Upfall

Hahn considered ignoring the order, but saw little practical alternative. He couldn't just flee like Wirth, who would certainly turn him in for cowardice if they both survived. If he did nothing, he would die anyway. Hahn presented a wan SS salute and reluctantly went to the door. Erbel remained at his desk, frozen in place.

Hahn stepped outside the building, hugging the wall and cast about for surviving soldiers. He carefully threaded his way to the prisoners’ compound picking rrp five terrified men in the process. They were happy to follow anybody with a plan. At the prisoner's compound Hahn found fourteen more cowering men, who had declined Wirth's order to engage the enemy. The rest of the platoon from Lubin were dead or, like Wirth, already fled.

Sergeant Major Hahn gathered the men by a barrack and described the assault that they were duty bound to make on Camp 4. Every few moments during his speech an enemy grenade exploded or rifle popped. The shaken SS men winced with each blast. Just looking at these men told Hahn that the assault would be little but a forlorn hope.

The ranking sergeant in Wirth's platoon asked about his lieutenant. "Why isn't Untersturmfuhrer Wirth leading us? Is he dead?"

"He ran away" said Der Spiess honestly. "Just like an officer." He looked at the nervous men before him. "Look now" said Hahn, who had spent two years in the trenches during the last war "you are coming with me, or I‘ll shoot you down right now."

Hahn assembled his reluctant troop near the Himmelgang. There were sixteen men total. The only practical way to assault the sub-camp was down the HimmeIgang—the same passageway Hahn and his men had used to drive thousands of Jews to their deaths. Hahn now had little doubt of what awaited him on the other side of the passageway, but duty and a lack of imagination gave left him with no alternative. He sighed and wished he was drunk.

In the towers within Camp 4 Yatom had remained content snipe at the Germans and Ukranians scurrying about in the main camp. After the difficult initial attack, things had gone much better for the Israelis. It had taken the Germans a long time to figure out that the night offered them no protection.

By the time they began to seek cover, hide or run away the sayeret had killed or wounded scores. Even after the Germans realized they had to seek refuge, Nir's grenades slew them in their hideouts or drove them into the killing ground.

Yatom had reckoned that the Germans nrust eventually counter-attack the Israelis in extermination lager by coming through the Himmelgang, but as the fight wore on, he wondered whether he was wrong. Yatom wanted the Germans to attack. His men were ready for it. It was doomed to fail, and once the Israelis broke it, whatever resistance remained in Treblinka would surely collapse. Using the thermal scope, Yatom scanned the Treblinka again. It appeared deserted— whatever Germans remained had hidden well.

Shapira reported in that he had run off the Ukranians and was ready to move into Treblinka as soon as Yatom gave the order. Yatom was about to do just that when Roskovsky excitedly radioed that he'd seen movement near the exit of the Himmelgang. Calmly, Yatom radioed the teams to hold fire and allow the Germans to move through the tunnel into the encampment.

Within the passageway Sergeant Major Hahn sweated nervously in the middle of the assault column. Ahead of him was a section of Wirth's men. They had pushed slowly and reluctantly up the Himmelgang, fearing Hahn's MP 40 as much as what lurked at the other end. Behind him the rest of Wirth's men and a few Ukranians grimaced in the gloom. Hahn didn‘t like his chances anymore than the men in the passageway with him, but he was an old fashioned sort, who accepted the obligations of rank and aimed to see things through. He'd survived two years in the trenches—and he told himself that this was no more risky than going over the top. Finally the corporal in front of Hahn turned and whispered that the column had reached the entrance to Camp 4.

"Then Rottenfuhrer” said Hahn with a dramatic pause "instruct the column vanguard to begin the assault."