Driving to Treblinka: Diana Wichtel’s story
Driving to Treblinka
Diana Wichtel’s story
by Val Graham
“Ben Wichtel was a young, very athletic man. They were en route to Treblinka, which was not a concentration camp but a killing centre about two hours north of Warsaw. There the Nazis established gas chambers to kill the Jews. Ben Wichtel jumped off the train.” [i]
So writes Diana Wichtel’s cousin Joe to her in response to her quest for information about her father’s history.
I had read Diana’s excellent book, Driving to Treblinka, when it was first published in 2017 and had been very moved by the story of her trying to find out more about the life of her father with scant historical resources and after the passage of time, when those who might have remembered were no longer there.
I met up with Diana to learn more about who her father was, what she had discovered about him, and her family story.
Ben Wichtel was a sensitive, cultured man who spoke seven languages, was musically talented, and had grown up as part of a large, close-knit and well-to-do family in a nine-room apartment in Warsaw. He died in Brockville, Ontario in 1970, almost friendless and suffering from mental illness and psychological trauma.
His hospital record says that Ben served with the Warsaw underground from 1939-45, so Ben is likely to have been active prior to the start of the Warsaw ghetto transports and is likely to have known their fate.
The Warsaw ghetto transports took place from July 1942 until April 1943. Packed 70-100 in cattle wagons, often with standing room only, the 100km journey to Treblinka was filled with terrified passengers and screaming children. There were no comforts and the lack of fresh air and basic sanitation in the wagons meant that the stench was unbearable.
Somehow, Ben Wichtel took his chance to squeeze through the tiny window of the wagon. Jumping from the train he rolled down the bank and lay in the snow, fully expecting to be shot by guards from the roof of the train.
Instead, he escaped, living out the remainder of the war around the forests of Lublin; likely in contact with partisan groups; sheltering in an in-ground bunker; surviving by digging up frozen raw potatoes and whatever else he could scavenge. Such a life would have been highly stressful, not being able to trust anyone and always in fear of your life. Sometimes people would help, sometimes even other partisan groups were anti-Semitic.
After the war, Ben met up with one surviving family member, his uncle Paul, who had managed to survive the war by ‘passing off’ as a Catholic. Both men went to Sweden, then headed for New York, where Ben’s older brother Sy had moved in 1933. However Ben decided to carry on to Montreal, Canada, and thence on to Vancouver.
It was in Vancouver that Ben set up his textile business and employed a young New Zealand woman, Pat. Ben Wichtel, 10 years older, European, smart, cultured and charming, swept Pat off her feet and they were soon married. Diana’s sister Ros was born soon after, followed by Diana, then younger brother Jeffrey.
Wichtel family: Diana’s mother, Pat, with Diana on her knee, with Ben and big sister Ros, around 1959.
The family lived happily and the growing business meant that they had a nice home, wanted for nothing, and had a generally happy home life. Diana remembers her father as a gentle, kind man, although occasionally prone to angry flashes.
Diana (right) with Ben and friend, Vancouver
She remembers when the Eichmann trial came on television in 1961. Pictures of the Warsaw ghetto came on and her father said, “I was there”. He would start to talk about his experiences, but Diana’s mother would be concerned in case he would become upset, and would shut down the conversation, which was how her own family dealt with anything unpleasant.
Diana says that many survivors actually did want to discuss their experiences, but people didn’t understand, or didn’t want to listen. Possibly the stories seemed too unreal for them to grasp or they couldn’t comprehend the horror that some had experienced.
Ben told the children the story of him jumping off the train and rolling down the bank, waiting to be shot. Diana, probably about 10 years old, remembers asking her father in the way that children do, “How could you leave your mother on the train?”. Ben’s answer to questions about why he hadn’t acted differently was always, “Because they would shoot you.”
Then, Ben started to become ill. As a result, the textile business began to fail, money worries set in, and the marriage began to fail. He started to shut down, and the family’s social life was curtailed. The family home was sold, possessions disappeared. Ben’s mental health gradually deteriorated but he refused all medical help, and all help proffered by friends and family was rejected. No matter who pleaded with him to seek help, he refused.
Diana’s mother, probably at a loss as to what else she could do, returned to New Zealand with the three children, temporarily moving into her mother’s small home in Milford on Auckland’s North Shore. As well as losing her home, school and the presence of her father, Diana had a lot of other adjustments to make:
“The culture shock is paralysing. In Canada we wore nylons and kitten heels and makeup. At Westlake we kneel on the gym floor so a teacher can see if our gym frocks breach the not-above-the-knee rule. In Canada there were boys. At Westlake a girl can be suspended for speaking to one on her way home from school.[ii]
The family waited for Ben to join them in New Zealand, but he never did. He was too sick. It is likely that he would nowadays be diagnosed with PTSD.
Fast forward to university days, 1971, and Diana is flatting with her older sister Ros in Dominion Rd, when the phone rings at 2am. It is Uncle Sy from New York to tell them that their father is dead. He says that Ben has left a few papers, but they don’t ask about them, possibly too shocked by the news.
Only years afterwards Diana, urged by her daughter Monika and niece Nicola, begins the search for her father’s grave and the story behind his life. Up until that point, she admits that she had just accepted ‘not knowing’. The book details her journey: how Diana reconnects with her family in New York, tracks down her father’s hospital records, finds his resting place.
Diana reconnects with her New York cousins again in 2006, which is a very successful visit, and only on her last day they mention her father’s first cousin, Joe, who is in Pennsylvania. Having no time to arrange to see Joe, Diana calls him. Joe is full of information, knew her father and shares valuable personal details about who her father was as a person. She finally meets Joe in 2007.
Diana’s partner Chris won a scholarship in 2010 studying the architecture of murder and memorial, based at Cambridge University in England. Whilst there, Chris convinces Diana to travel to Poland to get a sense of her heritage.
The old Jewish quarter, the Kazimierz district in Krakow, is like some poor-taste Jewish theme park, except it has no Jews left there. On their visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Diana observes that she felt uneasy at how long it took on their tour for the word “Jew” to be mentioned. There is a sense of a country that remains in denial over its collaboration in mass extermination. There is still a lot of anti-Semitism and a sense that Jews are not really Polish.
Diana takes us on this highly personal journey of discovery. She admits that she was very nervous when she sent in the final manuscript for publication – her memories and perception of family events are not always the same as her siblings. The book is a fitting tribute to her father who lost one family in the Holocaust, and another family from its extended effects.
Diana’s book ends with the Wichtel family setting a headstone for Ben at his grave in Brockville Ontario. All Ben’s children, grandchildren, his niece, nephew and their families came to honour him and celebrate his life. The headstone inscription reads:
“Benjamin Hersz Wichtel
May 16, 1910 – November 26, 1970
Holocaust survivor, survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, fighter in the forests of the old world who started again in the new.”
May his memory be a blessing.
Benjamin Hersz Wichtel
May 16, 1910 – November 26, 1970
Holocaust survivor, survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, fighter in the forests of the old world who started again in the new.
May his memory be a blessing.