Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Interview with Jan Karski (part 5)

- Now, I understood my role. It was 35 years ago. At the time, I was stronger. I am-

- Please stay. Stay, stay.

- Yes, it's once. At that time, I was strong. I understood my mission. I was not supposed to have any feelings. I was a camera, and I didn't have any feelings for some time. I didn't see humans. There was a crowd some out of reality, a crowd which had many heads, many legs, many arms, many eyes. But it was something like a collective, again, pulsating, moving, shouting body. I was observing this. From the back of this crowd, shots, pushing the crowd with bats, shouting, 'Jude raus, raus', pushing them to the front by the gates. Shots, 'raus, raus' through the gate to the platform. They were moving into the platform.

- Excuse me. It was very different from the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a complete other thing.

- Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Warsaw Ghetto. There were humans, misery, degradation, but they were living. These at that point were not humans. They did not live. They were moving, they were shouting, they were beating each other, they were scratching each other by the gate, pushing them through the gate into the platform on the ramp towards the tracks. They had to climb. Well, probably 100, 120, 130, I don't know, into a track. There was no room. So again, they were pushing by bats. Again, shots to push them into the tracks. Jews in the tracks, by the way, helping them. Then they did not want to help them anymore. So then the Jews who were on the ramp, raising their bodies, pushing them. They were on the heads, just into the tracks. Two tracks filled. The train moved. Empty two tracks. The same procedure. The Jews now realized that they have to fill, apparently, the whole track. They didn't want to go. Those who were on the ramp now, they did not want to enter. They wanted to go back, but they couldn't because the crowd was pushing them forward, the Jewish crowd, because from the back they were pushing them.

They were shooting from the back. So it was something unbelievable. It was unbelievable. How long did I stay there? I don't know. And then I couldn't take it. It happened like, then at a certain point, I saw humans, that they are humans. I went back in the direction of the same gate I entered.

- What do you mean? Suddenly, you realize yourself that they were-

- I didn't want to see them as humans. I controlled myself. I don't know, 20 minutes, half an hour, whatever, I stood there. I did not want to have any feelings. I did not have any feelings. I was just seeing something which I was I suppose then to tell the people.

- Excuse me for my questions. Do you think that these people were waiting inside the camp for a long time already?

- I think, as it looked to me, that they might have been there for days.

- Starving?

- Starving. Apparently no food. Well, I saw how they looked. Starving, hungry, insane, mad, again. Eyes, their eyes. Then again, unlike the Jewish ghetto, they were actually fighting against each other. They were scratching, they were quarreling, they were swearing this moving, moving. Some organism with legs, with eyes, with noses, risk whatsoever. I controlled myself. I realized, again, no feelings. Stay here. Look, look, look, no feelings. Then after a certain time, yes, apparently it came too deeply into me. Humans, they are individuals here. And then I lost control. I realized, I don't know what I would do. I might jump at some Gestapo and start fight him. I might go with the Jews to the I realized that things got out of control with me. I go back. In the direction of that gate, I entered. Now, the Estonian-

- Do you know what happened in the train?

- Now the train. I saw it because I was by the gate. When now empty, the train moves and then by the ramp, for a fraction of whatever it is time, the track is empty. I see it. The floor covered with some white powder. What was this powder? Then I learned. Quicklime. What was... Why quicklime? Now, quicklime. Jews who were pushed into the train. They were to die there. But the Germans apparently wanted to avoid disease. The Jews, evidently, had to urinate whatsoever. Again, for some... This horrible to say, hygienic, what a medical for the medical reasons. There was a quicklime over there. The Jews were standing on the quicklime. Apparently, they kept them until they died when they moved the whole train, and they had no disease. And the atmosphere, The environment was not deceased by the decomposed bodies, and there was less smell, there was less stench whatsoever.

- It's what they were trying to do, actually.

- Well, so I go to the gate, the militiaman, he understood something funny. He goes by me without any difficulty. We left the camp. I go back to the store, and then I got sick.

- Because this is the a problem of Bełżec. At the time you went to Bełżec, they had stopped the gas chamber. There were six gas chamber in Bełżec because they couldn't handle the corpses. The corpses were buried in there were huge pits which were dug in the sun. We know that the pits were blown in and the corpses liquid was running down. It's one of the reason why they stopped the gas chamber in Bełżec after eight months.

- Now in that camp-

- They killed them like this in the train with quicklime because they were already half burned, and it was easier for them.

- In this camp, it is evident. I saw only a fraction of the camp. From the gate I entered to the main gate, keeping as near as possible the barbed wire. Now, what was inside deeper in the camp, I never went there. I saw some barracks. I saw, as a matter of fact, some solid, high, perhaps eight feet whatsoever fence. Then I left the camp.

- Excuse me, did you see the loading of the 46 cars?

- I counted them, but I left before. But I had opportunity because they were open. I did not stay to the end. Then I returned to the store. By the way, at that time, it was full day. The people were coming to the store. I entered the store. Of course, the owner knew me, and I just asked him 'Could Did I use your kitchen?' Behind the store, apparently, he was living there. There was a kitchen with a sink. I was insane at that time. I was crazy. I entered the kitchen and like, I don't know, self-preservation, animal. I actually disrobed myself. And I started to wash myself with the soap, everything. I was washing myself. I remember I was washing my shoes. Started to wash my shoes. So then I stayed there. So then the man entered. He was furious 'What a mess you make here'. So I said 'All right, all right'. Well, he understood Probably. I took the uniform. I took my clothes, stayed there. People were coming to the store. Then he came again. I just asked him one question, may I stay here overnight? I couldn't go to work. 'Sure, you can stay here overnight'. I stayed there overnight.

- Excuse me, was there a stench all over in the area?

- No, it didn't reach the store. The store was in Belgez, in town. But going there, before Was it half a mile? Was it one kilometer? Oh, yes, the stench was. When I approach the camp, when I was leaving the camp. Well, I stayed there overnight. Well, during the night, I was sick. My problem was some crazy vomiting. I vomited food and I vomited some blood. It was crazy. I finished the night over there. Still, I stayed a few hours. Then the guy came who brought me from Warsaw. Apparently, he stayed overnight somewhere in his own encampment. He took me back to Warsaw. This was my story.