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Treblinka I/II
Treblinka I/II
This topic is for all information and documents, which will be provided concerning the Treblinka I/II camp in poland.
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Official Map of Treblinka II
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Mapkey
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Administration and Staff Living Area
[01] Entrance to the camp near Seidel Street
[02] Guard's room near the entrance
[03] SS living quarters
[04] Arms storerooms
[05] Gasoline pump and storerooms
[06] Garage
[07] Entrance to the Station square
[08] Camp command for Stangl's living quarters
[09] Services for the SS - barber, sick bay, dentist
[10] Living quarters for the domestic staff (Polish and Ukranian girls)
[11] Bakery
[12] Foodstore and supply storeroom
[13] The barrack in which the "gold Jews" worked
[14] Ukranian living quarters - "Max Bialas barracks"
[15] Zoo
[16] Stables, chicken coop, pig pen
[17] Living quarters for capos, women, tailor shop, shoe repairs, carpentry shop and sickroom
[18] Prisoners kitchen
[19] Living quarters for men prisoners, prisoner's laundry and tool room
[20] Locksmith and smithy
[21] Latrine
[22] Roll-call square
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Reception Area
[23] Station platform (ramp) and square
[24] Storeroom for belongings taken from victims - disguised as station
[25] Deportation square
[26] Barrack in which the women undressed and relinquished their valuables
[27] Room in which the womens hair was cut
[28] Barrack in which the men undressed, also used as storeroom
[29] Reception square
[30] "Lazarett" - execution site
[31] "The Tube" - the approach to the gas chambers
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Extermination Area
[32] New gas chambers (10 chambers)
[33] Old gas chambers (3 chambers)
[34] Burial pits
[35] "The Roasts" for burning bodies
[36] Prisoners living quarters, kitchen and latrines
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Source
- Arad, Yitzhak; The Pictorial History of the Holocaust, p. 298
The official history of Treblinka II
The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp
Construction of Treblinka began after Belzec and Sobibor were in operation. The experience gained from the installation and the extermination procedures in those two camps was taken into consideration in the planning and building of Treblinka. Thus, it became the most "perfect" extermination camp of Operation Reinhard.
The camp was situated in the northeastern part of the General Government, not far from Malkinia, a town with a railroad station on the main Warsaw-Bialystok line and close to the Malkinia-Siedlce line.
The camp was erected in a sparsely populated region, 4 km. from the village of Treblinka and the railroad station. The site chosen for the camp was wooded and thus naturally concealed. Since the spring of 1941 a punishment camp had been located a few kilometers away, where Polish and Jewish prisoners were made to process raw material from a gravel pit for frontier fortifications.
At the end of April or the beginning of May 1942, an SS-unit decided on the location. The size and master plan of Treblinka were identical to those of Sobibor. The construction of the extermination camp began at the end of May or beginning of June 1942. Richard Thomalla was in charge; he had completed his construction job in Sobibor and had been relieved by Stangl in April 1942. In building the gas chambers he was assisted by SS-Unterscharfu"hrer Erwin Lambert, a chief-of-construction for technical matters from the "Euthanasia" program. The extermination sector was located in the southwest, in an area measuring 200 x 250 m., totally separated from the rest of the camp by barbed wire. As on the outside, branches were intertwined with the barbed wire to hide it from view. For the same reason, the entrances were placed behind a special partition. The gas chambers were housed in a massive brick building in the center. The access paths, including the "tube," in Treblinka named "Street to Heaven" by the SS-men, were model led on those in Belzec and Sobibor; the same applied to the "reception camp" and "accommodation camp."
During the first stage, three gas chambers were in operation, each of them, much like those in Sobibor,4 x 4 m. in size and 2.6 m. high. A diesel engine producing poisonous carbon monoxide, as well as a generator which supplied the whole camp with electricity, were housed in a built-on room. The entrance doors of the gas chambers opened into a passage in front of the building; each door was 1.8 m. high and 90 cm. wide. They could be hermetically closed and bolted from the outside. Inside each gas chamber, opposite the entrance door, was a thick door made of wooden beams, 2.5 m. high and 1.8 m. wide, which could also be hermetically closed. The walls in the gas chambers were covered with white tiles up to a certain height, shower heads had been installed, and water pipes ran along the ceiling--all this so as to maintain the "showers" fiction. In reality the pipes conducted the poisonous gas into the chambers. When the doors were shut, it was completely dark inside.
To the east of the gas chambers were huge ditches into which the corpses were thrown. They had been dug with an excavator from the gravel pit in Treblinka. Prisoners had to participate in this work. The ditches were 50 m. long, 25 m. wide, and 10 m. deep. A narrow-gauge track had been laid from the gas chambers to transport the corpses to the ditches. Prisoners had to push the trolleys.
The main extermination installations were completed by mid-June 1942. The murder operations began on July 23, 1942.
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Treblinka—from July 23 until August 28, 1942
The procedure adopted upon the arrival of the trains was the same as that in Sobibor: two German railroad workers, classified as being reliable, took over the transport from the Treblinka station to the extermination camp, a distance of 4 km. The Pole Franciszek Zabecki described the arrival of the deportation train from the Warsaw ghetto:
A small locomotive stood ready in the railroad station to transport the first section of freight cars into the carnp. Everything had been planned and prepared in advance. The train consisted of 60 closed freight cars fully loaded with people: young ones, old ones, men and women, children and babies. The car doors were locked from the outside and the air holes covered with barbed wire. On the running boards on both sidej and on the roof about a dozen SS-soldiers stood or lay with machine guns at the ready. It was hot and most of the people in the freight cars were deadly exhausted... As the train came nearer it seemed as if an evil spirit had taken hold of the waiting SS-men. They drew their pistols, returned them to their holsters, pulled them out agian, as if they wanted to shoot and kill. They approached the freight cars and tried to reduce the noise and the weeping; but then they screamed at the Jews and cursed them, all the while urging the railroad workers to hurry: "Quick, faster!" After that they returned to the camp in order to receive the deportees. (Franciszek Zabecki, 'Wspomnienia dawne i nowe', Warsaw, 1977 pp.39 f)
As the train approached the extermination camp, the engine blew a prolonged whistle which was the signal for the Ukrainians to man their position in the reception sector and on the roofs of the buildings. One group of SS-men and Ukrainians took up positions on the station platform. As soon as the train was moving along the tracks inside the camp, the gates behind it were closed. The deportees were taken out of the freight cars and conducted through a gate to a fenced-in square inside the camp. At the gate they were separated: men to the right, women and children to the left. A large placard announced in Polish and German:
Attention Warsaw Jews! You are in a transit camp from which the transport will continue to labor camps. To prevent epidemics, clothing as well as pieces of baggage are to be handed over for disinfection. Gold, money, foreign currency, and jewellery are to be deposited at the "Cash Office" against a receipt. They will be returned later on presentation of the receipt. For physical cleanliness, all arrivals must have a bath before travelling on.(Verdict of LG Dusseldorf AZ 81 Ks 2/64, p. 81.)
The undressing procedure and the manner in which the victims were led to the gas chambers were almost identical to those described for the Sobibor camp.
During this first phase, from the beginning to the middle of August, 5,000 - 7,000 Jews arrived every day in Treblinka. Then the pace of the transports increased; there were days on which 10,000 - 12,000 deportees reached the camp, together with thousands who were already dead and others who were utterly exhausted.
Abraham Goldfarb, who arrived there on August 25, described the scene:
When we arrived in Treblinka and the Germans opened the freight cars we beheld a horrible sight. The car was full of corpses. The bodies were partly decomposed by chlorine. The stench in the cars made those still alive choke. The Germans ordered everyone to get out; those still able to do so were half dead. Waiting SS and Ukrainians beat us and shot at us...
On the way to the gas chambers Germans with dogs stood along the fence on both sides. The dogs had been trained to attack people; they bit the men's genitals and the women's breasts, ripping off pieces of flesh. The Germans hit the people with whips and iron bars to spur them on so that they pressed forward into the "showers" as quickly as possible. The screams of the women could be heard far away, even in the other parts of the camp. The Germans drove the running victims on with shouts of: "Faster, faster, the water will get cold, others still have to go under the showers!" To escape from the blows, the victims ran to the gas chambers as quickly as they could, the stronger ones pushing the weaker aside. At the entrance to the gas chambers stood the two Ukrainians, Ivan Demaniuk and Nikolai, one of them armed with an iron bar, the other with a sword. They drove the people inside with blows... As soon as the gas chambers were full, the Ukrainians closed the doors and started the engine. Some 20-25 minutes later an SS-man or a Ukrainian looked through a window in the door. When they had ascertained that everyone had been asphyxiated, the Jewish prisoners had to open the doors and remove the corpses. Since the chambers were overcrowded and the victims held on to one another, they all stood upright and were like one single block of flesh. (Yad Vashem Archives 0-3/2140)
Breakdowns and interruptions occurred in the operation of the gas chambers. During the initial phase the personnel did not know how long it would take to asphyxiate the victims. On occasion the doors were opened too early and the victims were still alive, so that the doors had to be closed again. The engines which produced the gas occasionally failed. If such mishaps occurred when the victims were already inside the gas chambers, they were left standing there until the engines had been repaired. Some 268,000 Jews met their deaths in the first extermination wave in Treblinka, which lasted five weeks--from July 23 to August 28.
The gas chambers with their technical breakdowns were unable to cope with such enormous numbers. Those who could not be pressed inside were shot in the reception camp. Many prisoners and additional ditches were needed in order to bury all those who had been shot, in addition to the thousands who had died during the transports. An excavator from the gravel pit in the nearby Treblinka punishment camp was used for digging additional mass graves. But this did not solve the problem and at the end of August chaos still reigned in Treblinka. Reports of what went on in the camp reached headquarters. Globocnik and Wirth arrived, assessed the situation, and dismissed Eberl, the camp commandant. Stangl, from Sobibor, who was without work because of repairs on the tracks, was appointed commandant of Treblinka.
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The Construction of Larger Gas Chambers
The first period of operation in Belzec and Sobibor lasted about three months, in Treblinka five weeks. After this initial phase, those holding key positions in Operation Reinhard decided to introduce "improvements" into the camps so as to increase their extermination capacity. This decision was brought on by Himmler's order of July 19, 1942 that all the Jews in the General Government, with a few exceptions, were to be eradicated by the end of that year.
The main problem was finding a way to speed up the extermination procedure, i.e., increasing the absorption capacity of the gas chambers.
Belzec was the first camp in which large gas chambers were built. The old wooden structure containing the three gas chambers was demolished, and on the same spot a larger, strong building was erected, which was 24 m. Iong and 10 m. wide. It contained six gas chambers. Statements differ as to their size; they fluctuate between 4 x 4 m. and 4 x 8 m. The new gas chambers were completed in mid July. (StA Munich 1, AZ: 22 Js 68/61, pp. 2602, 2613.)
Rudolf Reder was the only one to have survived the Belzec extermination camp. He described the new gas chambers:
The building was low, long, and broad. It was built of grey concrete and had a flat roof made of roofing felt, with a net over it which was covered with branches. Three steps without bannisters led into the building. They were ca. 1 m. wide. In front of the building stood a large flowerpot with colorful flowers and a clearly written placard: "Bath- and inhalation Rooms. " The steps led into a dark, empty corridor which was very long, but only 1.5 m. wide. To the left and right of it were the doors to the gas chambers. They were wooden doors, 1 m. wide... The corridor ant the chambers were lower than normal rooms, no higher than 2 m. In the opposite wall of every chamber was a removable door through which the bodies of the gassed were thrown out. Outside the building was a 2 x 2 m. shed which housed the gas machine. The chambers were 1.5 m. above the ground... (Rudolf Reder, Berzcc, Cracow, 1946, pp. 42 ff.)
These new gas chambers were able to take in 1,500 persons at one and the same time, i.e., a transport of about 15 freight cars. (Verdict of LG Munich 1, AZ: 110 Ks 3/64, p.10.)
After he had completed the rebuilding of the Belzec gas chambers, Christian Wirth was appointed inspector of all three extermination camps. He was replaced in Belzec by SS-Hauptsturmfu"hrer Gottlieb Hering. Wirth's new headquarters was now in Lublin.
The most urgent need for an increase in the absorption capacity was felt in Treblinka already in the first months of operation, because the small gas chambers there constantly led to chaos in the extermination process. Newly appointed Commandant Stangl therefore ordered the construction of a new building next to the old one. At the same time, the old gas chambers continued to function. Within the framework of this reorganization, he also put an end to the chaotic conditions that had prevailed when the deportees arrived, and he introduced soothing means of deception.
Wirth, in his role as Inspector of the Extermination Camps, sent SS-Unterscharfu"hrer Erwin Lambert and Scharfu"hrer Lorenz Hackenholt, who was responsible for the gas chambers in Belzec, to Treblinka to assist in the construction of the new gas chambers.
