POL - Treblinka

1 Entry
2 Trail of death
3 Scaffold
4 the Gas chamber
5 Mass graves.

Treblinka

First originated the camp Treblinka I

Prison labor camp Treblinka I

Instead of the formation of the camp was selected in the little-populated wooded area on the severovýchidě Genarální governorate, near the railway nodal station in the village of Małkinia – Górna. It was on the track of Waršavi to Białegostoku and 4 km on northwest from the village of Treblinka. The camp originated in the summer of 1941 and worked in the nedalékém quarry.
The poles and the jews, who were first collection came from the vicinity of the Waršavi, extracted and crushed stone transported for the construction of forts on the border with the USSR.
Stay in Treblinka And ended most often in death or transport to the larger Concentration camps. On average in the camp, there were 1000 to 1200 prisoners.
Part of the prisoners worked in the quarry, the second - vagouny in the station Małkini, another part of the prisoners worked in the camp workshops, the women did most of the peasant activity.
The camp was destroyed in July 1944, when she approached the Red army


Extermination camp Treblinka II

This concentration camp was built in the action Reinhard. Work on its construction started, and was racing in may and June 1942, stavěliho prisoners from the labour camp. The construction work was entrusted to the firm Schönbronn (Leipzig) and Schmidt-Münstermann. The concentration camp in Treblinka was to the adoption of the first prisoners ready 22. July 1942. The finishing works were éift jews from Waršavského geta and the surrounding cities and prisoners from Treblinka I. Work on the construction of check of SS-Hauptsturmführer Richard Thomalla specialist in the construction of the action Reinhard.

The first commander of the camp was the austrian SS-Obersturmführer Irmfried Eberl, who first served in Bernburg - in one of the six institutes of the "euthanasia" on the territory of the empire. In August 1942 he was replaced by SS-Obersturmführerem Franz Stanglem former commander of the camp in Sobiboře. Furthermore, the camp served 20 to 30 ss soldiers, mostly German and austrian nationalities, all served in the program of euthanasia, and the company they were 90 - 120 Ukrainian officer. The other operated the gas chambers between them was also wrong úprosnulý Iwan Marczenko and Mikołaj Szalejew. The majority of the Ukrainian and soviet soldiers were shanghaied prisoners of war from the red army, their recruitment and training took place in Tráwnikách, some of the so-called Volksdeutsche, were of German origin and were recruited as commanders of units and small teams.

In the camp worked from 700 to 1000 prisoners, to perform the physical work with the everywhere present exterminací. Part of the prisoners served as a regiment of soldiers SS. Groups of jewish specialists were employed in construction works, which also took place during the process of smoothing. The prisoners, who were selected for work were often forced to scale back branches and their involvements between the barbed wire because of the camouflage, it was later applied to the planting of trees between the barbed wire and fencing. These prisoners worked only a few days, then were killed to be replaced by new jews from arriving transports.

In September 1942 the Police introduced among the prisoners of the permanent squad, which find itself liable for the "unloading of the wagons", they called him "the station commando". Another regular commando worked in the undressing of deported prisoners, when the grading of their property, to taking out the gas chambers and mass graves.

Around christmas in 1942 gave the Police the order to the construction of the dummy station building. The station clock with painted numbers showed still 6 hours. On the back side of the house were painted coffers with timetables and indicators of the direction of travel of the trains (in Warsaw, Wołkowyska and Białogostoku). The aim was to create the illusion, at the arriving prisoners that actually arrived at the transfer camp.

For comfort and pleasant stay of the crew and the SS-men were in the camp built a small ZOO and a beer gazebo.

In addition to the camp buildings was the camp built a spur connecting the camp with the nearest railway station. In the camp were first dug deep pits that served as mass graves, than proceed to burn the corpses. At this time he had a camp of irregular shape of a rectangular trapezoid. with a width of 400 m and a length of 600m, which was surrounded by barbed wire with entangled branches. This masking should prevent any observation of the camp from the outside. At a later period it was built more fencing together with anti-tank obstacles ("Spanish goats"). In each of the four corners still 8 meters high watchtower. Other towers were built in the area of death, where there were mass murders. Space camp has been here divided into three parts on a very similar area.

