0:00:02 > 0:00:07This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
0:00:07 > 0:00:11In August 1944, a Red Army offensive swept into Nazi-occupied Poland.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Following the railway toward Warsaw, Russian scouts
0:00:13 > 0:00:16came across an eerie forest clearing.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21An attempt had been made to erase
0:00:21 > 0:00:23every trace of what had happened here.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25There were no buildings,
0:00:25 > 0:00:27no bodies,
0:00:27 > 0:00:29no mass graves.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33But the earth did not conspire in the cover-up.
0:00:36 > 0:00:42This was Treblinka, the dark heart of the Nazi Holocaust.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45Its gas chambers once stood here.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49Nowhere in human history had 800,000 human beings
0:00:49 > 0:00:53been murdered in such a short time.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01Only two last survivors can now tell of the hell of Treblinka.
0:01:09 > 0:01:14We found small children, newborn children.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20No-one had liberated these men.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23They had staged a prisoners' revolt and fought their way out.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28There were flames, smoke, explosions, gunfire.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32The swastika was burning and fell down.
0:01:32 > 0:01:34Everything was burning.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39After the escape, they would pursue vengeance,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43waging war on the SS in Warsaw's bloody uprising...
0:01:49 > 0:01:51..and justice,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54confronting a key architect of Nazi genocide
0:01:54 > 0:01:57in the trial of Adolf Eichmann.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59- So you were in Treblinka 1?- Yes.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01The selection started right here.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05Women were sent to the left, men to the right.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09Final witnesses to monstrous crimes -
0:02:09 > 0:02:12this is the story of two extraordinary men
0:02:12 > 0:02:14who journeyed into the abyss
0:02:14 > 0:02:17and achieved the miracle of surviving Treblinka.
0:02:28 > 0:02:31Kalman Taigman lives by the sea in Israel,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34far from his birthplace in Poland.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41His Zionist father had emigrated here in 1935,
0:02:41 > 0:02:44but efforts to bring young Kalman and his mother had failed.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49In the fateful summer of 1942,
0:02:49 > 0:02:52they were factory workers in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto...
0:02:54 > 0:02:55..a time of bitter memory.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04Since the German invasion of 1939,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08Poland's Jews had been subjected to persecution and forced labour.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14The majority had been rounded up,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18and corralled inside hundreds of ghettos.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21Warsaw was the biggest.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27Over 400,000 were crammed into a tiny, unliveable area,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30sealed off behind high walls.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33The death toll through disease
0:03:33 > 0:03:37and deliberate starvation was appalling.
0:03:38 > 0:03:39Terrible days.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47You'd go out in the morning, you have to go to work.
0:03:47 > 0:03:52You can see dead people on the sidewalk.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58The family, after the person died,
0:03:58 > 0:04:01took from him the clothing,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03to sell.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07And to buy something to eat.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11Yet such cruelty was just a prelude to the unimaginable.
0:04:12 > 0:04:13Many Jews in Poland
0:04:13 > 0:04:16believed that the worst was over,
0:04:16 > 0:04:18that if they were able to work,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22if they could work for the Germans, then they would be left alone.
0:04:22 > 0:04:26They were not to know that a decision was being taken
0:04:26 > 0:04:30that would lead ultimately to the liquidation
0:04:30 > 0:04:32of all the ghettos in Poland
0:04:32 > 0:04:37as part of a plan to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44Racial hatred, military conquest and new empire in the east
0:04:44 > 0:04:47impelled Hitler in late 1941
0:04:47 > 0:04:50toward a "final solution" of the Jewish question.
0:04:50 > 0:04:51Fire!
0:04:56 > 0:04:58SS Einsatzgruppen had already slaughtered
0:04:58 > 0:05:00hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews
0:05:00 > 0:05:03in mass shootings behind the lines.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09Now, Heinrich Himmler's SS was authorised to cleanse,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13or annihilate, all Europe's Jews, by industrial means.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Adolf Eichmann would organise the transportation of Jews,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22by rail, from across the continent to the death camps.
