Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience

Richard Glazar is a Czech Jew who survived Treblinka and moved to a farmhouse in Switzerland with his family. Sereny visits him in 1972. Glazar arrived at Treblinka with no idea of the camp’s true purpose and was immediately put to work bundling huge piles of clothes, only later learning where they’d come from. To survive in Treblinka, Glazar says it was essential to dissociate without losing oneself completely. Those who survived had a quality Glazar describes as “an overriding thirst [...] a talent for life, and a faith in life” (487).

Glazar divides life in the camp into four phases. The first was when Treblinka opened before he or Stangl arrived. Next was the first part of Stangl’s tenure, during which rivalries flared between individual SS men at the expense of the prisoners; for example, someone might be selected for work by one officer, only to be killed by a rival officer. The third phase was the latter part of Stangl’s tenure in early 1943. Jewish workers were more secure in their positions at this time because the SS realized good workers were needed to ensure the camp’s operation, keeping their jobs in Poland and away from the front lines.