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126-566: Excavations along the western edge of the Roman camp have discovered a few funeral pyre graves dating to the late Bronze Age ( c. 1000–800 BC). The first settlement of Vindonissa was a 1st-century BC Helvetii fortified village on the peninsula between the Aare and Reuss rivers. The settlement was protected by an approximately 350 meters (1,150 ft) long wood and earth wall, with an up to 7 m (23 ft) deep trench which stretched across

252-447: A Red Army tank. SS- Scharführer Erich Fuchs was responsible for installing it. The engine was brought in by the SS at the time of the camp's construction and housed in a room with a generator that supplied the camp with electricity. The tank engine exhaust pipe ran just below the ground and opened into all three gas chambers. The fumes could be seen seeping out. After about 20 minutes

378-416: A funeral pyre , is a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite or execution. As a form of cremation , a body is placed upon or under the pyre, which is then set on fire. In discussing ancient Greek religion , "pyre" (the normal Greek word for fire anglicized) is also used for the sacred fires at altars, on which parts of the animal sacrifice were burnt as an offering to

504-467: A Jewish eyewitness, one of about 100 people who escaped during the 1943 uprising, told of the camp's state when he arrived there in August 1942: When we were unloaded, we noticed a paralysing view – all over the place there were hundreds of human bodies. Piles of packages, clothes, suitcases, everything in a mess. German and Ukrainian SS-men stood at the corners of the barracks and were shooting blindly into

630-515: A body completely. Every year fifty to sixty million trees are burned during cremations in India, which results in about eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions . Air pollution , deforestation and large quantities of ash , which are later thrown into rivers , adding to the toxicity of its waters, pose great environmental problems. The Green Revolution Foundation, under its parent organization Sarthak Charitable Trust,

756-426: A brief verbal announcement. An earlier signboard with directions was removed because it was clearly insufficient. The deportees were told that they had arrived at a transit point on the way to Ukraine and needed to shower and have their clothes disinfected before receiving work uniforms and new orders. Treblinka received transports of almost 20,000 foreign Jews between October 1942 and March 1943, including 8,000 from

882-408: A cart to the gravel work detail. At 3:45 p.m., 700 Jews launched an insurgency that lasted for 30 minutes. They set buildings ablaze, exploded a tank of petrol, and set fire to the surrounding structures. A group of armed Jews attacked the main gate, and others attempted to climb the fence. Machine-gun fire from about 25 Germans and 60 Ukrainian Trawnikis resulted in near-total slaughter. Lajcher

1008-582: A communiqué published by the Office of Information of the Armia Krajowa , based on observation of Holocaust trains passing through the village of Treblinka. The 39 wagons that came to Treblinka on 19 August 1943 were carrying at least 7,600 survivors of the Białystok Ghetto Uprising . On 19 October 1943, Operation Reinhard was terminated by a letter from Odilo Globocnik. The following day,

1134-481: A competent administrator with a good understanding of the project's objectives, and Globocnik trusted that he would be capable of resuming control. Stangl arrived at Treblinka in late August 1942. He replaced Eberl on 1 September. Years later, Stangl described what he first saw when he came on the scene, in a 1971 interview with Gitta Sereny : The road ran alongside the railway. When we were about fifteen, twenty minutes' drive from Treblinka, we began to see corpses by

1260-480: A fake infirmary called "Lazarett", with the Red Cross sign on it. It was a small barracks surrounded by barbed wire, where the sick, old, wounded and "difficult" prisoners were taken. Directly behind the "Lazarett" shack, there was an open excavation pit seven metres (23 ft) deep. These prisoners were led to the edge of the pit and shot one at a time by Blockführer Willi Mentz , nicknamed "Frankenstein" by

1386-523: A fake train-station clock with hands painted on it, names of destinations, a fake ticket window, and the sign "Ober Majdan", a code word for Treblinka commonly used to deceive prisoners arriving from Western Europe. Majdan was a prewar landed estate 5 km (3.1 mi) away from the camp. The mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began on 22 July 1942 with the first transportation of 6,000 people. The gas chambers began to be operated

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1512-524: A flat grave marker resembling one of them. It is constructed from melted basalt and has a concrete foundation. It is a symbolic grave, as the Nazis spread the actual human ashes, mixed with sand, over an area of 2.2 ha (5.4 acres). The camp was operated by 20–25 German and Austrian members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände and 80–120 Wachmänner ("watchmen") guards who had been trained at