0:05:30 > 0:05:36In May 1942, the Nazis began filming Warsaw's doomed Jews for posterity.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47Not even the children were to be spared.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01The death factory being built to kill them all was virtually ready.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07Mass deportations began on July 23rd.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09They came in the morning.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15They brought together 6,000 people,
0:06:15 > 0:06:17and then they sent away.
0:06:20 > 0:06:26They told us we are going to work in the east.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30I didn't know I'm going to Treblinka.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33I didn't know.
0:06:37 > 0:06:42Samuel Willenberg is an artist living in Tel Aviv, Israel.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46He has turned searing wartime memories into bronze.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51And his drawings give a rare illustration
0:06:51 > 0:06:52of life inside Treblinka.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00That tense summer of 1942, he was on the run, outside the ghettos,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03140 miles south of Warsaw.
0:07:05 > 0:07:10He was in Czestochowa, a sacred Catholic place of pilgrimage,
0:07:10 > 0:07:11with his mother and two sisters.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17Samuel grew up here, a headstrong tearaway with Aryan looks
0:07:17 > 0:07:20who blended easily into Polish society.
0:07:22 > 0:07:26Now fugitives with forged papers, they had taken rooms here,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29in the very shadow of the Jasna Gora monastery.
0:07:30 > 0:07:35But for Jews, the risk of betrayal was ever-present.
0:08:27 > 0:08:31But, stunned and despondent, Samuel hesitated.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36In October, he too was rounded up and deported to the east.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45Hidden just 60 miles northeast of Warsaw, Treblinka was the last
0:08:45 > 0:08:48and most lethal of three new extermination camps.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52With Sobibor and Belzec,
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Treblinka served Aktion or Operation Reinhard -
0:08:56 > 0:09:00the SS plan to liquidate over two million Polish Jews.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09The three camps that were the core of Aktion Reinhard
0:09:09 > 0:09:13were constructed with one purpose, and only one purpose -
0:09:13 > 0:09:15that was mass murder.
0:09:15 > 0:09:21They weren't like Auschwitz which had a huge camp population
0:09:21 > 0:09:23which was used for work purposes.
0:09:25 > 0:09:30They were quite small, about 400 metres by 600 metres.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32They were near to railroads
0:09:32 > 0:09:37so that Jewish populations could be delivered to them quickly and easily.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42They were in remote locations because they were not meant to service any kind of industry.
0:09:42 > 0:09:46They were not meant to have any function other than mass murder.
0:09:47 > 0:09:52At Treblinka's two sister camps, SS technicians had already refined
0:09:52 > 0:09:54the process of deception and mass killing.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01The German overseers numbered just 30,
0:10:01 > 0:10:07supported by over 100 troniki - Soviet Ukrainian SS auxiliaries.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11A few prisoners were made to tidy up the aftermath of a gassing,
0:10:11 > 0:10:14then they, too, were killed at the end of each day.
0:10:19 > 0:10:24Kalman's transport drew up to the ramp at Treblinka on September 4th.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29Immense suffering had begun on the slow train journey itself.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33Like beasts.
0:10:36 > 0:10:44First of all they put in a wagon approximately 100 person.
0:10:44 > 0:10:50The journey was terrible. There was no place to sit. You must stand.
0:10:52 > 0:10:59You couldn't breathe. There is only a small window.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01No water. No food. No nothing.
0:11:05 > 0:11:12So therefore I am telling you a part of the people were dead.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16In the melee with 2,000 other victims,
0:11:16 > 0:11:2119-year-old Kalman held tight to his mother, Tima.
0:11:21 > 0:11:29Once a train arrived in the camp Treblinka, then the SS men and the Ukrainian guards
0:11:29 > 0:11:34went at them with a fury, herded them out of the trucks,
0:11:34 > 0:11:39beat them, shot people, created a mood of absolute panic and terror.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44You could hear shouting,
0:11:44 > 0:11:46"Raus!"
0:11:46 > 0:11:47"Out!"
0:11:49 > 0:11:51And we all went out from the wagons,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55and they sent us to a place where was a door.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59An iron door.
0:12:00 > 0:12:06I came to the door with my mother, together.
