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..