. part "Residential camp" - accommodation for the soldiers of the SS and the Ukrainian guards.
II. part "Receiving camp" - receiving space transports "Auffanglager"
III. part "the Camp of death" - the "Totenlager" firing part of the camp
The first two parts were referred to as the lower camp, the third part as the top.

Administratively, the accommodation part is located in the northwestern part. It contained the barracks of the SS and Ukrainian officers, offices, infirmary, warehouses and workshop. The entrance gate to the camp was in the northwest of the near rail of the siding. Later was built a large dvoukřídlová wooden gate in the style of the surroundings of Zakopane. The gate covering small roof, the doors were decorated with iron flowers.

At night the camp is lit up by the lights from the guard towers. Ukrainian officers together with soldiers of the SS were used only in the vicinity of the gate and on the stážních positions. At the entrance to the camp was placed the inscription "SS -Sonderkommando Treblinka".

A square with dimensions of approximately 100 x 100 m was from the rest of the camp, separated by barbed wire. On the floor plan of this square were placed the three buildings in the shape of letters In. In them camped out prisoners who worked in the lower camp, on the edge of the "Apelplatzu" cost latrine covered with a straw roof.
Arriving transports were arriving straight into the space of death, this space was located in the southwestern part of camp near some railroad tracks. Here the cost of the platform and ramp of a length of around 200 m together with a model of the station building. At the entrance of the railway siding stood a wooden gate woven with barbed wire and entwined branches.

Another building standing in the area of death was "hospital", it was a place of execution. Of the person injured, exhausted or unaccompanied children were introduced to the "hospital". The hospital was a sort of wooden shed, enclosed by barbed wire above which flew a flag of the red cross. Here were the incoming svlékáni and then shot by a bullet in the back of his head. The dead bodies were then thrown into the still burning jam.

Along the ramp were two large houses, in which they were sorted and stored things taken prisoners. To the north of the stores was called "the station inn" on the east of it was another enclosed area called "for the peels" (Entkleidungsplatz). Here they were separated by women, men and children. Were there two buildings: the north and south. In the first the house had to strip off the women, and then they were just cut hair. The second building served first as lodging for the men trapped, but soon was converted into a warehouse. The men then had to disrobe on the air between houses.
The entire space of death occupied about 200 - 250 m, there took place the most mass murders. Lying in the southeastern part of the camp. It was another space hermetically separated from the rest of the camp barbed wire. Por the purpose of the camouflage was again tightly interwoven branches. The whole space was in addition, an indoor high filling soil, which was completely prevented observation of the inside of the camp from the outside.

At the beginning of the functioning of the camp there was built a brick building made of brick. In this building were located at the beginning of the 3 gas chambers measuring 4 x 4 m and a height of 2.6 m. the Chamber is very similar to the first chambers of the camp in Sobiborze [sobiboře]. In areas adjacent to the ventricles were internal combustion engines that produce deadly carbon oxides, by means of pipes these exhaust gases fed into the chambers. In this space stood and aggregates producing electricity for the whole camp.

The doors of the chambers with the opening out of the wooden corridor leading from the rear of the building. The door was wooden high 1.8 m, and a broad 0.9 m, hermetic sealable from the outside. Inside the gas chamber opposite the entrance door were another hermetically sealable door about the size of 2.5 x 1.8 m. These doors were made of thick wooden boards vyklápěné up (i.e. as of today's garage doors). At the time of taking out the dead bodies, the doors were vyklopeny up and supported by wooden columns. The walls of the chambers were partially lined with white tiles. The ceiling was interwoven with the pipes to sprinkler sítky, which create the impression of the bathroom.

East to the gas chambers were dug huge pits into which they were zakopávány corpses. These pits were excavated lease of your excavator from the camp Treblinka I. The pits were long 50 m, wide 2.5 m deep 10 m. At the beginning of the existence of the camp there were corpses brought to their wheelchairs narrow-gauge track, pushed the prisoners. This system seemed to Stanglovi impractical, and so decided to carry corpses on a stretcher.
In the south-east there were two houses for the prisoner, which surrounded a barbed-wire fence. In the barracks were in addition to sleeping breastfeeding located the kitchen, the toilet, later even laundry.
In the middle of the space death of was built a watch tower.

