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  The process of getting rid of the corpses began with some grim experiments. At Kulmhof Concentration Camp, Blobel tried destroying corpses using incendiary bombs, but the resulting explosions set fire to the nearby forest. The most efficient method was discovered to be giant pyres on iron grills. Alternate layers of corpses and firewood were placed on metal railway tracks installed over large pits that allowed air to circulate below and feed the flames. Bone fragments recovered from the pits were then pounded to dust by hand or using special grinding machines. The ashes and fragments were then mixed with sand and disposed of, leaving absolutely no trace of any victims. This method of getting rid of incriminating corpses was first used at Sobibor Extermination Camp, then at Belzec in November 1942. It was later extended to the other Reinhard death camp at Treblinka.

  One of the reasons why the Nazis were so obsessed about erasing all traces of their crimes was a discovery that they themselves had made near Smolensk in 1943. The place was called Katyn, and here were discovered the hastily buried corpses of 22,000 Poles executed by the Soviet NKVD on Stalin’s order in 1940. In September 1939, the Soviet Union had invaded eastern Poland shortly after Hitler’s forces had attacked from the west, leaving the nation to be carved up between the two dictators. The Soviets captured hundreds of thousands of prisoners – over 200,000 were shipped to camps in the Soviet Union. Lavrenty Beria, the head of Stalin’s feared NKVD secret police, proposed that they should kill all the Polish officer corps and other ‘enemies’. Stalin approved, and at Katyn 8,000 Polish army officers, 6,000 police officers and 8,000 Polish intelligentsia, landowners, businessmen, lawyers and priests were shot. When the Germans stumbled upon the mass grave in April 1943, finding the bodies well preserved, Dr Josef Goebbels immediately realized the enormous propaganda value of the discovery. The entire site was carefully excavated, photographed and filmed, and the resulting evidence of a Soviet war crime distributed loudly around the world. The Nazis even brought in British and American officers from prisoner-of-war camps to show them the evidence of Soviet brutality. Officially, the Western Allies blamed the Germans for the massacre, not wanting to anger their Soviet ally, but behind closed doors many in London and Washington realized that Stalin was as ruthless as Hitler.

  The Germans had hoped to create a fracture in the relationship between the Allies, but this did not occur. Instead, the discovery at Katyn speeded up German efforts to get rid of the evidence of their own similar crimes, as any such discovery by the Soviets would completely undermine Goebbels’ efforts at demonizing the USSR in the eyes of the world.

  The effort to destroy the corpses was already running at full pace. At Belzec Extermination Camp the task was complete by March 1943, and that at Treblinka continued until the end of July. The Einsatzgruppen massacres that had presaged Aktion Reinhard had left literally mountains of corpses lying in shallow graves. Apart from Babi Yar, at Ponary in northern Poland 100,000 (including 70,000 Jews) had been shot. At Ninth Fort in Lithuania, 10,000 Jews lay buried and at Bronna Gora, north-east of Sobibor, another 50,000 Jews. All of these locations had to be sanitised, and quickly.

  At Babi Yar, the grim task of disposing of the corpses would be left to the inmates of the Syrets Concentration Camp. They would work in Sonderkommandos. On 18 August 1943, the SS made the first work selections. ‘We were led to Babi Yar. Every fifth man was brought before a stocky individual who, we later learned, had been an ironsmith,’ recalled prisoner David Budnik. ‘The feet of the chosen prisoners were cuffed into primitive clamps, similar to those on a chain in a well, which allowed us to work but not run away. Then we were led into a barracks where there were more prisoners.’11 The barracks was located about 100 to 150 metres from the main Syrets camp, and therefore did not have electrified fences. ‘The rest of the prisoners, those who had not been chained, were loaded into vans and taken to Germany for transfer to other concentration camps. Along the periphery of Babi Yar they installed screens to camouflage the area and the whole region was declared restricted. They were also planting trees to hide the area from planes flying overhead.’12

