The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir

by Chil Rajchman

Through the unprecedented landscape of his text, Rajchman’s proofs of how far beyond the boundaries of the imaginable humans can go in their treatment of one another are piled more obscenely than the mountains of corpses the Nazis put to the torch. In the end, its list of abominations seems to offer too many faces of evil to decide easily what was most atrocious in this place and time.

But my choice, I think, is Rajchman’s disturbing reflection—offered in passing, but all the more upsetting for that reason—that it was better for him to lose his mother when he was a child than for her to live long enough to descend into the hell she would never have escaped. It is a dismal testament to their destruction of the ordinary moral world that the Nazis could make one of the worst imaginable events of any life seem like it had been a fortunate event.

and after praying they recite Kaddish for the dead with tears in their eyes. Kaddish wakes me up. I look closely: yes, all who are here are wretched orphans and accursed individuals. I become almost wild and shout at them—To whom are you reciting Kaddish? You still believe? In what do you believe, whom are you thanking? Are you thanking the Lord for his mercy in taking away our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers?

No, no! It is not true; there is no God. If there were a God, he would not allow such misfortune, such transgression, where innocent small children, only just born, are killed, where people who want only to do honest work and make themselves useful to the world are killed! And you, living witnesses of the great misfortune, remain thankful. Whom are you thanking?

She takes my hand and wants to kiss me—I beg you, tell me, what do they do with us? Is this already the end?

Suddenly the shoving of the next group of victims is interrupted because the gas chambers are over-full. The murderer standing by the door of the cell announces that there will be a break of half an hour and goes away. Some Ukrainians and several SS men remain with us. I look around and think: Good God, what kind of hell is this?

Mathias was truly astonished and surprised. He could not grasp why the Jews did not willingly want to let themselves be murdered. He found this an abnormal development.

I recall a father and son who had been in this hell for two days. They decided to commit suicide. Having only one strap between them, they agreed that the father would hang himself first and after that the son would take him down and use the same strap to hang himself, and that was exactly how it happened. In the morning both were dead and we carried them out so that the chief murderer could verify that the number was correct.

AS HAS ALREADY BEEN MENTIONED, IN THE MOST recent period workers have remained with us for longer than before. That has been a great stroke of luck for us. As a result, we have been able to get to know each other better. We have begun to trust one another more and to think about the possibilities of escape from here. We know that this is a difficult undertaking and are even afraid to discuss it among ourselves for fear of denunciation. We examine various possibilities. But the plans are difficult to carry out. We are unarmed and yet we plan all sorts of things. Our conversations take place in the corners of the barracks, and there is always a guard consisting of our own people to keep an eye out in case one of the murderers comes into the barracks.

The morning of 2 August is beautiful. The sun is shining. All of us are feeling brave. Despite our fears, we are all happy that the time has come. There is a smile on everyone’s face. We feel new strength, we feel more alive than ever. We go off to work with joy in our hearts, though we tell each other to try not to show it in our faces.

Dear lady, it is a whole year since I have seen a living child … The woman and I cry together. She gives me food, and, seeing that I am soaked through, she gives me a shirt of her husband’s to put on. She mentions that it is her husband’s last shirt. I see that these people want to help me. Weeping, the woman says to me—I would very much like to help you, but I am afraid of my neighbours. After all, I have a small child …

After spending several days with him, I break down morally and physically. I lose my appetite and am convinced that I have no right to be alive after all I have seen and experienced. My friends care for me and try to convince me that there are few witnesses left like me and that I need to live in order to tell it all.

Yes, I lived for a year in Treblinka under the most difficult conditions. After the revolt I wandered for two months, lived for a year as a Pole with false papers, then after the Warsaw Uprising I hid in a bunker for three and a half months until I was liberated on 17 January 1945.

Yes, I remained alive and find myself among free people. But I often ask myself why. Is it so that I might tell the world about the millions of innocent murdered victims, to be a witness to the innocent blood that was spilled by the hands of the murderers? Yes, I remai...