0:12:07 > 0:12:14But they say us, "Woman, left. Man, right."
0:12:16 > 0:12:18I didn't want to let her go.
0:12:20 > 0:12:25So I don't know what, I get something in my head,
0:12:25 > 0:12:30from a German, and I fall down.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40And when I stand up, I saw her. She's going in the barrack,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43with other women and children.
0:12:46 > 0:12:52In under two hours, victims had crossed unseen into the camp of the dead,
0:12:52 > 0:12:57driven naked up this corridor to a building containing three gas chambers,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59fed by a Russian tank engine.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04Kalman soon learned the German name for this path.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10Himmelstrasse - the way to heaven.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21Samuel is making his own pilgrimage back to Treblinka.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09The odds of survival beyond this point were virtually nil.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17But a new commandant, Franz Stangl,
0:14:17 > 0:14:21saw the daily killing of prisoner helpers as inefficient.
0:14:22 > 0:14:28Operation Reinhard camps began to form pools of Arbeitsjuden, or Work Jews,
0:14:28 > 0:14:31forced on pain of death to be slave labourers.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38Selection still required a miracle of good fortune.
0:14:39 > 0:14:44Samuel retraces these fateful last steps with his daughter, Orit.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Camp 1 was where the living were processed on arrival.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Kalman and Samuel were forced to sort victims' belongings
0:16:12 > 0:16:13in the lower camp.
0:16:15 > 0:16:17Here they would witness daily horrors.
0:16:19 > 0:16:24We went to the barracks to take out the clothes from the women.
0:16:29 > 0:16:35And we found small children. Newborn children.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45We must take two, four children to put in a blanket
0:16:45 > 0:16:50and four persons took the blanket, and we are going to the Lazarett.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56Anyone who risked slowing progress toward the Himmelstrasse
0:16:56 > 0:16:57was taken out of line
0:16:57 > 0:17:02and led to the so-called "field hospital" or Lazarett.
0:17:05 > 0:17:06Handicaps.
0:17:06 > 0:17:08Children.
0:17:08 > 0:17:09Sick persons.
0:17:10 > 0:17:11Dead persons.
0:17:13 > 0:17:14"Lazarett!"
0:17:14 > 0:17:16I was in a big hall.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21Deep. And there's fire.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Children who are living still...
0:17:28 > 0:17:30..and they shoot them.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32And put on the fire.
0:17:33 > 0:17:36And there were children who were still living.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50The SS held the lives of Work Jews cheaply too.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56Samuel and Kalman determined to stay alive
0:17:56 > 0:17:59in the desperate and unlikely hope of escape.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02But many could not endure.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05The workforce was culled regularly.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09The life expectancy of the Work Jews, the Arbeitsjuden,
0:18:09 > 0:18:12was a few weeks, a few months at the most.
0:18:13 > 0:18:15A lot of them committed suicide.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18It was very common for those who had been taken
0:18:18 > 0:18:22from one of the groups of Jews doomed to the gas chambers
0:18:22 > 0:18:24and put into the workforce.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30Kurt Franz, Treblinka's deputy commander,
0:18:30 > 0:18:33was the most feared of a vicious SS contingent.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Photography inside Treblinka was strictly forbidden,
0:19:13 > 0:19:17but Franz took these rare images of the SS living area
0:19:17 > 0:19:19for his private album.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23He labelled it "Schoene Zeiten" - "Good Times".
0:19:28 > 0:19:30Franz made Work Jews memorise and sing
0:19:30 > 0:19:32Treblinka's camp song at roll call.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36He wrote the lyrics to Fester Schritt.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08They beat us all over the day.
0:20:08 > 0:20:10You can't go, you must run.
0:20:11 > 0:20:15And if you didn't do something like he wants...
0:20:18 > 0:20:19..he could shoot you.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Nazi death camps were tasked with more
0:20:25 > 0:20:29than the physical extermination of Jews.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33They were designed to plunder every economic asset
0:20:33 > 0:20:36for the enrichment of the SS state and the German war machine.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42Precise instructions were given to death camp Kommandants
0:20:42 > 0:20:44on how to handle the loot.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50'Guidelines for the distribution of the belongings of the Jews...'