1638-472: A guard at Treblinka II. He was instructed to tell visitors that he had been farming there for decades, but the local Poles were well aware of the existence of the camp. SS- Obersturmführer Irmfried Eberl was appointed the camp's first commandant on 11 July 1942. He was a psychiatrist from Bernburg Euthanasia Centre and the only physician-in-chief to command an extermination camp during World War II. According to some, his poor organisational skills caused

1764-441: A high wooden fence. Originally, they consisted of three interconnected barracks 8 m (26 ft) long and 4 m (13 ft) wide, disguised as showers. They had double walls insulated by earth packed down in between. The interior walls and ceilings were lined with roofing paper. The floors were covered with tin-plated sheet metal, the same material used for the roof. Solid wooden doors were insulated with rubber and bolted from

1890-455: A kitchen, a bakery, and dining rooms; all were equipped with high-quality items taken from Jewish ghettos. The Germans and Ukrainians each had their own sleeping quarters, positioned at an angle for better control of all entrances. There were also two barracks behind an inner fence for the Jewish work commandos, known as Sonderkommandos . SS-Untersturmführer Kurt Franz set up a small zoo in

2016-477: A large group of Jewish Arbeitskommandos who had worked on dismantling the camp structures over the previous few weeks were loaded onto the train and transported, via Siedlce and Chełm , to Sobibór to be gassed on 20 October 1943. Franz followed Globocnik and Stangl to Trieste in November. Clean-up operations continued over the winter. As part of these operations, Jews from the surviving work detail dismantled

2142-471: A long period of secret preparations. The clandestine unit was first organised by a former Jewish captain of the Polish Army , Dr. Julian Chorążycki , who was described by fellow plotter Samuel Rajzman as noble and essential to the action. His organising committee included Zelomir Bloch (leadership), Rudolf Masaryk , Marceli Galewski, Samuel Rajzman, Dr. Irena Lewkowska ("Irka", from the sick bay for

2268-645: A practiced form of burial. Open-air cremations, known as funeral pyres, are uncommon and even illegal in some countries, particularly in the Western World, because it is considered taboo . While cremation is commonplace, open air cremations in the United Kingdom were considered to be unlawful under the Cremation Act 1902 . The law was created to prevent the creation of a private cremation industry and because of issues concerning property. But at

2394-419: A pyre. Coloring of bones before cremation is dependent on oxygen exposure, duration, and temperature. The bone color can range from black to brown or an oxidized white color. The type of bone and method of cooling may also alter the bone form. Cooling is also an important consideration, for if the remains are cooled via water it increases warping. This knowledge is a consideration for archaeologists to understand

2520-417: A revolt by the prisoners in early August. Several Trawniki guards were killed and 200 prisoners escaped from the camp; almost a hundred survived the subsequent pursuit. The camp was dismantled in late 1943. A farmhouse for a watchman was built on the site and the ground ploughed over in an attempt to hide the evidence of genocide . In the postwar Polish People's Republic , the government bought most of

2646-578: A special SS facility in the Trawniki concentration camp near Lublin , Poland; all Wachmänner guards were trained at Trawniki. The guards were mainly ethnic German Volksdeutsche from the east and Ukrainians, with some Russians, Tatars , Moldovans, Latvians, and Central Asians , all of whom had served in the Red Army. They were enlisted by Karl Streibel , the commander of the Trawniki camp, from

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2772-485: A trace of remorse just murdered every little thing." Willenberg and Taigman emigrated to Israel after the war and devoted their last years to retelling the story of Treblinka. Escapees Hershl Sperling and Richard Glazar both suffered from survivor guilt syndrome and eventually killed themselves. Chaim Sztajer, who was 34 at the time of the uprising, had survived 11 months as a Sonderkommando in Treblinka II and

2898-501: A widow of the deceased husband with his corpse or remains. This involves volunteering oneself (and generally being in state of samadhi ) to be burnt alive on the pyre with the remains of her husband for higher state of life. Chakrabarty RK, et al. examined the environmental effects of Southern Asia's funeral pyres in their study, "Funeral pyres in South Asia: Brown carbon aerosol emissions and climate impacts". The heating of

3024-426: A workforce of 1,000–2,000 prisoners, most of whom worked 12- to 14-hour shifts in the large quarry and later also harvested wood from the nearby forest as fuel for the open-air crematoria in Treblinka II. There were German, Czech and French Jews among them, as well as Poles captured in łapankas , farmers unable to deliver food requisitions, hostages trapped by chance, and people who attempted to harbour Jews outside

