Hersz Cukierman Testimony (doc. 301/14)

Original, manuscript, 9 pages, 210 x 295 mm, Polish language

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Recorded by M. Lewenkopf,

September 17, 1944

Sobibór

Cukierman Hersz, in 1939 living on Koszykowa Street 42, Warsaw

After the war broke out in 1939, I left for Kurów, in the Puławy district. After Kurów was bombed, I moved to the village of Wólka Kątna, in the Markuszów municipality, where I lived with my wife and four children until April 1942. From there, we wereresettled in Opole. 1Note 1: Opole LubelskieWe settled in the ghetto there, whose liquidation began five weeks after we arrived. Over the course of 1942, several transports of Jews left Opole for an unknown destination, and we never heard from them again. In early May,

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Geda, a clerk from the district office, came and ordered them to move to barracks under the pretext of punishing the Jews for their filth and disorder. Then the Ukrainians surrounded those barracks, guarded them for two days, and then the women and children were taken away by cart to the station in Nałęczów, while the men were ordered to march there on foot. During the march, every once in a while the Ukrainians asked the men, who wants to ride in the cart, and then they killed anyone who volunteered. About 50 people were killed this way. People were also robbed during the march. In Nałęczów, they kept everyone behind barbed wire for 48 hours. Even though it was raining, if someone wanted to drink some of the water running from the drainpipe, he had to buy it with a ring, an earring, or an appropriate sum of money.
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Many people died of hunger and exhaustion then. When women and children were getting off the carts, the SD-men guarding them beat those misfortunate people with riding crops until they bled. Then everyone was taken to Sobibór. Many people suffocated during the journey because the wagons were so overcrowded. The train entered the camp proper, which occupied an enormous area, and was surrounded by barbed wire four layers thick, and also by a deep ditch filled with water, and then even farther outside, the field adjacent to the ditch was mined. The camp was divided into three parts. The first and second were allowed to have contact with one another; the third was separate, located in the woods, and it was forbidden to enter that area. Everyone who was in this camp was liquidated. As many men, women, and children as the gas chambers could hold were herded into the third camp. The unlucky were taken to camp no. 2, where SS read out the following statement: This is the transit camp, from here people will be sent to work in Ukraine. They must go to the baths now, after which they will receive clean underwear and will continue on their way. In the beginning, women and men were told to undress separately, but then the Germans stopped trying to keep up appearances, and women and men undressed in the same room. In the next part of the speech, the SS advised that each person should remember where he put his
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clothes, so they would not get lost, and they advised people to put their money and valuables in the deposit desk, for which they received a receipt. Meanwhile, in camp no. 1, those waiting were witness to a selection, at which skilled workers without families were sent off through the main gate to work in Osowa and Sawin. 300 skilled workers left this way, then after a couple of weeks they were brought back and killed. That group was forced to send letters to various towns so that the remaining Jews would not realize what danger they were in – after having carried out this task, they returned to Sobibór, where they perished. The Ukrainians beat the people who were walking past, already naked, until they bled. Out of the 2000 people in the Opole transport on the first day, 100 people remained in the yard, and 75 were sent to camp no. 3 to remove the corpses. Up until that time, in the camp it had usually been the case that those who had been working, regardless of what kind of work it had been, would [be killed] as soon as a fresh transport came, and they would be replaced with people from the newly arrived group. Because of fears of rebellion, people who were quite weak were taken to work. At that time, because of organizational difficulties, the Germans decided against constant changes and have permanent workers instead. This was how I was put to work as the permanent camp cook; I took on my son as an assistant. The rest of the 100 who arrived that first night gradually all were killed. The next transport came
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from Żółkiew 1Note 1: Probably Żółkiewka and Izbica. 70 people from that transport were designated to work in the camp. As I mentioned, camp no. 3 was separate from the rest of the camp. The gate was permanently closed, and there were pine branches stuck in the barbed wire that surrounded [the camp], completely obscuring it from view. The same kinds of branches, stuck in [the fence] this way, hid the entire camp from sight as well. The workers who brought food to the people working in camp no. 3 would have to leave it 50 paces from the gate, and then walk away quickly. When transports arrived, there was a lot of food, since the food that the Jews had brought with them was given to the kitchen. As the cook, I lived with my son in a separate building. In addition to that kitchen, there were 2 others for the Ukrainians and the German officers. Several dozen people were chosen from each of the following groups and a team of laborers was formed, which for camps nos. 1 and 2 reached a total of 600; for camp no. 3, the total was 450. The conditions in camp no. 3 were extremely harsh, with beatings, dogs set on prisoners, and 50 lashes as punishment for badly done work. The Jews were changed there very often, and, under the pretext that they were being sent to other camps, the weak were taken to the forest and shot. Every time such an execution took place, the rest of the inmates of camp no. 3 were taken to camp no. 2, singing as they went, so they would not be able to figure out what was going on. Within 4-5 weeks everything was organized. In camps nos. 1 and 2, the Jews were put to work sorting and packing the belongings of those who had been killed. In addition, the skilled workers were always kept busy doing various
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jobs. They sang as they went to work (those were the orders), and if the work was not done, people were beaten, or a dog was let loose on them. As people worked, the SS amused themselves by beating the people who were working until they bled, and when the blood was flowing, they poured vinegar on the wounds and kept beating them. Jewish foremen headed the groups of workers. One SS-man in particular named Paul was especially sadistic, and would often make the misfortunate one he chose drink Franc-Brantwein, 1Note 1: Frantzbrenntwein (German) – rubbing alcohol. after which the person was sick for a very long time, and often died with symptoms of having been poisoned. Jews were brought at that time from Austria, Germany, the Czech lands, Poland, Holland, and France, and they were annihilated. When no transports arrived and there was not enough food in the kitchen, the Ukrainians would beat people brutally when workers would find pieces of moldy bread in the packages and eat it. Three months after we arrived, the killing stopped, the officers were granted leaves for their ardent activities, and the oven began to be disassembled. Two months later, 10 masons were brought in, Warsaw Jews from Treblinka, 2 wagons of food and bread, and bricks, and construction of a new oven began. The SS-men said at that time that this oven would be for the Poles. At that time, making use of the fact that workers from camp no. 3 were assigned some work in the kitchen, I found out about the sad reality at camp no. 3. The conversation took place in a whisper, despite the presence of the guard. It was then I found out
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that after having been gassed, the corpses were buried 30,000 to 40,000 to a pit. The corpses were doused in chlorine, and then later buried. When the pit was full, it was covered with dirt. It stank very badly despite the chlorine. After a few weeks, when the workers asked where their families were, the SS-men said that they are in a camp in Ukraine, and that some of them even have their own farms as independent farmers, and that they would see them in two weeks. Sometimes a clerk from the Arbeitsamt in Włodawa, who used to order clothing for himself from the [dead] Jews’ things, would tell another little fairy tale: that the Jews from this camp would be sent to Kraków. In September, the new gassing equipment was finished. It had 8 compartments that could each hold 100-120 people. This way, 1000 people could be killed at one time. After this factory was ready, fresh transports began to arrive. Once, when a 20-wagon transport arrived with people from Biała Podlaska, the Germans decided to send the clothes, underwear, and other such things by that train. The occupants of camps nos. 1 and 2 were put to work, and they were given an additional 200 Jews from the new transport for help. The work lasted from 3:30 a.m. until eight p.m. The workers were rushed during that very hot day. The old inmates were given hats in order to distinguish them from the new people. When one old man from the newly arrived group fainted while working, his son, who was walking behind him, was ordered to hang him
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from the first tree. One worker managed to hide in this clothing transport and was later able to escape successfully. On Christmas Eve 1942, 3 Jewish men, 2 Jewish women, and 2 Ukrainians managed to escape. The next evening, the workers from camps nos. 1 and 2 were assembled and an evening of musical entertainment was organized, with dancing and singing (loud), while in camp no. 3 about 300 Jews (permanent workers) were shot in retaliation for the escape.