The new building comprised 10 gas chambers. In place of the three old ones which together measured 48 sq.m., the area now covered was 320 sq.m. The new rooms were 2 m. high, i.e., ca. 60 cm. lower than the old ones. A low ceiling reduced the volume of the room and hence also the amount of gas needed for killing the victims. In addition, it shortened the asphyxiation time.
The new building was rectangular. A dark curtain from a synagogue hung at the entrance to the passage. It had written on it in Hebrew: "This is the gate, through which the righteous may enter."
The pediment above the entrance door bore a Shield of David. Five steps led up to it, both sides of which were decorated with pot plants. The new building, with its idyllic flight of stairs, plants and curtain, stood at the end of the "tube. " The victims who had been chased through the "tube," ran up the stairs to the entrance and into the passage. The engine producing the gas was located at the end of the building, near the old gas chambers.
In order to speed up the construction, a group of Jewish masons was brought from Warsaw. They had been selected from a transport intended for the beginning of September 1942. A total of 40 Jewish prisoners worked on the gas chambers. Jankiel Wiernik described their feelings: The construction of the new building took five weeks. To us it seemed like eternity. The work continued from sunrise to sunset, accompanied by lashes from whips and blows from rifle butts. Woronikow, one of the guards, beat and ill-treated us mercilessly. Every day several workers were murdered. The extent of our physical fatigue was beyond human imagination, hut our mental agony was still greater. New transports arrived daily; the deportees were ordered to undress, then they were taken to the three old gas chambers. They were led past the building site. Several of us recognized our children, wives or relatives among the victims. If, in his agony, someone ran to his family, he was shot on the spot. Thus we built the death chambers for ourselves and for our brothers! (Jankiel Wiernik, 'Rok w Treblmce', Warsaw, l944.)
The new gas chambers were able to accommodate 4,000 persons at a time, the old ones only 600.
Sobibor was the last camp to be provided with larger gas chambers. This construction program was carried out in September 1942 under the supervision of SS-Unterscharfu'hrer Erwin Lambert, who had erected the new gas chambers in Treblinka, and SS-Scharfu"hrer Lorenz Hackenholt, who was in charge of the gas chambers in Belzec. They had both been posted to Sobibor by Christian Wirth.
The new building had six gas chambers, three rooms on each side. Its layout was similar to that in Belzec and Treblinka, where the entrances to the gas chambers branched off from a central passage. The new rooms here were not larger than the old ones, i.e., 4 x 4 m., but the extermination capacity was increased to 1,200-1,300 persons.
Another important technical change in Sobibor was a narrow-gauge mine-track which ran from the railroad platform to the mass graves in Camp III. It was to replace the trolleys pulled by prisoners or horses, which had transported the dead, the sick, and the invalids from the train to the ditches. According to Oberscharfu"hrer Hubert Gomerski, who was responsible for Camp III, the narrow-gauge track was about 300 400 m. long. It had 5 or 6 wagons and a small diesel locomotive. (StA Dortmund AZ:45 Js 27/61
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The Attempt to Remove Traces
Hundreds of thousands of corpses of people murdered in the death camps during the spring and summer of 1942 lay in huge mass graves. In the autumn of 1942 the camp commandants of Sobibor and Belzec decided to incinerate the corpses; in Treblinka, a start on this was made only in 1943. However, the idea to remove all signs of the crimes was not new. In the spring of 1942 Himmler had decided that in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, the corpses of the murdered Jews and Russian prisoners of war were to be exhumed from the graves and incinerated without leaving any traces. The same was to be done with the past and future victims of the extermination camps.
In June 1942 SS-Gruppenfu"hrer Muller, Chief of the Gestapo, charged SS-Standartenfu"hrer Blobel with removing all traces of the mass executions in the East carried out by the Einsatzgruppen. This order was a "State Secret" and Blobel was instructed to refrain from any writtencorrespondence on the subject. The operation was given the code name "Sonderaktion 1005."
Upon his appointment, Blobel, together with a small staff of three or four men, initiated experiments involving the incineration of corpses. The place chosen for them was Kulmhof. For this purpose the ditches were opened and the corpses burnt by means of incendiary bombs, but this led to big fires in the surrounding forests. Subsequently an attempt was made to burn the corpses together with wood on open fires. This method came to be adopted in all the camps of Operation Reinhard. The corpses were carried to the open fires straight from the gas chambers. At the same time, the existing mass graves were opened and those buried there were also incinerated. This cover-up operation was initially introduced in Sobibor.
In Belzec, the incineration of corpses began in November 1942, toward the end of the mass murder. SS-Scharfu"hrer Heinrich Gley testified:
Then began the general exhumation and burning of corpses; it may have taken from November 1942 to March 1943. The incinerations went on day and night, without interruption, initially at one, then at two sites. At one of the sites it was possible to incinerate about 2,000 corpses within 24 hours.
Approximately four week I after the start of the incineration operation, the second site was set up. Thus, on an average, a total of 300,000 corpses were burnt at one site within about five months, and 240,000 at the second one during ca. 4 months. These are obviously estimates of averages. It would probably be correct to put the sum total at 500,000 corpses...
This incineration of disinterred corpses was such an horrific procedure from the human, aesthetic, and olefactory aspects that it is impossible for people who are now used to living like ordinary citizens to be able to imagine this horror. (See note 6 ) In Treblinka a start was made in the spring of 1943, on Himmler's personal command after he had visited the camp.
The vacated ditch area was levelled and sown with lupins! SS-Oberscharfu"hrer Heinrich Matthes, who was responsible for the extermination sector in Treblinka, testifies:
An SS-Oberscharfu"hrer or Hauptsch~rfuflrer Floss arrived at this time, who, so I presume, must previously have been in another camp. He then had the installation built for burning the corpses. The incineration was carried out by placing railroad rails on blocks of concrete. The corpses were then piled up on these rails. Brush wood was placed under the rails. The wood was drenched with gasoline. Not only the newly obtained corpses were burnt in this way, but also those exhumed from the ditches. (StA Dusseldorf, AZ:8 Js 10904/59
The burning of corpses proceeded day and night. When the fire had died down, whole skeletons or single bones remained behind on the grating. Mounds of ash had accumulated underneath it. A different prisoner commando, the "Ashes Gang," had to sweep up the ashes, place the remaining bones on thin metal sheets, pound them with round wooden dowels, and then shake them through a narrow-mesh metal sieve; whatever remained in the sieve was crushed once more. Bones not burnt and which could not easily be split were again thrown into the fire.
The camp leadership was faced with the problem of how to get rid of the huge heaps of ash and bone fragments. Experiments at mixing the ashes with dust and sand, in an effort to conceal them, proved unsuccessful. Finally it was decided to pour the ash and bone fragments back into the empty ditches and to cover them with a thick layer of sand and garbage. Alternate layers of ash and sand were poured into the ditches. The top layer consisted of 2 m. of earth.
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The Liquidation of the Camps
Himmler's order of July 19, 1942, stipulated that the deportations from the General Government were to be concluded by December 31, 1942. A limited number of Jews were to be kept back for work in the assembly camps (Sammellager). On November 10, 1942, Kruger, the Supreme SS- and Police Chief of the General Government, decreed the places where the employed Jews and their families were to remain in the ghettoes and camps. By the end of 1942, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population in the General Government had been annihilated. The continued operation of the three special extermination camps was therefore no longer required. At the time Auschwitz-Birkenau increased its extermination capacity, taking in Jewish transports from the various countries of occupied Europe.
Belzec was the first camp where the exterminations were stopped—at the beginning of December 1942. The camp continued to operate till March 1943, and in this final phase the mass graves were opened and the corpses incinerated. During this period the gas chambers and other buildings were destroyed. The Jewish prisoners were taken from Belzec to Sobibor where they were killed.
The dismantlement of Treblinka began after Himmler's visit to the headquarters of Operation Reinhard and to the death camps at the end of February--beginning of March 1943. Prior to that 800,000 victims still had to be exhumed and incinerated and also other work still needed to be done in order to obliterate all traces. In March and April 1943 several transports continued to arrive from the destroyed Warsaw ghetto, from Yugoslavia and from Greece, but this hardly delayed the razing of the camp.
The revolt of the Jewish prisoners in Treblinka on August 2, 1943, occurred in the final phase of the camp's existence and speeded up its liquidation. On August 18 and 19 the last two transports from the ghetto of Bialystok, with 8,000 victims, arrived in Treblinka.
On July 5, 1943, shortly before the dispatch of the last transports of Dutch Jews, Himmler decreed that the Sobibor extermination camp was to be converted into a concentration camp where captured arms were to be stored and processed. While the exterminations continued there on a smaller scale, and in September 1943 transports still arrived from the East, a start was made on the construction of munitions' camps. However, even before the conversion from extermination to concentration camp was completed, the revolt of the Jewish prisoners on October 14, 1943, put an end to the Sobibor camp.
At the end of August 1943, Globocnik was appointed Supreme SS- and Police Chief of Istria, in the region of Trieste. Wirth, Stangl, and the majority of the German personnel from the extermination camps were transferred there together with him. With Globocnik's departure, Operation Reinhard came to an end, as he confirmed in a letter to Himrnler from Trieste dated November 4, 1943: On October 10, 1943:
I concluded Operation Reinhard which I had conducted in the General Goverment and have liquidated all camps. (Nuremberg Document 4042-PS.) A few SS-men and Ukrainians remained in the extermination camps. In Treblinka even a group of Jewish prisoners was left behind in order to dismantle the huts, fences, and other camp installations. After completion of this work, on November 17, 1943, the last group of Jewish prisoners was shot in Treblinka.
The terrain of the former extermination camps was ploughed up, trees were planted, and peaceful-looking farm steads constructed. A number of Ukrainians from the camp commandos settled there. No traces whatsoever were to remain which might bear witness to the atrocities committed in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, and to which, according to a conservative estimate, ca. 1,700,000 human beings had fallen victim. Written records had been extensively destroyed as early as the end of 1943. (See note 3.)
Nevertheless, in the postwar interrogations initiated by the German Federal Republic in order to investigate and criminally prosecute former members of the German personnel of these extermination camps, all the people questioned in these proceedings, without exception, irrespective of whether they had at the time spent a prolonged or only a short period in or near one of the camps, testified to the existence and the operation of the gas chambers installed there for the purpose of killing people. In isolated cases, those accused of direct involvement in the mass murders denied their participation in especially extreme acts. However, they did not deny the extermination of Jews and Gypsies in the gas chambers. Moreover, quite independently of one another, they invariably gave detailed descriptions of the purpose of the camps and of the murderous procedures which had been practiced there.
According to Polish official publications based on the data of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland and the trials of Nazi war crimminals, the total number of victims killed in Treblinka was 850,000, (Yitzhak Arad, Treblinka, Hell and Revolt , Tel Aviv, 1983, pp 261-265.) in Belzec--600,000 and in Sobibor--250,000. (Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, 'Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemlach polskich 1939-1945', Warszawa, 1979, p.94 , p.462 )
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Sources
"'Operation Reinhard': Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka," Edited by Aharon Weiss, Yad Vashem Studies XVI, Yad Vashem Martyr's and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem, 1984
- http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holoca ... nhard.html
Construction of Treblinka began after Belzec and Sobibor were in operation. The experience gained from the installation and the extermination procedures in those two camps was taken into consideration in the planning and building of Treblinka. Thus, it became the most "perfect" extermination camp of Operation Reinhard.
The camp was situated in the northeastern part of the General Government, not far from Malkinia, a town with a railroad station on the main Warsaw-Bialystok line and close to the Malkinia-Siedlce line.
The camp was erected in a sparsely populated region, 4 km. from the village of Treblinka and the railroad station. The site chosen for the camp was wooded and thus naturally concealed. Since the spring of 1941 a punishment camp had been located a few kilometers away, where Polish and Jewish prisoners were made to process raw material from a gravel pit for frontier fortifications.
At the end of April or the beginning of May 1942, an SS-unit decided on the location. The size and master plan of Treblinka were identical to those of Sobibor. The construction of the extermination camp began at the end of May or beginning of June 1942. Richard Thomalla was in charge; he had completed his construction job in Sobibor and had been relieved by Stangl in April 1942. In building the gas chambers he was assisted by SS-Unterscharfu"hrer Erwin Lambert, a chief-of-construction for technical matters from the "Euthanasia" program. The extermination sector was located in the southwest, in an area measuring 200 x 250 m., totally separated from the rest of the camp by barbed wire. As on the outside, branches were intertwined with the barbed wire to hide it from view. For the same reason, the entrances were placed behind a special partition. The gas chambers were housed in a massive brick building in the center. The access paths, including the "tube," in Treblinka named "Street to Heaven" by the SS-men, were model led on those in Belzec and Sobibor; the same applied to the "reception camp" and "accommodation camp."
