The dentists used to sit at their work under the direction of Dr Zimmermann, who was a very decent human being. Germans used to come to him when they had some special business.
Before going on leave they used to come to us to pick out a couple of beautiful stones for themselves, or some foreign currency.
In the shed stood a small stove. In one wall there were two small windows which looked out onto the open space in front of the building with the ten big gas chambers. When a transport was brought in and the outer doors of the gas chambers were opened, the Germans would knock on the windows shouting: — Dentisten raus! (Dentists out!) Depending on the size of the transport, one or more groups of six men would go out to work. With pliers in their hands they would position themselves along the path via which the corpses were carried from the ramp to one or more of the mass graves. (When they began to incinerate the dead, they were carried to the ovens.)
It is worth mentioning that at the time I began working in the death camp, there were two gassing structures in operation. The larger one had ten chambers, into each of which as many as four hundred people could enter. Each chamber was 7 metres long by 7 metres wide. People were stuffed into them like herrings. When one chamber was full, the second was opened, and so on. Small transports were brought to the smaller structure, which had three gas chambers, each of which could hold 450 to 500 persons.
In that structure the gassing would last about twenty minutes, while in the more recent structure it would last about three quarters of an hour.
On days when the gentlemen would learn by telephone from the extermination headquarters in Lublin that no new transports would be arriving the next day, the murderers, out of sadism, would let the people stand stuffed into the gas chambers so that they would be asphyxiated. On one occasion, when they had stood like that for forty-eight hours and the exterior doors were opened, a few people were still struggling and showing signs of life.
Most of the people became entirely swollen and black. The S.S. men or the Ukrainians would look in through the peep-holes to see if everyone was dead and if the rear doors could now be opened.
As I am standing at work at the table and beginning to get the hang of using the tools, we hear the above-mentioned knocking at our windows. Our group leader already has noticed that the ramp is starting to work, that the special ramp commando is about to open the doors. He appoints six men to go out onto the path along which the carriers run with the corpses. He has included me.
Each member of the group takes two pairs of pliers. We then go outside to the transport. From the carpentry workshop, where among the carpenters is Yankl Wiernik (a survivor whose A Year in Treblinka was published in New York in 1944 by Unser Tsait), each one of us grabs a bowl. In our shed there is no room for the bowls, so they are kept in the carpenters’ room. A whole stack of them lies there. Each of us grabs a little water at the well and runs to work.
At the open space in front of the ramp the scene is an inferno.
The rear door has been opened. When it is opened, deadly fumes are emitted from inside. The corpses, all standing, are so tightly pressed together and have their hands and feet so intertwined that the ramp commando are in danger of their lives until they are able to pull out the first few dozen corpses. Then the mass of bodies loosens and the corpses start to fall out by themselves. The tight compression sometimes results from the fact that people are terrorized and crammed in as they are driven into the gas chambers, so that everyone has to hold his breath in order to be able to find a bit of space. During their death agonies from asphyxiation the bodies also become swollen, so the corpses form literally a single mass.
There was a difference in the appearance of the dead from the small and from the large gas chambers. In the small chambers death was easier and quicker. The faces often looked as if the people had fallen asleep, their eyes closed. Only the mouths of some of the gassed victims were distorted, with bloody foam visible on their lips. The bodies were covered in sweat. Before dying, people had urinated and defecated. The corpses in the larger gas chambers, where death took longer, were horribly deformed, their faces all black as if burned, the bodies swollen and blue, the teeth so tightly clenched that it was literally impossible to open them, and to get to the gold crowns we had sometimes to pull out the natural teeth — otherwise the mouth would not open.
The work of clearing out the corpses was divided up. In addition to the ramp men (about twenty in number), forty to fifty carriers were employed, six dentists and, at the pits, a commando of grave-diggers. About ten of the latter stood in the pit and worked at laying out the corpses head to foot and foot to head so that the maximum number went in. A second group covered the corpses with sand, whereupon a second layer was laid down.
The pits were dug by a bulldozer (later on there were three of them). The pits were enormous, about 50 metres long, about 30 wide and several storeys deep. I estimate that the pits could contain about four storeys.
The movement, the running and chasing, the beatings constituted an infernal vicious circle. Over every group of workers stood several Germans or Ukrainians with whips in their hands, ceaselessly beating the Jews on their heads, backs, stomachs, hands, not much caring where the blows landed. If they did pay attention to the blows, it was to land them in a spot where it would hurt the most or where it could injure the body the most. The ramp men, the carriers and indeed everyone had to do their work at a fiendishly rapid tempo. The ramp men had to make sure that there was always a ready pile of corpses so the carriers would not have to wait. The carriers had to grab a corpse on the run (picking out a lighter specimen from afar), throw it on the litter and gallop with it to the pit.
The litters were in the shape of a ladder with a strap to pull over the shoulders.
The dentists stood in a row on the way from the ramp to the pit. The first in line had the function of quickly inspecting the mouth of the corpse, and, if he noticed gold or false teeth, of passing the corpse to one of the dentists down the line whose hands were free. The carriers stood aside for a moment in order not to interfere with the operation. It was not permitted to lay a corpse on the ground. The carriers then held the corpse, and the dentist quickly seized the tooth or bridge with his pliers and extracted it as fast as possible. Careful attention had to be paid not to miss a tooth that ought to have been extracted. At the pit the Germans would look and inspect. Woe to the dentist who had left a gold tooth in the mouth of a corpse.
I once experienced a case in which a German noticed a gold tooth sparkling in the mouth of a corpse. Since I was the last one standing in the row of dentists, the blame fell on me. I had to jump into the pit at once, rolling head over heels several times. I had to extract the tooth quickly, and when I climbed out again the S.S. man ordered me to stretch out on the ground and administered twenty-five lashes. Another time, somewhat later, I missed a whole mouthful of teeth. Once again I was the last one in the row.
All the other dentists were busy, the corpse was very heavy, and the carriers who were hauling it thought they could throw it into the pit without it being inspected. Standing at his post at that time was Unterscharführer Gustav. He noticed unextracted teeth in the mouth of the corpse and thereupon the same scene was repeated.
This time I received perhaps seventy lashes. He beat me on my back with all his strength, always in the same spot. He nearly severed my spinal cord. When with great difficulty I got up, blood was pouring over my body and into my trousers. On my back there was a big crust of blood; the next day it became apparent that I had blood poisoning. I would undoubtedly have died had it not been for Dr Zimmermann, who operated on me. It was my good fortune that it was a Sunday, when we were free from work. Dr Zimmermann had all his instruments with him and performed the operation in the barracks, even with anaesthesia. He opened the wound and cleaned it out, and in this way saved my life.