  The SS would meet any prisoner resistance or disobedience with summary execution, and the resulting bodies would be added to the decomposed corpses to be burned.13 Giant funeral pyres were quickly erected to deal with the mass of corpses, while other Sonderkommandos were tasked with excavating the grave pits and hauling the bodies to the burning areas. ‘On one side a furnace was being erected,’ said Sonderkommando Yakov Kaper. ‘First they brought stones taken from the Jewish cemetery; the tombstones bore the dates of those buried in the cemetery.’14 Long railway rails were placed on the stones, ‘then iron fences were also removed from the cemetery and then some logs with a little room in between to let air through when they started burning’.15

  Yet more Sonderkommandos disposed of ashes or pounded bones to dust. It was clear to everyone involved that the SS would not permit these workers to live after having carried out so sensitive and secret a task. They were living on borrowed time.

  ‘When everything was ready we were ordered to pull the corpses out and put them on the furnaces,’ said Kaper. ‘For this special tools were prepared. There was a handle in the form of a ring and a rod 50–60cm long with a hook sharpened end.’ The hook was inserted under the chin of the corpse and then a small team of prisoners would pull the body from the grave. Germans supervised everything, using bullwhips to keep the prisoners working fast. ‘And all the time we heard the cries “Schnell”. We pulled out the corpse and brought it up to the ground, there other people picked it up, they opened the mouth first, if there were gold teeth they were pulled out.’16 Several layers of corpses were put together and liberally doused in oil, logs were laid, and then more corpses and so forth. ‘So at the end it was 2.5 or 3m in height.’ As the pyre grew in height, corpses were added using special scaffolding. Kaper estimated that they were burning around 2,000 corpses a day. ‘When everything was ready once again oil was poured over everything and the furnace was lit with torches. At first, the bright flame lit the whole ravine, but gradually the black smoke covered the flame, the air filled with smoke and the sweetish smell of burning. It became impossible to breathe, at first the hair was burning then the bodies caught fire. Germans who were with us there also couldn’t breathe and were very often replaced. They also carried flasks with water and they drank it constantly. At the same time another furnace was being prepared in another place, and while one furnace was burning down another was lit.’17

  Fresh corpses were also being added to the original victims of the Babi Yar massacres. The Germans used ‘gas vans’, specially equipped mobile gas chambers mounted on trucks, to kill more Jews in the Kiev area. The vans were unloaded at Babi Yar and the bodies added to the pyres, along with any Sonderkommandos who died or were executed on the job.

  The bones were not destroyed by open-air cremation. ‘They were gathered and put in a special ground laid with granite plates, a special team was crushing those bones into small pieces with special mortars. Then they were sieved and big bones were again crushed then mixed with sand and were scattered on the road.’18

  At the end of each day’s labour, the chained Sonderkommandos were given a scoop of soup and went back to the camp. The work was unrelenting and truly horrific. At Babi Yar, extracting the bodies from the burial pits was difficult. ‘True, the upper corpses, obviously recently shot were easily drawn out,’ recalled Kaper. ‘But those on the bottom, shot in 1941, were lying intertwined, some of them shot and others were not touched by the bullets. They were lying all together and it was next to impossible to pull out a corpse.’19 On numerous occasions the corpses came apart when being pulled out of their graves. Before being dumped on the furnaces, a special Sonderkommando, as well as checking the heads for gold teeth, also gathered rings, earrings and other jewellery. The Sonderkommandos were truly in hell. ‘All this time we did not wash our hands but still ate with them, the work lasted from morning ‘till dark with a short break for dinne
r, any violation of the order was punished on the spot with shooting … It was necessary to work without saying a word to anyone, if they noticed anybody talking they shot them at once.’20

  The Germans made sure that the entire site was well guarded and the prisoners were carefully watched. Those SS supervising the chain gangs of Sonderkommando prisoners were armed with whips and left their pistol holsters open so that the weapons could be instantly used. On the sides of the ravine and up top were more SS armed with machine pistols and rifles, constantly standing guard or patrolling. Escape, it appeared, was not very likely. However, the Sonderkommandos knew that their very lives were at stake, and that if they worked together, perhaps there would be a way out of the living hell that was Babi Yar.