During the first stage, three gas chambers were in operation, each of them, much like those in Sobibor,4 x 4 m. in size and 2.6 m. high. A diesel engine producing poisonous carbon monoxide, as well as a generator which supplied the whole camp with electricity, were housed in a built-on room. The entrance doors of the gas chambers opened into a passage in front of the building; each door was 1.8 m. high and 90 cm. wide. They could be hermetically closed and bolted from the outside. Inside each gas chamber, opposite the entrance door, was a thick door made of wooden beams, 2.5 m. high and 1.8 m. wide, which could also be hermetically closed. The walls in the gas chambers were covered with white tiles up to a certain height, shower heads had been installed, and water pipes ran along the ceiling--all this so as to maintain the "showers" fiction. In reality the pipes conducted the poisonous gas into the chambers. When the doors were shut, it was completely dark inside.
To the east of the gas chambers were huge ditches into which the corpses were thrown. They had been dug with an excavator from the gravel pit in Treblinka. Prisoners had to participate in this work. The ditches were 50 m. long, 25 m. wide, and 10 m. deep. A narrow-gauge track had been laid from the gas chambers to transport the corpses to the ditches. Prisoners had to push the trolleys.
The main extermination installations were completed by mid-June 1942. The murder operations began on July 23, 1942.
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Treblinka—from July 23 until August 28, 1942
The procedure adopted upon the arrival of the trains was the same as that in Sobibor: two German railroad workers, classified as being reliable, took over the transport from the Treblinka station to the extermination camp, a distance of 4 km. The Pole Franciszek Zabecki described the arrival of the deportation train from the Warsaw ghetto:
A small locomotive stood ready in the railroad station to transport the first section of freight cars into the carnp. Everything had been planned and prepared in advance. The train consisted of 60 closed freight cars fully loaded with people: young ones, old ones, men and women, children and babies. The car doors were locked from the outside and the air holes covered with barbed wire. On the running boards on both sidej and on the roof about a dozen SS-soldiers stood or lay with machine guns at the ready. It was hot and most of the people in the freight cars were deadly exhausted... As the train came nearer it seemed as if an evil spirit had taken hold of the waiting SS-men. They drew their pistols, returned them to their holsters, pulled them out agian, as if they wanted to shoot and kill. They approached the freight cars and tried to reduce the noise and the weeping; but then they screamed at the Jews and cursed them, all the while urging the railroad workers to hurry: "Quick, faster!" After that they returned to the camp in order to receive the deportees. (Franciszek Zabecki, 'Wspomnienia dawne i nowe', Warsaw, 1977 pp.39 f)
As the train approached the extermination camp, the engine blew a prolonged whistle which was the signal for the Ukrainians to man their position in the reception sector and on the roofs of the buildings. One group of SS-men and Ukrainians took up positions on the station platform. As soon as the train was moving along the tracks inside the camp, the gates behind it were closed. The deportees were taken out of the freight cars and conducted through a gate to a fenced-in square inside the camp. At the gate they were separated: men to the right, women and children to the left. A large placard announced in Polish and German:
Attention Warsaw Jews! You are in a transit camp from which the transport will continue to labor camps. To prevent epidemics, clothing as well as pieces of baggage are to be handed over for disinfection. Gold, money, foreign currency, and jewellery are to be deposited at the "Cash Office" against a receipt. They will be returned later on presentation of the receipt. For physical cleanliness, all arrivals must have a bath before travelling on.(Verdict of LG Dusseldorf AZ 81 Ks 2/64, p. 81.)
The undressing procedure and the manner in which the victims were led to the gas chambers were almost identical to those described for the Sobibor camp.
During this first phase, from the beginning to the middle of August, 5,000 - 7,000 Jews arrived every day in Treblinka. Then the pace of the transports increased; there were days on which 10,000 - 12,000 deportees reached the camp, together with thousands who were already dead and others who were utterly exhausted.
Abraham Goldfarb, who arrived there on August 25, described the scene:
When we arrived in Treblinka and the Germans opened the freight cars we beheld a horrible sight. The car was full of corpses. The bodies were partly decomposed by chlorine. The stench in the cars made those still alive choke. The Germans ordered everyone to get out; those still able to do so were half dead. Waiting SS and Ukrainians beat us and shot at us...
On the way to the gas chambers Germans with dogs stood along the fence on both sides. The dogs had been trained to attack people; they bit the men's genitals and the women's breasts, ripping off pieces of flesh. The Germans hit the people with whips and iron bars to spur them on so that they pressed forward into the "showers" as quickly as possible. The screams of the women could be heard far away, even in the other parts of the camp. The Germans drove the running victims on with shouts of: "Faster, faster, the water will get cold, others still have to go under the showers!" To escape from the blows, the victims ran to the gas chambers as quickly as they could, the stronger ones pushing the weaker aside. At the entrance to the gas chambers stood the two Ukrainians, Ivan Demaniuk and Nikolai, one of them armed with an iron bar, the other with a sword. They drove the people inside with blows... As soon as the gas chambers were full, the Ukrainians closed the doors and started the engine. Some 20-25 minutes later an SS-man or a Ukrainian looked through a window in the door. When they had ascertained that everyone had been asphyxiated, the Jewish prisoners had to open the doors and remove the corpses. Since the chambers were overcrowded and the victims held on to one another, they all stood upright and were like one single block of flesh. (Yad Vashem Archives 0-3/2140)
Breakdowns and interruptions occurred in the operation of the gas chambers. During the initial phase the personnel did not know how long it would take to asphyxiate the victims. On occasion the doors were opened too early and the victims were still alive, so that the doors had to be closed again. The engines which produced the gas occasionally failed. If such mishaps occurred when the victims were already inside the gas chambers, they were left standing there until the engines had been repaired. Some 268,000 Jews met their deaths in the first extermination wave in Treblinka, which lasted five weeks--from July 23 to August 28.
The gas chambers with their technical breakdowns were unable to cope with such enormous numbers. Those who could not be pressed inside were shot in the reception camp. Many prisoners and additional ditches were needed in order to bury all those who had been shot, in addition to the thousands who had died during the transports. An excavator from the gravel pit in the nearby Treblinka punishment camp was used for digging additional mass graves. But this did not solve the problem and at the end of August chaos still reigned in Treblinka. Reports of what went on in the camp reached headquarters. Globocnik and Wirth arrived, assessed the situation, and dismissed Eberl, the camp commandant. Stangl, from Sobibor, who was without work because of repairs on the tracks, was appointed commandant of Treblinka.
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The Construction of Larger Gas Chambers
The first period of operation in Belzec and Sobibor lasted about three months, in Treblinka five weeks. After this initial phase, those holding key positions in Operation Reinhard decided to introduce "improvements" into the camps so as to increase their extermination capacity. This decision was brought on by Himmler's order of July 19, 1942 that all the Jews in the General Government, with a few exceptions, were to be eradicated by the end of that year.
The main problem was finding a way to speed up the extermination procedure, i.e., increasing the absorption capacity of the gas chambers.
Belzec was the first camp in which large gas chambers were built. The old wooden structure containing the three gas chambers was demolished, and on the same spot a larger, strong building was erected, which was 24 m. Iong and 10 m. wide. It contained six gas chambers. Statements differ as to their size; they fluctuate between 4 x 4 m. and 4 x 8 m. The new gas chambers were completed in mid July. (StA Munich 1, AZ: 22 Js 68/61, pp. 2602, 2613.)
Rudolf Reder was the only one to have survived the Belzec extermination camp. He described the new gas chambers:
The building was low, long, and broad. It was built of grey concrete and had a flat roof made of roofing felt, with a net over it which was covered with branches. Three steps without bannisters led into the building. They were ca. 1 m. wide. In front of the building stood a large flowerpot with colorful flowers and a clearly written placard: "Bath- and inhalation Rooms. " The steps led into a dark, empty corridor which was very long, but only 1.5 m. wide. To the left and right of it were the doors to the gas chambers. They were wooden doors, 1 m. wide... The corridor ant the chambers were lower than normal rooms, no higher than 2 m. In the opposite wall of every chamber was a removable door through which the bodies of the gassed were thrown out. Outside the building was a 2 x 2 m. shed which housed the gas machine. The chambers were 1.5 m. above the ground... (Rudolf Reder, Berzcc, Cracow, 1946, pp. 42 ff.)
These new gas chambers were able to take in 1,500 persons at one and the same time, i.e., a transport of about 15 freight cars. (Verdict of LG Munich 1, AZ: 110 Ks 3/64, p.10.)
After he had completed the rebuilding of the Belzec gas chambers, Christian Wirth was appointed inspector of all three extermination camps. He was replaced in Belzec by SS-Hauptsturmfu"hrer Gottlieb Hering. Wirth's new headquarters was now in Lublin.
The most urgent need for an increase in the absorption capacity was felt in Treblinka already in the first months of operation, because the small gas chambers there constantly led to chaos in the extermination process. Newly appointed Commandant Stangl therefore ordered the construction of a new building next to the old one. At the same time, the old gas chambers continued to function. Within the framework of this reorganization, he also put an end to the chaotic conditions that had prevailed when the deportees arrived, and he introduced soothing means of deception.
Wirth, in his role as Inspector of the Extermination Camps, sent SS-Unterscharfu"hrer Erwin Lambert and Scharfu"hrer Lorenz Hackenholt, who was responsible for the gas chambers in Belzec, to Treblinka to assist in the construction of the new gas chambers.
The new building comprised 10 gas chambers. In place of the three old ones which together measured 48 sq.m., the area now covered was 320 sq.m. The new rooms were 2 m. high, i.e., ca. 60 cm. lower than the old ones. A low ceiling reduced the volume of the room and hence also the amount of gas needed for killing the victims. In addition, it shortened the asphyxiation time.
The new building was rectangular. A dark curtain from a synagogue hung at the entrance to the passage. It had written on it in Hebrew: "This is the gate, through which the righteous may enter."
The pediment above the entrance door bore a Shield of David. Five steps led up to it, both sides of which were decorated with pot plants. The new building, with its idyllic flight of stairs, plants and curtain, stood at the end of the "tube. " The victims who had been chased through the "tube," ran up the stairs to the entrance and into the passage. The engine producing the gas was located at the end of the building, near the old gas chambers.
In order to speed up the construction, a group of Jewish masons was brought from Warsaw. They had been selected from a transport intended for the beginning of September 1942. A total of 40 Jewish prisoners worked on the gas chambers. Jankiel Wiernik described their feelings: The construction of the new building took five weeks. To us it seemed like eternity. The work continued from sunrise to sunset, accompanied by lashes from whips and blows from rifle butts. Woronikow, one of the guards, beat and ill-treated us mercilessly. Every day several workers were murdered. The extent of our physical fatigue was beyond human imagination, hut our mental agony was still greater. New transports arrived daily; the deportees were ordered to undress, then they were taken to the three old gas chambers. They were led past the building site. Several of us recognized our children, wives or relatives among the victims. If, in his agony, someone ran to his family, he was shot on the spot. Thus we built the death chambers for ourselves and for our brothers! (Jankiel Wiernik, 'Rok w Treblmce', Warsaw, l944.)
The new gas chambers were able to accommodate 4,000 persons at a time, the old ones only 600.
Sobibor was the last camp to be provided with larger gas chambers. This construction program was carried out in September 1942 under the supervision of SS-Unterscharfu'hrer Erwin Lambert, who had erected the new gas chambers in Treblinka, and SS-Scharfu"hrer Lorenz Hackenholt, who was in charge of the gas chambers in Belzec. They had both been posted to Sobibor by Christian Wirth.
The new building had six gas chambers, three rooms on each side. Its layout was similar to that in Belzec and Treblinka, where the entrances to the gas chambers branched off from a central passage. The new rooms here were not larger than the old ones, i.e., 4 x 4 m., but the extermination capacity was increased to 1,200-1,300 persons.
Another important technical change in Sobibor was a narrow-gauge mine-track which ran from the railroad platform to the mass graves in Camp III. It was to replace the trolleys pulled by prisoners or horses, which had transported the dead, the sick, and the invalids from the train to the ditches. According to Oberscharfu"hrer Hubert Gomerski, who was responsible for Camp III, the narrow-gauge track was about 300 400 m. long. It had 5 or 6 wagons and a small diesel locomotive. (StA Dortmund AZ:45 Js 27/61
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The Attempt to Remove Traces
Hundreds of thousands of corpses of people murdered in the death camps during the spring and summer of 1942 lay in huge mass graves. In the autumn of 1942 the camp commandants of Sobibor and Belzec decided to incinerate the corpses; in Treblinka, a start on this was made only in 1943. However, the idea to remove all signs of the crimes was not new. In the spring of 1942 Himmler had decided that in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, the corpses of the murdered Jews and Russian prisoners of war were to be exhumed from the graves and incinerated without leaving any traces. The same was to be done with the past and future victims of the extermination camps.