3150-472: Is a Delhi-based NGO working to reduce the environmental impact of funeral pyres. They claim to have created an alternative to wood-based funeral pyres, which reduces the number of trees which need to be cut down. Their alternative also promotes the Swachh Bharat Mission . As a result, the cost is reduced significantly and emissions are cut by up to 60%. In ancient times burning bodies was

3276-425: Is commonly worn. A study was done on the bone fragments of cremations to show that not only will movement of the bone fragments cause breakage but also environmental factors play a part. After studying cremation remains in urns that had been tightly sealed and had no evidence of environmental disturbance it was found that on average bigger bone fragment sizes were observed meaning less bone breakage had occurred. It

3402-467: Is considered one of the oldest standing cities. Hindu's believe that by resting the ashes of the dead in the Ganges river in at Varanasi, the dead will achieve Moksha . Hindus will travel great lengths in order to perform ritualistic duties such as praying, attending to their dead, or to die. Some Hindu groups practiced Sati (also known as suttee). Sati is the act of volunteered self immolation of

3528-402: Is without suspicious burn patterns compared to an individual murdered via pyre. Cremated remains are different from traditional human remains in the sense that their physical appearance including bone vary in color, fragmentation, and differ from their original shape and dimension. This is why forensic experimental studies are necessary to fully understand the differences the body undergoes in

3654-629: The Deutsche Reichsbahn . Most of those murdered at Treblinka were Jews, but about 2,000 Romani people were also murdered there. Like the Jews, the Romani were first rounded up and sent to the ghettos. At a conference on 30 January 1940 it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany proper were to be deported to former Polish territory. Most of these were sent to Jewish ghettos in

3780-736: The Hiwis ), Leon Haberman, Chaim Sztajer , Hershl (Henry) Sperling from Częstochowa , and several others. Chorążycki (who treated the German patients) killed himself with poison on 19 April 1943 when faced with imminent capture, so that the Germans could not discover the plot by torturing him. The next leader was another former Polish Army officer, Dr. Berek Lajcher , who arrived on 1 May. Born in Częstochowa, he had practised medicine in Wyszków and

3906-776: The Katyn Commission to prove that the Soviets were solely responsible, and used radio broadcast and newsfilm to alert the Allies to this war crime. Subsequently, the Nazi leadership, concerned about covering up their own crimes, issued the secret orders to exhume the corpses buried at death camps and burn them. The cremations began shortly after Himmler's visit to the camp in late February or early March 1943. To incinerate bodies, large cremation pits were constructed at Camp 3 within Treblinka II. The burning pyres were used to cremate

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4032-554: The SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka by the Nazis. A small number of Jewish men who were not murdered immediately upon arrival became members of its Sonderkommando whose jobs included being forced to bury the victims' bodies in mass graves. These bodies were exhumed in 1943 and cremated on large open-air pyres along with the bodies of new victims. Gassing operations at Treblinka II ended in October 1943 following

4158-606: The Sonderkommandos to be exchanged for the next set of twenty wagons. Members of all work units were continuously beaten by the guards and often shot. Replacements were selected from the new arrivals. There were other work details which had no contact with the transports: the Holzfällerkommando ("woodcutter unit") cut and chopped firewood, and the Tarnungskommando ("disguise unit") camouflaged

4284-629: The Tarnungskommando (the work detail led out to collect them). From the undressing barracks, a fenced-off path led through the forested area to the gas chambers. The SS cynically called it die Himmelstraße ("the road to heaven") or der Schlauch ("the tube"). For the first eight months of the camp's operation, the excavator was used to dig burial ditches on both sides of the gas chambers; these ditches were 50 m (160 ft) long, 25 m (82 ft) wide, and 10 m (33 ft) deep. In early 1943, they were replaced with cremation pyres up to 30 m (98 ft) long, with rails laid across

4410-457: The Totenjuden barracks occurred at the rate of 15 to 20 per day. The work crews were almost entirely replaced every few days; members of the old work detail were murdered except for the most resilient. In early 1943, an underground Jewish resistance organisation was formed at Treblinka with the goal of seizing control of the camp and escaping to freedom. The planned revolt was preceded by

4536-507: The front . With almost all the Jews from the German ghettos (established in Poland) murdered, there would have been little point in rebuilding the facility. Auschwitz had enough capacity to fulfil the Nazis' remaining extermination needs, rendering Treblinka redundant. The camp's new commandant Kurt Franz , formerly its deputy commandant, took over in August. After the war he testified that gassings had stopped by then. In reality, despite

