Media Essay
Treblinka - ID Card/Oral History
Chil Meyer Rajchman
Chil was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the industrial city of Lodz. His mother died before World War II, leaving his father to raise the family. Chil's father could not sustain the family financially, so Chil, as the eldest male child, went to work to help support his brothers and sisters.
1933-39: On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. Chil fled Lodz with his younger sister to Pruszkow, a small town 10 miles southwest of Warsaw, where there were fewer restrictions on Jews. There was a ghetto there but it wasn't cordoned off. Three times a week they were taken to a railroad labor camp and forced to work--they were often beaten. When the Nazis liquidated the railroad brigades Chil was deported to the Warsaw ghetto.
1940-45: After several months in the Warsaw ghetto, Chil was transferred first to the Lublin area and then, in 1942, to the Treblinka killing center. When he arrived he heard a guard call out, "Who's a barber?" With nothing to lose Chil answered, "I am." He was handed scissors and marched to the gas chambers. Suddenly, a door at one end of the cell opened and screaming guards pushed naked women into the room and forced them to sit. Chil cut their hair in five snips, threw the hair in a suitcase and left the chamber before they were gassed.
In August 1943 Chil escaped from Treblinka during an uprising. He then hid until he was liberated by the Soviet army on January 17, 1945.
Item ViewSzlamach Radoszynski
Szlamach was one of six children born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. Szlamach's father was a peddler, and the Radoszynski family lived in a modest apartment in Warsaw's Praga section on the east bank of the Vistula River. After completing his schooling at the age of 16, Szlamach apprenticed to become a furrier.
1933-39: During the 1930s Szlamach owned a fur business. Despite the Depression, he was hoping the economy would turn around so that he could make enough money to move into his own apartment and start a family. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. One week later, his city was surrounded by the Germans. After a terrible siege, Warsaw surrendered.
1940-44: In November 1940 the Nazis established a ghetto. By April 1943 Szlamach's entire family had either died in the ghetto or had been deported to the Treblinka killing center. After the ghetto uprising, he was deported to Auschwitz. Day after day his job there was to shovel dirt over discarded, still-smoldering ashes of cremated victims. He kept wondering whether he, too, would end up the same. But Szlamach was sustained by the fact that the number tattooed on his arm--#128232--added up to 18, the Jewish mystical symbol for life.
In January 1945 Szlamach was deported to Dachau, where he was liberated during a forced march on May 1, 1945, by U.S. soldiers. In July 1949 he immigrated to the United States.
Item ViewAbraham Bomba describes cutting women's hair before they were gassed in Treblinka
Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports. Abraham escaped from the camp in 1943 and made his way back to Czestochowa. He worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.
Item ViewAbraham Bomba describes gassing operations at Treblinka
Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports. Abraham escaped from the camp in 1943 and made his way back to Czestochowa. He worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.
Item ViewAbraham Bomba describes the Treblinka gas chambers
Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports. Abraham escaped from the camp in 1943 and made his way back to Czestochowa. He worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.
Item ViewIsadore Helfing describes labor in the Treblinka camp
Isadore was born to a Jewish family in Kielce, Poland. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Isadore and his family were forced into the Kielce ghetto, which was established in April 1941. When his parents were deported to the Treblinka killing center in 1942, Isadore went with them rather than remaining behind for forced labor. After arrival at the camp, Isadore hid in a pile of bodies. His parents were killed. Isadore survived by working in the camp. On August 2, 1943, prisoners at Treblinka revolted and Isadore escaped. He was first taken in by a farmer, and then stayed with a partisan group until Soviet forces liberated the area.
Item View![Train station near the Treblinka killing center. This photo was found in an album belonging to camp commandant Kurt Franz. [LCID: 35274]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/6650591e-240b-44bd-8cf7-774c8c400c9b.jpg.pagespeed.ce.1N9cTdCkXY.jpg)