TREBLINKA DEATH/LABOR CAMP By Lbiyemi Ojo

INTRODUCTION  The Holocaust started in 1933, murder or genocide towards Jews during the World War II, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party which swept through Poland and the Soviet Union. “The Holocaust was the Nazis’ systematic murder of millions of Jews and non-Aryans during World War II”. Treblinka Death Camp, where Jews are deported to, put to work, and later exterminated but some escaped at this camp, just like other death/labor camps.

TREBLINKA I  In November 1941, the SS and police authorities established a forced-labor camp for Jews, known as Treblinka, later called Treblinka I.  Also served as a so-called Labor Education Camp for non-Jewish poles.

TREBLINKA II  In July 1942, the Reinhard authorities completed the construction of a killing center, known as Treblinka II, approximately a mile from the labor camp.

T.II. CONT.  The Treblinka II killing center was located near the Polish village of Wolka Okraglik along the Malkinia-Siedlce railway line. The Germans built a rail spur that led from the labor camp, Treblinka I, to the killing center, Treblinka II, and that connected as well to the Malkinia station. The site of the killing center was heavily wooded and hidden from view.

 The camp was laid out in a trapezoid. Branches woven into the barbed-wire fence and trees planted around the perimeter served as camouflage, blocking any view into the camp from the outside. Watchtowers 26 feet high were placed along the fence and at each of the four corners.

 The camp was divided into three parts: the reception area, the living area, and the killing area. The living area contained housing for German staff and the guard unit. It also contained administrative offices, a clinic, storerooms, and workshops. One section contained barracks that housed those Jewish prisoners selected from incoming transports to provide forced labor to support the camp’s function: mass murder.

DEPORTATION  Late July - September 1942, the Germans deported around 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka.  August - November 1942, SS and police authorities deported around 346,000 Jews to Treblinka II from the Radom District.  October February 1943, the Germans deported more than 110,000 Jews from the Bialystok District to Treblinka II.  At least 33,300 Jews from District Lublin.

Deportations Cont.

RESISTANCE & REVOLT  The “Organizing Committee”, a group composed of prisoners from Treblinka I and II, was created to plan an uprising and mass escape.  August 2, 1943, the Committee launched their revolt: the leaders broke into the weaponry and the prisoners stormed the main gate and escaped.  300 prisoners escaped, but 2/3 were tracked down and killed.

END OF TREBLINKA  The Germans had ordered that Treblinka II be dismantled in the fall of  Treblinka I, the forced-labor camp, continued operations until late July  Treblinka had murdered about 800,000 individuals.  Compared to Auschwitz, believed about 1,290,000 were killed, Treblinka’s numbers were not horrifying.  Treblinka had more deaths than Belzec (400,000) and Sobibor (200,000)

CONCLUSION  For fourteen months the Treblinka's operation, that began in July 1942, murdered between 870,000 and 925,000 Jews by a staff of 150. From all the thousands of Jews murder, fewer than one hundred survived. This topic was very interesting to me from learning how and where the Jews were deported, what caused the camp to end, and how the Jews attempted to escaped. Throughout my years of going to school and learning about the Holocaust this is the first time I’ve heard about Jews planning or attempting to escape from a concentration, death, or labor camp.

TREBLINKA TODAY