Treblinka, the Deadliest of all Camps

This exhibit is about Treblinka. Treblinka was a camp constructed under Operation Reinhard, which aimed in annihilating all European Jews. It has the second highest death toll of all Nazi concentration camps, an estimated 750,000, trailing only Auschwitz in the number of victims. However, Treblinka is not as known as Auschwitz, not even close. Contrary to Treblinka, Auschwitz is very well preserved and is notoriously famous.  

The uprising in August of 1943 started the destruction of the camp, which was then further dismantled as the Nazi’s tried to cover up their crimes. I decided to do an exhibit in Treblinka mainly because of this lack of fame. It is arguably the deadliest of all camps, and possibly the place in the world where most humans died at that fast of a rate. Over 10,000 people died daily, and in roughly two years of operation almost one million people died. Treblinka II was built solely for extermination.

As the exhibit will emphacise, Operation Reinhard was the last part of the “Final Solution” and also deadliest. The three extermination camps that were built under the command of Odilo Globočnik, Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, had a total death toll of more than 1.5M people in a time span of roughly than two years. Out of these three camps, Treblinka was the deadliest. I believe that it is of utmost importance to share and pass-on the knowledge of the atrocities committed during the holocaust from generation to generation, as it is the only way to ultimately avoid History from repeating itself or rhyming.

This exhibit is a compilation of countless hours of reading, researching and unveiling stories and facts of Treblinka and its survivors. Contrary to other more notorious camps, finding detailed information regarding Treblinka is a tough goal to accomplish, and I strongly believe that my trip to Poland, and subsequent visit to Treblinka, was of utmost importance when I was writing the exhibit. The camp guide disseminated information that is not easily found,  and feeling the eerie atmosphere of a place where so many lives where taken, in complete silence is an unforgettable feeling, which is hard to describe.

It was during my visit to the camp that I committed to not letting its history and legacy die. It is impossible to describe the feeling of visiting such place. When you visit the grounds of a former concentration camp, the atmosphere is something very eerie and a feeling of great sadness is imminently felt. Reading, hearing and watching documentaries cannot prepare you for the moment you actually visit one of these sites. As Stalin said, "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic," and unfortunately he is right.

It is hard to see within the number and realize that almost one million people were killed. In such short time, due to eugenics and the belief on a "superior Aryan race." Most of us never consider that the Germans could have won the war, and were leading it until early 1942. Thankfully, their aggressive strategy backfired when the U.S. joined the war, and Germany defied the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which agreed Hitler would not invade the USSR and most historians consider this to have been Hitler's big mistake. Thankfully they were defeated.

The world would be a very different place had the outcome been different. We humans have been through hard times and faced incredible challenges. The Second World War and the Holocaust happened less than a century ago, and there are people who deny that the holocaust even happened, one of which I had the  unfortunate fate of meeting. I will never forget that day.

It was April of 2016, and I travelled to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. However, I went home before the rest of the group I was with. In the flight from Santiago to Rio, I sat next to an elderly man, whom at first seemed to be friendly. I was reading Albert Speer's memoir, which contains an illustration of SS soldiers and several Swasticas in the cover. It was a day flight and soon we started a conversation. In a matter of seconds after he mentioned the book, he started his narrative of how the United States of America, Britain and the USSR invented the Holocaust out of nowhere to further ruin the Nazi's image throughout the world.

My grandfather and my grandmother's families witnessed the events, which the man was insisting did not happen. I hope you (reader) will never have to endure such situation and subsequently requesting to change your seats, and realizing that these people exist and try to change the facts. Looking back at that flight, I still remember the man's face, and it was the first and only Holocaust denier (at least one which expressed it). It was important as I realized that if in such small amount of time, people already deny the facts, how will the Holocaust be viewed in 200 years from now?

We must not let their voice be louder than ours. We must ensure that future generations are aware of the truth, as if less than a century later, despite all evidence clearly showing what happened, Holocaust deniers already exist. If we forget the stories, in a few generations from now people can end up knowing very little about the Holocaust, or having a distorted version of the facts.

Future generations have to be aware of what happened, exactly what happened. The grounds of Treblinka still contain the ashes of the massive victims of the 'Final Solution,' and denying that it ever happened will not bring those souls back to life. It only increases the odds of an eventual genocide occuring again. I hope that this exhibit is useful in conserving and summarizing the history of Treblinka, and as a way of honoring its victims.