Nuremberg Trial/Samuel Rajzman

27 Feb. 1946, Afternoon Session

MR.COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I should like to proceed with the interrogation of the witness.

[The witness Rajzman took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?

SAMUEL RAJZMAN (Witness): Rajzman, Samuel.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I hereby swear before God -- the Almighty -- that I will speak before the Tribunal -- nothing but the truth -- concealing nothing of what is known to me -- so help me God, Amen.

[The witness repeated the oath.]

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness Rajzman, will you please tell the Tribunal what was your occupation before the war?

RAJZMAN: Before the war I was an accountant in an export firm.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: When and under what circumstances did you become an internee of Treblinka Number 2?

RAJZMAN: In August 1942 I was taken away from the Warsaw ghetto.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: How long did you stay in Treblinka?

RAJZMAN: I was interned there for a year -- until August 1943.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That means you are well acquainted with the rules regulating the treatment of the people in this camp?

RAJZMAN: Yes, I am well acquainted with these rules.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I beg you to describe this camp to the Tribunal.

RAJZMAN: Transports arrived there every day; their number depended on the number of trains arriving; sometimes three, four, or five trains filled exclusively with Jews -- from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Greece, and Poland. Immediately after their arrival, the people had to leave the trains in 5 minutes and line up on the platform. All those who were driven from the cars were divided into groups -- men, children, and women, all separate. They were all forced to strip immediately, and this procedure continued under the lashes of the German guards' whips. Workers who were employed in this operation immediately picked up all the clothes and carried them away to barracks. Then the people were obliged to walk naked through the street to the gas chambers.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to tell the Tribunal what the Germans called the street to the gas chambers.

RAJZMAN: It was named Himmelfahrt Street.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is to say, the "street to heaven"?

RAJZMAN: Yes. If it interests the Court, I can present a plan of the camp of Treblinka which I drew up when I was there, and I can point out to the Tribunal this street on the plan.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think it is necessary to put in a plan of the camp, unless you particularly want to.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, I also believe that it is not really necessary.

Please tell us, how long did a person live after he had arrived in the Treblinka Camp?

RAJZMAN: The whole process of undressing and the walk down to the gas chambers lasted, for the men 8 or 10 minutes, and for the women some 15 minutes. The women took 15 minutes because they had to have their hair shaved off before they went to the gas chambers.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Why was their hair cut off?

RAJZMAN: According to the ideas of the masters, this hair was to be used in the manufacture of mattresses for German women.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you mean that there was only 10 minutes between the time when they were taken out of the trucks and the time when they were put into the gas chambers?

RAJZMAN: As far as men were concerned, I am sure it did not last longer than 10 minutes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Including the undressing?

RAJZMAN: Yes, including the undressing.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, Witness, were the people brought to Treblinka in trucks or in trains?

RAJZMAN: They were brought nearly always in trains, and only the Jews from neighboring villages and hamlets were brought in trucks. The trucks bore inscriptions, "Expedition Speer," and came from Vinegrova Sokolova and other places.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, what was the subsequent aspect of the station at Treblinka?

RAJZMAN: At first there were no signboards whatsoever at the station, but a few months later the commander of the camp, one Kurt Franz, built a first-class railroad station with signboards. The barracks where the clothing was stored had signs reading "restaurant," "ticket office," "telegraph," "telephone," and so forth. There were even train schedules for the departure and the arrival of trains to and from Grodno, Suwalki, Vienna, and Berlin.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Did I rightly understand you, Witness, that a kind of make-believe station was built with signboards and train schedules, with indications of platforms for train departures to Suwalki, and so forth?

RAJZMAN: When the persons descended from the trains, they really had the impression that they were at a very good station from where they could go to Suwalki, Vienna, Grodno, or other cities.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And what happened later on to these people?

RAJZMAN: These people were taken directly along the Himmelfahrtstrasse to the gas chambers.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: And tell us, please, how did the Germans behave while killing their victims in Treblinka?

RAJZMAN: If you mean the actual executions, every German guard had his special job. I shall cite only one example. We had a ScharFuehrer Menz, whose special job was to guard the so-called "Lazarett." In this "Lazarett" all weak women and little children were exterminated who had not the strength to go themselves to the gas chambers.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps, Witness, you can describe this "Lazarett" to the Tribunal?

RAJZMAN: This was part of a square which was closed in with a wooden fence. All women, aged persons, and sick children were driven there. At the gates of this "Lazarett," there was a large Red Cross flag. Menz, who specialized in the murder of all persons brought to this "Lazarett," would not let anybody else do this job. There might have been hundreds of persons who wanted to see and know what was in store for them, but he insisted on carrying out this work by himself.

