It Was Always This Quiet

In the small village of Helmno, horrific events took place during the Holocaust. Gas vans were used to murder over 170,000 innocent victims. Testimony from survivors provides insight into the atrocities that occurred. Prisoners were forced to write postcards home, falsely stating that they were doing well. Families had no idea their loved ones were already dead. The children from the ghetto were gassed and burned. Survivors describe the pain of losing family members and their desire for revenge. They plead for the truth to be revealed and for justice to be served. The survivors recount the inhumane conditions and the constant fear they lived in. They urge others to take action and ensure that such atrocities never happen again. It was always this quiet. In the tiny village of Helmno, the whisper of testimony is deafening, locating emotions and confronting vicious truths. In the opening scene of Claude Lanzmann's epic film, Shoah, Helmno survivor Szymon Srebrnyk stands in a small clearing in the forest, looking rigid, bewildered and afraid. Or it was in this forest that he and others like him burned and buried the bodies of over 170,000 innocent victims, often mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the workers themselves. On Testimony Helmno is now infamous as the place where the Germans first used gas vans to murder their victims. Testimony remains one of the few ways we can even begin to understand what happened here. A notebook. An extermination camp in the district of Helmno. Translated from Polish original. Poland, March 10th, 1945. The Anti-Fascist Jewish Committee. To Comrade Epstein. I hereby deliver to your hands a notebook, which was translated from Polish, and in it personal notes which were written by prisoners in the death camp in Helmno district. One of the prisoners gave the notebook to a Polish farmer, who kept it until the arrival of the Red Army. On Letters Home. On Testimony All those who were programmed to exit for work. The Germans rounded up in the building of the church and left them all through the night. In the morning, the Gestapo men entered the church. And told the people to get out to the street, in groups, where they were all loaded on trucks. After a ride to the wood, to a place where there was barracks. They separated the men, women and children and told them to get off their clothing. Imagine this. They told these men that they were going to have a bath. With machine guns and whips. They forced them to enter a big truck. And the moment that everyone was on this truck. They shut the hermetically sealed doors. It was dark and suffocating inside. All these people were gassed. Strangled by the gas which was blown inside from the engine. And at the time when people were suffocated inside by gas. The lorry drove to the two crematoria in the same woods, not far from the barracks. All the bodies were then thrown out into underground crematoria and burnt to ashes. While these people were in the barracks. They were forced to write postcards home. And say that their situation is well. That they have good work, enough food and so on. Every family who received this postcard was very happy to know that their fathers, brothers or sons were doing so well. When these cards were received. They didn't have the slightest idea that their relatives had already perished. Without leaving any traces. Thus worked the propaganda in the ghetto. And everyone then wished to be sent to work. To get also better living conditions in their new working place. Instead of the hunger which prevailed for them in the ghetto. Nobody knew that this good work was death. Execution operated in a beastly manner. All this we understood within a few minutes. While we worked with our friends over the sewing machines. The windows of our room faced the yard. And we could see the church road and all the transports which came to us from there. Trunks full of belongings taken from the victims came to our camp. And Jewish workers, specially selected for the task, were engaged in sorting them out. Often it happened that workers ran into a bag which had belonged to his father, his mother, his brother, or his sister. Or another relative. But what could we do? On transport. September 21st, 1944. This writing is made by Beric. Some of the family Seetenfeld. Who lived in the ghetto. On May 15th, 1944 I was transferred from the ghetto to what was called a labor camp. But to be accurate. It is an extermination camp. In the ghetto. I left my mother, sister and a brother. In the beginning of the war they escaped to Russia. Three brothers and a sister. While me and my family stayed behind in the ghetto. After two years of life in the ghetto. My father died of starvation. My second brother and his wife wanted to run away. And be saved. But they did not succeed. And were compelled to return to the ghetto. Soon enough they were already transported. You know very well where to. And I was left alone with my family members and beloved relatives. My heart is torn off me when I see what is going on here. I am only 16 years old. I was 11 years old only when the war broke out. In the five years during which I lived in the ghetto. I suffered so much and could not help my dear parents. How painful it was to see your own father dying of starvation in front of your eyes and you couldn't help him. Imagine what I suffered through. Now when I see a few thousands Jews and Poles. Innocent of any crime. Die in such horrible manner. My heart aches. And my only desire is to revenge them all. But I am only 16. Chained in iron chains like a criminal. Surrounded by machine guns. And what can I do? Tell my family what happened to me. This is my last request before I die. I am in a camp. Not far from the cities of Kolo and Konin. As I finish writing. I ask all free human beings and men from the armies who enter this region to revenge for the truth which I hereby told. And revenge the blood of all the innocent people who were so brutally murdered. Because I myself cannot do anything. And God shall reward you. On children. In the camp I work as a tailor. And usually I get along well. Because I manage to eat. But any food I take to my mouth is like poison to me. Because this is nothing but a death camp. Two years ago they brought here all the children from the ghetto of Lodz. They gassed them and then burned their bodies. What do you have to say about this? I actually found the remains of my child. A few weeks ago they rounded up all the people of the ghetto and transported them here. And they always described it as going to work. I was left all alone. Without my wife and without my children. They chained me up in iron chains like a criminal. I have already suffered in the past. And have to suffer again now. Because I am Jewish. Why? I ask what wrong did I do? What did my wife do wrong? And my innocent baby who died such a cruel death? What did she do wrong? And you who live in freedom, can you watch all this