Upfall by Jonathan F. Keiler

Author:Jonathan F. Keiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hillcrest Media Group, Inc.

Chapter 23

Wirth spent most of the evening with Erbel, trying to convince the commandant to use the new rein­forcements in a sensible manner. But Erbel would have none of it. He ordered the Ukranian company to set up camp in the western field without tents or barbed wire. He sent the new SS platoon into the Jewish barracks, thus displac­ing several hundred Jews for the convenience of less than thirty men. The Jews were forced out onto the deportation square where victims were assembled before their last journey to the gas chambers. There the Jewish workers were made to stand at attention, believing that their own passage to the extermi­nation camp was imminent. But they were not ordered to proceed down the Himmelgang, but rather to just stand, until after many hours, they were finally allowed to collapse in place. Wirth cared nothing for the Jews' suffering, but worried that they would unnecessarily spread fear and dissention.

Wirth noted that almost everything Erbel did was haphaz­ard and thoughtless. The Ukranians in the western field were practically defenseless and added little to Treblinka's protection. Forcing the Jews into the deportation square put extra pressure on the garrison. Wirth realized that this was simply the way Treblinka was run on a daily basis, and the reason for its inef­ficiency. Erbel told Wirth that it was too late to mount patrols, and that integrating the new troops into his own garrison could be done in the morning. Evidently, the Commandant didn't like to work in the evening hours.

The only activity in the death camp that evening was in the extermination lager. There the Sonderkommando was still at work burying the dead from the last transport. A full platoon of Ukranians guarded the Jewish workers, supervised by several SS men. Otherwise, despite Wirth's warnings, the Germans and Ukranians in the camp kept to their barracks, with the exception of the regular posted guard.

Shortly before 23:00 Erbel announced that he had had enough and was retiring to bed. He offered Wirth a place in the officer's barrack, but Wirth decided to go check up on the SS platoon he'd brought with him. Not particularly cared about them, but because he wanted to separate himself from the Commandant. Wirth had a feeling that getting away from Erbel would be safer in the long run.

The Jewish prisoners' barrack was sufficient to house sev­eral hundred people, and Wirth was distressed to see that the SS platoon had spread itself thoughout the compound, looting and stealing from the Jews the little they had managed to save or hide away. The SS platoon acted quite as if they were at a summer camp. Several had brought along bottles of Schnapps and others had uncovered bottles secreted away by the Jewish Kapos, who were given a small liquor ration. All the men, it appeared, were drinking. Wirth seethed. Again, not out of sympathy for the Jews, but out of fear for his own career and personal safety.

But Wirth was too smart to confront a group of heavily armed drunks, who he hardly knew, in the middle of the night.

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