The space between the dressing room "svlékárnou" connecting with the space of death the so-called "schlauch", which was the path length of 80-90m and a width of 4 m, surrounded by barbed wire up to a height of 2 m. the Germans this way they said "Himmelfahrtstraße" - the path to heaven. The journey began back at the house where access of women and continued further east and walked to the south side of the building with the gas chambers. In this way walked all jews naked.

Arriving by train with the prisoners were most often 50 - 60 cars at the cattle, in which were crammed in 6 to 7 thousand persons. After passing a station Małkiny Górna [malkin gurn] hit by a train on the bridge over the river
Bug and stopped up at the station in the village of Treblinka. There will be a division of the railway transport to the area for 20 cars. These parts were subsequently locomotive pushed into the camp. The other cars were waiting in the station. When the train got closer to the camp boarded the SS troops, and ukrainians to the designated position in the space of income. After stopping the train were gradually opened the door for individual cars, it means that you first speak out all from the one car and were then only open the door from the next car.
The abandonment of wagons, together with the soldiers of the SS secured the prison commando "Luftwaffe Blau" (the name of the commando was derived from the color of the tape which carried the prisoners to the hole).
After leaving the wagons SS officer informed the prisoners that are located in the transfer camp, from which they will be rozesláni into different work camps. Before your next trip, but must get through the control and for reasons of hygiene by washing, therefore it will vysprchováni and clothes will be handed over for disinfection. Money and valuables should be handed back to the deposit that will be returned after washing. After this announcement were the prisoners led to no place inside the camp of the boarding ramp. In this space were divided women and men. Women are discharged to the left because of the undressing. Men to the right. This activity was carried out the so-called "red squad", cared about taking off and picking up clothes. Usually this whole process took place at a very high pace and accompanied him to the screams and beating from the officers. From the autumn of 1942 to have been added in addition of haircuts for women at the end of the dressing room behind the screen.

The naked victim subsequently joined the "schlauchu", which is introduced directly to the gas chambers. Some sources indicate that they were first murdered women and children while the men were waiting in the locker room. According to other sources were first gassed men, but it is possible that it mattered since the specifications of the transport.
After the closure of the gas chambers were zpuštěny internal combustion engines that produce deadly carbon oxides. After 20 - 30 minutes, all the victims were dead. Dead bodies were pulled out of the chambers and transported to the excavated pits, where they were first buried. Later it was applied in the dug pits to the laying of the rails, thereby in the pit was some sort of grate on which they were burning dead bodies. In the initial stage of the functioning of the camp, it took the killing of the prisoners of the twenty-car ( 2 to 3 thousand prisoners) from 3 to 4 hours. After some time, took the germans "a routine" and to reduce time of the entire process in 1.5 hours !

At the time when they were gassed the first jews, 50 other prisoners from the camp was cleaned up the cars, which were brought convicts to death. Then there were the cars removed from the camp, setting free the place for other "goods" with the human cargo.
At the same time, another group of jewish prisoners, numbering about 50 of the prisoners , had collected clothes and other stuff out of the locker room and take them to a packing centre and warehouse. Here blue commando canvassing things, looking for stashes and hidden valuables (jewelry, money, etc.), searched and sorted clothing from stars of David. At the same time destroying identity cards and other documents, which did not for the germans any price. Categorized things were subsequently sent to the warehouses of the SS in Lublinie.

200 to 300 prisoners from the Sonderkommanda worked in the area of death to the removal of dead bodies from the gas chambers, on plucking gold teeth to the victims and burying or burning the remains.
In the winter of 1942 - 43 was should the party to the burial of the bodies from this period are the remains of burnt.

But, before that, as well as in Bełżcu and Sobiborze the germans realized that the number of gas chambers does not meet the needs of the mass murder of jews. Therefore, at the beginning of September and October 1942 it was decided to build new gas chambers with ten chambers. In order to build these chambers it was necessary to obtain building material. As a building material has been used the chimney of the glass-works in Małkině. The chimney was dismantled under the supervision of an expert on the construction of the gas chambers Erwin Lambert. The new gas chamber had a dimension of 4x8 meters, the area of the old chambers was 48 m2, while the new chamber occupied area of 320 m2. The new chambers were high only 2 m thus about 600mm lower than the old chamber.
The building has led the central corridor. On both sides of the corridor were 5 gas chambers for a total of 10 gas chambers.Entrance door and doors, which have been out taken out of the victim were similar to the door of the old chambers.On the entrance doors to the chambers was a hole and a small window that could the soldiers of the SS and Ukrainian officers to observe the events inside the chambers.
The main entrance door to the chamber, partially covering jewish ceremonial curtain, that in the synagogues most often obscures the "Aron ha Kadesh" - the place of possession of the holy scrolls. On this curtain was the Hebrew inscription "This is the gate to God, the precise pass just fair. Above the entrance door was placed a large star of David. That conviction may enter into the building they had to in front of the door to overcome the five entrance stair on which the sides were pots with flowers.