Here is just one example of what was the fate of the children there. A 10-year-old girl was brought to this building from the train with her 2-year-old sister. When the elder girl saw that Menz had taken out a revolver to shoot her 2-year-old sister, she threw herself upon him, crying out, and asking why he wanted to kill her. He did not kill the little sister; he threw her alive into the oven and then killed the elder sister.

Another example: They brought an aged woman with her daughter to this building. The latter was in the last stage of pregnancy. She was brought to the "Lazarett," was put on a grass plot, and several Germans came to watch the delivery. This spectacle lasted 2 hours. When the child was born, Menz asked the grandmother -- that is the mother of this woman -- whom she preferred to see killed first. The grandmother begged to be killed. But, of course; they did the opposite; the newborn baby was killed first, then the child's mother, and finally the grandmother.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, Witness, does the name Kurt Franz mean anything to you?

RAJZMAN: This man was deputy of the camp commander, Stengel, the biggest murderer in the camp. Kurt Franz was known for having published in January 1943, a report to the effect that a million Jews had been killed in Treblinka -- a report which had procured for him a promotion from the rank of SturmbannFuehrer to that of ObersturmbannFuehrer.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Witness, will you please tell how Kurt Franz killed a woman who claimed to be the sister of Sigmund Freud. Do you remember this incident?

RAJZMAN: A train arrived from Vienna. I was standing on the platform when the passengers left the cars. An elderly woman came up to Kurt Franz, took out a document, and said that she was the sister of Sigmund Freud. She begged him to give her light work in an office. Franz read this document through very seriously and said that there must be a mistake here; he led her up to the train schedule and said that in 2 hours a train would leave again for Vienna. She should leave all her documents and valuables and then go to a bathhouse; after the bath she would have her documents and a ticket to Vienna. Of course, the woman went to the bathhouse and never returned.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please tell us, Witness, why was it that you yourself remained alive in Treblinka?

RAJZMAN: I was already quite undressed, and had to pass through this Himmelfahrtstrasse to the gas chambers. Some 8,000 Jews had arrived with my transport from Warsaw. At the last minute before we moved toward the street an engineer, Galevski, an old friend of mine, whom I had known in Warsaw for many years, caught sight of me. He was overseer of workers among the Jews. He told me that I should turn back from the street; and as they needed an interpreter for Hebrew, French, Russian, Polish, and German, he managed to obtain permission to liberate me.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You were therefore a member of the labor unit of the camp?

RAJZMAN: At first my work was to load the clothes of the murdered persons on the trains. When I had been in the camp 2 days, my mother, my sister, and two brothers were brought to the camp from the town of Vinegrova. I had to watch them being led away to the gas chambers. Several days later, when I was loading clothes on the freight cars, my comrades found my wife's documents and a photograph of my wife and child. That is all I have left of my family, only a photograph.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell us, Witness, how many persons were brought daily to the Treblinka Camp?

RAJZMAN: Between July and December 1942 an average of 3 transports of 60 cars each arrived every day. In 1943 the transport arrived more rarely.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell us, Witness, how many persons were exterminated in the camp, on an average, daily?

RAJZMAN: On an average, I believe they killed in Treblinka from ten to twelve thousand persons daily.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In how many gas chambers did the killings take place?

RAJZMAN: At first there were only 3 gas chambers, but then they built 10 more chambers. It was planned to increase this number to 25.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: But how do you know that? Why do you say, Witness, that they planned to increase the number of gas chambers to 25?

RAJZMAN: Because all the building material had been brought and put in the square. I asked, "Why? There are no more Jews." They said, "After you there will be others, and there is still a big job to do."

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: What was the other name of Treblinka?

RAJZMAN: When Treblinka became very well known, they hung up a huge sign with the inscription "Obermaidanek."

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: What do you mean by "very well known"?

RAJZMAN: I mean that the persons who arrived in transports soon found out that it was not a fashionable station, but that it was a place of death.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Tell us, Witness, why was this make-believe station built?

RAJZMAN: It was done for the sole reason that the people on leaving the trains should not be nervous, should undress calmly, and that there should not be any incidents.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If I understand you correctly, this criminal device had only one purpose -- a psychological purpose of reassuring the doomed during the first moments.

RAJZMAN: Yes, exclusively this psychological purpose.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I have no further questions to ask this witness.

THE PRESIDENT: Does any of the other chief prosecutors wish to ask any questions?

[There was no response.]

Do the defendants' counsel wish to ask any questions?

[There was no response.]

Then the witness can retire.

[The witness left the stand.]