Treblinka concentration camp

Treblinka
Extermination camp
Concrete blocks mark the path of the former railway line at Treblinka
Treblinka Location of Treblinka in Poland
Coordinates	52°37′51.85″N 22°3′11.01″E / 52.6310694°N 22.0530583°E / 52.6310694; 22.0530583Coordinates: 52°37′51.85″N 22°3′11.01″E / 52.6310694°N 22.0530583°E / 52.6310694; 22.0530583
Known for	Genocide during the Holocaust
Location	Near Treblinka, General Government (German-occupied Poland)
Built by	Richard Thomalla (death camp) Erwin Lambert (gas chambers) Christian Wirth Schoenbronn Company, Leipzig Schmidt–Munstermann, Warsaw branch
Operated by	SS-Totenkopfverbände
Commandant	Irmfried Eberl (11 July 1942 – 26 August 1942) Franz Stangl (1 September 1942 – August 1943) Kurt Franz (August 1943 – November 1943)
Original use	Extermination camp
First built	April 1942 – July 1942
Operational	22 July 1942 – October 1943
Number of gas chambers	6
Inmates	Jews, mostly Polish
Number of inmates	Est. 1,000 Sonderkommando
Killed	Est. 700,000–900,000
Liberated by	Closed in late 1943
Notable inmates	Richard Glazar Artur Gold Janusz Korczak Jankiel Wiernik Samuel Willenberg
Notable books	A Year in Treblinka Into That Darkness Old and New Memories

Treblinka (pronounced [trɛˈblʲinka]) was an extermination camp, built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was located in a forest north-east of Warsaw, 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the Treblinka train station in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed in its gas chambers, along with 2,000 Romani people. More Jews were killed at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz.

Managed by the German SS and Trawnikis (also known as Hiwi guards – the auxiliary police enlisted from Soviet POW camps to assist the Germans), the camp consisted of two separate units. Treblinka I was a forced-labour camp (Arbeitslager) whose prisoners worked in the gravel pit or irrigation area and in the forest, where they cut wood to fuel the crematoria. Between 1941 and 1944, more than half of its 20,000 inmates died from summary executions, hunger, disease and mistreatment.

The second camp, Treblinka II, was an extermination camp (Vernichtungslager). A small number of men who were not killed immediately upon arrival became its Jewish slave-labour units called Sonderkommandos, forced to bury the victims' bodies in mass graves. These bodies were exhumed in 1943 and cremated on large open-air pyres along with the bodies of new victims. Gassing operations at Treblinka II ended in October 1943 following a revolt by the Sonderkommandos in early August. Several SS Hiwi guards were killed and 200 prisoners escaped from the camp; almost a hundred survived the subsequent chase. The camp was dismantled ahead of the Soviet advance. A farmhouse for a watchman was built on the site and the ground ploughed over in an attempt to hide the evidence of genocide.

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