'Aktion Reinhard'

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Fig. 4

Operation Reinhard was the name of the last part of the holocaust, the complete extermination of Jews in Poland. It was named after Reinhard Heydrich, "Fig. 4," a leading architect of the Holocaust that was killed in early 1942. “In October 1941, Himmler authorized SS General Odilo Globocnik (SS and police leader for the Lublin District of the General Gouvernement) to implement a plan to systematically murder all Jews residing in the General Gouvernement. In 1942, this project received the code name "Operation Reinhard" (‘Aktion Reinhard’).” (7)

The operation inaugurated three new camps, however, contrary to the other ones, the three new ones were not labor camps, but extermination camps. The three camps were Bełźec, Sobibór and Treblinka. It had a committee established in Lublin and Odilo Globočnik was the commander of the operation [(1) location 193].

Even though Globočnik is less known than the other important names of the holocaust, such as Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Hitler, he was an extremely evil man with a very important role during the holocaust. Globočnik was a high ranked officer in the Schutzstaffel (SS), and had an important role during the genocide, especially during the last phase of the holocaust, the Operation Reinhard.

The ‘Aktion Reinhard’ became the code name for the German plan to murder the approximately two million Jews residing in the so-called General Government.” (7) The operation was initiated approximately in autumn of 1941, while the Nazi’s were still on leading the war, and was “named after SS General Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), who died in June 1942 from injuries sustained during an assassination attempt by Czech partisans.” (7)

Death Toll

“The first transport of prisoners arrived on the 23rd of July 1942, bringing Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.” (18) It is estimated that in total, Treblinka had 700,000 victims, Belzec 500,000 and Sobibor 250,000, [(10) Page. 163] “a total of no fewer than 1.5 million men, women, and children, including infants” [(10) Page. 164] during the Operation Reinhard.

There is no evidence that the Nazi’s were counting how many victims there were, but the majority of “those murdered were Jews,” [(10) Page. 164] and the second highest number of casualties were Ethnic Poles. Transported “Jews were brought here mainly from the General Governorate, but also Białystok, the Theresienstadt ghetto and other ghettos in Czechoslovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, the USSR, as well as Germany and Austria. Romani and Sinti people from Poland and Germany were also brought here.” (18)