0:21:11 > 0:21:13As many as 800 Work Jews were needed
0:21:13 > 0:21:16to sort the vast pyramids of belongings
0:21:16 > 0:21:18stripped from incoming deportees.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23They packed into their bundles, into their suitcases,
0:21:23 > 0:21:27their most valuable and treasured possessions.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29Orthodox Jews took with them
0:21:29 > 0:21:33the candlesticks for holding the Sabbath candles.
0:21:33 > 0:21:37Wealthier Jews, of course, took with them
0:21:37 > 0:21:40any foreign currency they had, or gold, or diamonds,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43in the hope that they could use that money to make their lives,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47wherever they were going to be resettled, a little bit better.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51Women victims of Treblinka were sent to the gas chambers
0:21:51 > 0:21:55after the men so that their hair could be harvested too.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01One day, Samuel was ordered to work as a barber.
0:22:02 > 0:22:06He encountered a naked Warsaw girl fully aware of her fate.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58Samuel and Kalman felt fortunate only to have been selected
0:22:58 > 0:23:01for work in the lower camp,
0:23:01 > 0:23:04and not in the Camp of the Dead.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Just metres away, the Totenlager was sealed off
0:23:08 > 0:23:11behind high, camouflaged fences.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15There were no crematoria.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18The dead were simply thrown into five giant pits.
0:23:20 > 0:23:26Kalman and Samuel could hear and imagine what they could not see.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29"Where are they? Where did they go?"
0:23:32 > 0:23:35Kommandant Franz Stangl was unmoved by what he saw.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39"I remember pits full of blue-black corpses,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41"a mass of rotting flesh.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44"It had nothing to do with humanity.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47"It could not have. They were cargo."
0:23:50 > 0:23:55He was elegant, clean, in a white jacket.
0:23:57 > 0:24:03He changed shoes three times a day, because he runs in blood.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06He came home.
0:24:08 > 0:24:09He kissed his wife.
0:24:11 > 0:24:12He kissed the children.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16How is this possible,
0:24:16 > 0:24:22to go out from a hell, to come home after his work?
0:24:24 > 0:24:25You'd like...
0:24:27 > 0:24:30..to kill him with all the family...
0:24:33 > 0:24:34..like he did.
0:24:36 > 0:24:37HE INHALES
0:24:41 > 0:24:44It was the particular agony of the prisoners to witness
0:24:44 > 0:24:48or to discover the murder of their own flesh and blood.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56One morning, a transport arrived from Czestochowa.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06The pace of Treblinka's killing was frenzied.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11Between September and mid November of 1942,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14over 438,000 Polish Jews perished.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Ten bigger gas chambers had been erected,
0:27:19 > 0:27:23raising its killing capacity to 15,000 per day.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26Franz Stangl remembered
0:27:26 > 0:27:30that he would start the day with breakfast round about seven o'clock,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33and then, after he processed a trainload of people,
0:27:33 > 0:27:35would go back to his quarters for lunch.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39That would mean that up to 6,000 people had been
0:27:39 > 0:27:43murdered between Stangl's breakfast and Stangl's lunch.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48With its mission to wipe out Polish Jewry virtually complete,
0:27:48 > 0:27:51Treblinka would open its gates to Gypsies
0:27:51 > 0:27:54and over 135,000 Jews from across Europe.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59These stones represent not murdered individuals,
0:27:59 > 0:28:01but whole Jewish towns,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04villages and communities.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12More humans had been killed here in 1942
0:28:12 > 0:28:15than at any other place in the history of mankind.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26The slaughter and defeat at Stalingrad finally turned
0:28:26 > 0:28:30the tide of the war against the Nazis in February 1943.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37The threat of defeat,
0:28:37 > 0:28:41and exposure of their crimes began to weigh on the SS leadership.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Himmler now ordered the SS to liquidate
0:28:49 > 0:28:51and to destroy Warsaw's Jewish ghetto.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59Thoughts there had turned to diehard resistance...
