Treblinka Research Paper

“From door to door in forty-five minutes” was a common term heard around Treblinka, one of the most terrifying places on earth from July 1942 to November 1943. Forty-five minutes was the expected time to process and kill the prisoners coming off the trains from all parts of Poland. Treblinka, and many other camps, served as the final destination for many people, most notably the Jewish people. Stories of survival from Treblinka are rare, as there are only seventy known survivors, all but one, Samuel Willenberg, have since passed on. His story along with Kalman Taigman, are two of the most famous from Treblinka, but both have very different stories from one another. The residing Commandants of Treblinka took no mercy from their prisoners as
The stories of death and the mere chance of survival for 70 prisoners makes this camp one of the more infamous for all it has taken part in.
Treblinka operated officially between July 1942 and October 1943 during which Operation Reinhard was be taking place, the deadliest part of the Final Solution. 800,000 Jews as well as an unknown amount of Romani people died in its gas chambers or by execution. All of the victims were men, women, and children. At the end of it all, it was estimated that over 1,000,000 people perished in this execution camp.1 Treblinka was split up into two different parts, Treblinka I and Treblinka II. Treblinka I was a forced labor camp and would typically have 1,000-2,000 forced laborers at any given time. It was also said that during its existence, about 20,000 prisoners walked through there. Treblinka II was a much different camp. Set up into 3 different camps, Camp 1, 2, and 3. Camp 1 was the administrative and living compound for the Nazis. Camp 2, or Auffanglager, was the reception area for the prisoners coming in. From here,
“News of the German defeats filled the Jewish prisoners with both hope and trepidation. Many feared that the SS would soon liquidate the camp and its remaining prisoners so that all evidence of their heinous crimes would be destroyed.”9 Those who were in the camp wanted a way to escape and tell someone of the war crimes that the German’s were committing. The revolt was staged by the “Organizing Committee,” which consisted of Dr. Julian Chorazycki, “camp elder” Marceli Galewski, former Czech army officer Zelo Bloch, Zev Kurland, and Jankiel Wiernik, a carpenter who worked in the extermination area.”10 Samuel was unaware that the staging of a revolt was about to occur. How Samuel found out was in a truly remarkable way. While he was stationed with an Austrian guard, and elderly man walks into the room he is in, already stripped down and about to be executed, pleaded out that there is a conspiracy being planned to escape, but the Austrian guard couldn’t understand him and proceeded to shoot the man in the head. Leading up the revolt, the committee was faced with a major setback. Chorazycki, who was charged with the task of acquiring arms from outside was caught by the deputy commandant and would eventually commit suicide to prevent any other information from escaping. After hearing news of a revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto from prisoners coming off the trains, their morale’s and