In June 1942 SS-Gruppenfu"hrer Muller, Chief of the Gestapo, charged SS-Standartenfu"hrer Blobel with removing all traces of the mass executions in the East carried out by the Einsatzgruppen. This order was a "State Secret" and Blobel was instructed to refrain from any writtencorrespondence on the subject. The operation was given the code name "Sonderaktion 1005."
Upon his appointment, Blobel, together with a small staff of three or four men, initiated experiments involving the incineration of corpses. The place chosen for them was Kulmhof. For this purpose the ditches were opened and the corpses burnt by means of incendiary bombs, but this led to big fires in the surrounding forests. Subsequently an attempt was made to burn the corpses together with wood on open fires. This method came to be adopted in all the camps of Operation Reinhard. The corpses were carried to the open fires straight from the gas chambers. At the same time, the existing mass graves were opened and those buried there were also incinerated. This cover-up operation was initially introduced in Sobibor.
In Belzec, the incineration of corpses began in November 1942, toward the end of the mass murder. SS-Scharfu"hrer Heinrich Gley testified:
Then began the general exhumation and burning of corpses; it may have taken from November 1942 to March 1943. The incinerations went on day and night, without interruption, initially at one, then at two sites. At one of the sites it was possible to incinerate about 2,000 corpses within 24 hours.
Approximately four week I after the start of the incineration operation, the second site was set up. Thus, on an average, a total of 300,000 corpses were burnt at one site within about five months, and 240,000 at the second one during ca. 4 months. These are obviously estimates of averages. It would probably be correct to put the sum total at 500,000 corpses...
This incineration of disinterred corpses was such an horrific procedure from the human, aesthetic, and olefactory aspects that it is impossible for people who are now used to living like ordinary citizens to be able to imagine this horror. (See note 6 ) In Treblinka a start was made in the spring of 1943, on Himmler's personal command after he had visited the camp.
The vacated ditch area was levelled and sown with lupins! SS-Oberscharfu"hrer Heinrich Matthes, who was responsible for the extermination sector in Treblinka, testifies:
An SS-Oberscharfu"hrer or Hauptsch~rfuflrer Floss arrived at this time, who, so I presume, must previously have been in another camp. He then had the installation built for burning the corpses. The incineration was carried out by placing railroad rails on blocks of concrete. The corpses were then piled up on these rails. Brush wood was placed under the rails. The wood was drenched with gasoline. Not only the newly obtained corpses were burnt in this way, but also those exhumed from the ditches. (StA Dusseldorf, AZ:8 Js 10904/59
The burning of corpses proceeded day and night. When the fire had died down, whole skeletons or single bones remained behind on the grating. Mounds of ash had accumulated underneath it. A different prisoner commando, the "Ashes Gang," had to sweep up the ashes, place the remaining bones on thin metal sheets, pound them with round wooden dowels, and then shake them through a narrow-mesh metal sieve; whatever remained in the sieve was crushed once more. Bones not burnt and which could not easily be split were again thrown into the fire.
The camp leadership was faced with the problem of how to get rid of the huge heaps of ash and bone fragments. Experiments at mixing the ashes with dust and sand, in an effort to conceal them, proved unsuccessful. Finally it was decided to pour the ash and bone fragments back into the empty ditches and to cover them with a thick layer of sand and garbage. Alternate layers of ash and sand were poured into the ditches. The top layer consisted of 2 m. of earth.
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The Liquidation of the Camps
Himmler's order of July 19, 1942, stipulated that the deportations from the General Government were to be concluded by December 31, 1942. A limited number of Jews were to be kept back for work in the assembly camps (Sammellager). On November 10, 1942, Kruger, the Supreme SS- and Police Chief of the General Government, decreed the places where the employed Jews and their families were to remain in the ghettoes and camps. By the end of 1942, the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population in the General Government had been annihilated. The continued operation of the three special extermination camps was therefore no longer required. At the time Auschwitz-Birkenau increased its extermination capacity, taking in Jewish transports from the various countries of occupied Europe.
Belzec was the first camp where the exterminations were stopped—at the beginning of December 1942. The camp continued to operate till March 1943, and in this final phase the mass graves were opened and the corpses incinerated. During this period the gas chambers and other buildings were destroyed. The Jewish prisoners were taken from Belzec to Sobibor where they were killed.
The dismantlement of Treblinka began after Himmler's visit to the headquarters of Operation Reinhard and to the death camps at the end of February--beginning of March 1943. Prior to that 800,000 victims still had to be exhumed and incinerated and also other work still needed to be done in order to obliterate all traces. In March and April 1943 several transports continued to arrive from the destroyed Warsaw ghetto, from Yugoslavia and from Greece, but this hardly delayed the razing of the camp.
The revolt of the Jewish prisoners in Treblinka on August 2, 1943, occurred in the final phase of the camp's existence and speeded up its liquidation. On August 18 and 19 the last two transports from the ghetto of Bialystok, with 8,000 victims, arrived in Treblinka.
On July 5, 1943, shortly before the dispatch of the last transports of Dutch Jews, Himmler decreed that the Sobibor extermination camp was to be converted into a concentration camp where captured arms were to be stored and processed. While the exterminations continued there on a smaller scale, and in September 1943 transports still arrived from the East, a start was made on the construction of munitions' camps. However, even before the conversion from extermination to concentration camp was completed, the revolt of the Jewish prisoners on October 14, 1943, put an end to the Sobibor camp.
At the end of August 1943, Globocnik was appointed Supreme SS- and Police Chief of Istria, in the region of Trieste. Wirth, Stangl, and the majority of the German personnel from the extermination camps were transferred there together with him. With Globocnik's departure, Operation Reinhard came to an end, as he confirmed in a letter to Himrnler from Trieste dated November 4, 1943: On October 10, 1943:
I concluded Operation Reinhard which I had conducted in the General Goverment and have liquidated all camps. (Nuremberg Document 4042-PS.) A few SS-men and Ukrainians remained in the extermination camps. In Treblinka even a group of Jewish prisoners was left behind in order to dismantle the huts, fences, and other camp installations. After completion of this work, on November 17, 1943, the last group of Jewish prisoners was shot in Treblinka.
The terrain of the former extermination camps was ploughed up, trees were planted, and peaceful-looking farm steads constructed. A number of Ukrainians from the camp commandos settled there. No traces whatsoever were to remain which might bear witness to the atrocities committed in Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, and to which, according to a conservative estimate, ca. 1,700,000 human beings had fallen victim. Written records had been extensively destroyed as early as the end of 1943. (See note 3.)
Nevertheless, in the postwar interrogations initiated by the German Federal Republic in order to investigate and criminally prosecute former members of the German personnel of these extermination camps, all the people questioned in these proceedings, without exception, irrespective of whether they had at the time spent a prolonged or only a short period in or near one of the camps, testified to the existence and the operation of the gas chambers installed there for the purpose of killing people. In isolated cases, those accused of direct involvement in the mass murders denied their participation in especially extreme acts. However, they did not deny the extermination of Jews and Gypsies in the gas chambers. Moreover, quite independently of one another, they invariably gave detailed descriptions of the purpose of the camps and of the murderous procedures which had been practiced there.
According to Polish official publications based on the data of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland and the trials of Nazi war crimminals, the total number of victims killed in Treblinka was 850,000, (Yitzhak Arad, Treblinka, Hell and Revolt , Tel Aviv, 1983, pp 261-265.) in Belzec--600,000 and in Sobibor--250,000. (Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, 'Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemlach polskich 1939-1945', Warszawa, 1979, p.94 , p.462 )
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Sources
"'Operation Reinhard': Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka," Edited by Aharon Weiss, Yad Vashem Studies XVI, Yad Vashem Martyr's and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem, 1984
- http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holoca ... nhard.html
Testimonies of Treblinka SS-Men
Testimony of Treblinka's second commandant, Stangl (Quoted in BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987, p. 184):
Michel [the sergeant-major of the camp] told me later that Wirth suddenly appeared, looked around on the gas chambers on which they were still working, and said: 'right, we'll try it out right now with those twenty-five working Jews. Get them up here'. They marched our twenty-five Jews up there and just pushed them in and gassed them. Michel said Wirth behaved like a lunatic, hitting at his own staff with his whip to drive them on...
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Willi Mentz testifies about his days in Treblinka (Quoted in The Good Old Days - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988, p. 245-247):
When I came to Treblinka the camp commandant was a doctor named Dr. Eberl. He was very ambitious. It was said that he ordered more transports than could be "processed" in the camp. That meant that trains had to wait outside the camp because the occupants of the previous transport had not yet all been killed. At the time it was very hot and as a result of the long wait inside the transport trains in the intense heat many people died. At the time whole mountains of bodies lay on the platform. The Hauptsturmfuehrer Christian Wirth came to Treblinka and kicked up a terrific row. And then one day Dr. Eberl was no longer there...
For about two months I worked in the upper section of the camp and then after Eberl had gone everything in the camp was reorganized. The two parts of the camp were separated by barbed wire fences. Pine branches were used so that you could not see through the fences. The same thing was done along the route from the "transfer" area to the gas chambers...
Finally, new and larger gas chambers were built. I think that there were now five or six larger gas chambers. I cannot say exactly how many people these large gas chambers held. If the small gas chambers could hold 80-100 people, the large ones could probably hold twice that number...
Following the arrival of a transport, six to eight cars would be shunted into the camp, coming to a halt at the platform there. The commandant, his deputy Franz, Kuettner and Stadie or Maetzig would be here waiting as the transport came in. Further SS members were also present to supervise the unloading: for example, Genz and Belitz had to make absolutely sure that there was no one left in the car after the occupants had been ordered to get out.
When the Jews had got off, Stadie or Maetzig would have a short word with them. They were told something to the effect that they were a resettlement transport, that they would be given a bath and that they would receive new clothes. They were also instructed to maintain quiet and discipline. They would continue their journey the following day.
Then the transports were taken off to the so-called "transfer" area. The women had to undress in huts and the men out in the open. The women were than led through a passageway, known as the "tube", to the gas chambers. On the way they had to pass a hut where they had to hand in their jewelery and valuables..
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Kurt Franz testifies on his days in Treblinka (Quoted in The Good Old Days - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988., p. 247-249):
I cannot say how many Jews in total were gassed in Treblinka. On average each day a large train arrived. Sometimes there were even two. This however was not so common.
In Treblinka I was commander of the Ukrainian guard unit as I had been in Belzec. In Treblinka as in Belzec the unit consisted of sixty to eighty men. The Ukrainians' main task was to man the guard posts around the camp perimeter. After the uprising in August 1943 I ran the camp more or less single-handedly for a month; however, during that period no gassings were undertaken.
It was during that period that the original camp was demolished. Everything was leveled off off and lupins were planted... _____________________________________________________________
Testimony of SS Oberscharfuehrer Heinrich Matthes about Treblinka (Quoted in BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987, p. 121):
During the entire time I was in Treblinka, I served in the upper camp. The upper camp was that part of Treblinka with the gas chambers, where the Jews were killed and their corpses laid in large pits and later burned.
About fourteen Germans carried out services in the upper camp. There were two Ukrainians permanently in the upper camp. One of them was called Nikolai, the other was a short man, I don't remember his name... These two Ukrainians who lived in the upper camp served in the gas chambers. They also took care of the engine room when Fritz Schmidt was absent. Usually this Schmidt was in charge of the engine room. In my opinion, as a civilian he was either a mechanic or a driver...
All together, six gas chambers were active. According to my estimate, about 300 people could enter each gas chamber. The people went into the gas chamber without resistance. Those who were at the end, the Ukrainian guards had to push inside. I personally saw how the Ukrainians pushed the people with their rifle butts...
The gas chambers were closed for about thirty minutes. Then Schmidt stopped the gassing, and the two Ukrainians who were in the engine room opened the gas chambers from the other side.
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Source
- http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holoca ... atest.html
Michel [the sergeant-major of the camp] told me later that Wirth suddenly appeared, looked around on the gas chambers on which they were still working, and said: 'right, we'll try it out right now with those twenty-five working Jews. Get them up here'. They marched our twenty-five Jews up there and just pushed them in and gassed them. Michel said Wirth behaved like a lunatic, hitting at his own staff with his whip to drive them on...
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Willi Mentz testifies about his days in Treblinka (Quoted in The Good Old Days - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988, p. 245-247):
When I came to Treblinka the camp commandant was a doctor named Dr. Eberl. He was very ambitious. It was said that he ordered more transports than could be "processed" in the camp. That meant that trains had to wait outside the camp because the occupants of the previous transport had not yet all been killed. At the time it was very hot and as a result of the long wait inside the transport trains in the intense heat many people died. At the time whole mountains of bodies lay on the platform. The Hauptsturmfuehrer Christian Wirth came to Treblinka and kicked up a terrific row. And then one day Dr. Eberl was no longer there...