0:28:59 > 0:29:01and escape.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07Among some 70,000 remaining captives was a 13-year-old girl,
0:29:07 > 0:29:09Ada Lubelczyk.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12She had seen her mother Rachel deported to the east
0:29:12 > 0:29:14the previous summer.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17The destination was Treblinka.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21Ada did not know that she was an orphan.
0:29:22 > 0:29:29I remember that I was happy that she was dressed when they took them.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35So, I remember exactly that I...
0:29:35 > 0:29:39I wanted to believe that it would be OK.
0:29:42 > 0:29:46Ada's relatives had planned a daring escape over the wall
0:29:46 > 0:29:49to get her into hiding on the Aryan side.
0:29:49 > 0:29:56I have before, to arrange to have documents, you know,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00Aryan documents, and I have to know all the prayers,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03how to make this and this...
0:30:03 > 0:30:10all the prayers. When I was ready, they arranged the escape.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18Just weeks later, lightly armed young Jewish resistance fighters
0:30:18 > 0:30:22began a desperate and heroic last stand against the SS.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26They fought and died in bunkers and burning streets.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31Trainloads of prisoners were sent daily to Treblinka.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37There, embers of hatred and resistance were burning too.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44Jewish prisoner Rudy Masaryk was a Czech army officer who helped
0:30:44 > 0:30:46camp elders shape an ambitious plan...
0:30:49 > 0:30:53..to break into the SS armoury using a copied key,
0:30:53 > 0:30:59burn the camps wooden buildings and destroy the gas chambers,
0:30:59 > 0:31:02to kill Kurt Franz and other hated SS guards...
0:31:04 > 0:31:07..then break out en masse into the woods by nightfall.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13But the oppressive regime made planning near impossible.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16The Jews who were part of the killing machine,
0:31:16 > 0:31:20they were being culled regularly so there were constant searches.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24The Work Jews were kept under very close supervision,
0:31:24 > 0:31:25and there were,
0:31:25 > 0:31:28what were called "squealers" in their ranks -
0:31:28 > 0:31:33Jews who thought that they could extend their life expectancy
0:31:33 > 0:31:35if they co-operated with the Nazis.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37If they told them that they'd
0:31:37 > 0:31:41heard rumours about an underground in the camp,
0:31:41 > 0:31:42a resistance.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47One day, Samuel was ordered to the Lazarett where a sick man
0:31:47 > 0:31:49had just been taken for execution.
0:32:40 > 0:32:45The arrival of giant cranes and excavators that spring
0:32:45 > 0:32:47signalled a new stage of horror.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54Himmler had recently toured Treblinka's camp too,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57and discovered that three quarters of a million bodies
0:32:57 > 0:33:00lay uncremated within the pits.
0:33:03 > 0:33:09Stangl was ordered to exhume and to burn them on giant open-air pyres.
0:33:10 > 0:33:13An SS technician nicknamed "The Artist"
0:33:13 > 0:33:15constructed the so-called "roasts",
0:33:15 > 0:33:18which burned day and night for months.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34All prisoners knew that the burning of the last corpse
0:33:34 > 0:33:37would trigger camp closure and their own execution.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41We know that as we are going...
0:33:41 > 0:33:44finished the last one...
0:33:44 > 0:33:45they will put us too.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53Don't wait for it, they will take you too.
0:33:57 > 0:33:58And so it begins.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01A day for the revolt was chosen...
0:34:05 > 0:34:11The uprising was not just a gesture of resistance,
0:34:11 > 0:34:17it was the effort of men who had seen hellish things,
0:34:17 > 0:34:21who had seen criminality on an unbelievable scale.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24It was their determination to get out, to stay alive
0:34:24 > 0:34:27and to tell the truth to the world.
0:35:10 > 0:35:15The Germans, they saw what was going on
0:35:15 > 0:35:17and called to one another...
0:35:19 > 0:35:22..they are Jewish, start shooting.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26Jewish - we are broken people.
0:35:28 > 0:35:29Almost dead.
0:35:30 > 0:35:36And the Ukrainian soldiers, they begin to run after us...
0:35:40 > 0:35:42There were scenes of absolute chaos.