without response? Nobody answered me. No one can give me any advice. Both day and night I am looking for a solution. Wearing my mind out to find an answer. I wish I could be a bird and fly from here to a better world and tell the world what is going on here. And tell them what they have to do. While in other beautiful countries parties are taking place. Wine, champagne and whiskey is poured from bottles. And lamps are giving off a clear soft light. At the same time, petrol is being poured into the furnaces. Lumber is thrown to enlarge the fire. So that human beings, among them our relatives, will burn better. All my family was transported from Voklovec. Me, my father and brother were sent to a camp in the city of Poznan. After two years, we were transferred to the ghetto in Lodz. While my father and brother, who were very weak because of the work in the camp, were sent to an extermination camp with 7,000 other human beings. I was selected by the commander of the camp. And since then I have worked here. All the other people from my transport were exterminated. All of them. The habitants of the ghetto really believed they were going to a place of work. And that there, their situation would improve. Now I was left alone. And I wait to the day when I can go to heaven. One favor I ask of you, dear people. Tell my sisters, my brother and two brothers-in-law who live in Russia, what my fate was. On revenge. I wish to finish my tragic story. Since my nerves are cracking down already. Today is the 9th January. And I simply cannot believe we have stayed alive so long. This camp is being liquidated. And we have been left alone. Today I met some Polish women who worked in the ditches. They told us that in this freezing weather they sleep in the bomb. And not a single day passes without one of them being frozen to death. Very soon we too shall all be exterminated. If you ever meet any Germans, even the shadow of their shadow, erase them from this earth as they did to us. In the name of my 74 comrades I plead to you, you who have survived, to revenge us all, our wives and children, and all the innocent Jews who were murdered in the most cruel of ways. Kill and burn their wives and children as they did to ours. Again I beg you, for the last time, fulfill our request, because it is our last request before our deaths. And did you know they threw the bodies of people into the crematoria? Finkelstein, a Jew from Pabulitz, was actually bitten by his sister. She had not died from the gassing. She screamed, my brother, I am still alive? And my own brother throws me into the fire. On ceremony. Afterwards, the first thing they did was to chain us up. The commander made a speech and said that this is a labor camp and that anyone who does not work or evades work will be shot dead. Every word that the commander said pierced our chests like bullets. He said that we have to work in order to help the Germans win the war and that the Jews had wanted the war after all. Imagine what we felt then. All these death's heads surrounding us, and a chain of policemen guarding us. After this we were led to a room on the first floor of a small house, with tiny windows covered by curtains, without light, without a key to the door, and the door itself was locked by a bar from the outside. In this room there were eight tailors, five cobblers, one bootmaker, two carpenters, and four young men who helped out in the kitchen. On tragedy. On 13th August, in the middle of the day, a lorry full of people arrived. We did not know who they were. After a short break they were all driven to the wood. And only when the lorry retuned with all their personal belongings did we realize that they had been our husbands and children. Imagine this tragedy. The day of September 1st. The day when they burned our families. We shall remember all our lives. The same fate awaits for us. But when this terrible moment will arrive, we do not know. We live in the hope that God will let us stay alive until the moment when we shall be able to take revenge for all our beloved souls. We ask any man to take revenge, because in the meantime we cannot do anything, and we wait only for our liberation. If someone from the outside world would have seen us, he would have said that he never saw people like us, that our nerves were made of steel, and that with our own hands we throw into the burning crematoria our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. Our children are torn out of our hearts. Our beloved husbands. And we watch all this with indifference, as if it does not concern us. What can be said about us? Again and again we ask ourselves the same questions. But we do not have an answer. Dear friends, you probably wish to know where your family members were murdered here, on September 24, 1944. I was expelled from Lodz to this camp only in 1944. Every day about 1,000 people were brought here and locked in a church near Kolo. From there, they were taken to the forests, poisoned by gas, and their bodies were burned. Now, I too am waiting for my death. Remember, if you are among the living, revenge our brothers. Every German you see, kill him. I can do nothing, because I am in iron chains. If I was asked to describe everything to you, ten years would not be sufficient. Naked Jews were forced to lie down with their faces facing the ground, and each one of them was shot in his back. When there were enough victims, they buried them in the earth. When they killed a larger group, they used to gather all the corpses, cover them in a layer of wood, and then burn them. On Escape When the Soviet army was advancing quickly, one night we were ordered to leave the granary in groups of five. Lenz, the SS officer, ordered us to lie down on the ground. He shot everybody in the back of the head. I lost consciousness and regained it when there was no one around. All the SS men were shooting inside the granary. I crawled to the car lighting the scene, and broke both headlights. Under the cover of darkness I managed to run away. My wound was not deadly. The bullet went through my neck and mouth, and pierced my nose and then went out. On Surviving On 17 January, at night, we heard trucks coming in, and two SS men came in. Lenz came in. I recognized him. He came in with a flashlight and took five men outside. When they let out the five men, we heard five shots. Then they came in and again and called five more men outside. In this way, they let out three times five. That is 15 men. Of those 15 men, there is only one who remained alive. Srebrenik, who was lying on top of the dead men pretending to be dead. When they were coming in for the fourth group of five, I was standing with a knife behind the door, and I threw myself upon the SS men who came in. I knocked out the light and swung with the knife with all my might, then left and escaped. Thank you for taking the time to listen. It is hard to find and create voices to do these testimonies justice. I appreciate your understanding.