Treblnka

Next to Auschwitz, Treblinka is believed to be an extermination camp where the largest number of people were murdered by the Nazis; between 700,000 and 900000. However, unlike Auschwitz, Treblinka formed part of Operation Reinhard.

Since I first visited Poland in 2009, which first ignited my interest in the Holocaust, I have always wanted to visit the former site of the Treblinka Extermination Camp. I finally made it in 2016.

Although the former camp site is similar to Belzec and Sobibor, in that most of the camp has now gone, it was by far the highlight of all the trips I have made to the various former camp sites.

Treblinka - Treblinka I was formed of two distinct areas, separated by approximately 1.5km. The labour camp was in operation between June 1941 and August 1944 and the extermination part of the camp performed as part of the Operation Reinhard from the end of July 1942 and the middle of August 1943. Approximately 20000 people passed through the labour camp with approximately half of them dying from disease, exhaustion and hunger. There were between 1- 2000 prisoners who lived in wooden barracks, mainly Polish but also included some Jews. The prisoners from the labour camp were forced to work in an open gravel pit, producing road material for use by the Germany military and part of a strategic road building programme in the Soviet Union. And the forest cutting wood, which was used as fuel for the open-air crematorium.

From April to June 1942 some of these prisoners dug the foundations for the extermination part of the camp. The extermination part of the camp, Treblinka II,  was located in a forest approximately 4km from Treblinka station and approximately 50km from Warsaw (the proximity relevant to its role; extermination of the Warsaw Jews hold-up in the ghetto. The camp was surrounded by a double row of barbed wire with a patrol area between the two fences.

Treblinka II was divided into 3 parts, Camp 1 was the administrative part and where the guards lived, Camp 2 was the receiving area which included the railway unloading ramp that extended from the Treblinka line that entered the camp where incoming prisoners were off-loaded and Camp 3 where the gas chambers were located. This camp was surrounded by barbed wire and was camouflaged by spruce branched.

Sobibor Construction work has begun in March 2017

I have just noted that work has finally began on the new museum a the former site of the Sobibor Extermination camp ( March 2017). I am glad that I have visited the former site at Sobibor before the work begins in case the authorities create another concrete megastructure as they did at Belzec.  When you visit Belzec you are amazed by the size of the concrete structure rather than thinking about what used to be there, an extermination camp. When I visited Sobibor last year, in its current form, I could feel the isolation of the location of the camp and the desolation from where the Nazis had tried to erase their crimes. I have looked at the plans of what the authorities are building at the former extermination camp, and I feel that this may be spoilt, as they have done ay Belzec and Treblinka 2. I can understand the need for memorials to commemorate all those that died in these camps, however the size of the memorials have changed the character of these sites. I feel this will now happen in Sobibor.


The red sculpture of a woman holding
a child at Sobibor



The memorial structure a Belzec




The memorial at Treblinka 2

As I mentioned in the blog, at Sobibor I found a sculpture of a woman holding a child. This was as striking a sculpture as any of the larger monuments I saw at any of the camps.  By building these large memorial structures I feel that something has been lost from these camps, and Sobibor is heading that way, its a shame.

Treblinka - The Labour Camp - Overview

I drove into the area where the labour camp was located. The remains of the labour camp is situated in a large clearing surrounded by tall trees. I started by taking a video and a few pictures showing the whole area showing a panoramic view of the area. It was quite windy on the day that I visited (evident from the video) and the trees creaked and made odd noises that put a shiver down my back.  I have visited several camps, but my visit to the labour camp made me feel very uncomfortable.

Shows the area where section 3 of the
labour camp would have been located.
Foundations of the a storeroom in the
foreground.











Shows the area of Section 1.
The foundations in the foreground are
the former barracks for Jewish men
and the tailor barracks behind.

Apparently this area was segregated from the rest of the camp and surrounded by a double fence of barbed wire that enclosed a patrol corridor where the guards would patrol the perimeter, presumably with dogs. Interestingly there was an undisturbed ploughed strip in this controlled region that would show footprints if anyone entered it. None of this remains.

The area containing the prisoners was divided into three sections: Section 1 contained the kitchen and sewing shops (where I took the pictures above), Section 2 is where Jews lived that were used for forced labour (in the middle of the area) and finally section 3 is where the Polish prisoners lived (furthest part of the clearing). The photographs I took while visiting the labour camp concentrate on Section 1 and 2, as there did seem to be much left in the furthest part where section 3 would have been located.