For about two months I worked in the upper section of the camp and then after Eberl had gone everything in the camp was reorganized. The two parts of the camp were separated by barbed wire fences. Pine branches were used so that you could not see through the fences. The same thing was done along the route from the "transfer" area to the gas chambers...
Finally, new and larger gas chambers were built. I think that there were now five or six larger gas chambers. I cannot say exactly how many people these large gas chambers held. If the small gas chambers could hold 80-100 people, the large ones could probably hold twice that number...
Following the arrival of a transport, six to eight cars would be shunted into the camp, coming to a halt at the platform there. The commandant, his deputy Franz, Kuettner and Stadie or Maetzig would be here waiting as the transport came in. Further SS members were also present to supervise the unloading: for example, Genz and Belitz had to make absolutely sure that there was no one left in the car after the occupants had been ordered to get out.
When the Jews had got off, Stadie or Maetzig would have a short word with them. They were told something to the effect that they were a resettlement transport, that they would be given a bath and that they would receive new clothes. They were also instructed to maintain quiet and discipline. They would continue their journey the following day.
Then the transports were taken off to the so-called "transfer" area. The women had to undress in huts and the men out in the open. The women were than led through a passageway, known as the "tube", to the gas chambers. On the way they had to pass a hut where they had to hand in their jewelery and valuables..
_____________________________________________________________
Kurt Franz testifies on his days in Treblinka (Quoted in The Good Old Days - E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Free Press, NY, 1988., p. 247-249):
I cannot say how many Jews in total were gassed in Treblinka. On average each day a large train arrived. Sometimes there were even two. This however was not so common.
In Treblinka I was commander of the Ukrainian guard unit as I had been in Belzec. In Treblinka as in Belzec the unit consisted of sixty to eighty men. The Ukrainians' main task was to man the guard posts around the camp perimeter. After the uprising in August 1943 I ran the camp more or less single-handedly for a month; however, during that period no gassings were undertaken.
It was during that period that the original camp was demolished. Everything was leveled off off and lupins were planted... _____________________________________________________________
Testimony of SS Oberscharfuehrer Heinrich Matthes about Treblinka (Quoted in BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987, p. 121):
During the entire time I was in Treblinka, I served in the upper camp. The upper camp was that part of Treblinka with the gas chambers, where the Jews were killed and their corpses laid in large pits and later burned.
About fourteen Germans carried out services in the upper camp. There were two Ukrainians permanently in the upper camp. One of them was called Nikolai, the other was a short man, I don't remember his name... These two Ukrainians who lived in the upper camp served in the gas chambers. They also took care of the engine room when Fritz Schmidt was absent. Usually this Schmidt was in charge of the engine room. In my opinion, as a civilian he was either a mechanic or a driver...
All together, six gas chambers were active. According to my estimate, about 300 people could enter each gas chamber. The people went into the gas chamber without resistance. Those who were at the end, the Ukrainian guards had to push inside. I personally saw how the Ukrainians pushed the people with their rifle butts...
The gas chambers were closed for about thirty minutes. Then Schmidt stopped the gassing, and the two Ukrainians who were in the engine room opened the gas chambers from the other side.
_____________________________________________________________
Source
- http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holoca ... atest.html
Official Books
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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A list with "revisionist" books will follow later .
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 86-8252134
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A list with "revisionist" books will follow later .
Official Statistics of the Holocaust
Taken from R.Hilberg "The Destruction of the Europaen Jews", p.1220
_____________________________________________________________
Poland up to 3,000,000
USSR over 700,000
Romania 270,000
Czechoslovakia 260,000
Hungary 180,000
Lithuania up to 130,000
Germany over 120,000
Netherlands 100,000
France 75,000
Latvia 70,000
Yogoslavia 60,000
Greece 60,000
Austria over 50,000
Belgium 24,000
Italy (including Rhodes) 9,000
Estonia 2,000
Norway under 1,000
Luxembourg under 1,000
Danzig under 1,000
Total 5,100,000
_____________________________________________________________
- http://holocaust-info.dk/statistics/hil ... ountry.htm
_____________________________________________________________
Poland up to 3,000,000
USSR over 700,000
Romania 270,000
Czechoslovakia 260,000
Hungary 180,000
Lithuania up to 130,000
Germany over 120,000
Netherlands 100,000
France 75,000
Latvia 70,000
Yogoslavia 60,000
Greece 60,000
Austria over 50,000
Belgium 24,000
Italy (including Rhodes) 9,000
Estonia 2,000
Norway under 1,000
Luxembourg under 1,000
Danzig under 1,000
Total 5,100,000
_____________________________________________________________
- http://holocaust-info.dk/statistics/hil ... ountry.htm
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TREBLINKA by Steiner
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DISSECTING THE HOLOCAUST, edited by Ernst Gauss
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Also available as a free download!
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Quote from a "revisionist" article, written by Arnuf Neumaier, concerning an examination at Treblinka, done py polish authorities.
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"Through a combination of aerial photography and photographs of previous on-site digging, we were able to locate the site of a mass grave at Treblinka II and determine its dimensions. The foundations of large (30 × 15 meters) buildings which were said to have been the gas chamber were, however, not visible.
The aerial photos [taken by German reconnaissance fliers in 1944] show that the surface of the only mass grave at Treblinka II is approximately 10% smaller than one of the Katyn Forest mass graves, which contained 4,500 bodies. The same aerial photos also show 41 small mass graves approximately three kilometers distant at the Treblinka I camp site. The victims of the Treblinka I camp were never exhumed and cremated by the Nazis (Exhibit 83) [[107]...] The size of the small mass graves at Treblinka I is identical with the Polish magistrate's 1945 determination through exhumation that they contained approximately 10,000 bodies. Exhibit 85. [[108]...]
We were also able to locate ground-level photographs taken sometime in August of 1944 of the only mass grave at the Treblinka II site which provides us with its exact width. Exhibit 86. In 1945 the District Court of Siedlce ordered a forensic excavation of the Treblinka II site and determined the depth of this single mass grave. Exhibit 87[109]. This information, combined with the length provided by the aerial photos completes the three dimensions of the grave, and gives a fairly accurate idea of how many cadavers the grave could hold which is in the neighborhood of 2,000-4,000 dead. That figure is considerably less than the 900,000 alleged. Since there were nearly a million people processed through the Treblinka II camp in a year (Exhibit 88), and it took on average 3 days of grueling rail travel to get there, 2,000-4,000 deaths is consistent with the very high death rate of the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto.
From information we have gathered, the corpses at Treblinka II were not exhumed and cremated to hide evidence, but rather, to prevent epidemics when river Bug rose. The approximately 10,000 corpses in the mass grave at Treblinka I were not exhumed and cremated because they were located above the rising water level.
There were two post-liberation commissions of inquiry into the Treblinka camps, one in 1944 conducted by the Soviet-Jewish commission attached to the 65th Red Army, and one in 1945 conducted by the Polish magistrate of the district court in Siedlce. [...]
On the other hand, this Soviet-Jewish commission performed a rather good examination of the mass graves at the Treblinka I camp, and prepared a thorough report. Exhibit 89A. The Treblinka I graves contained about 10,000 bodies, and their combined contents were at least three times larger than that of the Treblinka II mass grave. Exhibit 90.
During November of 1945, in preparation for the Nuremberg (International Military Tribunal) trial, the Polish magistrate of the district court in Siedlce ordered an exploration of the former Treblinka II camp based on eyewitness testimony of the atrocities allegedly committed there. The Polish commission disbelieved the survivors' tales and the enormous 3,500,000 victim count invented by its Soviet predecessors. Exhibit 91. Consequently, it attempted in earnest to unearth physical proofs of the Nazi crimes. The forensic exploration and excavation were started in November of 1945 with help of over 30 laborers under the personal supervision of the Jewish Chairman of the Siedlce District Court, J. Szlebzak. Four ex-prisoners representing the 'Circle of Former Treblinka Inmates' were at hand: Messrs. S. Rajzman, T. Grinberg, S. Friedman and M. Mittelberg.[110] Their sole purpose was to point to the locations of the unforgettable installations which allegedly they had had a chance to observe daily for about a year, and which had been dismantled only about 24 months prior: the Lazaret where about 50,000 sick, elderly and children were purportedly shot; the gigantic mass graves; and the two masonry buildings housing the thirteen (10 + 3) gas chambers which were said to be lined with red terra cotta tile. Exhibit 92.
The location of the Lazaret pit was quickly found. Survivors alleged that 50,000 people were executed by shooting in this pit. However, while the thorough forensic exploration revealed a number of small personal articles belonging to the deported Jews and semi-burned camp refuse admixed with a few dozen small foreign coins, it failed to discover any residue of human bones, any of the 50,000 (at least) reputed execution bullets, or any of the 50,000 spent cartridges. Exhibit 92A.
The location of the Treblinka II gas chambers, the two largest masonry buildings in the district (one purportedly measuring about 30 × 15 meters), could not be recalled and agreed upon by the survivors. Since these buildings had to be located in the two-hectare-small 'Upper Camp', the commission cut a number of long and deep exploratory trenches running in a north-south direction. Not a single shard of red, nor any other color, terra cotta tile, was found during the thorough excavations. Exhibit 93. Neither was there a trace of a thick concrete slab which had to serve as a base for the ceramic tiled walls and floors of the gas chambers, nor any trace of concrete or masonry foundations capable of supporting such heavy structures in Treblinka's sandy soil (which was subject to deep frosts) was discovered. Exhibit 94."[111]
_____________________________________________________________
In October 1999, an expert team scanned the soil of the alleged extermination camp Treblinka with a ground penetrating radar. This device detects any disturbances of the soil layers, caused either by objects or by former digging activities, up to a depth of 65 feet. The data gathered showed no evidence of disturbance in the soil whatsoever.[112]
_____________________________________________________________
"Through a combination of aerial photography and photographs of previous on-site digging, we were able to locate the site of a mass grave at Treblinka II and determine its dimensions. The foundations of large (30 × 15 meters) buildings which were said to have been the gas chamber were, however, not visible.
The aerial photos [taken by German reconnaissance fliers in 1944] show that the surface of the only mass grave at Treblinka II is approximately 10% smaller than one of the Katyn Forest mass graves, which contained 4,500 bodies. The same aerial photos also show 41 small mass graves approximately three kilometers distant at the Treblinka I camp site. The victims of the Treblinka I camp were never exhumed and cremated by the Nazis (Exhibit 83) [[107]...] The size of the small mass graves at Treblinka I is identical with the Polish magistrate's 1945 determination through exhumation that they contained approximately 10,000 bodies. Exhibit 85. [[108]...]
We were also able to locate ground-level photographs taken sometime in August of 1944 of the only mass grave at the Treblinka II site which provides us with its exact width. Exhibit 86. In 1945 the District Court of Siedlce ordered a forensic excavation of the Treblinka II site and determined the depth of this single mass grave. Exhibit 87[109]. This information, combined with the length provided by the aerial photos completes the three dimensions of the grave, and gives a fairly accurate idea of how many cadavers the grave could hold which is in the neighborhood of 2,000-4,000 dead. That figure is considerably less than the 900,000 alleged. Since there were nearly a million people processed through the Treblinka II camp in a year (Exhibit 88), and it took on average 3 days of grueling rail travel to get there, 2,000-4,000 deaths is consistent with the very high death rate of the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto.
From information we have gathered, the corpses at Treblinka II were not exhumed and cremated to hide evidence, but rather, to prevent epidemics when river Bug rose. The approximately 10,000 corpses in the mass grave at Treblinka I were not exhumed and cremated because they were located above the rising water level.
There were two post-liberation commissions of inquiry into the Treblinka camps, one in 1944 conducted by the Soviet-Jewish commission attached to the 65th Red Army, and one in 1945 conducted by the Polish magistrate of the district court in Siedlce. [...]
On the other hand, this Soviet-Jewish commission performed a rather good examination of the mass graves at the Treblinka I camp, and prepared a thorough report. Exhibit 89A. The Treblinka I graves contained about 10,000 bodies, and their combined contents were at least three times larger than that of the Treblinka II mass grave. Exhibit 90.
During November of 1945, in preparation for the Nuremberg (International Military Tribunal) trial, the Polish magistrate of the district court in Siedlce ordered an exploration of the former Treblinka II camp based on eyewitness testimony of the atrocities allegedly committed there. The Polish commission disbelieved the survivors' tales and the enormous 3,500,000 victim count invented by its Soviet predecessors. Exhibit 91. Consequently, it attempted in earnest to unearth physical proofs of the Nazi crimes. The forensic exploration and excavation were started in November of 1945 with help of over 30 laborers under the personal supervision of the Jewish Chairman of the Siedlce District Court, J. Szlebzak. Four ex-prisoners representing the 'Circle of Former Treblinka Inmates' were at hand: Messrs. S. Rajzman, T. Grinberg, S. Friedman and M. Mittelberg.[110] Their sole purpose was to point to the locations of the unforgettable installations which allegedly they had had a chance to observe daily for about a year, and which had been dismantled only about 24 months prior: the Lazaret where about 50,000 sick, elderly and children were purportedly shot; the gigantic mass graves; and the two masonry buildings housing the thirteen (10 + 3) gas chambers which were said to be lined with red terra cotta tile. Exhibit 92.
