Nobody at Treblinka

Thomas Carper

Sie waren nicht ein kleiner Mann.
              Film director Claude Lanzmann
                to a former Nazi official

 But keep the scale in mind. What single man
 Could undertake that kind of enterprise
 When each day trains from half of Europe ran
 Into the camp? The prisoners swarmed like flies
 Onto the platforms. Hundreds did their jobs
 Of keeping books, processing and selecting,
 Or guarding work brigades, or moving mobs
 Into the chambers . . . cleaning . . . disinfecting.
You see, with those large numbers, no one said,
"X is responsible." We were a team
 Handling the hordes-the living, and the dead.
 Mine was a minor function. Do I seem
Like someone who would cause such sufferings?
 I was a nobody. Nobody does those things.