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.