Chaim Sztajer’s First 90 Minutes at Treblinka (warning – this is not pretty)
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Oct. 3, 1942 – Treblinka
“Don’t be afraid, you men are going to work, while the women will go to the kitchen or the laundry to work, and your children will all go to school. But before you can start your new life, you all must have a shower to delouse. Leave your luggage here.” (30)
These are the words that Kurt Franz (the Lalke) spoke as he greeted Chaim Sztajer, his wife Hela and their two-year-old daughter Blima at Treblinka. They had just arrived on a transport from Czestochowa. The Lalke stood at the large reception area with his dog Barry.
Chaim described the scene to his daughter, Malka Zylbersztajn, who, in 2018, published a memoir of her father’s life, L’Chaim: The Exceptional Life of Chaim Sztajer. It was published in Australia and my friend Chad Gibbs, who is currently working on his PhD thesis about the Treblinka uprising wrote and told me of this addition to the Treblinka literature. Chad is especially interested because Chaim was involved in Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943. He is in the iconic photo (below) taken of those Treblinka survivors who planned and executed the uprising. Chaim is the man sitting in the front row, on the far right. Sam, of course is the short guy, standing in the back row – center.
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But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The first 90 minutes at Treblinka mean death for most. For those who survive, it means an introduction to a world that they could never have imagined – hell on earth.
Chaim tells of the first 90 minutes at Treblinka – when he was separated from his wife and daughter. Hela and Blima were taken inside the women’s undressing barrack to remove their clothing and have their hair shorn. Chaim and the other men undressed outside. They were given check claims for their luggage and string to tie their shoes together in order to retrieve them after the mandatory delousing shower. They were each given a zloty to “pay” for a bar of soap they would receive upon entry to the shower.
In an unusual twist, Chaim was reunited with Hela and Blima, after they undressed. Together they walked down the flower-laden, narrow “Road to Heaven,” with comforting music played by prisoners. This family reunion was not a usual occurrence. Most often male and female family members were separated after disembarking the train and never saw each other again. With Chaim holding Blima in his arms and Hela standing just in front of him, they waited their turn to enter the shower. Chaim noticed the beautiful Parochet (curtain that usually covers an Ark in a Synagogue) that hung at the entrance. The author does not mention it, but I know from other accounts that the verse on the Parochet was from Psalms: “This is the gate of G-d, the righteous shall enter here.” What Chaim did recount was that the Parochet was placed as a deception so that those standing in line could not see into the building itself.
Finally, it was their turn to shower. Chaim watched as his wife entered. At that exact moment, the shower was declared to be full. The thirty to fifty naked Jews still waiting in line would have to wait.
“As the doors were closing,” the author writes, “a Ukrainian guard who Chaim would soon learn was named ‘Ivan the Terrible’ grabbed Blima, aged only two and half, out of her father’s arms, doubled her up head to feet, and flung her through the closing gas chamber doors, over the heads of people inside. All Chaim could hear was his beautiful Blimale screaming, ‘I want my daddy, I want my daddy.’” (33)
After Blima was ripped from his arms and thrown into the shower, Chaim was shocked, but he thought, I’ll find her after my shower, and I will comfort her then. But it was not long before Chaim’s brutal introduction to Treblinka got more graphic. As he was waiting his turn to enter the shower, Ivan the Terrible grabbed a teenage girl and attempted to rape her. She fought back. Ivan then “slit her belly right open. Her piercing screams of pain, as she suffered a very slow tormenting death, were utterly harrowing to hear and to witness.” (33)
Then out of nowhere, Chaim was pulled out of line by a guard who told him to run to where the piles of clothing were being sorted and help with the work. This happened because a neighbor of Chaim’s from Czestochowa, who was a slave laborer at Treblinka, like Sam, saw him in line and told the guard that Chaim would be a good worker. So, Chaim was pulled out of the death line and sent, naked, running to the Lower Camp. Those who were working there, saw a naked man running from the gas chamber. They immediately encircled him, created a well in the center of a pile of clothes and instructed him to quickly put on pants and a shirt and start working. He did as he was told, but naively asked someone when the women and children would be coming out of the showers? He was told by another worker to “shut up” and keep working. (35)
It was not long before Chaim figured out on his own what was really going on at Treblinka. In those early days of the camp, the fence between the Lower Camp (working area) and the Upper Camp (the gas chambers) had many gaps and one could see through. Chaim saw with his own eyes how dead bodies were pulled out of the “shower” building and thrown into a massive pit. (35)
Thus, passed Chaim Sztajer’s first 90 minutes at Treblinka.
[image error]Treblinka Sign
Source; Zylbersztajn, Malka, L’Chaim: the Exceptional Life of Chaim Sztajer, Jewish Holocaust Center, Elsternwick, (2108).
