Causey - Trains to Treblinka: a novel

Into Treblinka by Henry Foster

Trains to Treblinka A Novel Charles Causey Foreword by Rabbi Bonnie Koppell Edited by Vicki Zimmer

2020 Charles Causey

Trains to Treblinka

A Novel

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All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version. Public domain.

Cover Photo: Deportation of Jews to Treblinka, Siedlce railway station, August 22, 1942. Photo taken by Austrian Soldier Hubert Pfoch on his way to the front. Used with permission from the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance (DW).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019919439

ISBN 978-1-400330096 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-400330102 (Hardbound)

ISBN 978-1-400330119 (eBook)

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Trains to Treblinka is hard to put down. The story presents a renewed interest in the emotional impact of the events of World War IIthe protagonists are deftly portrayeda profoundly memorable story about Treblinka.

Publishers Weekly (BookLife Contest)

Everything the Jews left behind had its value and its place.

Only the Jews themselves were regarded as worthless.

Jankiel Wiernik, Holocaust survivor

I stare directly ahead as I take off my clothes. I am afraid. By not looking at anyone I hope no one will see me. I hesitate before removing my bra. I decide to leave my bra on. Just then a shot rings out. The charge is ear-shattering. Some women begin to scream. Others weep. I quickly take my bra off A burden was lifted. The burden of individuality.

Of associations. Of identity. Of the recent past.

Livia Bitton-Jackson, Holocaust survivor

Camp was a proving ground of character. Someslithered into a moral swamp. Otherschiseled themselves a character of finest crystal. We were cut with a sharp instrument. Its blade bit painfully into our bodies, yet in our souls, it found fields to till.

We had all become just our bare essence. A man was seen and valued for what he really was.

Witold Pilecki, Holocaust survivor

for

Micaela and Olivia

may your lives shine through those who love you

C harles Causey has written a gripping, sobering account of the horrors of the Nazi regime at the Treblinka extermination camp. This is not an easy book to read, yet it is powerful and important.

Currently a chaplain in the U.S. military, Charles has served in the army for thirty years. As a graduate of the U.S. Army War College, where he was awarded a master of strategic studies degree, as a recipient of the Bronze Star medal, and as a student of history and the author of several books, Chaplain Causey is uniquely poised to tell this story with deep insights from a variety of perspectives. His writing is informed both by his military training as well as his insight into the human condition.

I met Chaplain Causey during my thirty-eight years of service as a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve. I had the honor of serving as the first female rabbi in the U.S. military, and Charles supported my work every step of the way. His professionalism and collegiality were, and are, legendary in the Chaplain Corps. In his various roles, he has gained unique insight into human behavior, which he brings to bear in drawing the characters in Trains to Treblinka.

The boldness of the human spirit, the depths of evil of which we are capable, the will to survive, and the ability to retain a sense of humanity when all around people are losing theirsthese themes come alive in his writing. Chaplain Causey does not shirk from describing the incredible depravity of the guards at the extermination camp. It is painful, gruesometo read of the cruelty of those who killed for sport, including ripping infants from their mothers loving arms. Yet we cannot ignore or deny history. Charles honors the memory of those who were lost by recording their story. He reminds us that our character is the sum of the choices we make, and that in every situation we have a choice as to how we respond.

Some of the Nazi victims succumbed to despair. Others plotted insurrection and escape, against impossible odds, demonstrating heroic courage in the face of tortuously inhuman conditions. Their story is captivating. Their perseverance and bravery are inspirations, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Charles Causey for giving voice to their story.

We live at a time when there are those who deny that the Holocaust occurred. As a rabbi and Jewish leader, I am profoundly grateful to Chaplain Causey for honoring the souls of the almost one million who perished at the Treblinka extermination camp.

Rabbi Bonnie Koppell

CH (COL) USAR, Retired

Phoenix, AZ

T he former death camp in Poland known as Treblinka is usually discussed in numbers instead of names. Like Auschwitz, Treblinka was a massive annihilation site during WWII. Unlike Auschwitz, Treblinka was not a slave labor camp where the Nazis took worker photographs and issued prisoners striped uniforms. Treblinka was strictly an extermination center. Its chief purpose was to eliminate new arrivals as quickly as possible. The SS leaders at Treblinka did not take time to mark the incoming masses with numbered tattoos or perform medical experiments. Instead they crafted an extremely efficient killing machinetheir pinnacle effort. Few stories in history are as diabolical as the story of Treblinka.