Treblinka Survivor – Testimony – Selected Extracts
Federenko Trial
Fort Lauderdale, USA 1978
[photos added to enhance the text]
Q: Where were you born?
Sonia Lewkowicz:
I was born in the city of Dombrowa , near Grodno, Poland.
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Q: And when did you finish school?
It was already during the war in June 1924, correction 1941
Q: In December 1942 were you taken in a transport to Treblinka Camp?
Yes
Q: You were twenty years old when this happened?
That is right
Q: Tell the Court what happened, when the train you were riding in pulled into the Treblinka camp?
When the train stopped, we were chased from the cars to a big square where we were separated, women and children on one side, the men on the other side. We went to the barrack where we had to undress.
Q: And did you undress?
Yes
Q: Who else was in the barrack where you were forced to undress?
There were other women and children, Germans, Ukrainians, and
Jewish prisoners, men, with some kind of a blue band on their sleeves.
Q: Tell us what happened to you?
I wouldn’t undress completely. One of those Jewish prisoners, Jewish men, who suggested that I should say that I am a laundress. Then he ran to the SS –man, told him probably I am a laundress, and pushed me into him, and he said to this officer that I am a qualified laundress, he pulled me aside.
Q: One of the Jewish prisoners with an arm band that said you were to say
you were a laundress?
Yes
Q: Was that in order to save your life?
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Yes
Q: Were you really a qualified laundress?
No
Q: So when you made the statement to the SS man that you were a laundress,
were you pulled out of line?
Yes
Q: Was anybody else – were any other women pulled out of the line at the
same time you were?
Yes.
Q: How many others?
Another woman – one other woman.
Q: Do you remember her name?
Yes. Sonja Berman
Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sonialewkowicz.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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