Shoah Page #2

[ Interpreter #1, In French]

Yes, there are lots of animals of all kinds.

[ Lanzmann ]

Was there hunting then?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

[ Man Replies]

Only man hunting.

JAN PIWONSKI:

Some victims tried to escape.

But they didn't know the area.

At times people heard explosions

in the minefield.

Sometimes they'd find a deer

and sometimes a poor Jew

who tried to escape.

[ Piwonski Continues ]

That's the charm of our forests:

silence and beauty.

[ Piwonski Continues]

But it wasn't always so silent here.

There was a time

when it was full of screams

and gunshots,

of dogs' barking.

[ Piwonski Continues]

And that period especially

is engraved on the minds of the people

who lived here then.

[ Piwonski Continues]

After the revolt, the Germans

decided to liquidate the camp,

and early in the winter of 1943,

they planted pines

that were three or four years old

to camouflage all the traces.

That screen of trees?

- Tak.

- Yes.

[ Lanzmann ]

That's where the mass graves were?

[ Interpreter #1 Speaking Polish]

- Tak.

- Oui.

[ Piwonski Continues]

When he first came here in 1944,

you couldn't guess

what had happened here,

that these trees were hiding

the secret of a death camp.

[ Lanzmann ] How did he react,

the first time he unloaded corpses,

when the gas van doors were opened?

[ Interpreter #2 Speaking Yiddish ]

What could he do? He cried.

The 3rd day,

he saw his wife and children.

He placed his wife

in the grave and asked to be killed.

The Germans said

he was strong enough to work,

that he wouldn't be killed yet.

[ Lanzmann ]

Was the weather very cold?

[ Interpreter #2 Speaking Yiddish]

[ Podchlebnik Replies ]

It was in the winter of 1942,

in early January.

[ Lanzmann ] At that time,

the bodies weren't burned, just buried?

[ Interpreter #2 Speaking Yiddish]

[ Podchlebnik Replies ]

No, they were buried,

and each row was covered with dirt.

They weren't being burned yet.

There were around four or five layers.

The ditches were funnel-shaped.

[ Podchlebnik Continues]

They dumped the bodies

in these ditches,

and they had to lay them out

like herrings, head to foot.

[ Lanzmann ] So it was they who dug up

and burned all the Jews of Vilna?

- [ Podchlebnik Replies]

- Yes.

[ Man Speaking Hebrew]

[ Interpreter #3, In French]

In early January 1944,

we began digging up the bodies.

[ Man Continues]

When the last mass grave was opened,

I recognized my whole family.

[ Lanzmann, In French]

Whom in his family did he recognize?

[ Interpreter #3 Speaking Hebrew]

Morn and my sisters.

3 sisters with their kids.

They were all in there.

[ Lanzmann]

How could he recognize them?

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