0:35:42 > 0:35:44Tragically, one of the leaders of the revolt,
0:35:44 > 0:35:49Rudy Masaryk was one of the first to be shot, went down near the wire.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53But the chaos itself served a purpose.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56There were so many people running in so many directions.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00There were flames, smoke, explosions, gunfire
0:36:00 > 0:36:04that dozens and dozens of Jews were able to get to the fence,
0:36:04 > 0:36:08get over the fence and then plunge into the minefield
0:36:08 > 0:36:10and into the forests.
0:37:18 > 0:37:23After 15 minutes of running, we stop,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27turn back and look at how everything is burning.
0:37:27 > 0:37:32The swastika was burning and falling down. Everything was burning.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36The feeling was...
0:37:37 > 0:37:39..unbelievable.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48Me? Outside?
0:37:49 > 0:37:50How?!
0:37:53 > 0:37:56Stangl launched a massive manhunt.
0:37:57 > 0:38:02By nightfall, fewer than 200 rebels were still alive and on the run.
0:38:06 > 0:38:11And we ran all night long. No lights, nothing.
0:38:17 > 0:38:19Next morning we saw a goy
0:38:19 > 0:38:22and I asked him, "Where are we? What is here?"
0:38:24 > 0:38:27And he told us...
0:38:27 > 0:38:33"Jews burned the camp and ran away.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36"Run away too, because you are Jews."
0:38:40 > 0:38:45We are looking for food, for water, and we found a farmer.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51I ask him if we can stay there for one night.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57He said, "OK. Come."
0:38:57 > 0:39:01Kalman and his friends decided to lie low in the wild.
0:39:03 > 0:39:05To survive a year-long ordeal,
0:39:05 > 0:39:09they would dig a makeshift bunker and live underground.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14Samuel went solo.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17Trusting in his charm and looks,
0:39:17 > 0:39:20he set out for Warsaw to find his artist father.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24This perilous journey took months,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28but eventually Samuel traced Perec to an apartment block
0:39:28 > 0:39:31where he was living under a false name.
0:40:59 > 0:41:04Samuel learned that his mother Manifa was also alive.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07He was then asked for news of his sisters.
0:41:24 > 0:41:27The time for revenge would soon come.
0:41:33 > 0:41:38On 1st August 1944, almost a year after Treblinka's revolt,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41a great uprising by the Armia Krajowa -
0:41:41 > 0:41:43the Polish Home Army - began in Warsaw.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55Already with the resistance, Samuel volunteered to fight
0:41:55 > 0:41:59against his old SS tormentors in bloody street fighting.
0:42:09 > 0:42:11The battle raged for over 60 days.
0:42:13 > 0:42:15No mercy was given.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01Yet when Warsaw's uprising was finally crushed,
0:43:01 > 0:43:05Samuel managed to slip out of the devastated city.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09He fought on as a partisan, based in the Kampinos woods.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17For Kalman, the sound of Russian tank engines
0:43:17 > 0:43:19had augured the gassing of innocents.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25But the roar of Soviet tanks now heralded...
0:43:25 > 0:43:26liberation.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32One day in the morning, a tank...
0:43:32 > 0:43:35..came in...
0:43:37 > 0:43:40..and stopped, the tank,
0:43:40 > 0:43:42near our place.
0:43:42 > 0:43:44Everything was...
0:43:44 > 0:43:46trembling there.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50We didn't know what kind of tank it is.
0:43:50 > 0:43:52Finally, one of us...
0:43:54 > 0:43:57..understood...
0:43:57 > 0:43:59Russian.
0:44:00 > 0:44:05Samuel was freed from Nazi rule in January 1945.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11Both he and Kalman joined the Soviet-led Polish army,
0:44:11 > 0:44:14and fought on, through to the final defeat of Hitler.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21At war's end, Treblinka was desolate,
0:44:21 > 0:44:23and forgotten.
0:44:24 > 0:44:26It had been completely demolished
0:44:26 > 0:44:29soon after the prisoners' revolt, back in 1943.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Only war crimes investigators now visited
0:44:32 > 0:44:33the wasteland.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39A stunned world focused more
0:44:39 > 0:44:43on the Nazi concentration camps which had been liberated intact,
0:44:43 > 0:44:46and with many survivors.