The location of the Lazaret pit was quickly found. Survivors alleged that 50,000 people were executed by shooting in this pit. However, while the thorough forensic exploration revealed a number of small personal articles belonging to the deported Jews and semi-burned camp refuse admixed with a few dozen small foreign coins, it failed to discover any residue of human bones, any of the 50,000 (at least) reputed execution bullets, or any of the 50,000 spent cartridges. Exhibit 92A.
The location of the Treblinka II gas chambers, the two largest masonry buildings in the district (one purportedly measuring about 30 × 15 meters), could not be recalled and agreed upon by the survivors. Since these buildings had to be located in the two-hectare-small 'Upper Camp', the commission cut a number of long and deep exploratory trenches running in a north-south direction. Not a single shard of red, nor any other color, terra cotta tile, was found during the thorough excavations. Exhibit 93. Neither was there a trace of a thick concrete slab which had to serve as a base for the ceramic tiled walls and floors of the gas chambers, nor any trace of concrete or masonry foundations capable of supporting such heavy structures in Treblinka's sandy soil (which was subject to deep frosts) was discovered. Exhibit 94."[111]
_____________________________________________________________
In October 1999, an expert team scanned the soil of the alleged extermination camp Treblinka with a ground penetrating radar. This device detects any disturbances of the soil layers, caused either by objects or by former digging activities, up to a depth of 65 feet. The data gathered showed no evidence of disturbance in the soil whatsoever.[112]
Re: Thank you
Thorwald,Thorwald wrote:PS : Thanks for the link, Scott. I will take a closer look at the book and place an order in the next days.
pay attention to some lies of Germar Rudolf in this book:
http://www.h-ref.de/ar/rudolf/grundlagen.shtml
Cheers!
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Scott Smith
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Re: Thank you
<<pay attention to some lies of Germar Rudolf in this book>>
Hans, how do you know about the lies contained in Rudolf's work? It is banned in Germany, yes? Does the Bundestablishment issue special licenses or something for the elect to download these materials without penalty? 
Hans, how do you know about the lies contained in Rudolf's work? It is banned in Germany, yes? Does the Bundestablishment issue special licenses or something for the elect to download these materials without penalty? Quotes from the CC Investigation Report
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p.95
The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.
Additiond facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evivdence of 11 Polish railway workers.
The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.
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The Extermination Camp at Treblinka in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered is situated near the village of Wolka-Okraglik, in the commune of Kosow, district of Sokolow Podlaski, province (voivodship) of Warsaw. The camp site was placed in a sandy region, overgrown with pines and far from human habitation. The nearest village, the above mentioned ,Wolka, was 1½ km from the camp boundary. The nearest railway station Treblinka (after which the camp was named) is 4 km. away.
p.96
At a short distance, along the north-western and northern boundaries of the camp, the road from Kosow to Malkinia and the railway from Siedlce to Malkinia run parallel, but owing to the undulating, wooded character of the region, the grounds of the camp are invisible alike from the road and from the railway.
Near the south-western edge of the camp a branch line runs to a gravel pit and was continued to the camp itself. This extension no longer exists; it served to bring the transports of victims. A road also, still in existence, was made from the high road and continued to the camp.
The area of the camp amounted to 13.45ha. (33 acres). The entire camp had the shape of an irregular rectangle. Construction work was begun on June 1, 1942, and was carried out mostly by Jewish workers brought in cars from the adjoining small towns of Wegrow, and Stoczek Wegrowski, who during their work were killed in masses.
The first railway transports of victims destined for destruction arrived at the camp on July 23, 1942, and from that time until approximately the middle of December, 1942, there was a constant stream of fresh arrivals. After New Year, 1943, the number of transports began to diminish. In February or March, 1943, Himmler visited the camp, and after this a whole-sale burning of corpses was undertaken. On August 2 a revolt broke out, during which part of the camp hutments were burnt. But at the end of the month several more transports arrived The camp was finally ,,liquidated" in November, 1943. At the present time no traces of it are left, except for the cellar passage with the protruding remains of burnt posts, the foundations of the administration building, and the old well. Here and there can also be traced the remains of burnt fence posts and pieces of barbed wire, and short sections of paved road. There are also other traces. For example, in the north-eastern part, over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),
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p.97
there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues.
As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones. The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable, growing stronger as one approaches.
The south-western part of the camp site is covered with the remains of all kinds of aluminum, enamel, glass and porcelain vessels, kitchen utensils, trunks, rucksacks, and remnants of clothing. Almost the whole camp-site is now covered with pits and holes.
II.
According to the evidence of the Jewish witnesses who had been confined at Treblinka, the general appearance of the camp was as follows while it was functioning:
It was enclosed within a 3-4 m. (10-13 ft.) high barbed-wire fence, densely interwoven with pine branches to make it invisible. Along the enclosure were barricades of barbed wire, and at intervals were watch-towers, where Ukrainian guards armed with machine-guns were stationed.
The interior of the camp was divided into two parts: the first, including about five-sixths of the whole, had a railway siding, stores, warehouses, workshops, offices, living-quarters for the SS men, Ukrainians and Jewish workers; garages and a kitchen-garden. It was the administrative part. The second was the extermination camp proper‘and contained two buildings -with 13 gas- chambers, living-quarters for the Jewish
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p.98
workers, and the place where the corpses were buried, and afterwards dug up and burnt.
During the first phase of the camp, from July, 1942 onward 3 gas-chambers were in use. In the early autumn of 1942, however, the construction of a new building, holding 10 chambers, was begun. One of the witnesses brought to Treblinka on October 10, 1942, saw these chambers already functioning.
The aspect of the chambers in which victims were gasssed, according to statements by the witnesses Wiernik, Rajchman and Czechowicz, was as follows: Both buildings had many corridors, within the larger building the entrances to the chambers being on both sides of the corridor, but in the smaller one on one side only. The entrances were small and had tightly closing doors. In the outer wall’s of the chambers were large trap doors which could be raised in order to permit the removal of the corpses. The chambers had tiled floors, sloping towards the outer side. In the ceiling were openings connected by pipes with engines situated in adjoining buildings, which produced the CO gas with which the victims were suffocated.
The witness Wiernik, who worked as a carpenter during the whole time of his stay in the camp, and so had a certain amount of freedom, gives the dimensions of the chambers as being in the smaller building 5x5 metres (15ft. 6 in. square) and 7 x7 metres (23 ft. square) in the larger.
The burning of the corpses had begun already at the time of the full functioning of the camp. At Treblinka there were no crematoria with furnaces, but there was a primitive arrangement of grates made from rails placed on supports of reinforced concrete, which could hold 2,500 corpses. Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of the corpses. In the waybills for the wagons sent from Treblinka at the time of the final "liquidation" of the camp three excavators are mentioned. One of them was
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p.99
dispatched from Treblinka on June 29, 1943, to the firm of Adam Lamczak, Berlin-Neukölln, Willy Waltherstrasse 30-3 Tr.
In the general lay-out of the camp the so-called Lazarett or hospital is interesting. It was situated in the first part of the camp, and was in essence a place enclosed by a high fence and divided inside into two unequal parts. The entrance was through a small hut, on which was a Red Cross flag, whence the way led to a smaller "waiting-room", with plush-covered sofas, whence again the victims were taken to the second part. Here there was a pit, on the edge of which an SS-man or Ukrainian shot the victim through the back of the head with a revolver, The Lazarett was designed for the destruction of the sick, invalids, old people, and small children who were too weak to enter the gas-chambers by themselves.
The Sonderkommando tried thus to prevent interruption of the normal smooth working of the camp activities.
The fact of the existence in the camp of arrangements whose sole aim was to deceive the victims as to its real purpose is very noteworthy. A sham railway station was built to resemble a real one, with various inscriptions, such as "refreshment room", "waiting room", or "booking office", and signs showing the "passengers" where to get in for Bialyatok and elsewhere.
III.
The camp was run By a relatively very small group of SS - men. Witnesses mention the names of the following: Stengel, the camp commandant, from Vienna, Kurt Franz from Thüringen, the vice-commandant Rütner from Leipzig, Franz Miete from Bavaria, Mentz from the vicinity of Bydgoszcz, Paul Bredow from Silesia, Willy Post from Hamburg, Kurt Seidel from Berlin, Müller from Hamburg, Suchomil from the
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p.100
Sudeten mountains, Schafner, Joseph Herman from Cologne, Schmidt and Minzberger, all of whom worked in the first, administrative, part of the camp. In the second part, where the gas-chambers were, there were, among others, Flops of Munich, a specialist in burning corpses, Emil Ludwik, the manager of this part of the camp, Karl Petzingelr of Leipzig, Mathiss, Lefler, of German origin but probably a citizen of the United States, Edwin Gense of Vienna and Otto Horn.
Auxiliary functions were carried out by the Ukrainians, who numbered about 100, but there were also a certain number of Jewish workers, who were frequently killed off and replaced. As stated by the Jewish witnesses, these workers were chosen from particular transports in parties of not less than ten and not more than 100. In the first part elf the camp there were about 1000 of them, and in the second from 200 to 500. The workers in the two different parts of the camp could not communicate with each other. At the head of the group was a senior official who wore an arm-band with the inscription: Aeltester der Juden (Senior Jew). The group was subdivided as follows:
a) A group with blue arm-bands, who cleaned the wagons after the transports had arrived; b) a group with red arm-bands, who helped to undress the victims; c) the largest group, who sorted the clothing, d) Goldjuden (Gold Jews) who took valuables from the victims, e) a group of workers specially employed in niterweaving the fence with brenches and f) a group of artisans who worked in the workshops. In the secoad part of the camp Jewish workers were employed in removing corpses from the gas-chambers, burying them and later on in burning the remains.
The railway trains had staffs consisting mainly of Ukrainians and Lithuanians under the command of SS-men, recruited from outside the camp. Two German railway mans, Rodolph Emerich and Willy Elinzman were permanently employed at Treblinka station unloading trains of Jews.
p.101
_____________________________________________________________
The treatment of the victims was as follows: the railway trams arrived at the station at Treblinka. As the branch line could not take more than 20 wagons at once, the trains were divided, each section in turn being drawn by an engine on to the extension line leading to the camp. Here the SS-men and Ukrainians were standing ready with arms and whips, and after opening the wagons they drove the Jews brutally forward. Everything had to be done in the quickest possible time. The unwilling and those who were too slow were shot. At the same time Jewish workers removed corpses and baggage from the wagons and cleaned them out. We must bear in mind that the victims travelled in locked cars meant for the transport of freight, and especially on bad days, owing to overcrowding (often as many as 200 persons in one car) the weaker ones died before their arrival at the camp.
After leaving the cars the victims were driven along with blows and shouts to the enclosure, where the men were separated from the women and children. Old people, the sick, and abandoned children were directed thence to the lazaret, where they were shot.
A small number of the men were then selected for work in the camp, while others were sent to the adjoining labour camp. After a short time they also died wholesale.
AS the SS-man ordered all money and valuables, to be given up, Jewish workers (Goldjuden) went round with trunks collecting everything that was precious. Afterwards the order was given to strip. The majority of witnesses state that the men were stripped in the courtyard itself; the women and children in a hut on the left. In the huts 60 barbers were kept busy cutting off the women’s hair. Meanwhile the naked men were driven about with whips and made to run and collect all
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p.102
the clothes from the whole transport, putting them in heaps to be sorted. Then, when the women had had their hair cut off, the naked men, women and children were directed on to the road leading to the gas-chambers, being told that they were going to the baths. At first the victims were ordered to take a zloty each in their hands as bath fee, the better to deceive them up to the last moment the money being collected by an Ukrainian in a hut by the way, but later this practice was stopped. In front of the entrance to the gas-chamber there were usually several Ukrainians standing by with dogs, who cruelly drove the victims in, often wounding them with knives. The victims were driven into the gas-chambers with their hands up, so that as many might be squeezed in as possible, and small children were piled on top.
SS-man Hitreider specialized in killing infants, seizing them by the legs and killing them with one blow on the head against a fence.
The actual gassing in the chambers lasted about 15 minutes; and after the state of the victims had been observed through a special small window, the doors on the outside of the building were opened, and the corpses, being so closely packed inside, fell out of their own weight on to the ground.
Instantly the Jewish workers removed them, and prepared the place for the next batch.
At first the corpses were buried in pits, but afterwards they were burnt. Only a few hours passed between the arrival of a train-load by the branch line and their gassing.
