Shoah
Interview with Claude Lanzmann
Directed by	Claude Lanzmann
Starring	Richard Glazar Raul Hilberg Filip Müller Mordechaï Podchlebnik Simon Srebrnik Rudolf Vrba
Cinematography	Dominique Chapuis Jimmy Glasberg Phil Gries William Lubtchansky
Edited by	Ziva Postec Anna Ruiz
Distributed by	New Yorker Films
Release date	30 April 1985 (1985-04-30)
Running time	566 minutes
Country	France
Languages	English French German Hebrew Polish Yiddish
Awards	New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film BAFTA Award for Best Documentary
Box office	$20,175

There was a place called the ramp where the trains with the Jews were coming in. They were coming in day and night, and sometimes one per day and sometimes five per day, from all sorts of places in the world. I worked there from August 18, 1942, to June 7, 1943. I saw those transports rolling one after another, and I have seen at least two hundred of them in this position. I have seen it so many times that it became a routine. Constantly, people from the heart of Europe were disappearing and they were arriving to the same place with the same ignorance of the fate of the previous transport. And the people in this mass… I knew of course that within a couple of hours after they arrived there, ninety percent would be gassed or something like that. I knew that. Somehow in my thinking it was difficult for me to comprehend that people can disappear in this way. Nothing is going to happen, and then there comes the next transport, and they don’t know anything about what happened to the previous transport, and this is going on for months, on and on.

So what happened was the following. Say a transport of Jews was announced to come at two o’clock. When the transport arrived at the station of Auschwitz, an announcement came to the SS. Now one SS man came and woke us up and we moved to the ramp. We immediately got an escort and were escorted to the ramp – say we were about two hundred men. And lights went on. There was a ramp, around the ramp were lights, and under those lights were a cordon of SS. There was one every ten yards with gun in hand. So we were in the middle and were waiting for the train, waiting for the next order.

Now when all this was done – everybody was there – the transport was rolled in. This means in a very slow fashion the locomotive, which was always in the front, was coming to the ramp, and that was the end of the railway line, that was the end of the line for everybody who was on the train. And now the train stopped and the gangster elite marched on the ramp, and in front of every second or every third wagon, and sometimes in front of every wagon, one of those Unterscharführer was standing with a key and opened the locks, because the wagons were locked.

Now inside there were people, of course, and you could see the people looking through the windows because they didn’t know what was happening. They had many stops on the journey – some of them were ten days on the journey, some were two days on the journey – and they didn’t know what this particular stop means. The door was opened and the first order they were given was “Alle raus”: “Everybody out.” And in order to make it quite clear, they usually started with those walking sticks to hit the first or second or third. They were like sardines in those cars. If they expected on that day four or five or six transports, the pressure of getting out from the wagons was high. Then they used sticks, clubs, cursing, etcetera. Sometimes, if it was good weather, the SS used to deal with it differently. I mean I was not surprised if they were in a different mood and exhibited a lot of humour, like saying “Good morning, madame” and “Will you walk out, please.” Oh yes, oh yes. And “How nice that you arrived. We are so sorry that it wasn’t too convenient, but now things will become different.”

Whenever a new transport came, the ramp was cleaned absolutely to zero point. No trace from the previous transport was allowed to remain. Not one trace.

There was always an amount of people who could not get out of the railroad cars, those who also died on the road, or people who were sick to such a degree that even persuasion with violent beating wouldn’t get them moving fast enough. Those people remained in the wagons. So our first job was to get into the wagons, get out the dead bodies – or the dying – and transport them in laufscbritt, as the Germans liked to say. This means “running.” Laufscbritt, yeah, never walking – everything had to be done in laufscbritt, immer laufen (running step, always running). So, very sporty – they are a sporty nation, you see.

We have to get out those bodies, and on the ramp, running, to get them on a truck which was at the head of the ramp. There were already trucks prepared; the trucks were ready. Say, five, six, sometimes ten standing there – there was no iron rule. The first truck was for the dead and the dying. There was not much medical counting to see who is dead and who feigns to be dead, who is only simulating. So they were put on the trucks; and once this was finished, this was the first truck to move off, and it went straight to the crematorium, which was about two kilometers to the left from the ramp.

Q: At the time it was two kilometer?. Before the construction of the new ramp?

