Polish Business News Magazine

The baker’s assistant is now 82 and has lived here all her life. Until the late 1960s the lower part of her home - what I suppose we would call her basement - was a wood fired bakery which served the needs of the village of Belzec as well as the death camp in 1942.

As it was a frontier town with the Soviet border very close from 1939 - 1941, German soldiers were billeted in her home. She says that they treated her with respect as her mother was of German origin. They would sing and share their alcohol with them. Being a teenager, she remembers the handsome Germans and whereas she does not say so in as many words, it is clear she took a fancy to one or two of them.

The night before the invasion of the Soviet Union the Germans warned them not to be frightened, that a large gun would start firing early in the morning but that they were safe and had nothing to fear.

The Germans who were billeted there during the period of the death camp never discussed their work. They returned home clean, sometimes washing themselves in the well that still stands in her garden.

She was in the bakery the day the first transport arrived. Very soon the entire population knew that Jews were being transported to the camp to be murdered. Sometimes as many as three transports would arrive, other days there were one or two trains. The trains sometimes would wait with the unfortunate occupants crying out for water although no-one could approach them due to the Ukrainian guards. In general the population felt pity for the victims but could do nothing themselves as they were worried for their own safety.

The bread was baked by two Jewish bakers who were guarded by a Ukrainian. What became of them she does not know. The flour for baking the bread occassionally came from the transportees themselves, who clearly brought it with them to provide something to eat in the place they were destined. Apparently valuables were often hidden in the flour but they only once found something of value.

The bread would be taken to the camp by horse and cart with the bread placed on straw. At the first camp gate a guard would take over and she waited outside with the cart driver. There were two gates to the camp that she knew of. She could not see inside the camp. She said that when the horse came out of the camp it showed a great deal of fear.

She also recalls that one day a partisan came requesting food. She notes that some of the partisans were bandits, others were genuinely fighting the occupants. She was frightened of both sides, both the Germans and the partisans.

She also remembers the big fires and the stench of burning hair and the bodies which was so bad that none of the windows could be opened at all.

She speaks very clearly and remembers well. She apologises saying that had she known she was going to need answers to all these questions, she would have made a better effort to remember.