Into that Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder

p. 169

Gitta Sereny interviews Franz Stangl, commandant at Treblinka, about the people who arrived on the trains. Stangl: “’I remember one occasion…one Jew came up to me and said he wanted to make a complaint. So I said yes, certainly, what was it. He said that one of the Lithuanian guards (who were only used for transport duties) had promised to give him water if he gave him his watch. But he had taken the watch and not given him any water. Well, that wasn’t right, was it? Anyway, I didn’t permit pilfering. I asked the Lithuanians then and there who it was who had taken the watch, but nobody came forward.’” Maybe an officer? Stangl: “’Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not interested what sort of uniform a man wears. I am only interested in what is inside a man.’ Don’t think that didn’t get back to Warsaw in a hurry. But what’s right is right, isn’t it? I made them all line up and turn out their pockets.’ Stangl didn’t know what became of the complainant. But since the 5,000 to 6,000 people who arrived each morning were killed by the gas by noon, that’s certainly what became of the complainant too.”