  ‘Everyone kept to themselves and spoke only in whispers,’ said Kaper. ‘Still some people agreed [to try and escape] and started digging a tunnel in the barracks. They could not manage to do it within one night since they had neither spades nor any other tools and they were digging with their hands.’21 They carefully camouflaged the entrance hole and disposed of the spoil under different bunk beds. The SS did not normally enter the prisoners’ accommodation at Syrets, probably fearing disease. But, in a terrible twist of fate, one of the prisoners, perhaps hoping to curry favour with the SS, informed them of the tunnel’s existence. The sixteen men involved with the escape operation were lined up and shot on the spot.

  When the prisoners were labouring in the ravine and stacking corpses on the furnaces, they worked in chain gangs, the SS carefully checking the prisoners’ shackles three times a day. But one prisoner, Fedor Savertanny, did manage to escape. He asked the SS guard for permission to relieve himself, and the German unshackled him from the main chain, though he was still wearing ankle shackles to prevent him from running away. At that moment, a group of SS officers arrived on an inspection, distracting the guard. Savertanny saw his opportunity. He quickly removed his shackles using a basic key that he had found on a corpse and dashed for the nearby Jewish cemetery. From there he took off for Kiev. By the time the SS realized that a prisoner was missing, Savertanny was well on his way to Kiev, where he managed to hide out until the Soviets retook the city. In revenge, the SS executed fifteen other Sonderkommandos.

  By now, the prisoners were becoming desperate. ‘I was lying and thinking that if we could open the padlock on the barracks door and attack the guards at least some people would escape alive,’ said Kaper. ‘It would be better than all of us being shot without any chance to tell the world about the awful things that took place here.’22 The next morning, Kaper fell into conversation with Voldya Kuklya and Leonyd Kadomsky, who slept close by. They liked his idea. Perhaps they could find a key? This time, the plan would be kept to only three people to minimize the chance that someone would betray them to the SS. As they laboured with the corpses they found many things in the pockets of their moldy and rotten clothing. ‘The bottom corpses were absolutely naked, the middle layers were half-naked and the top layer corpses were dressed. Once in one of the pockets we found a bottle of wine and we drank it on the spot, the Germans saw it and laughed.’23

  Though the SS may have laughed and sneered at the poor wretches they abused and worked to death, they never for a moment realized that a resolute handful among their slaves was secretly working on a daring escape. Kaper and his friends searched the fully clothed bodies that they daily dragged out of the burial pits, and the pockets proved to be a veritable gold mine of potential escape kit. They found small tools, scissors, screwdrivers and many other items. ‘Nearly every corpse had keys on him, people locked their flats and apartments and took the keys with them.’24

  It was becoming obvious to Kaper and the others that they had to escape soon; otherwise the entire operation would be a moot point. ‘Many of those in our team that burned corpses had already perished, some were shot down: others couldn’t stand it and committed suicide.’25

  The Germans brought in fresh men almost every day to replenish the labour force, and these newcomers brought news that the Red Army was now very near. This was confirmed one day when the Sonderkommandos could hear the distant rumble of artillery fire, as well as by the almost maniacal pace the Germans set as they desperately tried to erase evidence of their crimes. ‘We kept on trying to survive for another day. Every day more and more people did not come back to the barracks alive.’ Everyone knew that there would be no liberation for the Sonderkommandos – the SS would kill all the remaining workers once the job of clearing up the evidence of Babi Yar was completed. If anyone was to survive, it would have to be by their own ingenuity and bravery.

  Kaper’s idea was to collect keys. He knew what general type of key would fit the large padlock that the Germans locked shut on the door to their dugout each night. If they could collect enough keys from the dead, they might find a near match. If the prisoners could unlock the door to their dugout, then they could hopefully attempt to escape. But to bring keys to the dugout was very risky. As well as constantly checking the prisoners’ shackles, the SS also individually frisked the Sonderkommandos before they went back to their accommodation. If the SS found a key, its purpose would have been obvious. The prisoner, and possibly the entire workforce from that dugout, would be executed. Each prisoner would only bring back a single key to avoid any telltale rattling, and Kaper instructed some of the others what type of key to look out for.

