Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling by Mark S. Smith Page A

bed and pulled Hershl’s pale green book out of the protective bubble-wrap in my backpack. I ran my fingers over the Hebrew characters and the title of his testament at the top of the first page. I deciphered the word ‘Treblinka’ out of the Hebrew at the top of the page, and something recoiled deep inside me. I suddenly felt terribly alone. The combo’s bass guitar boomed upward and made the letters vibrate as I looked at them. I pulled the translation from my bag and began to re-read it.
    Hershl’s testimony began here, in the city of Częstochowa. There was no doubt about the historical veracity of his story. All the major events to which he referred and the people mentioned are confirmed by contemporary accounts and historical documentation. The central character of his story – himself – is neither rogue nor hero. He is simply an intelligent and bewildered young man, devastated by what he has witnessed and has been forced to endure, and also by the murder of his family. I could hear his voice clearly.

    In September 1942, the deportation of the Jews of Czenstochow began … We had already sensed it coming for weeks. The town was surrounded by SS units. We were all woken from sleep before daybreak by the noise of wild shooting, vehicles, and people screaming and wailing.
     
    I read that opening passage again and again, until I felt the terror in his words. I didn’t want to be alone, so I telephoned Sam in London, but there was no reply. I pulled my notes from my backpack and looked back at what I had scribbled about Częstochowa and thought of our conversation the day after I had received the translation through the mail.
    Sam said, ‘I had no idea he had been in Częstochowa. Because he never spoke about it, we assumed he was taken straight from Klobuck to Treblinka.’
    ‘He never mentioned Częstochowa at all?’ I asked.
    ‘Only that he had been there before the war – with his father, I think – and something about a monastery and the lunatics who came to pray at some Catholic icon there.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m trying to remember. I think his mother also had relatives in Częstochowa.’
    ‘She did. I’ve found many Goldbergs in the old records of the city. There were a lot of Szperlings also.’
    ‘Ah-ha,’ said Sam.
    ‘But I’m interested to know why he thought those people at Jasna Góra were lunatics? It’s just a Catholic devotional site, where pilgrims come. There is a painting called the Black Madonna, supposedly made by Luke on a table top built by Jesus.’
    ‘I guess he thought a lot of them were dangerous fanatics. A lot of them used to make trouble for the Jews during the Catholic holidays.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Have you found out anything else?’
    ‘The ghetto made by the Germans was enormous in Częstochowa,’ I told him. ‘There were 45,000 people crammed into this little space, and the conditions were awful. There was a lot of starvation, and a lot of desperation and disease and death. There was resistance there, too, and a protest against the Judenrat . I think it’s important to know these people weren’t just victims. It’s extraordinary to think of your father in the middle of all this, and he never even mentioned it.’
    ‘There are a lot of things like that about my father.’
    ‘Then there was the terror of the round-ups. Most of the people in the Częstochowa ghetto ended their lives in Treblinka gas chambers,’ I told him. Sam groaned.
    ‘He never mentioned that either.’
    ‘He hid out in a bunker there until they found him,’ I said, aware now that he was hearing this information for the first time. ‘He even names the Nazi officer who led the round-up.’
    ‘I had no idea,’ he said, emotion beginning to strangle his words. ‘He never said. It’s odd, though, because when he spoke about the war and the camps, he often made out as if he were at the centre of things but we thought – well, we thought that was just the way he saw it because he