It was before the construction of the new ramp. This was the old ramp. Through the old ramp, the first one, three quarters of a million people died. This was the old ramp. I mean the majority. The new ramp was only built for the expected murder in a very short time of a million Jews from Hungary.

The whole murder machinery could work on one principle: that the people came to Auschwitz and didn’t know where they were going and for what purpose. The new arrivals were supposed to be kept orderly and without panic marching into the gas chambers. Especially the panic was dangerous from women with small children. So it was important for the Nazis that none of us gave some sort of message which would cause a panic, even in the last moment. And anybody who tried to get into touch with newcomers was either clubbed to death or taken behind the wagon and shot, because if a panic would have broken out, a massacre would have taken place on the sport, on the ramp. It would already be a itch in the machinery. You couldn’t bring in the next transport with dead bodies and blood around because this would only increase the panic. The Nazis were concentrating on one thing: it should go in an orderly fashion so that it goes unimpeded. One doesn’t lose time.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was far from being only a mass murder centre. It was a normal concentration camp too, which had it order, like Mauthausen, like Buchenwald, lie Dachau, like Sachsenhausen. But whereas in Mauthausen the main product of prisoners’ work was tone – there was a big stone quarry – the product in Auschwitz was death. Everything was geared to keep the crematorium running. This was the aim. This meant the prisoners would work on the woad to the crematorium, would build the crematorium. They would build all barracks necessary for keeping up prisoners, and of course, apart from that, there was an element of a normal German concentration camp – the Krupp and Siemens factories moved in and utilized slave labor. So the Krupp factory and the Siemens factory were built partly within the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The tradition in the concentration camp was that there was a considerable amount of political prisoners, trade unionists, social democrats, communists, ex-fighters from Spain. What happened was a very peculiar development. The Resistance leadership in Auschwitz was concentrated in the hands of German-speaking anti-Nazis who were German by birth but considered racially pure by the Nazi hierarchy. They got a bit better treatment than the rest of the camp. I don’t say they were treated with gloves, but they managed with time to gain influence over various Nazi dignitaries from the SS and to use it in a way which led systematically to an improvement of conditions within the concentration camp itself. Whereas in 1943… 1942, in Birkenau, in December and January a death rate of four hundred prisoners per day was common, by May 1943, not only because of the weather improvement but due to the activities of the Resistance movement, the improvement was so marked that the mortality rate greatly decreased in the concentration camp. And they considered it a great victory on their side.

And that improvement of living conditions within the concentration camp was perhaps not so against the policy of the higher echelons of SS ranks as long as it did not interfere with the objective of the camp, which was production of death on the newcomers who were not prisoners of the camp. There was a rule that those people in the transport who can be utilized for work, who are in good physical condition – they are not old, they are not too young, they are not children, they are not women with children, etcetera, etcetera, they look healthy – they should come into the concentration camp for replacement of those who were dying in the concentration camp, as a fresh force. And I would see – the following discussion I once overheard: A transport came from – I think it was from Holland or from Belgium, I do not guarantee you which one it was – and the SS doctor selected a group of well-looking Jewish prisoners, newcomers, from the whole transport which would be gassed, which was gassed. The representative of the SS from the concentration camp says he doesn’t want them. And there was a discussion between them which I could overhear in which the doctor was saying: “Why don’t you take them, they are ausgefressen Juden auf hollandisch kase.” This means “Jews full of, well nourished on Dutch cheese.” He said they would be good for the camp. And Fries it was – Hauptscharführer Fries said: “I can’t take them, because nowadays they don’t kick the bucket so fast in the camp.”

Q: This means they don’t die fast enough?

That’s right. In other words, he explained that if the needs of the camp were, say, thirty thousand prisoners, and five thousand died, they were replaced by a new force from the Jewish transport which came in. But if only a thousand died, well, only a thousand were replaced and more went into the gas chamber, straight into the gas chamber. It decreased the death rate among the prisoners in the concentration camp. So here it was clear to me that the improvement of the situation in the concentration camp does not impede the process of mass executions of those people who are brought into the camp. Consequently, my idea then of the Resistance movement, of the sense of the Resistance movement, was that the improvement of the conditions within the camp is only a first step, that the main thing is to stop the process of mass execution, the machinery of the killing, and that therefore it is a time of preparation, of gathering forces for attacking the SS from inside – even if it is a suicide mission – but destroying the machinery. And in this respect I would consider it as a suitable objective, worthy objective, and it was also clear to me that such an objective cannot be achieved overnight, that there is necessary a lot of preparation, and a lot of circumstances about which being only a small cog in the whole machinery of the Resistance I could not know or decide. But it was clear in my mind that the only objective of any resistance within the concentration camp of the type of Auschwitz has to be different from that in Mauthausen or Dachau. Because whereas in Mauthausen or Dachau this policy of resistance improved the survival rate of political prisoners, the same very noble policy improved and oiled the machinery of mass annihilation as practised by the Nazis within the Auschwitz camp.