  ‘By the end of the day I found one key that looked like the one we needed,’ said Kaper. ‘I brought it, the other fellows brought back nothing. Either they were afraid or didn’t find anything and said that there was none that looked like the one we needed.’26 The next night, Kaper again brought back a key from the burial pits, but his accomplices again returned empty-handed. This continued for several days, and Kaper gave up trying to encourage his friends to share his risks.

  Once enough keys had been assembled, Kaper arranged for two of his comrades to shield him from view when the prisoners assembled outside the dugout to receive their evening meal. Working fast, Kaper tried several keys in the padlock. Nothing. The next evening, Kaper tried again, running the risk of instant execution should he have been caught with keys in his possession. But the risk was worth it, for Kaper discovered a key that unlocked the padlock. The rest of the keys were tossed away and the special key, the key to the future lives of the men in Kaper’s barrack, was carefully concealed.

  The dangers of smuggling items into the barracks were graphically demonstrated one day when one of the men on Kaper’s work team was frisked by an SS guard. He felt something solid in one of the man’s pockets and ordered him to turn them out. The man had taken a small pair of scissors from one of the corpses. When he protested that he had only taken them so that he could cut his hair, the SS was having none of it. Beaten unconscious, the unfortunate man was tossed alive onto one of the furnaces and burned to death. It was a terrible reminder of the risk that Kaper and his comrades were running in hiding contraband inside their barrack.

  Kaper and the others could see that the work of clearing the bodies from the burial pits and burning them was coming to an end. The SS ordered the Sonderkommandos to clear up the site, in particular to gather up the massive piles of ashes from the pyres, mix them with sand and spread them over the ground and roads. Ominously, although there were no more bodies left to burn, the SS ordered the Sonderkommandos to construct one more furnace. It was obvious to everyone that this furnace was meant for the Sonderkommandos themselves as soon as they had outlived their usefulness to the Germans. ‘We did not know what to do,’ said Kaper. ‘When we were gathering ashes with a spade near the furnace, I suddenly noticed golden coins in the form of an ingot. They must have been wrapped into something and got melted together.’27 Impulsively, Kaper stuffed the ingot into his shirt and kept working. He never knew when the gold might come in handy.

  When the new furnace had been built, the SS gathered all of the various Sonderkommandos together. Kaper recalled: ‘We were lined up and the Germans wer
e whispering something and looking at the road, they must have been waiting for the big bosses.’ Whatever it was, the SS grew tired and ordered the Sonderkommandos to sit down before sending them back to their barracks. But one man inside Kaper’s barracks, Yakov Steyak, spoke German and overheard the SS discussing liquidating the remaining Sonderkommandos the next day. Kaper decided that if they were going to try and escape it would have to be that night, 29 September 1943: ‘In the men whom the SS saw only as walking corpses, there matured a determination that at least one of the them must survive to tell the world about what had happened at Babi Yar.’28

  Kaper informed Steyak and David Budnik that he had a key and could open the door to the barrack. Kaper’s companions were initially almost speechless that anyone had managed to find a key to the lock, but Kaper quickly retrieved the key from its hiding place and gave it to Budnik. The men agreed to escape later that night by removing the shackles on their ankles and freeing as many of the other Sonderkommandos in the hut as possible, before one man would reach through the barred window and open the padlock hanging from the door. Noise would be their greatest enemy, as they couldn’t afford the chains and the door to make any untoward sounds that might alert the German guards that were posted just outside the lines of barracks. One false move and they would all be executed without mercy.

  Once darkness had fallen, a deep silence came over the rows of halfburied barracks. The only sounds were the occasional stifled coughs of sick men and the creak of jackboots as SS guards prowled around. The prisoners started to remove their chains as quietly as possible. Everything was going well when they suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of approaching footsteps and the low murmur of German voices. Everyone froze. A key rattled loudly in the door. Kaper, like many others inside the barrack, thought that someone had somehow gained knowledge of their plan and sold them out to the SS. They all prepared for the worst. The door was flung open and in stepped four SS men, but instead of carrying MP40s ready to spray the room with automatic fire, they instead hauled two large pots full of potatoes. It was to be the prisoners’ last supper.