In these gas chambers could simultaneously die 3 800 persons, while in the old chambers max. 600 persons.
The main commanding officer in the upper camp was Heinrich Arthur Matthes, who helped Gustav Münzberger, Fritz Schmidt, together with the ukrainians Marčenkem and Šalejevem.

Extermination
The Program of extermination in Treblinka ran the full 12. July 1942, the first transports arrived from waršavského the ghetto. 21. September 1942 was, according to records killed 254 thousand jews from Waršavi and 112 thousand jews from the so-called "district waršavského".
In the winter at the turn of the years 1942 - 43 was zabyto other 337 thousand jews from the district radomského and 35 thousand from the district lubelského. Thus, in total, from the General governorate murdered 738 thousand jews.
It is of course necessary to add 107 thousand jews from the surrounding area Białegostoku, who were in the camp collected intermittently in the period from July 1942 to April 1943.
In Treblinka were killed and the 7,000 Slovak jews in these transports paid Tisova republic, according to some sources RM 500 per head.
Between 5. and 25. October came to Treblinka transports from Terezin - 8000 persons.
In march they were in the camp zplynovány transports from Greece - 4,000 people.
From march to April we had transports from Macedonia - 7000 persons.
At the end of march arrived one transport from Salonik - 2800 persons.
In addition, it was in the camp being gassed 2000 roma.

The main program of the extermination took place until April 1943. Later to camp arriving just isolated transports. After rounds Reichsführera-SS Heinrich Himmler in the camp, which took place at the end of February 1943, the order was given to cremate the remains.The bodies were burned on grates made of rails or in vyklizených mass graves. In the pits they lay about 1 m from the bottom of the rail at a distance of 30-40 cm. On them were placed the remains and prokládaly with wood. At the end of the borders of spilled gasoline and lit a match.
In the spring of 1943 broke out between prisoners caring about the running of the camp epidemic of typhoid fever.

During the existence of the camp there have been several attempts at revolt, the most famous is to kill an SS officer Max Biala prisoner Meir Berlinerem 11. September 1942. Only in the first days of the year 1943 saw the birth of a conspiracy cells of resistance. The main organizers of the group were Galewsky, Dr. J. Chorążycky, C. Kurland, R. Mazarek, Dr. Leichter most of them, however, did not survive the subsequent uprising in the camp.
The rebellion occurred when the cremation of the victims was coming to an end and it was clear that the camp will be destroyed together with the prisoners. The leadership of the resistance decided that rebellion will break out 2. August 1943 in 17 hours. At the beginning was all according to plan. Made copies of the key from the gun store, was the store opened, and weapons were distributed through the camp between the insiders of the prisoner. A minute before the actual start of the rebellion, wanted the rebels luck. Part of the soldiers of the SS came to bathe in the nearby river Bug, which whittled the number of guards in the camp.The rebels availed themselves of this situation and even from obyvy before dekonspirací uprising launched an attack a few hours earlier. The signal for the other prisoners was the ejection of the tank from the gasoline into the air. Then began to prisoners burning down wooden buildings. After attacked the guards.
Unfortunately, during the uprising failed to destroy the gas chambers. Most of the rebels were killed under the fire of machine guns from the guard towers, and a big number of fleeing prisoners died under the same fire in overcoming the barbed wire stretched between anti-tank obstacles.
The prisoners who managed to escape (200) and survive (60), were being persecuted by the local police, the guards unit of Treblinka I and other military units.The rest of the prisoners from Treblinka were immediately executed, only a handful were left alive due to the dismantling of the camp. Further implement the ploughing and the planting of trees. So that there are no traces of the existence of the camp. The gas chamber functioned even after the uprising, as the last in it were killed transports marked PJ 207 and PJ 208.