0:44:46 > 0:44:51Yet fewer than 70 had survived Treblinka.
0:44:52 > 0:44:53And they were now scattered,
0:44:53 > 0:44:57seeking to rebuild shattered lives.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06Samuel had met a young girl in the city of Lodz.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08Ada Lubelchik,
0:45:08 > 0:45:11sheltered through the war by a Polish family,
0:45:11 > 0:45:15was looking for accommodation when she met a dashing army officer.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20I went to the office where my friends worked. I came there,
0:45:20 > 0:45:24and in this place was sitting
0:45:24 > 0:45:28a very nice-looking Polish officer.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32You know, with all this uniform
0:45:32 > 0:45:34and with the cap - a soldier, how it looks.
0:45:34 > 0:45:37And he was very nice.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40He was blond, with blue eyes.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44But my matter was to
0:45:44 > 0:45:47ask about an apartment.
0:45:47 > 0:45:48And they ask.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52And he told me, "Yeah - I have an apartment.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55"I have a very nice one - two rooms,
0:45:55 > 0:45:58"but one condition.
0:45:58 > 0:45:59"You have to marry me."
0:45:59 > 0:46:03It was the first time that I met him.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06It's supposed to be a joke.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34There eyes were set on "aliyah" -
0:46:34 > 0:46:36emigration to Israel.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53Kalman's new life in Israel had begun in 1948,
0:46:53 > 0:46:55when he was finally reunited with his father, Shimon.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00A successful businessman,
0:47:00 > 0:47:02he had married Rivka -
0:47:02 > 0:47:04herself a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09They had a son, Haim.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20Yet, in 1960,
0:47:20 > 0:47:24the Israelis brought the world's attention back to the Nazi genocide
0:47:24 > 0:47:29by sensationally kidnapping Adolf Eichmann from Argentina.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Kalman and three other Treblinka survivors were summoned
0:47:34 > 0:47:37to be part of a huge trial,
0:47:37 > 0:47:39held on the stage of Jerusalem's biggest auditorium.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44It was a time for revelation
0:47:44 > 0:47:46and justice.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52- LAWYER:- Was there any law authorising you to carry out the mass deportations?
0:47:52 > 0:47:56- TRANSLATOR:- I had received orders and instructions from my direct
0:47:56 > 0:47:58superiors...
0:47:58 > 0:48:01Eichmann by himself never shot people.
0:48:03 > 0:48:06He was a good organiser
0:48:06 > 0:48:08of trains.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Was there any law authorising the commander
0:48:10 > 0:48:13of an extermination camp
0:48:13 > 0:48:15to murder people?
0:48:15 > 0:48:19That law, of course, did not exist.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23But I know that those who did it
0:48:23 > 0:48:27referred to the maxim according to which
0:48:27 > 0:48:29the words of the Fuhrer
0:48:29 > 0:48:32have the force of law.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36This is what those people say.
0:48:37 > 0:48:42I think the uniform make from him a man.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44He was not a man.
0:48:46 > 0:48:47He was nothing.
0:48:53 > 0:48:57On June 6th, 1961,
0:48:57 > 0:49:01Kalman confronted Eichmann with the crimes of Treblinka.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03- TRANSLATOR: - Lazarett was a kind of grave -
0:49:03 > 0:49:07a big dugout, fenced off by barbed wire,
0:49:07 > 0:49:09and near the entrance
0:49:09 > 0:49:11there was a hut, painted white
0:49:11 > 0:49:15with red crosses on it and the inscription
0:49:15 > 0:49:18"Lazarett" on the walls.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22He stayed on after his testimony to listen to Eli Rosenberg.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25He had slaved in the Totenlager
0:49:25 > 0:49:28and was an eye witness to the last and darkest secrets
0:49:28 > 0:49:30of Treblinka.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33TRANSLATOR: When the people entered into the gas chambers,
0:49:33 > 0:49:38the last ones were stabbed in their bodies
0:49:38 > 0:49:40by the bayonets.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43The last people already saw what was happening.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45They did not want to enter.