The Treblinka camp was in reality just a place of mass execution.
_____________________________________________________________
An accurate calculation of the number of victims is at present impossible. It will be remembered that Treblinka
p.103
ceased its activities in the autumn of 1943, so that the German authorities had enough time to wipe out the traces of their crimes. The most reliable method of counting the number of victims is by counting the number of train-loads. The figures based on the dimensions of the gas chambers give no guarantee whatever of accuracy, as we do not know, firstly, how often the gas-chambers were used, and, secondly, the number of people who, on an average, were gassed at any one time. In establishing the number of train-loads, the commission based its findings on the evidence given by the witnesses, laying special stress on the statements of the railway workers and on the railway records from Treblinka station, which are in the possession of the commission of enquiry.
The most active period seems to have been from August to the middle of December, 1942. During that time we may assume one daily train-load as unquestionable according to the evidence of the railway-workers. Indeed four witnesses put the figure at two per day. After that, from the middle of January to the middle of May, 1943, the average was probably one a week. Some of the witnesses put the figure at three.
The average number of wagons in a transport was 50 through sometimes, as the railway records showed, it was as many as 58.
The total number of wagon-loads of victimls from August 1, 1942, to May 15, 1943, may be taken, with some certainty, to have been 7,550.
In the later period, from the railway records; the list of the wagons for August 17, 1943; a telegram of August 18, 1943; and a document entitled Fahrplanordnung Nr. 290 sent from Treblinka station by the Reichsbahndirektion Königsberg, the number of train-loads could be established quite accurately.
In the above-mentioned Fahrplanordnung we read among ather things: Zur Abbeförderung von Aussledlern verkehren
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p.104
folgende Sonderzüge von Bialystok nach Malkinia. Ziel Treblinka, from which it may be concluded that after the revolt the following train-loads, were brought in: on Aug. 27, 1943, 41 wagons; on Aug. 19, 35 wagons; on Aug. 21, two transports of 38 wagons each; on Aug. 22, two transports of 39 wagons each; and on Aug. 23, one transport of 38 wagons; i. e. a total of 266 wagons.
As an average number of persons per wagon we may take 100 (the majority of witnesses deposed that it was more than 150).
According to this calculation the number of victims murdered at Treblinka amounts to at least 731,600. Taking into consideration the great caution with which the investigators assessed the number of train-loads and the average number of persons per wagon, this must be accepted as probable, that in actual fact the number of victims was even larger1. (1It should be pointed out that from pertinent documents such as telegrams, time-tables and way-bills it appears absolutely certain that more than two thousand wagon-loads of Jews were brought to Treblinka; yet these documents constituted but a small part of all the railway documentary evidence, the greater part of which is lost.)
VI.
It w a s mostly Jews Polish citizens from the central parts of the country (Warsaw, Radom, Czcstochowa, Kielce and Siedlce) who were killed at Treblinka; though there were Jews from the vicinity of Bialystok, Grodno and Wolkowysk; German, Austrian, Czech and Belgian Jews from the west, and Greek Jews from the south.
The railway documents have enabled a number of localities to be identified from which the trains were originally dispatched. We read that on August 6, 1942, a transport
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p.105
arrived from Warsaw; on September 1 others from Wloszczowa and Sedziszow; on September 27, one from Kozienice; on October 4, 1942, one from Czestochowa; on February 14, 1943, one from Grodno; on March 23 and April 1, 1943, one from Vienna; on March 26 one from Salonica; on March 29 one from Skoplje (Jugoslavia); and on August 23, 1943, one from Bialystok.
This is the last transport to Treblinka of which we have definite data.
Among the evidence is a collection of coins, Polish, Soviet, German, Austrian, Czech, Greek, Belgian, French and even American, dug up during levelling operations at Treblinka. A German-Jewish identity card issued at Göttingen, the remains of a Soviet passport, and a collection of Polish documents were also found.
One of the witnesses, called Strawczynski, stated that his brother, who worked in the camp sorting the clothing, told him that he also found English documents. The witness Rajzman saw a certificate issued by Cambridge University.
Besides the Jews who were murdered in this extermination camp, there were a certain number of Gipsies and Poles, but it is impossible to establish exactly how many.
VII.
The belongings of the victims were systematically collected and sorted, before being sent to the Reich. Specialisation in the sorting of this Jewish property even extended to eye-glasses and fountain pens. Gold, jewels and money were collected and sorted with particular care. From time to time lorries were dispatched from the camp loaded with goods of every kind. Among the proofs of this there is a collection of military tickets (Wehrmachtsfahrscheine) dated September
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p.106
2-21, 1942. They relate to 203 freight-trains loaded with clothing (described as Bekleidung der Waffen SS). The lists were stamped with an official seal inscribed Der SS Polizei-führer SS Sonderkommando im District Warschau.
A typical Nazi proceeding was to pack the wlomen’s hair, after it had been steamed, in bales, and send it to Germany.
The eradication of all traces of the crime by wholesale burning of corpses began after Himmler’s visit in the early spring of 1943 and lasted till the Warsaw Rising, or even later. The camp was finally closed in November, 1943.
During the investigation when the ground was levelled, no collective graves were found, and this together with the evidence given by the witnesses leads to the conclusion that almost all the remains were burnt; the German authorities having had plenty of time to do it since the camp was closed. The site of the camp was ploughed over and sown, and on it Ukrainians were settled. They fled, however, on the approach of the Red Army
_____________________________________________________________
Source : German Crimes in Poland. Volume I. Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Warsaw, 1946
_____________________________________________________________
- http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm
p.95
The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.
Additiond facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evivdence of 11 Polish railway workers.
The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.
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The Extermination Camp at Treblinka in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered is situated near the village of Wolka-Okraglik, in the commune of Kosow, district of Sokolow Podlaski, province (voivodship) of Warsaw. The camp site was placed in a sandy region, overgrown with pines and far from human habitation. The nearest village, the above mentioned ,Wolka, was 1½ km from the camp boundary. The nearest railway station Treblinka (after which the camp was named) is 4 km. away.
p.96
At a short distance, along the north-western and northern boundaries of the camp, the road from Kosow to Malkinia and the railway from Siedlce to Malkinia run parallel, but owing to the undulating, wooded character of the region, the grounds of the camp are invisible alike from the road and from the railway.
Near the south-western edge of the camp a branch line runs to a gravel pit and was continued to the camp itself. This extension no longer exists; it served to bring the transports of victims. A road also, still in existence, was made from the high road and continued to the camp.
The area of the camp amounted to 13.45ha. (33 acres). The entire camp had the shape of an irregular rectangle. Construction work was begun on June 1, 1942, and was carried out mostly by Jewish workers brought in cars from the adjoining small towns of Wegrow, and Stoczek Wegrowski, who during their work were killed in masses.
The first railway transports of victims destined for destruction arrived at the camp on July 23, 1942, and from that time until approximately the middle of December, 1942, there was a constant stream of fresh arrivals. After New Year, 1943, the number of transports began to diminish. In February or March, 1943, Himmler visited the camp, and after this a whole-sale burning of corpses was undertaken. On August 2 a revolt broke out, during which part of the camp hutments were burnt. But at the end of the month several more transports arrived The camp was finally ,,liquidated" in November, 1943. At the present time no traces of it are left, except for the cellar passage with the protruding remains of burnt posts, the foundations of the administration building, and the old well. Here and there can also be traced the remains of burnt fence posts and pieces of barbed wire, and short sections of paved road. There are also other traces. For example, in the north-eastern part, over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),
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p.97
there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues.
As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones. The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable, growing stronger as one approaches.
The south-western part of the camp site is covered with the remains of all kinds of aluminum, enamel, glass and porcelain vessels, kitchen utensils, trunks, rucksacks, and remnants of clothing. Almost the whole camp-site is now covered with pits and holes.
II.
According to the evidence of the Jewish witnesses who had been confined at Treblinka, the general appearance of the camp was as follows while it was functioning:
It was enclosed within a 3-4 m. (10-13 ft.) high barbed-wire fence, densely interwoven with pine branches to make it invisible. Along the enclosure were barricades of barbed wire, and at intervals were watch-towers, where Ukrainian guards armed with machine-guns were stationed.
The interior of the camp was divided into two parts: the first, including about five-sixths of the whole, had a railway siding, stores, warehouses, workshops, offices, living-quarters for the SS men, Ukrainians and Jewish workers; garages and a kitchen-garden. It was the administrative part. The second was the extermination camp proper‘and contained two buildings -with 13 gas- chambers, living-quarters for the Jewish
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p.98
workers, and the place where the corpses were buried, and afterwards dug up and burnt.
During the first phase of the camp, from July, 1942 onward 3 gas-chambers were in use. In the early autumn of 1942, however, the construction of a new building, holding 10 chambers, was begun. One of the witnesses brought to Treblinka on October 10, 1942, saw these chambers already functioning.
The aspect of the chambers in which victims were gasssed, according to statements by the witnesses Wiernik, Rajchman and Czechowicz, was as follows: Both buildings had many corridors, within the larger building the entrances to the chambers being on both sides of the corridor, but in the smaller one on one side only. The entrances were small and had tightly closing doors. In the outer wall’s of the chambers were large trap doors which could be raised in order to permit the removal of the corpses. The chambers had tiled floors, sloping towards the outer side. In the ceiling were openings connected by pipes with engines situated in adjoining buildings, which produced the CO gas with which the victims were suffocated.
The witness Wiernik, who worked as a carpenter during the whole time of his stay in the camp, and so had a certain amount of freedom, gives the dimensions of the chambers as being in the smaller building 5x5 metres (15ft. 6 in. square) and 7 x7 metres (23 ft. square) in the larger.
The burning of the corpses had begun already at the time of the full functioning of the camp. At Treblinka there were no crematoria with furnaces, but there was a primitive arrangement of grates made from rails placed on supports of reinforced concrete, which could hold 2,500 corpses. Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of the corpses. In the waybills for the wagons sent from Treblinka at the time of the final "liquidation" of the camp three excavators are mentioned. One of them was
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p.99
dispatched from Treblinka on June 29, 1943, to the firm of Adam Lamczak, Berlin-Neukölln, Willy Waltherstrasse 30-3 Tr.
In the general lay-out of the camp the so-called Lazarett or hospital is interesting. It was situated in the first part of the camp, and was in essence a place enclosed by a high fence and divided inside into two unequal parts. The entrance was through a small hut, on which was a Red Cross flag, whence the way led to a smaller "waiting-room", with plush-covered sofas, whence again the victims were taken to the second part. Here there was a pit, on the edge of which an SS-man or Ukrainian shot the victim through the back of the head with a revolver, The Lazarett was designed for the destruction of the sick, invalids, old people, and small children who were too weak to enter the gas-chambers by themselves.
The Sonderkommando tried thus to prevent interruption of the normal smooth working of the camp activities.
The fact of the existence in the camp of arrangements whose sole aim was to deceive the victims as to its real purpose is very noteworthy. A sham railway station was built to resemble a real one, with various inscriptions, such as "refreshment room", "waiting room", or "booking office", and signs showing the "passengers" where to get in for Bialyatok and elsewhere.
III.
The camp was run By a relatively very small group of SS - men. Witnesses mention the names of the following: Stengel, the camp commandant, from Vienna, Kurt Franz from Thüringen, the vice-commandant Rütner from Leipzig, Franz Miete from Bavaria, Mentz from the vicinity of Bydgoszcz, Paul Bredow from Silesia, Willy Post from Hamburg, Kurt Seidel from Berlin, Müller from Hamburg, Suchomil from the
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p.100
Sudeten mountains, Schafner, Joseph Herman from Cologne, Schmidt and Minzberger, all of whom worked in the first, administrative, part of the camp. In the second part, where the gas-chambers were, there were, among others, Flops of Munich, a specialist in burning corpses, Emil Ludwik, the manager of this part of the camp, Karl Petzingelr of Leipzig, Mathiss, Lefler, of German origin but probably a citizen of the United States, Edwin Gense of Vienna and Otto Horn.
Auxiliary functions were carried out by the Ukrainians, who numbered about 100, but there were also a certain number of Jewish workers, who were frequently killed off and replaced. As stated by the Jewish witnesses, these workers were chosen from particular transports in parties of not less than ten and not more than 100. In the first part elf the camp there were about 1000 of them, and in the second from 200 to 500. The workers in the two different parts of the camp could not communicate with each other. At the head of the group was a senior official who wore an arm-band with the inscription: Aeltester der Juden (Senior Jew). The group was subdivided as follows:
a) A group with blue arm-bands, who cleaned the wagons after the transports had arrived; b) a group with red arm-bands, who helped to undress the victims; c) the largest group, who sorted the clothing, d) Goldjuden (Gold Jews) who took valuables from the victims, e) a group of workers specially employed in niterweaving the fence with brenches and f) a group of artisans who worked in the workshops. In the secoad part of the camp Jewish workers were employed in removing corpses from the gas-chambers, burying them and later on in burning the remains.
