Upfall

Mofaz climbed the tree next while Yatom and the rest of the sayeret lounged underneath, breaking open a few rations. The Major, as agile as a cat, climbed beyond llan to a higher limb before taking a look at the death camp.

"Ilan, do you see that?" asked Mofaz, pointing to a cloud of dust off to the southeast of the camp.

"Yes. Looks like trucks arriving." The two commandos strained through their glasses to get a better look. Yatom, listening to the exchange called up to the pair.

"What are the trucks carrying—Jews or Germans?" There was no answer for a moment, and then Ilan said, "Germans."

Wirth arrived at Treblinka just in time to be observed by the Israelis. He led an advanced party of SS reinforcements—a garrison platoon of thirty men from headquarters who were either waiting assignment, reassignment or on furlough. They were all regular SS camp guards, mostly sergeants and corporals. They were disciplined, loyal, and some were sadistic, but none were real combat soldiers. In sum, they were men of the same type and quality as were already at Treblinka—and who had died quickly at Sobibor. They were armed with an indifferent mixture of MP 40s, older Bergman submachine guns, and pistols. A few of the lower rankers carried Mausers. Each man also carried a grenade stuck in his belt, a clear signal to the group that a fight was likely, and that their duty at Treblinka would not simply consist of shoving naked civilians into gas chambers. This did little to raise their morale.

On the way was a full company of Ukranian recruits from the Trawiki training camp. Their worth was also highly suspect. The reinforcements would double Treblinka's garrison, but not improve its quality. Wirth would have preferred a company of Wafen SS or even Wehrmacht infantry. But there were no SS combat units available, and Treblinka, like all the death camps, was off-limits to regular Wehrmacht troops. Hopefully, thought Wirth, numbers would make up for quality. Between the existing garrison and Wirth's reinforcements, the small death camp would be protected by nearly three hundred men.

Wirth's mood wasn't bettered by his first good look at Treblinka.

If Sobibor had represented a industrial death factory disguised as a summer camp, Treblinka appeared to be exactly what it was—a human slaughterhouse. While Stangl had run Sobibor with cold efficiency, Dr. Erbel could not keep up with the workload. From the main gate Wirth could see corpses strewn about the wire—would-be escapees shot down and left to rot where they died. Deeper inside the camp the situation was much worse. Corpses lay in piles near the railroad siding and near the so-called deportation square. The stench was overpowering.

Within the deportation square, the last remnant of a transport—all women and children—had been stripped and were now being herded toward the gas. There was no doubt as to their fate, the pile of bodies surrounding them told the story. The women wailed or sobbed, terrified children clung at their breasts or feet, while the guards used whips and dogs to move them along. There was little order or organization, and no attempt to minimize the horror. The SS and Ukranian guards shot or brutally beat the shocked or recalcitrant on the spot— regardless of sex or age.

After watching the last of the doomed Jews enter the Himmelgang Wirth walked over to Treblinka's Forward Camp. There he found Erbel in his office with an aide, poring over sheets of statistics listing the number of Jews murdered over the past week. The commandant seemed surprised but not displeased to see Wirth, who was considered an expert on gassing.

"Wirth! Good to see you! What brings all the way out to the front?" said Erbel, not getting up from his desk.

"I'd hardly call this the front Dr. Erbel" said Wirth. "Although there certainly enough bodies laying around that someone might make that mistake."

"Yes, yes, the bodies. You know Wirth, they send us a transport a day, sometimes two." Erbel rose from his seat and gestured to the window. "It's impossible to keep up, and the more we fall behind the more difficult it becomes. We have to shoot them at the platform in the assembly area, or at the burial sites. The gas chambers are insufficient, and the engines break down too often. But you know this Wirth!" exclaimed Erbel ruefully. "You and General Globocnik send the transports!"

"Sobibor and Belzac seem to manage the load alright" said Wirth frostily.

"Well" said Erbel with a smirk, "not Sobibor anymore."

"What do you know about Sobibor?"

"Only what Globocnik has told me" said Erbel defensively. "What happened at Sobibor could never happen here!"

"Why not?"

"We don't get loads of Dutch and Austrian Jews here Wirth—nice orderly kikes who go to the chambers with hardly a peep! We get Poles from the Warsaw Ghetto! They come off the transports ready to fight and we give them one. I'd have shot those partisans down the minute the stepped off the train!"