. We worked near villages along the Międzyrzec Podlaski highway, smashing boulders that villagers had collected and hauled to us. The fields were still covered with snow. In addition to all the other hardships, we suffered from the cold and rain. Most of the soldiers guarding us were middle-aged Austrians. Employees of the German firm organized the work, but the overseers were Poles and the group foremen were young Jews who were chosen at random. Those who fell behind or faltered in their work were beaten mercilessly -— in several cases, fatally.

A few days after we reached this location, a Pole named Wasilewski was appointed camp manager. He reported to work at 5 A.M. every day, roused all the workers from their barracks, and ordered them to exercise, i.e., to run in a large circle in the muddy yard. Those who could not run fast enough were ordered to lie down on a bench brought over from the barracks and were flogged on their bare backs.

The daily ration was 250 grams of black bread, watery soup for lunch, and chamomile tea in the morning and the evening. For the first few days, the Germans allowed the Judenrat to provide us with extra bread, so each of us also received a half kilo of bread from the ghetto. Families were permitted to send parcels of food or clothing along with the shipment of bread. Some families, however, could not afford such luxuries.

Other workers in the camp came from ghettos in the Mordy, Sarnaki, Sokolów, and Stoczek regions; they, too, received assistance from their local Judenräte. Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, who composed a large majority of inmates in the camp, had the worst conditions. Since the Warsaw Ghetto had been established much earlier than the ghettos in the small towns, it was the most impoverished. Families there could not afford to buy the extra quota of bread, which meant that the men from Warsaw had to survive on the German company's rations. Most inmates who starved to death — as happened every day - were from Warsaw.

Many workers contracted serious lung diseases and had festering sores. However, the supervisors did not regard these as illnesses and rarely agreed to send a sick inmate home. By the time I acquired all this information, I had been in the camp for twenty-three days. I was filthy (showering was prohibited), I wore a lice-infested vest, and I had a severe cold and a high fever. Aware that I could not survive in such conditions, I discussed the possibility of escape with my friend, Michael Rak. The next day - it was the seventh day of Passover (April 9, 1942)—we left the camp for work in the pouring rain. The trucks were waiting for us across the road, near a row of small Polish houses. Michael and I stepped into a courtyard and hid behind c of the buildings. After the trucks drove away, we walked across fields until we reached a barn, where we hid until nightfall. Then we double-timed it over the 20-plus miles to Łosice, arriving there before dawn.

My family was delighted to see me. My mother served me a small bowl of soup; I gulped it down and then slept for twenty-four hours straight. When I woke up, I felt much better. Several days later, the Judenrat sent policemen to arrest me and take me back to the camp with a new transport that had been organized in the meantime. When they came looking for me, I hid. Since my father was out working on the main road at the time, they arrested my mother for a few hours. Father, fearing that I would be identified and shot as soon as I reached the camp, contacted the Judenrat and offered to take my place in the transport. When Rak and I had decided to run away from the camp we had not considered the consequences. We had to get away from it and we did so. Only now did I realize how grave an action it had been, and not only from our own standpoint. In the end, however, the Judenrat agents left me alone.

The ghetto was charged with providing workers to build the Siedlce-Brest highway, but this did not exempt the rest of the ghetto population from forced labor in the vicinity. Most residents preferred the latter because, although unpaid, it was easier than road-building.”