After the elimination of the last transport was the entire territory plowed. And built economic buildings to make it look like that there has never been anything other than a farmstead. To hospadářství was appointed Ukrainian officer Streibl.
Prisoners who discussed the camp were transported 20.October 1943, via Siedlce [šedlce] and in chełm into a death camp in Sobiborze [sobiboře]. 17. November 1943 came the last transport of the equipment of the camp.
The surviving prisoners after the war helped to reconstruct the appearance of the camp and to participate in the process against the officers of the SS command in the camp, the main process took place at the turn of the years 1964 - 65 . Process with Franco Stanglem was up to in 1940.

The total was in Treblinka murdered 700 - 900 thousand jews in the present time when there are new documents occurs in the precision of this number and this number is pretty greatly exceeds the upper limit of people murdered in the extermination camp Treblinka.




Legend for the map

Treblinka in August 1943

RESIDENTIAL CAMP
1. The main gate
2. Tyrolean the main guardhouse
3. Parking lot for armored vehicles
4. Space for relaxation of the soldiers of the SS
5. The barracks, dining room and accommodation of the soldiers of the SS
6. The weapons depot.
7. The barracks, located the SS.
8. Large tank for petrol and gas stations.
9. Garage
10. A large coal pile
11. The foundation
12. 'the ghetto' (accommodation for working jews)
13. Double fence - guard path.
14. Latrine.
15. Bakery (transformer - later the homestead for the Ukrainian guard)
16. House for Polish and Ukrainian women working in agriculture or in the home
17. Barracks, a dentist, a doctor and a barber for the SS
18. Kommandatura - the headquarters and administration
19. Cellar for wine & alcohol
20. 'Goldjude' ( centre of valuables stolen from the jews)
21. A rest area for the officers of the SS
22. Zoological garden and aviary
23. The barracks, the dentist and the doctor for Ukrainian guards
24. The barracks of the Ukrainian guards
25. Training ground and platform for the Ukrainian guard
26. Barracks, kitchen, canteen & common table room for Ukrainian guards
27. Cellar for liquor and wine
28. Potato mound /cellar
29. Barracks - unidentifiable (they appear on the slides of the country)
30. A permanent enclosure for the breeding of swine and chicken coop.
31. The economic court
32. Warehouse sooner.
33. Dump garbage + spalovácí area.

a RECEIVING CAMP
34. The station - yard.
35. Station - warehouses
35. Station -
35. Platform - ramp.
36. Barracks, a mock-up station (storage)
37. Barracks, the (sorting)
38. Marshalling station.
39. Old filled pit for corpses.
40. Lazarett, (field hospital, with the implementation of a mass grave in the rear)
41. Marshalling yards - latrine.
42. The mouth of the yard
43. Locker room (women left, men right).
44. Barracks (first houses for the men, later warehouses)
45. Barracks, the ( closet of women, warehouse of confiscated valuables, hair cutting, disinfecting the area)
46. "Der Schlauch" the journey of death for a camouflaged fence to the gas chambers.

DEATH CAMP
47. Unidentified fence in the area, perhaps for storage of firewood
48. Earth mound to prevent looking into the death camp
49. The new gas chamber
50. The old gas chamber + engineering for the production of carbon monoxide.
51. Mass graves, (and)the pit for the combustion experiments, (b) disused pit
52. Inside the temporary fence ( the Fence between the' Sonderkommando' of the barracks and the graves and at the same time patrol the path to the watch tower)
53. "Combustion area" or cremation lattice made of rails under the open sky. (a) of the cremation pit in mass graves.
54. Watchtower
55. The barracks for the jewish prisoners working in the 'Sonderkommando' .
56. Laundry
57. Limited coaster (later deleted, the track failed to be used for the test cremation of the grid)
58. The area of planted bushes and trees.
59. Embankment to prevent the direct observation of the camp, separating the entrance camp of death camp
60. Temporary position guard tower, later it was removed was then inside the camp of death.
61. A kitchen garden.
62. Street deportees



Sources:
The Encyclopaedia of The Holocaust
Arad: Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
Hilberg: Sonderzüge nach Auschwitz
Donat: The Death Camp Treblinka
Sereny: Into that Darkness
Willenberg: Bunt w Treblinka.

Map of treblinka source ARCFI (Aktion Reinhard Camps Foundation International.