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Jewish inmates getting off the train at Treblinka.

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Transportation of Jewish inmates was mostly by rail. They would use cattle cars with no seats, nowhere to use the bathroom, and often no airflow or light. They wouldn't get food or water, even though the journeys would take days.

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Extermination Camps In Occupied Poland 1942

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Treblinka was one of four camps linked to Operation Reinhard. It was first built as a labor camp. Treblinka was heavily wooded and hidden from view. Pine branches woven into the eight-foot-tall barbed-wire fence and trees around the camp served as camouflage, blocking any view into the camp from the outside.

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The first transports reached Treblinka on July 23, 1942; including Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. From that day until September 21, 1942, approximately 254,000 Jews from Warsaw and 112,000 Jews from other places in the Warsaw district were murdered at Treblinka.

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Survivor Testimony About Treblinka Death Camp

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Camp personnel murdered an estimated 925,000 Jews at Treblinka. They also killed an unknown number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet POWs.

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The Treblinka extermination camp (centre) was built by the Germans in mid-1942 next to a nearby penal labour camp. It was established as a part of Operation Reinhard, the goal of which was to eliminate the Jewish population. It covered an area of 17 hectares and was surrounded by a high barbed wire…

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The Sonderkommando was a group of Jewish prisoners selected to remain alive as forced laborers. Members of this group worked in the killing area. They removed bodies from the gas chambers and initially buried them in mass graves. The forced laborers were ordered to burn the bodies on open-air “ovens” made from rail track.

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Jewish inmates organized a resistance group in early 1943. On August 2, 1943, prisoners quietly seized weapons from the camp armory. However, they were discovered before they could take over the camp. Hundreds of prisoners stormed the main gate in an attempt to escape. Many were killed by machine-gun fire. More than 300 did escape—though two-thirds of them were eventually tracked down and killed by German SS and police, as well as by military units. Surviving prisoners were forced to dismantle the camp. Afterwards, the German SS and police authorities shot the prisoners.

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<img src="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/1c772279-a5ce-457d-aeb0-a50408560715.jpg" alt="Three men walk together down the middle of a busy street. Each one is wearing a suit of a different color.">

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Victims would often be stripped and forced to run around. Those selected would be immediately taken to gas chambers.

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The authorities at the killing center, Treblinka II, consisted of a staff of between 25 and 35 German SS and police officials. SS Captain Theodor van Eupen was the commandant of Treblinka I, the labor camp, from 1941 through 1944.

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Train station near the Treblinka killing center.

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German officials ordered that Treblinka II be dismantled in the fall of 1943. Camp authorities and Trawniki guards shot the 300-700 remaining Jewish prisoners. The camp was hastily dismantled and evacuated.

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All traces of Treblinka were destroyed. Lupine flowers were sown on the grounds, and an ethnic German farmer was installed on the property to camouflage the reality of what had occurred at this site.