The Last Jew of Treblinka

“Before me sits a young woman. I cut off her hair, thick and beautiful, and she grasps my hand and begs me to remember that I too am a Jew. She knows that she is lost. ‘But remember,‘ she says, ‘you see what is being done to us. That‘s why my wish for you is that you will survive and take revenge for our innocent blood, which will never rest.‘ She has not had time to get up when a murderer who is walking between the benches lashes her on the head with his whip. Blood shows on her now shorn head. That evening, the blood of tens of thousands of victims, unable to rest, thrust itself upwards to the surface.“ — from The Last Jew of Treblinka.

Why do some live while so many others perish? Tiny children, old men, beautiful girls. In the gas chambers of Treblinka, all are equal. The Nazis kept the fires of Treblinka burning night and day, a central cog in the wheel of the Final Solution. There was no pretense of work here like in Auschwitz or Birkenau. Only a train platform and a road covered with sand. A road that led only to death. But not for Chil Rajchman, a young man who survived working as a “barber” and “dentist,” heartsick with witnessing atrocity after atrocity. Yet he managed to survive so that somehow he could tell the world what he had seen. How he found the dress of his little sister abandoned in the woods. How he was forced to extract gold teeth from the corpses. How every night he had to cover the body-pits with sand. How ever morning the blood of thousands still rose to the surface.

Many have courageously told their stories, and in the tradition of Elie Wiesel’s Night and Primo Levi’s. Survival at Auschwitz and The Drowned and the Saved, Rajchman provides the only survivors’ record of Treblinka. Originally written in Yiddish in 1945 without hope or agenda other than to bear witness, Rajchman’s tale shows that sometimes the bravest and most painful act of all is to remember.

ISBN-13: 9781605981390
Author : Chil Rajchman, Elie Wiesel (Preface by)
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Publication date: 02/15/2011

Editorial Reviews - Publishers Weekly

Available in English for the first time, Rajchman's chilling, vivid, and concise account of his horrific experiences as a laborer who survived Treblinka during WWII is an important addition to the survivor narrative. Rajchman details the grisly work he and others were forced to perform in hopes of surviving, such as shearing off the hair of train transport victims en route to the gas chamber, or sorting the clothing of the dead to retrieve valuables like suits and watches for the German officers, and "fine dresses" for their wives.

Posing as a dentist, Rajchman was sent to clean fillings, crowns, and bridges of the deceased after which they were sorted into piles according to value. Perhaps the most shocking and physically demanding job Rajchman held was carrying corpses from the gas chambers to burial pits all the while being whipped by his captors for moving too slowly. The only shred of hope that one can take from this astonishing account is the ability of one man to maintain strength and humanity during an unimaginable year. First published in 1945 in Yiddish, Rajchman's memoir is especially unique for being the only existing account of a Treblinka survivor in print. (Feb.)

Meet the Author

Chil Rajchman was born in Lodz, Poland, where he was an active member of the Jewish community. He survived for a year in the notorious Treblinka death camp and was part of the Treblinka workers’ revolt. Rajchman was also a key witness in the prosecution of a Treblinka guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” during a war-crime tribunal in Germany. He emigrated to Uruguay, where passed away in 2004.