0:49:45 > 0:49:50and they just jammed the people inside - 400 into the small chamber.
0:49:50 > 0:49:54This was the final capacity, the full capacity of the gas chamber,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56and was so jam-packed
0:49:56 > 0:49:59that it was difficult to close the door.
0:49:59 > 0:50:01When they locked the door, we were on the outside.
0:50:01 > 0:50:04We heard only screams
0:50:04 > 0:50:07and prayers - "Mother, Father."
0:50:07 > 0:50:10And after 35 minutes, they were dead.
0:50:10 > 0:50:16And two Germans were standing
0:50:16 > 0:50:20and they said, "Everyone is asleep.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22"Open the doors."
0:50:22 > 0:50:24And we opened the doors and we took the bodies out.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37It's difficult not to understand.
0:50:42 > 0:50:47Take a beast, take a wolf, a lion.
0:50:50 > 0:50:56They can kill people when they are hungry.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59They were not hungry.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06They took people, small people, small children.
0:51:12 > 0:51:14Yeah.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18Eichmann was convicted of crimes against the Jewish people
0:51:18 > 0:51:20and was hanged in 1962.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26Yet few of the perpetrators of Operation Reinhard shared that fate.
0:51:27 > 0:51:32Himmler committed suicide in Allied custody in May 1945.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38Treblinka's commandant, Franz Stangl, was extradited from Brazil.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42Sentenced to life imprisonment in a West German court in 1970,
0:51:42 > 0:51:44he died soon afterwards in prison.
0:51:46 > 0:51:51Kurt Franz was put on trial in Dusseldorf with nine other Treblinka SS guards
0:51:51 > 0:51:54and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1965.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00Released in 1994 for health reasons, Lalka, "the doll",
0:52:00 > 0:52:03died at home four years later.
0:52:06 > 0:52:08The majority of the SS
0:52:08 > 0:52:12and the Ukrainian guards at Treblinka have evaded justice.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23This house in Udim was Samuel and Ada's first home in Israel.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28It belongs now to their architect daughter, Orit.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35Samuel's mother, Manifa, was with them in the '60s,
0:52:35 > 0:52:38still haunted by the loss of her two daughters.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40Samuel has dedicated his life to remembrance of the suffering
0:53:40 > 0:53:44and resistance of fellow Poles at Warsaw,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and of fellow Jews at Treblinka.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58As many as 850,000 innocents were cruelly murdered here
0:53:58 > 0:54:00in little more than a year.
0:54:00 > 0:54:04Nazi secrecy denies us knowledge of all the victims' names.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09Samuel asks that we never forget Treblinka.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20Kalman shares this mission, visiting Yad Vahsem in Jerusalem.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03In the Hall Of Names,
0:55:03 > 0:55:06records of victims' identities are collected and preserved.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17Kalman has submitted the names of 18 close relatives.
0:55:22 > 0:55:24This is my mother.
0:55:24 > 0:55:31They murdered her when she was 39 in Treblinka.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41- Shalom, Kalman.- Shalom.
0:55:41 > 0:55:43Historians recognise the unique significance
0:55:43 > 0:55:46of these final witnesses to Treblinka.
0:55:48 > 0:55:53The fact that anybody survived means that they went
0:55:53 > 0:55:55completely against the odds.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58The Nazi plan was to kill every single Jew there.
0:55:58 > 0:56:01The Nazis almost succeeded. I mean, look at the survival rates -
0:56:01 > 0:56:0350, 60, 70 people out of
0:56:03 > 0:56:05859,000 who were killed.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07That's essentially zero.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11These last two survivors of Treblinka are of very different
0:56:11 > 0:56:13kinds of personalities.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21Samuel Willenberg is this outgoing, gregarious person
0:56:21 > 0:56:23while Kalman Taigman is reserved.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29When you see these two personalities, you also see
0:56:29 > 0:56:33just how there was no formula for survival for Jews in the Holocaust.
0:57:21 > 0:57:22THEY CHAT