Treblinka’s Structure & Operations
Camp workers took those unable to walk to an area called the infirmary, replete with a Red Cross flag. Inside was a large ditch where they were killed.” (2) The camp was also sustained through forced labor of prisoners, as was described in Chil Rajchman’s memoir, which ultimately led to its destruction after the uprising in 1943.
Methods of killing & disposal of corpses
Unlike other camps, which featured gas chambers that used the Zyklon-B gas to murder their victims, the three camps built during Operation Reinhard used diesel engines (17). The Nizkor Project, a project will sole purpose of fighting Holocaust deniers, claims that the engines were “large 500 BHP engines from captured Soviet T-34 tanks.” (17) It is estimated that there were 13 gas chambers in total.
Furthermore, another characteristic of the three Operation Reinhard camps was the lack of crematoriums. The victims were thrown into burial pits. “Running back and forth several times I finally see what things look like in the deep pit: several laborers stand in the pit, all of them Jews, and lay out the dead bodies one next to the other. That is how the work proceeds. The pit becomes more and more full.” (11)
Who were the workers?
Slave laborers in the Nazi camps were called Sonderkommando’s. As Samuel Willenberg describes in the documentary, initially workers would arrive in trains, be forced to work during the day and were killed at night. However, camp administrators did not think it was efficient, and switched to having fixed workers. About 25 SS officers oversaw the operations of the camp, and those who lived in the camp (15) settled down in the living facilities in Treblinka I. The Nazi’s used Soviet prisoners of wars (referred to as Hiwi guards) and Jewish slave laborers to do the sinister tasks of, separating clothes, deciding who lived and who died, killing and disposing of the corpses, etc. (15)
Who were the SS leaders of the camp?
During its lifespan, the camp had three different commandants. The commandants were also known as euthanasia officials, and were assigned by the Globočnik. The first commander of Treblinka, or euthanasia official, was Irmfried Eberl. In a couple of months, “Stangl was transferred to take charge of Treblinka, replacing Dr. Irmfried Eberl, also a former euthanasia official.” [(10) Page. 174] The last euthanasia official was Kurt Franz, who had a strong connection with Globočnik. [(10) Page. 342]
Who were the main victims?
Jews were not the only ones murdered during the Holocaust, neither in Treblinka. In July 2015, I had the opportunity to visit the camp. It was a moment of great emotion for me. My family (from my father’s side) had a very important role in defending Poland during WW2. My ancestors were relatively wealthy and non-Jewish, nevertheless, only two members survived preceding the war: my Grandfather, Jerzy Viktor Jakurski, and my Grandmother, Maria Jakurska.
My grandfather, had an important role in the Armja Krajova, and their family was targeted due to their wealth and notable role in fighting the Nazi’s. Consequently, he thinks that the NSDAP disappeared with all their family members, and before passing away in 2005, my had already said several times that he believes they were most likely in Treblinka. Therefore, when we visited the camp, it was a very intense and emotional experience.
The question whether how many non-Jews died as a result of the holocaust remains a mystery. “According to historian Deborah Lipstadt, he began to refer to “eleven million victims” of the Holocaust, six million Jews and five million non-Jews in the 1970s.” (13) This estimate depicts the high number of non-Jews that were murdered during the holocaust. Contrary to popular belief, the estimates point out that the number of non-Jews killed was high.
Hitler first expressed his hate for Jews in his book, Mein Kampf. Antisemitism was an inherent foundation to the regime; however certain non-Jewish groups were targeted by the NSDAP. Before I start outlining the details, ask yourself, why did/would Hitler kill non-Jews? “German National Socialism from its beginnings sought to create a unified and racially pure Germanic people or national community.” [(10) Page. 161] Therefore, “by definition, non–Germanics were unwanted, which, in a practical sense, meant forced emigration, expulsion, deportation, resettlement, call it what one will, of all those people deemed to belong to unwanted groups.” [(10) Page. 161] Were the Jewish people the only ones targeted during holocaust? No. As previously mentioned, Hitler had a vision of “a Master Race of Aryans that would control Europe” and sought to expedite their glory by exterminating not only Jews, but every person they deemed to be racially inferior or simply ‘non-Aryan.’
Hitler also hated Poland and its people (polonophobia (9)). Poland had a high number of Jews within its population, and was the first country to be invaded by the Germans in September of 1939. The Nazi racial theory justified the “cleansing” of Poles and Jewish Poles during the holocaust, and led to many non-Jews being murdered. Treblinka was strategically placed near Warsaw, to facilitate the transportations of people from the Ghetto to the camp. As it is described in the memoir, ‘A year in Treblinka’, people would disappear with no trace, and these individuals knew little about the brutal reality they would soon suffer, “I had left a packed knapsack and a pair of high boots at home, which I had prepared because of rumors that we were to be taken to the Ukraine and put to work there.” [(20) Location 87] More than 18% of all Poles were killed during WW2.
The Nazi’s wanted an efficient camp to kill their enemies. Treblinka II was a game changer due to the proximity to Warsaw, and the amount of people that could be killed each day [(11) Page. 64]. Chil Rajchman recounts in his memoir that “approximately ten thousand people a day” would arrive in the camp to be killed. He describes not being able to see a thing, but the usual screams could be heard [(11) Page. 64]. Other sources state that in the first two months of operations of the Treblinka II camp, more than 250,000 Polish citizens were transported and killed (2). There were so many people arriving to be killed that they soon had to expand the crematorium.