In the autumn of 1942, Matthes shot two prisoners because at the end of the work day they had not properly cleaned to his satisfaction the stretcher which they used to transport corpses.[2] In the winter of 1942–43, a typhus epidemic broke out in Treblinka. Matthes took eight sick inmates to the Lazarett and had them shot. During that same winter he shot the prisoner Ilik Weintraub because, while transferring bodies from the gas chambers to the pits, Weintraub had stopped for a moment to drink some water from the well.[2]