Abe The Barber Treblinka Concentration Camp Survivor

Shoa

Watching and rewatching the video interview of Abe the barber*, a survivor of the Treblinka concentration camp, was very difficult for me. I had to pause many times to try and process the intense emotions running through me. As I watched I realized that Abe’s experience was not singular, but rather one account among many who witnessed and perished as a result of the cruel inhumane actions of Germany during WW2. I was shaken by the sad and horrible details of what Abe and other Jews were subject to. One thought that kept coming up for me was that this ought not to happen again. In order to prevent something from happening again, one must first examine, acknowledge, and identify what exactly has transpired, what was wrong about it, and how to prevent it from happening in the future. Learning difficult chapters of history can be difficult, but it is a necessary step toward positive change. If we as a society willfully turn a blind eye to certain aspects of history because of the inevitable discomfort that accompanies studying difficult times, we are more prone to repeating previous mistakes and not extracting and utilizing lessons to protect and improve our future. 

I would like to point out a few observations I have made regarding Abe’s testimony. In light of these observations, I intend to demonstrate the severity and immorality of the actions taken by those who carried out these crimes against humanity and European Jewry. My hope is to provide sufficient reason to learn and explore the events of the Holocaust and to inspire a desire to ensure that such horror and barbarism cease to exist forever. 

At the beginning of the interview, Abe says that “There came an order from the Germans to take out the barbers they could get” (0:32). My first thought when hearing this is, why is Abe being given an order? Who is ordering him to do something and why did he feel obligated to follow this order? My understanding is that he was given an order by a german. The reason he was given an order was because he was one of many Jews who were transported from their homes to this concentration camp. Neither Abe nor any of the other Jews signed up for this. They were not being told what to do by an employer who was going to pay them at the end of the week. They were being forced by gunpoint to follow the harmful and senseless instructions of German authorities simply because of being Jewish. Being forced to do work without compensation, or being forced into a room in order to be gassed and killed for no legitimate crime or reason, is inherently wrong and totally unjustifiable (for reasons I shall not endeavor to explain here.)

When Abe describes the process of how he was chosen to cut the hair of the women who were bound for the gas chamber, you can tell by the wording how inhumanly he and others were being treated. The Germans actively degraded tried to crush their souls and spirit. For example, Abe says “what kind of job they wanted, we didn’t know at the time” (0:39). This means that while in the concentration camp, the inmates had no knowledge of what would come next. They lived in fear of being assigned to a new backbreaking job or randomly being killed on a day-to-day basis. This may seem trivial, but living constantly in fear for your life is a traumatic and scaringly painful experience. It is also clear that the inmates had no choice in determining their fate, Abe says “naturally they chose me” (1:47) and “they took us into the gas chamber” (2:05) indicating that he had no choice or say in what he was chosen for or where he was taken. The Jews who were speared death upon arrival were subject to constant orders, beatings, and unimaginable kinds of labor. For the ones who were directed to the gas chamber, a different sort of cruelty awaited.

Abe describes how he was instructed not to reveal to the women whom he knew were destined to be gassed, what awaited them. The Germans did not want to have to deal with the extra panic of the people knowing that “this is the last time they are going to live or they are going to breath” (3:14). Although Abe and his friends “tried to do the best that they could, the most humane way that they could,” (5:13) it was very difficult to ease the pain of these women during their final moments. Even in the last moments of the lives of the Jews who were executed, the Germans failed to extend even a small amount of decency. In fact, it was quite the contrary. The gas chamber was “not a big room, about twelve by twelve, but in that room, they pushed in a lot of women. It was one on top of the other” (3:57). For a period before being gassed, the Germans had the Jewish women walk around and get their haircut “without clothes or anything else, completely naked” (5:45) Following the dehumanizing process of loss of possessions, loss of dignity, and loss of self, “for about five minutes they (the Germans) put in the gas, and they chocked them to death” (8:50).

For Abe, witnessing these atrocities being perpetrated against his fellow Jews was not bearable. He found that for the most part, “it was very hard to have a feeling or feel anything” (9:49). The depths of the pain that Abe and many others had to endure is hard for me to imagine. The video interview is cut short when Abe cannot speak any further. He was reminded of the time he witnessed some of his closest friends entering the gas chamber, terrified as they met their fate. Abe found himself powerless in the face of such injustice. Abe’s former friends asked him “What’s going to happen with us?” (10:30) He was paralyzed and torn by the desire to do something but the knowledge that nothing can be done - “What could you tell them???” (10:33)

A phrase that had been used often as a response to the holocaust is “Never Forget.” If nothing else, perhaps we can at least tell those who perished that we heard their cry, and we will indeed “Never Forget.” We will study what happened and ensure that this does not happen again. Working on this essay has been most challenging for me. It is not easy to review and recall the horrors of the past. But if we do not learn from the past, how will we cultivate a better future? Hence, I continue to explore despite the discomfort, in the hopes that wisdom and understanding will illuminate the path forward and shine a light onto the darkness for generations to come. I hope that others can find it in themselves to do the same and that one day we will arrive at a place where cruelty based on hatred is no longer part of the human experience.

Source:

https://youtu.be/JXweT1BgQMk