Last two Treblinka survivors soldier on

Of approximately 875,000 individuals dispatched to the notorious Treblinka death camp during World War II, just 67 lived to tell about it. Today, only two remain: Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, both 87-year-old Israelis.

The pair have devoted their final years to trying to preserve the memory of those killed at Treblinka, mostly Jews systematically murdered in the little more than 14 months that Treblinka served as a killing destination for those deemed undesirable by the Nazis.

“The world cannot forget Treblinka,” said Willenberg.

“Soon there will be no one left to tell,” added Taigman.

The few dozen who survived were the only source of knowledge about Treblinka because the Nazis all but destroyed the camp in a frantic but determined effort to cover up their atrocities.

Treblinka holds a notorious place in history as perhaps the most vivid example of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plot to rid Europe of Jews, according to report by The Associated Press.

“Along with the lesser known Belzec and Sobibor camps, it was designed with the sole intention of exterminating Jews, and Treblinka was by far the deadliest,” according to the wire service. “Victims, transported there in cattle cars, were gassed to death almost immediately upon arrival.”

More than 800,000 of those killed at Treblinka were Jews, but several thousand Gypsies were exterminated, as well.

Only a select few – nearly always young, strong men like Willenberg and Taigman, were spared an immediate trip to the gas chambers and assigned to maintenance work instead.

In all, the Nazis and their collaborators killed about 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. The death toll at Treblinka was second only to Auschwitz – where more than a million people died in gas chambers or from starvation, disease and forced labor.

The small handful who survived Treblinka did so because they did the unthinkable – they rose up against their Nazi guards.

In the summer of 1943, a group of Jews stole some weapons, set fire to the camp and headed to the woods. Hundreds fled, but most were shot and killed by Nazi troops in the surrounding mine fields or captured by Polish villagers who returned them to Treblinka, according to The Associated Press.

Both Willenberg and Taigman have vivid memories of Treblinka, particularly the revolt, which took place on Aug. 2, 1943:

Willenberg said he was shot in the leg as he climbed over bodies piled at the barbed wire fence and catapulted over. He kept running, ignoring dead friends in his path. He said his blue eyes and “non-Jewish” look allowed him to survive in the countryside before arriving in Warsaw and joining the Polish underground.

Later in life, he took to sculpturing to describe his experiences. His bronze statues reflect what he saw – Jews standing on a train platform, a father removing his son’s shoes before entering the gas chambers, a young girl having her head shaved, prisoners removing bodies.

“I live two lives, one is here and now and the other is what happened there,” Willenberg said in an interview at his Tel Aviv apartment. “It never leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always.”

His two sisters were murdered there. He described his survival as “chance, sheer chance,” choking back tears. “It wasn’t because of God. He wasn’t there. He was on vacation.”

Taigman said he recalls the uprising vividly, and that resisting the Germans was a “dream” for the prisoners.

He entered Treblinka holding the hand of his mother, who was quickly pulled away from him and murdered. He left watching a Nazi flag burning in the distance from a blaze they had set – a small piece of revenge after nearly a year of torment.

“It was hell, absolutely hell,” said Taigman, who lives in a retirement home south of Tel Aviv. “A normal man cannot imagine how a living person could have lived through it – killers, natural-born killers, who without a trace of remorse just murdered every little thing.”

Taigman, who wandered in the Polish countryside for nearly a year after his escape, said his most lasting memory of Treblinka is fellow prisoners who had to remove bodies – often their own relatives – from gas chambers.

Treblinka holds such a powerful grip on the Jewish psyche that the will of a recently deceased Holocaust survivor in Israel instructed her children to cremate her body and sprinkle her ashes at the Polish memorial site – so that she could finally be reunited with her relatives who perished there.

After the war, Willenberg and Taigman made their ways to Israel, where they pursued careers and raised families. Willenberg became a surveyor in Israel’s Housing Ministry, while Taigman was an importer. The survivors have maintained their special connection, meeting each other often over the years.

David Silberklang, a senior historian at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, said that in contrast to other camps where Jews were also used for industrial labor, Treblinka truly represented the essence of the Nazi Final Solution, The Associated Press reported.

“Treblinka had nothing, just killing, and they almost finished the job,” he told the wire service. “These camps left us almost nothing.”

After the revolt, the Nazis attempted to destroy all evidence of their atrocities, with camp structures being destroyed and the ground plowed and planted over.

Taigman and Willenberg have returned to lead tours of the site.

“There are only two of us left. After we go, there will be nothing,” said Willenberg. “All I will leave behind are my sculptures and most importantly, my daughter and my grandchildren.”