These Czech Jews from Theresienstadt, from the ghetto near Prague, came into one particular part of the camp which was called Bauabschnitt 2B. At that time I was working as a Registrar in 2A. The division between 2A and 2B was only one electrical fence through which nobody could climb, but you could speak through it. In the morning I could sort out the whole situation. There were a number of surprising circumstances. The families – which means men, women and children – were taken together, and nobody was gassed. They took with them their luggage into the camp and they were not shorn – their hair was left.

So they were in a different position from anything that I had seen until now. I didn’t know what to think about it, nobody knew, but in the main registrar’s office it was known that all the people have got special cards which had a remark on them: SB mit sechs monatiger Quarantanne. SB – we knew what that means: Sonderbebanlung, “special treatment,” which meant gassing. And Quarantane also, we knew what it means. But it didn’t make sense to us that somebody should be kept in the camp for six months in order to be gassed after six months. Therefore, it was left open to interpretation if SB – Sonderbebanlung – always means gassing or if perhaps it has a double meaning. And the six months was supposed to end on March 7. In December – and I think it was close to December 20 – another transport from Theresienstadt came, also about four thousand people strong, which was added to the first transport in the camp B2B. Also men, women and children were left together – families were not torn apart. Old people, young people, everything remained intact, and their hair was left and their personal property was left, so they could wear civilian clothes, whatever they had. They were given a sort of a different treatment. A school was arranged for the children in a special barrack and the children soon made a theater there. But it was not really a very comfortable life, because they were cramped, and from the first four thousand people during the first six months, the mortality was about a thousand.

Q: Were they obliged to work?

Yes, they had to work, but only inside their camp. They made a new camp road and ornamented their barracks. They were induced to write letters, induced to write letters by the SS, to their relatives in the Theresienstadt ghetto, saying that they are all together, etcetera.

Q: Were there better conditions of food?

Definitely better conditions of food, better conditions of treatment. I mean their conditions were so good that within six months – including the old people and children – only one quarter of them died. I mean this was a very unusually good condition in Auschwitz. And at the children’s theatre the SS used to come and play with the children. Personal relationship was struck up. And of course, on of my tasks as a registrar was to find out the possibility of people who are Resistance, who had a mind for resistance, and to strike up a relationship and contracts.

Q: You were already a member of the Resistance movement in Auschwitz?

Yes. And that was my job as a registrar, that I had the possibility of moving a bit around on various pretexts, to carry papers from my part of the camp to the central registry and on that occasion to meet other people and give them messages, take messages from them. And one of my tasks then was – because I was closest to the camp – to find out if among the members of this transport were people suitable for organizing a Resistance nucleus. We soon found several ex-members of the International Brigade in Spain. And so in no time I had a list of about forty people who had a record from the past of developing some kind of resistance against the Nazis. A special figure emerged in this family camp. The name was Freddy Hirsch. He was a German Jew who emigrated from Germany to Prague. Freddy Hirsch showed a considerable amount of interest for the education of the children who were there – he knew each child by name – and by his upright behaviour and obvious human dignity he became a sort of spiritual leader of this whole family camp. Now March 7 started to near and this was supposed to give us the signal of what was supposed to happen. But what, we did not know for sure.

By approximately the end of February, a rumour was spread by the Nazis that the family transport will be moved to a place called Heidebreck. The first move was to separate the first family transport from the second family transport by transferring them overnight into the quarantine camp B2A, where I was the registrar.

So I could now speak to those people directly. I talked to Freddy Hirsch specifically, and I told him about the possibility that the transport that has been his transport, the family transport of the Czechs, has been transferred to the quarantine camp because of the possibility of them being predestined to be gassed on the seventh of March. He asked me if I know that for sure, and I said I do not know it for sure, but it is a serious possibility, because there is no record of any train  going away from Auschwitz, and usually the offices of the registrars, where the Resistance movement had their people, would get wind of such information, of a transport being prepared out of Auschwitz, and there was no such information.

