Treblinka - July 20, 2010

Treblinka memorial with Star of David

Memorial candle at Treblinka

replica of train tracks - Trebinkla

memorial at Treblinka

vast woods - Treblinka

It was a warm and sunny day when I arrived at Treblinka. It was both a forced labor camp as well as an extermination camp. In reality, it was a factory of death, more than anything else. It is estimated that over 99% of arrivals at the camp were sent to the gas chambers immediately. Treblinka was located about 62 miles northeast of Warsaw. The camp received its first shipment of victims, 6,500 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto on July 22, 1942. The gas chambers became operational the following day. Shipments continued on a daily basis thereafter, usually between 4,000 and 7,000 victims per day. The killing center had no other function, unlike concentration camps, in which prisoners were used as forced labor for the German war effort. In order to prevent incoming victims from realizing their fate, the camp was disguised as a railway station, complete with train schedules posters of destinations, and what appeared to be a working clock (in reality, a prisoner would move the hands to the approximate time before each convoy arrived.
All that remains of the horrors of Treblinka are a symbolic set of tracks along with a huge memorial consisting of rock formations as far as the eye can see. On the day that I visited, the largest rock formation had a small Star of David laying at its base. Numerous memorial candles with melted wax had been placed at different locations where visitors had been. The vastness of the area and its quiet greenery felt eerily calm. Simply walking through this place of horror brought images of unimaginable crimes of humanity.