In October 1942, a crane was brought in, and they began to take corpses out of the ground and burn them. In winter there were fewer transports, and people were transported barefoot. The children in the trains were so thirsty that they would eat snow. In the spring of 1943, trains began arriving with Jews from abroad. In July 1943, 20 workers went outside the barbed wire fence to cut down trees. They were supposed to construct places to store and sort the ammunition that had been obtained. The SS-men got this idea when they saw that the Jewish problem was coming to an end, in an attempt to devise a new way of avoiding being sent to the front. While at work, the heat was bothering them terribly, and one time when two of them went with a Ukrainian to get some water, they liquidated the Ukrainian, took his weapon and ran away to the forest. The officer in charge of the guard, having figured out what had happened after they had been gone a long time, surrounded the remaining Jews and began returning to the camp. Eight more took advantage of that moment and escaped. The [remaining] 10 Jews were brought back to camp with

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their hands on their necks. Afterwards, the worker of camps nos. 1 and 2 were summoned and, after a speech justifying the necessity of carrying out the death sentence, the 10 unlucky men were shot. In his speech, the SS-man said that if anything like that ever happened again, they would kill half of the camp's workers. Ten more were shot in retaliation for the escape one night of two other Jews. The workers had to stand guard in the barracks as punishment, and the windows were closed and barbed wire was put on them. Jews had been harboring thoughts of revolt and escape for a long time. After long meetings of those privy to the conspiracy, it was decided that an uprising would be staged in mid-October, when some of the SS-men would be on furlough. One day, according to a prearranged plan, between 4 and 5 p.m., they began to liquidate certain officers in closed sheds and barracks. They had been lured to those places under various pretexts. The camp's second in command was the first to be killed. The plan was carried out scrupulously, and when all the workers assembled for the evening roll call at 5 p.m., the leaders announced that the revolt had begun. They had just obtained their weapons. A group of Ukrainian guards shot a thick barrage of gunfire. The Jews rushed at the barbed wire with axes and pliers, and wood and boards were thrown onto the minefield so the mines would explode. After a short and intense battle, during which 180 people died, the rest of the fighters were free. Fifty ill people stayed in the camp, and 400 people escaped.
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The telephone and electrical lines had been cut beforehand. In the forest, people split up into small groups and went off in different directions. Some of them crossed the river Bug. My son and I wandered around the vicinity of Kurów and Markuszów, staying with peasants there until my son joined a group of partisans in May 1944, and I stayed with a peasant I knew until I was able to join the Polish Army in the village of Orlice 4Note 4: Probably Orlicz near Garbów..