Death Camp Treblinka: Survivor Stories Page #5

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began a desperate and heroic

last stand against the SS.

They fought and died in bunkers

and burning streets.

Trainloads of prisoners were

sent daily to Treblinka.

There, embers of hatred and

resistance were burning too.

Jewish prisoner Rudy Masaryk

was a Czech army officer who helped

camp elders shape

an ambitious plan...

..to break into the SS armoury

using a copied key.

Burn the camps wooden buildings

and destroy the gas chambers.

To kill Kurt Franz

and other hated SS guards.

Then, break out en masse

into the woods by nightfall.

But the oppressive regime

made planning near impossible.

The Jews who were part

of the killing machine,

they were being culled regularly

so there were constant searches.

The Work Jews were kept under

very close supervision,

and there were,

what were called "squealers"

in their ranks

Jews who thought that they

could extend the life expectancy

if they co-operated with the Nazis.

If they told them that they'd

heard rumours

about an underground in the camp,

a resistance.

One day, Samuel was ordered to

the lazarette where a sick man

had just been taken for execution.

The arrival of giant cranes

and excavators that spring

signalled a new stage of horror.

Himmler had recently toured

Treblinka's camp too,

and discovered that three

quarters of a million bodies

lay uncremated within the pits.

Stangl was ordered to exhume and to

burn them on giant open-air pyres.

An SS technician

nicknamed "The Artist"

constructed the so-called "roasts",

which burned day and night

for months.

All prisoners knew

that the burning of the last corpse

would trigger camp closure

and their own execution.

We know that as we are going,

finished the last one...

they will put us too.

Don't wait for it,

they will take you too.

And so it begins.

A day for the revolt was chosen...

The uprising was not just

a gesture of resistance,

it was the effort of men

who had seen hellish things,

who had seen criminality

on an unbelievable scale.

It was their determination

to get out, to stay alive

and to tell the truth to the world.

The Germans,

they saw what was going on

and called to one another...

..they are Jewish, start shooting.

Jewish - we are broken people.

Almost dead.

And the Ukrainian soldiers,

they begin to run after us...

There were scenes of absolute chaos.

Tragically,

one of the leaders of the revolt,

Rudi Masarek was one of the first

to be shot, went down near the wire.

But the chaos itself

served a purpose.

There were so many people

running in so many directions.

There were flames, smoke,

explosions, gunfire

that dozens and dozens of Jews

were able to get to the fence,

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