And I explained him the circumstances, and I explained him what it means, and the possibility then would arise that for the first time there in camp people who are relatively physically preserved, who have retained some sort of a morale, who are certain to go to die, in other words, to be subject to the normal execution procedure – the anonymous, major execution procedure as usual – and they will know it, they can’t be just tricked, and that this is perhaps the time to act. And the action of course will have to come out from them. Because there are others whose death was imminent, and that was the people from the Sonderkommando, who work in the crematorium, which was periodically replaced. And they show the willingness that if the Czechs before the gassing attack the SS, they will join them. Freddy Hirsch objected. He was very reasonable, and he said it doesn’t make sense that the Germans would keep them for six months, feeding the children with milk and white bread, in order to gas them after six months.

On the next day I got a message again from the Resistance that it is sure that they are going to be gassed, that the Sonderkommando already received the coal for burning the transport. The Sonderkommando knew exactly how many people are going to be gassed, what sort of people, because there are certain rules. So I called up again to Freddy and explained to him that as far as this transport is concerned, including him, they are going to be gassed in the next forty-eight hours. So he sadly started to worry. He asked: what happens to the children if we start the uprising. He had a very close relation with the children.

Q: How many children were there?

There could have been a hundred, alive.

Q: And how many people able to fight?

Well, the nucleus was about thirty, and now it was not necessary to keep any precautions, and this depends. I mean, if it comes to fighting, even an old woman can pick up a stone. Anybody can fight. I mean this is difficult to predict. But it was necessary to have a nucleus, and it was necessary to have a leading personality. You see, those are small details which are extremely important. And so he said to me: “If we make the uprising, what is going to happen to the children? Who is going to take care of them?” I said that I cannot say anything exact; that there is no way out for them. They will die whatsoever. That’s for sure. This he cannot prevent. What does depend on us: who is going to die with them, and how many SS are going to die with them, and how will it impede the whole machinery, plus the possibility that a part during the uprising will find a way out of the camp, which is possible in such a situation. I mean, to break through the guards, because once the uprising starts, some weapons can be expected to be had. And I explained to him that there is absolutely no chance for him or for anybody from that transport – to the best of my knowledge, and everybody else’s knowledge who I trust – to survive the next forty-eight hours.

Q: This took place inside the block?

Inside the block, in my room. And I told him also of the need for a personality and that he has been selected. And of course, he explains to me that he understands the situation, that it is extremely difficult for him to make any decisions because of the children, and that he cannot see how he can just leave those children to their fate. He was sort of their father. I mean he as only thirty at that time, but the relationship between him and those children was very strong. And he said to me that of course he can see the logic behind my argumentation and that he would like to think about it for an hour, if I could leave him alone to think for an hour. And because I had at that time a room of my own as a registrar, I left him in my room, which was equipped with a table, a chair, and a bed, and some writing instrumentation, and I told him I would come in an hour’s time back.

And I came back in an hour, and I could see that he is laying on my bed and that he’s dying. He was cyanotic in the face, he had froth around the mouth, and I could see that he has poisoned himself. He took poison. But he was not dead. And because of him being so important… I didn’t know what sort of poison he took, but I had again a connection to a man called Dr. Kleinmann. This Dr. Kleinmann was of Polish origin and a French Jew and medially qualified, and I called him immediately to Hirsch and asked him to do what he can because this is an important man. And Kleinmann inspected Freddy Hirsch, and he says he thinks he poisoned himself with a big dose of barbiturates, that it might be possible to save his life. But he won’t be on his feet for a long time to come, and he is going to be gassed in the next forty-eight hours, and he thinks, Kleinmann, that it would be better to leave things as they are and to do nothing.

Well, the story after the suicide of Freddy Hirsch developed very fast. First thing, I informed the rest of them what I had told Hirsch. Secondly, I moved to camp 2D to establish contact with the Resistance movement there. They gave me bread for the people – yes, bread and onions – and said that no decision has been made and I should come later for instructions. The moment I distributed the bread something happened, namely, a special curfew was made within the camp, all administrative activities were stopped, all guards were doubled, machine guns, etcetera, were spread around the quarantine camp, and I was out of contact. The Czech family transport was gassed in the evening. They were put on trucks. All of them knew. They were put on trucks. They behaved very well. We didn’t know of course where the trucks were going. They were being assured once more that they were going to Heidebreck and not to be gassed, and we knew that if they are going out from the camp, the trucks will turn right when they leave the camp. And we knew that if they turn left there was only one way. Five hundred yards. That’s where the crematorium was.

