Treblinka () is a village located in eastern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, situated in the present-day

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Gmina Małkinia Górna __NOTOC__ Gmina Małkinia Górna is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Ostrów Mazowiecka County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Małkinia Górna, which lies approximately south-east of Ostrów Ma ...

, within

Ostrów Mazowiecka County Ostrów (Polish for "river island") may refer to: Places Poland ; Greater Poland Voivodeship * Ostrów Wielkopolski, a town in Greater Poland Voivodeship (west-central Poland) * Ostrów, Greater Poland Voivodeship in Greater Poland Voivodeship ( ...

Masovian Voivodeship Masovian Voivodeship or Mazowieckie Province (, ) and any variation thereof, is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) in east-central Poland, containing Poland's capital Warsaw. Masovian Voivodeship has an area of and had a 2019 po ...

, some north-east of

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. The village lies close to the

Bug River The Bug or Western Bug is a major river in Central Europe that flows through Belarus (border), Poland, and Ukraine, with a total length of .one of the Nazi extermination camps, named after the village. An estimated 850,000 people were murdered here during

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust saw the ghettoization, robbery, deportation and mass murder of Jews, alongside other groups under Nazi racial theories, similar racial pretexts in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland by the Nazi Germany. Over th ...

, from the summer of 1942 to October 1943. In addition, the Treblinka I ''

Arbeitslager ''Arbeitslager'' () is a German language word which means labor camp. Under Nazism, the German government (and its private-sector, Axis, and collaborator partners) used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially durin ...

'', a forced labor camp, had operated about six miles away, from June 1941 to 23 July 1944. During this period, more than 10,000 prisoners are estimated to have died from executions, malnutrition, disease and mistreatment.

World War II history

Treblinka was the location of

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Mas ...

, where an estimated 850,000 people were systematically murdered during

.Clancy Young
Treblinka.
Holocaust Research Project. About 800,000 of them were

Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

. The first deportations took place in the course of the ''

Grossaktion Warsaw The ''Grossaktion'' Warsaw ("Great Action") was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the ''Grossaktion'', Jews were terrorized in daily ro ...

'' with about 254,000

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

inmates brought in to their deaths in Holocaust trains in the summer of 1942. At the layover yard of Treblinka railway station, the wagons waiting for "processing" were witnessed by Franciszek Ząbecki. During the early period of the camp's operation, when thousands of dead bodies of victims were left unburied, the putrid odor of decaying human remains could be smelled for approximately in every direction. It was evident that mass extermination was taking place at the camp, which caused panic among the villagers. The onset of the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the ...

inspired renewed hopes for an escape among the Treblinka ''

Sonderkommandos ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ) were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the ...

''. On 19 April 1943, one of the last Jewish transports of 7,000 victims, along with the Warsaw insurgents, were brought in for gassing. Soon after the first prisoner uprising at a death camp against the '' SS'' erupted on 2 August 1943, under the leadership of former

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...

officer Dr. Berek Lajcher.Kopówka & Rytel-Andrianik 2011, chpt. Treblinka II. Some of these prisoners were aided in escaping across the Bug River by the Polish resistance, but few survived. The first commandant of the camp, from 11 July 1942 until 31 August 1942, was

Irmfried Eberl Irmfried Eberl (8 September 1910 – 16 February 1948) was an Austrian psychiatrist and medical director of the euthanasia institutes in Brandenburg and Bernburg, who helped set up and was the first commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp ...

, relieved of his duties for not being efficient and secretive enough about the camp's murder operation. He was succeeded by

Franz Stangl Franz Paul Stangl (; 26 March 1908 – 28 June 1971) was an Austrian police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka in World War II. Stangl, an employee of the T-4 Euthanasia Program and an SS commander ...

(previously the commandant of

Sobibor extermination camp Sobibor ( ; ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), ...

) as the second commandant of Treblinka II ''Vernichtungslager'' from 1 September 1942 until the 1943 Jewish uprising.BBC History of World War II. ''Auschwitz; Inside the Nazi State.'' Part 3: Factories of Death. The Nazi hierarchy took measures to modify the killing process under Stangl, who built more efficient

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History Donatie ...

s and massive cremation

pyre A pyre (; ), also known as a funeral pyre, is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite or execution. As a form of cremation, a body is placed upon or under the pyre, which is then set on fire. In discussi ...

s for the incineration of corpses. When the Treblinka death camp ended operations in October 1943, the Nazis attempted (in vain) to remove all evidence of its existence and the mass murder carried out there. Relatively little physical evidence remains. It can be examined at the Treblinka Museum, which is led by Edward Kopówka. The number of visitors there has been steadily growing. An earlier forced-labor camp known as Treblinka I ''

'', equipped with heavy machinery, was located from Treblinka. Between June 1941 and 23 July 1944, more than half of its 20,000 inmates mining gravel for the German military road construction, died from

summary execution In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, a ...

s, hunger, disease, and mistreatment under Commandant Theodor van Eupen.

Treblinka extermination camp museum

The construction of a stone monument with abstract reliefs and Jewish symbols was inaugurated on 21 April 1958 based on a design by sculptor Franciszek Duszeńko. He expressed the European trend toward stylized and avant-garde forms. The monument was unveiled by Zenon Kliszko, the

Marshal Marshal is a term used in several official titles in various branches of society. As marshals became trusted members of the courts of Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the title grew in reputation. During the last few centuries, it has been used fo ...

of the

Sejm of the Republic of Poland The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

on 10 May 1964; attendees included survivors of the Treblinka uprising from Israel, France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The official ceremony was attended by 30,000 people, when Treblinka was declared a national monument of martyrology. The camp custodian's house (built nearby in 1960) was adapted as an exhibition space following the

collapse of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

in 1989. Since the late 20th century, the number of visitors coming to Treblinka from abroad has steadily increased. An exhibition centre at the former camp opened in 2006. It was later expanded and made into a branch of the

Siedlce Siedlce () ( ) is a city in the Masovian Voivodeship in eastern Poland with 77,354 inhabitants (). The city is situated between two small rivers, the Muchawka and the Helenka, and lies along the European route E30, around east of Warsaw. It is ...

Regional Museum, under Dr Edward Kopówka.

Footnotes

Citations

References

*
Map of Treblinka

Jewish Community of Treblinka
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Holocaust locations in Poland