Sperling was part of a special task force that pulled the gold from the teeth of the dead. "Franz Stangl, the commander of Treblinka, boasted they could go from train to death in two hours." "It was not a work camp, it was not a concentration camp, it was not a penal camp, it was a death camp," said Smith. Treblinka was different from the other camps. ![]() He spoke good Polish, good German, Russian, probably Czech and Yiddish, so he was useful to them." Up to 7,000 people were brought to Treblinka every day Image: picture-alliance / IMAGNO/Austrian Archives He was young - about 14 years old - was in good health and spoke a lot of languages. ![]() "He had a few things in common with other survivors. "Just at the doors of the gas chamber, he was pulled out," said Smith. Sperling was saved because the Nazis thought they could use him. His family were rounded up with the town of Klobuck's large Jewish population and eventually taken to Treblinka, where his parents and young sister went straight to the gas chamber. Hershl Sperling first faced the Nazis at the age of 12 when the Wehrmacht marched through Poland. " a really strange thing to say but I realized it was a bit of a key to what had happened to him because if Auschwitz was nothing, what on earth had he gone through, what on earth had made him what he was? The key was Treblinka, not Auschwitz." "He used to say, 'Auschwitz was nothing, Auschwitz was a walk in the park,'" said Smith. Smith says it holds the key to why Sperling finally decided to end his life. Along the way, Smith discovers a long-lost manuscript written by Sperling shortly after the liberation of Auschwitz. In his book, "Treblinka Survivor," Smith goes on a journey to find out why Sperling committed suicide so many years after the horrors he had experienced. He didn't talk about it, I just knew that he had been in this place and he was a survivor and he used to act a bit strange but he was very kind to me."Īfter Sperling's death, Smith wanted to find out why his neighbor had committed suicide so many years after the horrors he had experienced. "Hershl was my neighbor," Smith told Deutsche Welle, "I knew he was a Holocaust survivor but I had no idea what Treblinka meant. Investigating the past Sperling survived Treblinka and five other Nazi camps Image: Kindle Edition His story has been rediscovered and explained in "Treblinka Survivor," a book by the American journalist Mark S. The suicide left many questions unanswered. They pulled off one of the most daring escapes of World War II.Īlmost 50 years later - in his adopted hometown of Glasgow in Scotland - Sperling took his own life. Of the 800,000 people who were sent there, Sperling was one of just 68 who got out alive. Hershl Sperling was a Polish Jew who was sent to the Treblinka death camp at the age of 14. Next to Treblinka, he may have been right.Ī lot is known about the Nazi concentration camps, such as Auschwitz or Dachau, but Treblinka is a different story because there were so few survivors - and even fewer wanted to recall the things they had experienced to pass on the story. * A movie was made of this event called "Escape From Sobibor"."Auschwitz was a walk in the park," claimed Hershl Sperling. Reichsleitner was posted to Italy to fight Communist Partisans, where he was killed on 3rd January 1944. Niemann was killed by an inmate named Lerner, and another SS Officer named Frenzel assumed command.Īs a result of this incident, Sobibor was closed and all traces of the camp erased. He had been on duty elsewhere, and had left his deputy, Niemann in charge. Himmler had promoted him to Hauptsturmführer in February 1943 after a visit to Sobibor. Another 300 were shot dead by the Ukranian guards and SS staff during escape. This was to be practice for their future killing operations in Poland.įranz, a short stocky thick-set man, was the horse-riding second Commandant of the Sobibor KZ from September 1942 until October 1943, when there was a successful mass break-out by over 300 inmates*. He was assigned to operate under Franz Stangl in the notorious Hartheim Building, on the T4 euthanasia program, with Fritz Stangl and Christian Wirth. After annexation, he became a Gestapo Officer in Linz. Operation 'Reinhardt'.įranz was a KRIPO Captain in Linz and joined the Austrian Nazi Party illegally in 1936 and the SS a year later. ![]() Division/Branch/Arm of SS Org: T4 Program (Euthanasia).
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