Survivor Edi Weinstein on Staying Alive in Treblinka by

Sorting Clothes The next day, August 29, marked a week since I had left Łosice. That morning, I heard men at work near the main entrance to our hut, and discovered they were nailing it shut. I realized that we had to abandon the refuge; if we stayed there, we would die of thirst. Julke was afraid to leave because the bandage on his elbow was visible, so he stayed anyway.When I left the hut, my first thought was to look for my brother. I hoped he was still among the living. I looked around, scouting for someone whom I knew. My eyes fell on Gedalia Rosenzweig, my friend from cheder and the son of Shaya the builder. My appearance had changed so severely that Gedalia did not recognize me; I had to tell him who I was. He told me that only seven people from the Łosice transport were still alive and led me to them. All had been assigned to clothes-sorting duty and wore a red patch on their pants.Unfortunately, none of them knew what had become of my brother. Two of the seven had been hiding with me in the barracks: Jakob Müller of Wlodzimierz (in Volhynia) and Michael Fischmann, a relative of the Goldstein family, from Biala Podlaska. They told me that three days earlier the Germans had selected fifty men for labor and then murdered all the others.All the clothes-sorters had been given a red triangle that they sewed or attached with a safety pin to their right trouser leg. They called the Gruppenführer—the group leader—a heavy, solid man, “Wiener Fleischer” (the Viennese butcher). I think his real name was Singer. As a special gesture they had not killed his wife. Gedalia found a piece of red cloth among the rags and attached it to my pants with a safety pin. Before sunset I reached the enclosed barracks area where the “legal” or “special” workers were supposed to assemble. An SS man came over and began the roll call. He counted us and found too many people. Holding the list in his hand, the man walked back and forth, looking for the culprit. When he asked me my name, I answered, “Gedalia Rosenzweig.” He located the name on the list and moved on. He came across another suspect and asked him his name, too—but before he received an answer he was called away. Seizing the opportunity, I went into the barracks and concealed myself under the rags that the workers had brought previously. The Gruppenführer completed the roll call. When the workers entered, I sighed with relief; I was still alive. But no one could know for how long. We lived not only from day to day but from minute to minute.The pain in my right side and arm had become unbearable.That night I lay in the dirt alongside Gedalia. I could not fall asleep, because on the hard ground I was unable to find a comfortable position that could ease my agonies. My whole body ached; every posture was torture. At most I managed to doze off briefly.Source: Edi Weinstein, Quenched Steel. The Story of an Escape From Treblinka, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2002, pp. 48- 50.