By Justyna Politańska, HIA Fellow
As soon as we arrived
to Treblinka, our guide, historian Tomasz Cebulski said "I don't know what you
expect to see here, but you won't see anything." As it turned out, none of
us really needed to. The peaceful forest and the quiet, cool stone memorial
spoke for themselves.
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| Stone commemorating Jewish victims from Warsaw Photo by Benjamin Overton |
Our day began with the
screening of a short documentary showing a sequence of events that led to the horror
of death camps during WWII. First, it showed the beautiful and vibrant city of
Warsaw before 1939: its elegant citizens, prosperous shops and beautiful
buildings. A city where in the 20's and 30's a variety of nations, cultures and
religions lived together in peace. In fact, before the war broke out, 44% of
Warsaw citizens were Jewish! We all know what happened next: first the German,
then the Soviet army invaded Polish territory. From the very beginning of the
war all Polish Jews were being persecuted. In the center of Warsaw the Jewish
Ghetto was created. Some 500 000 people were squeezed in the area of one
district. At first, they tried to make the life in the Ghetto as
"normal" as possible: bakeries, shops, theatres and restaurants were
operating. But with time the situation
got worse and worse, with people dying every day because of hunger and disease.
Finally, the horror of living inside the Ghetto and the will to choose dying in
dignity rather than continue living under such terrible and humiliating
conditions led its inhabitants to the uprising. , The result of the uprising and the ensuing
battle was the complete destruction of the ghetto and extermination of all its
defendants, either right away or in the death camp of Treblinka.
Shortly after the
screening we met Tomasz Cebulski, a historian, who - as we learned moments
later - had an enormous knowledge about the Holocaust. Tomasz commented on the
film and then guided our trip to Treblinka, where approximately 900 000 people
perished over the span of just a few months.
I felt a bit puzzled
at Treblinka since – probably like many others - I was expecting to see
barracks, buildings and ramps, like in Auschwitz or Majdanek. It occurred to me
that Treblinka was one of the camps that the Germans managed to destroy
completely after completing their horrible task. Every corpse was burned and
every building was knocked down, so that no evidence of Nazis atrocities
remained.
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| HIA Fellows view the model of Treblinka II Extermination Camp Photo by Benjamin Overton |
Unlike Auschwitz,
where the labor camp and the death camp were operating close to each other,
Treblinka I (labor camp) and Treblinka II (death camp) were separated
completely. Smart thing to do from the Nazi perspective: no one from the labor
camp was aware of the genocide happening right around the corner. The fewer witnesses,
the better for the Nazi regime. There were very little chances of informing
anyone who might be able to help or inform others and very little chances for
people from both camps to joining their forces and standing shoulder by
shoulder against the perpetrators.
Each day about 6,000
people were killed in Treblinka II. First, the train arrived at the station
with up to 20 cattle wagons, each containing around 100 people. Prisoners
forced to work at the camp ("Sonderkommandos") helped people go out
of the trains. The newcomers were calmly told that Treblinka was only a
temporary place for them, and that they will be transported to other places
shortly. Men and women were separated and told to undress because of the disinfection
that needed to be carried out. Their hair was shaven and then they were led
naked to a brick building with a Star of David above the main entrance.
Sometimes there would be flowers or even musicians greeting those entering. Men
and women proceeded quietly and calmly to several smaller rooms and the doors
closed behind them. Shortly after, exhaust fumes were pumped into the rooms. It
took about 15 minutes to kill all 2000 people in the chambers. As we heard, the
Nazis realized that being calm and polite made the whole "procedure"
more efficient: people were not asking questions, nor trying to escape.
The next task of the
Sonderkommando's was to throw all the bodies into giant massive graves. But after
the mass graves of 23,000 Polish military officers massacred by the Soviet
regime were found in Katyń by the Germans themselves, they began to realize how
inconvenient it would be for them if the world uncovered the truth about their
horrible crimes in Poland. They forced Sondercomandos to exhume the bodies and
burn them so that no evidence would ever be found. The process of burning
several hundered thousand Jews that were already killed in Treblinka took
months.
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| The centerpiece of the memorial at the Museum of Fight and Martyrdom in Treblinka Photo by Benjamin Overton |
What usually strikes
me the most in all the death camps I have visited so far are not horrible
pictures or bloody descriptions. Simple images are the most shaking ones to me.
I remember being inside one of the buildings at Auschwitz. There was a clean,
nice and bright room. We walked into it and it turned out to be filled with
little shoes. The whole, huge room was filled with piles and piles of
children's shoes. It was the most painful and horrifying scene I saw in
Auschwitz and it made me burst into tears.
What horrified me in
Treblinka was how perfectly and meticulously the genocide was conducted. We
heard a story about a Jew who was arrested by the Nazis in 1939, and was
subsequently transferred between several camps. After being released, he
received a box containing every single personal belonging that was taken away
from him on the very first day he was arrested. It struck me how cold-blooded the
entire process was. The fact that the Nazis were able to plan every detail and
perform their crimes being so meticulous allowed them to do such unbelievably
horrible things. I also wasn't aware of the extent to which the Holocaust was a
profitable industry: not only did Germans use Jewish hair to produce special
kind of materials but also all personal belongings that were taken from Jews
arriving to the camp were then sent to other, labour camps in order to be
cleaned and repaired and afterwards sent to Germany! German citizens would wear
Jewish coats, glasses and other items in their daily lives, often without even
being aware of this.
I didn't need to see
any solid "evidence": buildings, gas chambers, rails, barbed wire.
Our guide's words echoed in the beautiful, peaceful forest of Treblinka as we
stood in front of the stone memorial saying "Never again" and
thinking about the impossible that happened in this place.
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| Candles and commemorative stones left at the Museum of Fight and Martyrdom in Treblinka Photo by Benjamin Overton |
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