That’s how it ended with the first Czech family transport. And it was quite clear to me then that the Resistance in the camp is not geared for an uprising but for survival of the members of the Resistance. I then decided to act what was called by the members of the Resistance anarchic and individualistic activity, like escape and leaving the community, for which I am coresponsible by that time. The decision to escape, in spite of the policy of the Resistance movement at that time, was formed immediately, and I started to press on with the preparations for the escape together with my friend Wetzler, who was extremely important in this matter.

And before I left I spoke with Hugo Lenek. Hugo Lenek was in command of the Resistance group in the second family transport. I explained to him that from the Resistance movement they can expect nothing now – expect nothing but bread. But when it comes to the dying, they should act on their own. As far as I was concerned, I think that if I successfully manage to break out from the camp and bring the information to the right place at the right time, that this might be a help, that I might manage, if I succeed, to bring help from outside. And also it was a firm belief in me that all this was possible, because either the victims who came to Auschwitz didn’t know what was happening there or if somebody had the knowledge outside, that the knowledge was… I would say that they didn’t know. That’s it. And I thought that if this would be made known by any means within Europe, and especially within Hungary, from where a million Jews were supposed to be transported to Auschwitz immediately, in May – and I knew about that – that this might stir up the Resistance outside and bring help from outside directly to Auschwitz. And thus the escape plans are finally formulated and the escape took place on April 7.

Q: And this is the main and the deep reason why you decided to escape? Suddenly, at that moment, to press on with it? In other words, not to delay anything but to escape as soon as possible. To inform the world about what was going on?

Right.

Q: In Auschwitz?

Right.

Now… now I go back thirty-five years. No, I don’t go back… I come back. I am ready. In the middle of 1942, I was thinking to take up again my position as a courier between the Polish underground and the Polish government in exile in London. The Jewish leaders in Warsaw learned about it. A meeting was arranged, outside the ghetto. There were two gentlemen. They did not live in the ghetto. They introduced themselves – leader of Bund, Zionist leader. Now, what transpired, what happened in our conversation? First, I was not prepared for it. I was relatively isolated in my work in Poland. I did not see many things. In thirty-five years after the war I do not go back. I have been a teacher for twenty-six years. I never mention the Jewish problem to my students. I understand this film is for historical record, so I will try to do it. They described to me what is happening to the Jews.

Did I know about it? No, I didn’t. They described to me first that the Jewish problem is unprecedented, cannot be compared with the Polish problem, or Russian, or any other problem. Hitler will lose this war, but he will exterminate all the Jewish population. Do I understand it? The Allies fight for their people – they fight for humanity. The Allies cannot forget that the Jews will be exterminated totally in Poland – Polish and European Jews. They were breaking down. They paced the room. They were whispering. They were hissing. It was a nightmare for me. CL: Did they look completely despairing? Yes. Yes. At various stages of the conversation they lost control of themselves. I just sat in my chair. I just listened. I did not even react. I didn’t ask them questions. I was just listening. CL: They wanted to convince you? They realized, I think… they realized from the beginning that I don’t know, that I don’t understand this problem. Once I said I will take messages from them, they wanted to inform me what is happening to the Jews. I didn’t know this. I was never in a ghetto. I never dealt with the Jewish matters.

CL: Did you know yourself at the time that most of the Jews of Warsaw had already been killed?

I did know. But I didn’t see anything. I never heard any description of what was happening and I was never there. It is one thing to know statistics. There were hundreds of thousands of Poles also killed – of Russians, Serbs, Greeks. We knew about it. But it was a question of statistics. CL: Did they insist on the complete uniqueness…? Yes. This was their problem: to impress upon me – and that was my mission – to impress upon all people who I am going to see that the Jewish situation is unprecedented in history. Egyptian pharaohs did not do it. The Babylonians did not do it. Now for the first time in history actually, they came to the conclusion: unless the Allies take some unprecedented steps, regardless of the outcome of the war, the Jews will be totally exterminated. And they cannot accept it.

CL: This means that they asked for very specific measures?