The railway trains had staffs consisting mainly of Ukrainians and Lithuanians under the command of SS-men, recruited from outside the camp. Two German railway mans, Rodolph Emerich and Willy Elinzman were permanently employed at Treblinka station unloading trains of Jews.
p.101
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The treatment of the victims was as follows: the railway trams arrived at the station at Treblinka. As the branch line could not take more than 20 wagons at once, the trains were divided, each section in turn being drawn by an engine on to the extension line leading to the camp. Here the SS-men and Ukrainians were standing ready with arms and whips, and after opening the wagons they drove the Jews brutally forward. Everything had to be done in the quickest possible time. The unwilling and those who were too slow were shot. At the same time Jewish workers removed corpses and baggage from the wagons and cleaned them out. We must bear in mind that the victims travelled in locked cars meant for the transport of freight, and especially on bad days, owing to overcrowding (often as many as 200 persons in one car) the weaker ones died before their arrival at the camp.
After leaving the cars the victims were driven along with blows and shouts to the enclosure, where the men were separated from the women and children. Old people, the sick, and abandoned children were directed thence to the lazaret, where they were shot.
A small number of the men were then selected for work in the camp, while others were sent to the adjoining labour camp. After a short time they also died wholesale.
AS the SS-man ordered all money and valuables, to be given up, Jewish workers (Goldjuden) went round with trunks collecting everything that was precious. Afterwards the order was given to strip. The majority of witnesses state that the men were stripped in the courtyard itself; the women and children in a hut on the left. In the huts 60 barbers were kept busy cutting off the women’s hair. Meanwhile the naked men were driven about with whips and made to run and collect all
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p.102
the clothes from the whole transport, putting them in heaps to be sorted. Then, when the women had had their hair cut off, the naked men, women and children were directed on to the road leading to the gas-chambers, being told that they were going to the baths. At first the victims were ordered to take a zloty each in their hands as bath fee, the better to deceive them up to the last moment the money being collected by an Ukrainian in a hut by the way, but later this practice was stopped. In front of the entrance to the gas-chamber there were usually several Ukrainians standing by with dogs, who cruelly drove the victims in, often wounding them with knives. The victims were driven into the gas-chambers with their hands up, so that as many might be squeezed in as possible, and small children were piled on top.
SS-man Hitreider specialized in killing infants, seizing them by the legs and killing them with one blow on the head against a fence.
The actual gassing in the chambers lasted about 15 minutes; and after the state of the victims had been observed through a special small window, the doors on the outside of the building were opened, and the corpses, being so closely packed inside, fell out of their own weight on to the ground.
Instantly the Jewish workers removed them, and prepared the place for the next batch.
At first the corpses were buried in pits, but afterwards they were burnt. Only a few hours passed between the arrival of a train-load by the branch line and their gassing.
The Treblinka camp was in reality just a place of mass execution.
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An accurate calculation of the number of victims is at present impossible. It will be remembered that Treblinka
p.103
ceased its activities in the autumn of 1943, so that the German authorities had enough time to wipe out the traces of their crimes. The most reliable method of counting the number of victims is by counting the number of train-loads. The figures based on the dimensions of the gas chambers give no guarantee whatever of accuracy, as we do not know, firstly, how often the gas-chambers were used, and, secondly, the number of people who, on an average, were gassed at any one time. In establishing the number of train-loads, the commission based its findings on the evidence given by the witnesses, laying special stress on the statements of the railway workers and on the railway records from Treblinka station, which are in the possession of the commission of enquiry.
The most active period seems to have been from August to the middle of December, 1942. During that time we may assume one daily train-load as unquestionable according to the evidence of the railway-workers. Indeed four witnesses put the figure at two per day. After that, from the middle of January to the middle of May, 1943, the average was probably one a week. Some of the witnesses put the figure at three.
The average number of wagons in a transport was 50 through sometimes, as the railway records showed, it was as many as 58.
The total number of wagon-loads of victimls from August 1, 1942, to May 15, 1943, may be taken, with some certainty, to have been 7,550.
In the later period, from the railway records; the list of the wagons for August 17, 1943; a telegram of August 18, 1943; and a document entitled Fahrplanordnung Nr. 290 sent from Treblinka station by the Reichsbahndirektion Königsberg, the number of train-loads could be established quite accurately.
In the above-mentioned Fahrplanordnung we read among ather things: Zur Abbeförderung von Aussledlern verkehren
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folgende Sonderzüge von Bialystok nach Malkinia. Ziel Treblinka, from which it may be concluded that after the revolt the following train-loads, were brought in: on Aug. 27, 1943, 41 wagons; on Aug. 19, 35 wagons; on Aug. 21, two transports of 38 wagons each; on Aug. 22, two transports of 39 wagons each; and on Aug. 23, one transport of 38 wagons; i. e. a total of 266 wagons.
As an average number of persons per wagon we may take 100 (the majority of witnesses deposed that it was more than 150).
According to this calculation the number of victims murdered at Treblinka amounts to at least 731,600. Taking into consideration the great caution with which the investigators assessed the number of train-loads and the average number of persons per wagon, this must be accepted as probable, that in actual fact the number of victims was even larger1. (1It should be pointed out that from pertinent documents such as telegrams, time-tables and way-bills it appears absolutely certain that more than two thousand wagon-loads of Jews were brought to Treblinka; yet these documents constituted but a small part of all the railway documentary evidence, the greater part of which is lost.)
VI.
It w a s mostly Jews Polish citizens from the central parts of the country (Warsaw, Radom, Czcstochowa, Kielce and Siedlce) who were killed at Treblinka; though there were Jews from the vicinity of Bialystok, Grodno and Wolkowysk; German, Austrian, Czech and Belgian Jews from the west, and Greek Jews from the south.
The railway documents have enabled a number of localities to be identified from which the trains were originally dispatched. We read that on August 6, 1942, a transport
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arrived from Warsaw; on September 1 others from Wloszczowa and Sedziszow; on September 27, one from Kozienice; on October 4, 1942, one from Czestochowa; on February 14, 1943, one from Grodno; on March 23 and April 1, 1943, one from Vienna; on March 26 one from Salonica; on March 29 one from Skoplje (Jugoslavia); and on August 23, 1943, one from Bialystok.
This is the last transport to Treblinka of which we have definite data.
Among the evidence is a collection of coins, Polish, Soviet, German, Austrian, Czech, Greek, Belgian, French and even American, dug up during levelling operations at Treblinka. A German-Jewish identity card issued at Göttingen, the remains of a Soviet passport, and a collection of Polish documents were also found.
One of the witnesses, called Strawczynski, stated that his brother, who worked in the camp sorting the clothing, told him that he also found English documents. The witness Rajzman saw a certificate issued by Cambridge University.
Besides the Jews who were murdered in this extermination camp, there were a certain number of Gipsies and Poles, but it is impossible to establish exactly how many.
VII.
The belongings of the victims were systematically collected and sorted, before being sent to the Reich. Specialisation in the sorting of this Jewish property even extended to eye-glasses and fountain pens. Gold, jewels and money were collected and sorted with particular care. From time to time lorries were dispatched from the camp loaded with goods of every kind. Among the proofs of this there is a collection of military tickets (Wehrmachtsfahrscheine) dated September
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p.106
2-21, 1942. They relate to 203 freight-trains loaded with clothing (described as Bekleidung der Waffen SS). The lists were stamped with an official seal inscribed Der SS Polizei-führer SS Sonderkommando im District Warschau.
A typical Nazi proceeding was to pack the wlomen’s hair, after it had been steamed, in bales, and send it to Germany.
The eradication of all traces of the crime by wholesale burning of corpses began after Himmler’s visit in the early spring of 1943 and lasted till the Warsaw Rising, or even later. The camp was finally closed in November, 1943.
During the investigation when the ground was levelled, no collective graves were found, and this together with the evidence given by the witnesses leads to the conclusion that almost all the remains were burnt; the German authorities having had plenty of time to do it since the camp was closed. The site of the camp was ploughed over and sown, and on it Ukrainians were settled. They fled, however, on the approach of the Red Army
_____________________________________________________________
Source : German Crimes in Poland. Volume I. Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Warsaw, 1946
_____________________________________________________________
- http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm
Discussion
Meanwhile i have been able to locate one of the hard to find copies of the complete report, done by the Central Commission. Unless it is sure if i may be able to obtain the book (costs me 75 €), i would like to discuss some aspects of this report with you. These are the following questions.
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1.] Treblinka I
It is noticable and noteworthy that information about the workers camp Treblinka I (which has been located only a few miles away) are very hard to find. Why is that ?
_____________________________________________________________
2.] Eye Witness Reports
The report mentions the following men and women, who have given us eyewitness reports of Treblinka II, its structure and organisation.
The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.
Additiond facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evivdence of 11 Polish railway workers.
The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.
My question is if there is a source, containing all these reports, exactly as they have been told ; my second question is : do we have other reports ?
_____________________________________________________________
3.] Formal Question
The Extermination Camp at Treblinka in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered ...
I have noticed the following quote. If i'm right this report is the scientific investigation which should bring us a reliable evidence for the purpose of Treblinka II as an extermination camp. In every scientific report the conclusion which is to be based on the results of the examination is standing at the end of the report. Now here we have this quote, which has not been finally proven at this point, standing in the middle of the report. Not a really important detail, but noteworthy.
_____________________________________________________________
4.] Traces at Treblinka
At the present time no traces of it are left , except for the cellar passage with the protruding remains of burnt posts, the foundations of the administration building, and the old well. Here and there can also be traced the remains of burnt fence posts and pieces of barbed wire, and short sections of paved road. There are also other traces. For example , in the north-eastern part , over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),
p.97
there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues .
As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones . The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable , growing stronger as one approaches.
Is this northeastern part identical with the described burial area, shown at the Treblinka map ? If that is so, and we may assume that no bodies were buried outside the camp (which is probable), we should be able to prove the given count of 800.000, at least 500.000 .
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The second part of the quotes will be discussed later. I'm looking forward to learn about your thoughts concerning the mentioned points.
_____________________________________________________________
1.] Treblinka I
It is noticable and noteworthy that information about the workers camp Treblinka I (which has been located only a few miles away) are very hard to find. Why is that ?
_____________________________________________________________
2.] Eye Witness Reports
The report mentions the following men and women, who have given us eyewitness reports of Treblinka II, its structure and organisation.
The evidence on which this account relies is in the first place the testimony of 13 Jews, former prisoners at Treblinka, who succeeded in escaping during the armed revolt of August 2, 1943. Their names are: Jankiel Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Abe Kon, Aron Czechowicz, Oskar Strawczynski, Samuel Reisman, Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brener, Starisław Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman, Szyja Warszawsski, and Leon Finkelsztejn.
Additiond facts concerning particularly the number of railway transports, is to be found in the evivdence of 11 Polish railway workers.
The railway records at Treblinka station have a1so been consulted, as well as documents and coins dug out during the levelling of the surface; and the results of legal and medical inquiries, as well was the sworn evidence of a land surveyor, were used by the prosecutors.
My question is if there is a source, containing all these reports, exactly as they have been told ; my second question is : do we have other reports ?
_____________________________________________________________
3.] Formal Question
The Extermination Camp at Treblinka in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered ...
I have noticed the following quote. If i'm right this report is the scientific investigation which should bring us a reliable evidence for the purpose of Treblinka II as an extermination camp. In every scientific report the conclusion which is to be based on the results of the examination is standing at the end of the report. Now here we have this quote, which has not been finally proven at this point, standing in the middle of the report. Not a really important detail, but noteworthy.
_____________________________________________________________
4.] Traces at Treblinka
At the present time no traces of it are left , except for the cellar passage with the protruding remains of burnt posts, the foundations of the administration building, and the old well. Here and there can also be traced the remains of burnt fence posts and pieces of barbed wire, and short sections of paved road. There are also other traces. For example , in the north-eastern part , over a surface covering about 2 ha. (5 acres),
p.97
there are large quantities of ashes mixed with sand, among which are numerous human bones, often with the remains of decomposing tissues .
As a result of an examination made by an expert it was found that ashes were the remains of burnt human bones . The examination of numerous human skulls found in the camp has shown that they bear no traces of external injuries. Within a radius of several hundred yards from the camp site an unpleasant smell of burnt ash and decay is noticeable , growing stronger as one approaches.
Is this northeastern part identical with the described burial area, shown at the Treblinka map ? If that is so, and we may assume that no bodies were buried outside the camp (which is probable), we should be able to prove the given count of 800.000, at least 500.000 .
_____________________________________________________________
The second part of the quotes will be discussed later. I'm looking forward to learn about your thoughts concerning the mentioned points.
Last edited by Thorwald on 11 Mar 2002, 18:26, edited 3 times in total.