Leon Perelsztejn Testimony (doc. 301/106)

Typescript, 6 pages, 210 x 295 mm, Polish language

From the collection of the Warsaw Historical Commission for Investigation of Nazi Crimes

Testimony of Leon Perelsztejn

Born January 13, 1902, in Warsaw

Residing at Grochów, ul. Stanisława Augusta 24

Regarding the prisoners’ rebellion, and preparations leading up to it, at the Treblinka extermination camp

On September 27, 1942, I was arrested in Ostrowiec Kielecki; 1Note 1: Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. I had fled there from Warsaw in order to avoid being put in the ghetto and taken to Treblinka. I was at Treblinka from late September 1942 until August 2, 1943.

The camp at Treblinka was a typical extermination camp. Jews from all over Poland and from abroad were brought there. During the month of October, until November, I was assigned to the group of Jewish workers that was sorting clothing [of the Jews who had been killed]. Later I was appointed as the warehouseman for the toolshop, where I worked till my escape from the camp. People were exterminated in the following way: every day, a transport of about twelve to twenty thousand people arrived. Three trains a day arrived at the camp by the branch line. On average, the train had 60 cars with one hundred people each. After arriving, the people would be taken to the courtyard, which was surrounded by barracks. They were told to strip naked, and their belongings were piled in a heap. There were women, children and old people among those who arrived. Within two hours, the entire transport would be murdered. This happened in the following way: in the barracks there were shower stalls, 10 stalls; people would be sent to the baths, one hundred people to a stall. In the stalls, there were towels and washbasins, which made it seem like real baths. After they were let in, with the push of a button, the doors would be hermetically sealed and the people

would be suffocated with some kind of gas, what kind, I do not know, within ten minutes. Ten minutes later, the floor moved aside automatically and the bodies fell into a hole several meters deep. A ditch several meters wide went from the pit for many hundreds of meters. The corpses were pulled on stretcher-carts by workers and carried out to piles, after which they were doused with gasoline and burned. Before people entered the stalls, their gold teeth were ripped out and women’s hair was cut, the hair and gold were sent outside the camp. The prisoners who were ill were separated from each transport and taken to a fence covered with a hedge with a sign that said Lazaret where they would be taken one by one [and] an SS man holding a revolver or a machine gun would kill them. Prisoners with Red Cross armbands would put the corpses in piles and burn them immediately.

Untersturmführer Franz 2Note 2: SS‑Hauptsturmführer Franz Paul Stangl, the camp commandant at the Treblinka extermination camp from August 1942. was in charge, he was the camp commandant. His deputy was Hauptscharführer Kittner. Kittner’s deputy was Scharführer Mitte. They were Germans from the SS (Sonderkommando). There were forty-odd Germans. In addition to them, there were approximately 200 Ukrainians in the German service who, as camp guards, also wore green uniforms and badges with the death’s-head and SS. As a warehouseman, I could walk all over the entire camp, since my job was to check the tools of workers who were doing various tasks in groups.

A prisoner named eng[ineer] Galewski (from Warsaw) was in charge of the prisoner-workers, he was [also] a prisoner, a very decent person, who knew about our conspiracy and who, although he was not taking an active part in it, used to help all of us carry out our plans.

In the warehouse where I was working, the idea for an armed revolt came up. About 150 meters from the warehouse was a weapons storeroom. We decided to get inside. A prisoner who was a locksmith had already made a key to the storeroom in March before my arrival, he carried it with him and did not let on in any way [that he was involved]. Grundland the capo from the camp hospital and I, along with a tailor from Kielce, who was about 46 years old, Moniek, the capo from the first barracks, who was about 18 or 19, one [fellow] known as Jacek, and several other people, whose names I don’t remember, neither first nor last names, worked out a plan to take over the weapons storeroom, which we did on August 2, 1943.

Our first earlier attempt was unsuccessful and twelve people - who had been betrayed by a prisoner, a man who used to make wire mesh for a living from Częstochowa - paid for it with their lives. We were supposed to take over the warehouse and begin the action around July 12, 1943. Having been unable to get into the weapons storeroom that day, we postponed the action. A few days later, fourteen people from various work columns who had been taking part in the conspiracy were taken away. I was released along with a certain turner, whose name I do not remember, because there were no other prisoners to work in our positions, and despite being beaten, we did not confess and they did not have any evidence against us. Those twelve were taken away to Treblinka II, 3Note 3: The extermination camp is described in the literature as Treblinka II, and the labor camp next to it as Treblinka I. The witness calls Treblinka I part of the camp in which prisoners were kept, Treblinka II as the actual extermination center and Treblinka III as the labor camp where they were shot. We did not see them die, but we heard the shots from a distance of 300 meters.

