Abraham Bomba (1913–2000) was a barber in the city of Częstochowa when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. In 1941, Abraham was imprisoned in the Częstochowa ghetto. There, he married his first wife, Reizl, who gave birth to a baby boy. In September 1942, the family was sent to the Treblinka killing center along with thousands of others. Upon arrival, Abraham's wife and son were murdered in the gas chambers. However, Abraham was one of the few people selected for forced labor. At Treblinka, he had to pick up and sort clothing that the Nazis had stolen from the murdered Jews. He was also forced to cut women's hair before they were killed in the gas chambers. In January 1943, Abraham escaped from Treblinka and made his way back to the Częstochowa ghetto. There, he tried to warn the remaining Jews about the murders happening at the Treblinka killing center. During this time, he also met and married his second wife, Regina. Regina's first husband had been killed at Treblinka. Abraham worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until his liberation by Soviet troops in 1945. He and Regina immigrated to the United States in 1951.
And now I want to tell you, I want to tell you about the thing...the gas chamber. It was, they ask me already about this thing. The gas chamber, how it looked. Very simple. Was all concrete. There was no window. There was nothing in it. Beside, on top of you, there was wires, and it looked like, you know, the water going to come out from it. Had two doors. Steel doors. From one side and from the other side. The people went in to the gas chamber from the one side. Like myself, I was in it, doing the job as a barber. When it was full the gas chamber--the size of it was...I would say 18 by 18, or 18 by 17, I didn't measure that time, just a look like I would say I look here the room around, I wouldn't say exactly how big it is. And they pushed in as many as they could. It was not allowed to have the people standing up with their hands down because there is not enough room, but when people raised their hand like that there was more room to each other. And on top of that they throw in kids, 2, 3, 4 years old kids, on top of them. And we came out. The whole thing it took I would say between five and seven minute. The door opened up, not from the side they went in but the side from the other side and from the other side the...the group...people working in Treblinka number 2, which their job was only about dead people. They took out the corpses. Some of them dead and some of them still alive. They dragged them to the ditches, and over there they covered them. Big ditches, and they covered them. That was the beginning of Treblinka.
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