Treblinka (concentration camp): history. Memorial in Treblinka

Treblinka - a concentration camp near Warsaw (Poland), where in the period from 1942 to 1943, the Nazis destroyed the Jewish population of the occupied country. Researchers believe that about eight hundred thousand people died here, and most of them are Jews. Now about those terrible events like a memorial in memory of the innocent victims of the Holocaust.

The executioners acted in a mode of special secrecy: along the perimeter at a kilometer distance from the camp, a guard was opened, which opened fire on everyone who came closer to the put. The railway workers and the military accompanying the convoys were not admitted to the camp on pain of death. Moreover, even Luftwaffe aircraft were forbidden to fly in these coordinates.

The Jews of Poland

Poland is the country in which the huge Jewish diaspora was concentrated. By the beginning of the occupation, the Germans numbered more than three million people. Among them were outstanding scientists, teachers, artists - no one regretted the machine of Hitler.

Some, feeling the danger, moved to the territory of the USSR and Belarus in time, some more fled to Vilnius. Thus, under the department of the fascists on September 1, 1939 (the date of the invasion of Poland), 2 million Jews remained. All of them were subjected to a "final decision". Already on September 21, a working group was gathering, which decided to create reservations, where Jews from the occupied territories will be concentrated.

Thus, three ghettos are created on the territory of Poland - special places where the fascists place the Jewish population. Life in the ghetto is hunger, disease, deprivation and humiliation. But this did not solve the issue of destruction. So there is a monstrous plan - the so-called Reinhard operation, at the peak of which the destruction sites are created, including the Treblinka concentration camp. Jews were sent here mainly from the Warsaw ghetto. But we will discuss this further.

History of creation

When was Treblinka built? The concentration camp, whose history is so sad, begins to exist since 1942. Order of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler on April 17 began the construction of an extermination camp. Responsible was appointed Arpad Wiegand - Fascist deputy governor of Warsaw.

After solving bureaucratic delays, construction began in late May, and on July 22 of the same year the Treblinka concentration camp accepted the first Warsaw Jews. Initially, the unfortunate ones were not exterminated in such horrible amounts, but soon, by October 1942, after the construction of additional gas chambers and crematoria, the infernal destruction machine earned its full power.

Treblinka (concentration camp) existed until 1943. The turning point was the uprising of the prisoners of the labor camp, after which this terrible place was liquidated.

Infrastructure

How did this place function? How could the Nazis destroy at one time thousands of people: women, old people and children? Compositions of twenty cars, crowded with people, went immediately to destruction in gas chambers. By the way, d / f "Treblinka Concentration camp" describes these moments well, allowing to plunge into the horror of what is happening.

Consider the structure of Treblinka. So, 80 km from Warsaw on the field, four kilometers from the homonymous village, there is a place where Polish Jews were brought for punishment. A large clearing in 24 hectares was fenced with a three-meter barbed wire fence, to which a high voltage was applied. In addition, there was a three-meter ditch - an additional means of protection against shoots. The territory itself was in a ring from the forest. A branch of the railway approached the camp, along which the doomed were delivered.

The camp itself was divided into two. In the first (Treblinka 1), the prisoners were concentrated, providing partly the infrastructure of the camp. Of course, for the most part, the so-called "labor camp" was the place of the slow death of the unfortunate. The second - Treblinka 2 - was intended exclusively for the murder of Jews. In its territory there were barracks for undressing, gas chambers, crematoria and ditches for burial. In addition, here also lived the so-called Sonderkommando - Jews, selected to serve the killing. At regular intervals, they changed (the "old" Sonderkommands were killed).

Treblinka, a concentration camp that served 30 SS soldiers, also involved Ukrainians and prisoners of war who had crossed over to the enemy. The commandant was Franz Stengel. After the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Known prisoners: J. Korczak

Many human lives were carried away by Treblinka. The Concentration Camp deprived the world of outstanding people. There the great Polish teacher died, the author of the book "I give my heart to the children", Janusz Korczak. The children had all his life, and when the Nazis came to power, Korczak strongly guarded his pupils - children from the Orphans' Home. First in the ghetto, and then in Treblinka.

They wanted to save him, take him out of the ghetto, then there was another chance - Korczak was ready to take off from the car leaving Warsaw to the last refuge-Treblinka. He refused. Heroic Korczak entered the gas chamber with his children, comforting the kids, encouraging the elders.

S. Pullman: the tortured musician

Simon Pullman - an outstanding musician and teacher - is another whose life was interrupted by Treblinka. The Concentration Camp was for him the last station after his life in the Warsaw ghetto. There he created a symphony orchestra, and then, together with his fellow musicians, died in a gas chamber. The exact date of the death of a musician is unknown, as are the events preceding it.

The Rise of 1943

In 1943, the camp of death and the ghetto captures a wave of uprisings. Most likely, the impetus was a brutally suppressed revolt in the Warsaw ghetto. Although the prisoners understood their infirmity in comparison with the German military machine, they preferred to die in the struggle for freedom.

The uprising in Treblinka was initially doomed to failure. Indeed, what can people who are exhausted by labor and hunger do, armed only with picks and shovels, against camp staff with rifles in their hands? However, the prisoners consciously went for it.

The cause was the so-called "Operation 1005". After the deportation of the last train with the Jews from Warsaw, the Nazis needed to hide the traces of crimes as closely as possible. The remaining 1,000 prisoners forced to dig ditches with buried victims and burn the half-decayed corpses.

Gradually, the unfortunate people realize that once they finish their work, they will be killed. So the idea of rebellion was born. During the mutiny, the camp was burned almost completely. Most of the prisoners were shot while attempting to escape, others were caught in the woods, forced to finish work and also shot. Only a few managed to escape. Among them was Samuel Villenberg.

Samuel Villenberg is one of the survivors

By a lucky chance did not deprive the life of Samuel Villenberg Treblinka. Concentration camp (you can see his photo in the article), where he arrived on one of the trains, immediately seemed strange to Samuel. Therefore, he listened to the advice of one of those who met to be called a mason. Thus, he became the only survivor of the thousands doomed out of his lineup.

He lived in Treblinka, performing various jobs: from the sorter of things to the member of the Sonderkommando. The escape of Willenberg was successful - he was wounded in the leg, but managed to escape. Moreover, Samuel found his father alive and joined the underground. He died in late February 2016. After himself, Willenberg left a book of memoirs "The Rebellion in Treblinka."

Memorial

What is now Treblinka (concentration camp)? The memorial on the site of monstrous murders makes one remember everyone about the horrors of the Holocaust. It was opened in 1964. It represents a monument, and around 17 thousand stones - symbolic. That's how many people were killed in the camp at one time.

A place that evokes especially strong emotions, then, where in 1943 corpses were burned, are a few rails, burned and covered with a black layer of soot.

In the same 1964 in Treblinka, the Museum of the Memory of the Victims of Nazism was opened.