We did not stop working on new plans for a revolt, however. At night, we worked in strict secrecy. In each group of workers, we chose people, former soldiers, who knew how to use weapons, and we assigned them specific military tasks in the action and did not make them privy to our plans, and told them to wait for our signal. We assigned three to set the barracks on fire

with gasoline. I had the task of storming the camp headquarters, destroying the telephone and disposing of the secretary, the SS-man Messing, and the Stabsscharführer Stadi, 4Note 4: Stabsscharführer was not a rank but a position of company sergeant major. which I was to do with eight other people. The locksmith gave us the key. Two boys, 18 or 19 years old, who worked cleaning the barracks, observed the weapons storeroom for two weeks and had the task of getting inside and passing the weapons through the barred window. The masons were supposed to come with carts used for carting away rubble and take the weapons to the garage, where there was an enormous cellar. From there, when the signal was given, the weapons were to be distributed and the action was to start. The second and final attempt was to be made on August 2, at 4:15 p.m., which was when the fighting was supposed to begin. One of the cleaners, Jacek, entered the weapons storeroom at 1:15 p.m., the second stood at the door on guard. Jacek passed all the weapons through the window to the men with the carts. They took them to the garage. At 2:30 p.m., weapons began to be distributed from the garage to all the groups of workers throughout the entire camp. All the designated former soldiers got weapons. At 4:15 p.m., when the action was supposed to start, I was waiting at the storeroom with a revolver that had been ready for a month. The detailed plan had been set for that time because a train of Jewish and Polish prisoners going from work from Małkinia to Treblinka III 4Note 4: Treblinka III – labor camp (actually Treblinka I). would pass through the camp as it did every day at that time, and we wanted to intercept them and have them join our action. They were not privy to the plan. At 3:35 p.m., two workers who came to the barracks for their things roused the suspicion of the confidant Kuba, the barracks elder, who summoned Hauptscharführer Kittner. Kittner summoned them to the square in front of my door, searched them, found money on them, began to whip them and wanted to shoot them. When I saw that, I gave the signal to start the action through the back window. The tailor Zalcberg, from the second barracks, began shooting at Kittner. Kittner started running towards his barracks to get a machine gun. The action began. No longer able to carry out my task, my people and I cut through the barbed wire in order to get to the back entrance to the tower, where the Ukrainians were. A former lieutenant in the Czech army, whose first name was Rudolf, had the most important task. He and a second prisoner from Czechoslovakia took a heavy machine gun by cart with some people to the camp zoo, went into the little tower and began shooting at the camp’s headquarters and the guard posts. None of the Germans or Ukrainians who were there could get out, and they all died.

The barracks were set on fire. During the fighting, many prisoners died, but almost the entire camp staff at that time died on the spot. The whole camp was on fire. I saw Kittner and SS-man Suchomil die with my own eyes, shot in a barracks window. The SS-man, head of the SS Strasebahn, whose last name I do not remember, was killed by a prisoner who worked as a driver. His killer was shot by some Ukrainian. The action was lightning-quick. At 4:30 p.m. the entire camp, with or without weapons, was free. And we fled to the surrounding forests. No one chased us. Unfortunately we did not manage to include the train with the workers, because when shots were heard, it was stopped before it reached us. Everyone who was [physically] able escaped from Treblinka I and II. Engineer Galewski escaped with me. Unfortunately after a few kilometers, his nerves failed him, he took some poison from his pocket, swallowed it and died immediately, right in front of my eyes. I escaped

into the forest with a group of several other prisoners, and after two weeks of wandering, I made it to my family, where I hid. I was in the Opatów and Kielce regions the whole time, until those areas were liberated by the Red Army. On January 21, 1945, I was in Praga, where I am now living. All the facts I have described are true. I read this document before signing it.

Warsaw, March 9, 1945

(-) Leon Perelsztejn

Recorded by B. Świderski, M.A.