Yes. Interchangeably. At a certain point the Bund leader, then at a certain point the Zionist leader – then what do they want? What message am I supposed to take? Then they gave me messages, various massages, to the Allied governments as such – I was to see as many government officials as I could, of course. Then to the Polish government, then to the president of the Polish republic. Then to the international Jewish leaders. And to individual political leaders, leading intellectuals – approach as many people as possible.

And then they gave me segments to who do I report what. So now, in these nightmarish meetings – two meetings I had with them – well, then they presented their demands. Separate demands. The message was: Hitler cannot be allowed to continue extermination. Every day counts. The Allies cannot treat this war only from a purely military strategic standpoint. They will win the war if they take such an attitude, but what good will it do to us?

We will not survive this war. The Allied governments cannot take such a stand. We contributed to humanity – we gave scientists for thousands of years. We originated great religions. We are humans. Do you understand it? Do you understand it? Never happened before in history, what is happening to our people now. Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world.

We understand we have no country of our own, we have no government, we have no voice in the Allied councils. So we have to use services, little people like you are. Will you do it? Will you approach them? Will you fulfill your mission? Approach the Allied leaders? We want an official declaration of the Allied nations that in addition to the military strategy which aims at securing victory, miliary victory in this war, extermination of the Jews forms a separate chapter, and the Allied nations formally, publicly, announce that they will deal with this problem, that it becomes a part of their overall strategy in this war.

Not only defeat of Germany but also saving the remaining Jewish population. Once they make such an official declaration, they have an air force, they drop bombs on Germany – why cannot they drop millions of leaflets informing the German population exactly what their government is doing to the Jews? Perhaps they don’t know it! Now let them make an official declaration – again, official, a public declaration – that if the German nation does not offer evidence of trying to change the policy of their government, the German nation will have to be held responsible for the crimes their government is committing.

And now, if there is no such evidence, to announce publicly, officially, certain objects in Germany will be bombed, destroyed, as a retaliation for what the German government is doing against the Jews, that the bombing takes place that this was done and will continue to be done because the Jews are being exterminated in Poland. Perhaps it will help. They can do it. They can do it. This was one mission. Next, both of them – particularly the Zionist leader – he was again whispering, hissing. Something is going to happen. The Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are talking about it, particularly the young elements. They will fight. They speak about a declaration of war against the Third Reich. A unique war in world history. Never such a war took place.

They want to die fighting. We can’t deny them this kind of death. By the way, I didn’t know at the time, a Jewish military organization emerged. They didn’t tell me about it, only that something is going to happen. The Jews will fight. They need arms. We approached the commander of the Home Army, the underground movement in Poland. Those arms were denied the Jews. They can’t be denied arms if such arms exist, and we know you have arms. This message for the commander in chief, General Sikorski, to issue orders that those arms will be given to the Jews.

This was another part of the mission. There are international Jewish leaders. Reach as many as possible, tell them this. They are Jewish leaders. Their people are dying. There will be no Jews, so what for do we need leaders? We are going to die as well. We don’t try to escape. We stay here. Let them go to important offices – in London, wherever they are. Let them demand for action. If they refuse, let them walk out, stay in the street, refuse food, refuse drink. Let them die in view of all humanity.

Who knows? Perhaps it will shake the conscience of the world. Between those two Jewish leaders – somehow this belongs to human relations – I took, so to say, to the Bund leader, probably because of his behaviour – he looked like a Polish nobleman, a gentleman, with straight, beautiful gestures, dignified. I believe that he liked me also, personally. Now at a certain point, he said: “Mr. Vitold, I know the Western world. You are going to deal with the English. Now you will give them your oral reports. I am sure it will strengthen your report if you will be able to say ‘I saw it myself.’ We can organize for you to visit the Jewish ghetto. Would you do it? If you do, I will go with you to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw so I will be sure you will be as safe as possible.”

A few days later we established contact. By that time the Jewish ghetto as it existed in 1942 until July did not exist anymore. Out of approximately four hundred thousand Jews, some three hundred thousand were already deported from the ghetto. So within the outside walls, practically there were some four units. The most important was the so-called central ghetto. They were separated by some areas inhabited by the Aryans and already some areas not inhabited by anybody.

