Document 30.1: Abraham Bomba Interview, 1990

Before the war, Abraham Bomba (1913–2000) was a barber living in Czestochowa, Poland. In 1942 he and his family were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Instead of facing immediate execution, as was the fate of many new arrivals at Treblinka, Bomba was selected for forced labor. In a gruesome irony, he was assigned the task of cutting women’s hair before they entered the gas chambers. In this 1990 interview, he described this process.

Click here to view the interview.

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Questions to Consider

  1. What did Bomba find most difficult about his assignment? Why?
  2. Does Bomba’s description and account of the camp commandant surprise you? What importance should we attach to it?