There was a building. This building was constructed in such a way that the wall which separated the ghetto from the outside world was a part of the back of the building, so the front was facing the Aryan area. There was a tunnel. We went through this tunnel without any kind of difficulty. What struck me was that now he was a completely different man – the Bund leader, the Polish nobleman. I go with him. He is broken down, like a Jew from the ghetto, as if he had lived there all the time. Apparently, this was his nature. This was his world. So we walked the streets. He was on my left. We didn’t talk very much. He led me. Well, so what? So now comes the description of it, yes? Well… naked bodies on the street. I ask him: “Why are they here?”

CL: The corpses, you mean? Corpses. He says: “Well, they have a problem. If a Jew dies and the family wants a burial, they have to pay tax on it. So they just throw them in the street.” CL: Because they cannot pay the tax? Yes. They cannot afford it. So then he says: “Every rag counts. So they take their clothing. And then once the body, the corpse, is on the street, the Judenrat has to take care of it.” Women with their babies, publicly feeding their babies, but they have no… no breast, just flat. Babies with crazed eyes, looking…

CL: Did it look like a completely strange world? Another world, I mean? It was not a world. There was not humanity. Streets full, full. Apparently all of them lived in the street, exchanging what was the most important, everybody offering something to sell – three onions, two onions, some cookies. Selling. Begging each other. Crying and hungry. Those horrible children – some children running by themselves or with their mothers sitting. It wasn’t humanity. It was some… some hell.

Now in this part of the ghetto, the central ghetto, there were German officers. If the Gestapo released somebody, the Gestapo officers had to pass through the ghetto to get out of it. There were also Germans, German traffic. Now the Germans in uniform, they were walking… silence! Everybody frozen until he passed. No movement, no begging, nothing. Germans… contempt. This is apparent that they are subhuman. They are not human.

Now at a certain point some movement starts. Jews are running from the street I was on. We jumped into a house. He just hits the door. “Open the door! Open the door!” They open the door. We move in. Windows give onto the back of the street. We go to the opposite – in the door. Some woman opens the door. He says: “All right, all right, don’t be afraid, we are Jews. He pushes me to the window, says “Look at it, look at it.” There were two boys, nice hooking boys, Hitler-jugend in uniform. They walked. Every step they made, Jews disappearing, running away. They were talking to each other. At a certain point a boy goes into his pocket without even thinking.

Shoots! Some broken glass. The other boy congratulating him. They go back. So I was paralyzed. So then the Jewish woman – probably she recognized me, I don’t know, that I am not a Jew – she embraced me. “Go, go, it doesn’t do you any good, go, go.” So we left the house. Then we left the ghetto. So then he said: “You didn’t see everything; you didn’t see too much. Would you like to go again? I will come with you. I want you to see everything. I will.”

Next day we went again. The same house, the same way. So then again I was more conditioned, so I felt other things. Stench, stench, dirt, stench – everywhere, suffocating. Dirty streets, nervousness, tension. Bedlam. This was Platz Muranowski. In a corner of it some children were playing something with some rags – throwing the rags to one another. He says; “They are playing, you see. Life goes on. Life goes on.” So then I said: “They are simulating playing. They don’t play.”

CL: It was a special place for playing? In the corner of Platz Muranowski – no, no, no, open. So I say: “They are…”

CL: There are trees?

There were a few trees, rickety. So then we just walked the streets; we didn’t talk to anybody. We walked probably one hour. Sometimes he would tell me: “Look at this Jew” – a Jew standing, without moving. I said: “Is he dead?” He says: “No, no, no, he is alive. Mr. Vitold, remember – he’s dying, he’s dying. Look at him. Tell them over there.” “You saw it. Don’t forget.” We walk again. It’s macabre. Only from time to time he would whisper; “Remember this, remember this.” Or he would tell me: “Look at he.” Very many cases. I would say: “What are they doing here?” His answer: “They are dying, that’s all. They are dying.” And always: “But remember, remember.”

We spent more time, perhaps one hour. We left the ghetto. Frankly, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Get me out of it.” And then I never saw him again. I was sick. Even now I don’t want… I understand your role. I am here. I don’t go back in my memory. I couldn’t tell any more. But I reported what I saw. It was not a world. It was not a part of humanity. I was not part of it. I did not belong there. I never saw such things, I never… nobody wrote about this kind of reality.

I never saw any theatre, I never saw any movie… this was not the world. I was told that these were human beings – they didn’t look like human beings. Then we left. He embraced me then. “Good luck. Good luck.” I never saw him again.