4662-506: The mass graves were overflowing. According to the testimony of his colleague Unterscharführer Hans Hingst , Eberl's ego and thirst for power exceeded his ability: "So many transports arrived that the disembarkation and gassing of the people could no longer be handled." On incoming Holocaust trains to Treblinka, many of the Jews locked inside correctly guessed what was going to happen to them. The odour of decaying corpses could be smelled up to 10 km (6.2 mi) away. Oskar Berger,

4788-453: The 1943 prisoner uprising and escaped, when the doors of the gas chambers had been opened, the bodies of the victims were standing and kneeling rather than lying down, due to the severe overcrowding. Dead mothers embraced the bodies of their children. Prisoners who worked in the Sonderkommandos later testified that the dead frequently let out a last gasp of air when they were extracted from the chambers. Some victims showed signs of life during

4914-481: The Camp 2 Auffanglager receiving area each squad had a different coloured triangle. The triangles made it impossible for new arrivals to try to blend in with members of the work details. The blue unit ( Kommando Blau ) managed the rail ramp and unlocked the freight wagons. They met the new arrivals, carried out people who had died en route, removed bundles, and cleaned the wagon floors. The red unit ( Kommando Rot ), which

5040-539: The Crestone End of Life Project, obtained legal permission to perform "open-air cremations". Others have attempted to open up more outdoor funeral pyres but have faced disapproval. Crestone, Colorado is the only place where open-air cremations are legal in the United States. They can perform around 12 a year, regardless of religion and families can be involved in the process if they would like. At this time,

5166-593: The General Government during Aktion Reinhard were overseen in occupied Poland by Odilo Globocnik , a deputy of Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS, in Berlin. The Operation Reinhard camps reported directly to Himmler. The staff of Operation Reinhard, most of whom had been involved in the Action T4 "involuntary euthanasia" programme, used T4 as a framework for the construction of new facilities. Most of

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5292-538: The General Government, such as those in Warsaw and Łódź. As with the Jews, most Romani who went to Treblinka were murdered in the gas chambers, although some were shot. The majority of the Jews living in ghettos were sent to Bełżec, Sobibór, or Treblinka to be murdered; most of the Romani living in the ghettos were shot on the spot. There were no known Romani escapees or survivors from Treblinka. After undressing, newly arrived Jews were beaten with whips to drive them towards

5418-857: The German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia via Theresienstadt , and over 11,000 from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace , Macedonia , and Pirot following an agreement with the Nazi-allied Bulgarian government. They had train tickets and arrived predominantly in passenger carriages with considerable luggage, travel foods and drinks, all of which were taken by the SS to the food storage barracks. The provisions included such items as smoked mutton, speciality breads, wine, cheese, fruit, tea, coffee, and sweets. Unlike Polish Jews arriving in Holocaust trains from nearby ghettos in cities like Warsaw , Radom , and those of Bezirk Bialystok ,

5544-478: The Germans – the camp consisted of two separate units. Treblinka I was a forced-labour camp ( Arbeitslager ) whose prisoners worked in the gravel pit or irrigation area and in the forest, where they cut wood to fuel the cremation pits. Between 1941 and 1944, more than half of its 20,000 inmates were murdered via shootings, hunger, disease and mistreatment. The second camp, Treblinka II, was an extermination camp ( Vernichtungslager ), referred to euphemistically as

5670-491: The Jewish ghettos or who performed restricted actions without permits. Beginning in July 1942, Jews and non-Jews were separated. Women mainly worked in the sorting barracks, where they repaired and cleaned military clothing delivered by freight trains, while most of the men worked at the gravel mine. There were no work uniforms, and inmates who lost their own shoes were forced to go barefoot or scavenge them from dead prisoners. Water

5796-414: The Jews inside it during the trip, rather than force the drivers and guards to murder them at the destination. After visiting Treblinka on a guided tour, Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss concluded that using exhaust gas was inferior to the cyanide used at his extermination camp. The chambers became silent after 12 minutes and were closed for 20 minutes or less. According to Jankiel Wiernik , who survived

5922-471: The Jews who were murdered in the Reinhard camps came from ghettos. The Operation Reinhard camps reported directly to Himmler, and not to the concentration camps inspector Richard Glücks . The two parallel camps of Treblinka were built 80 km (50 mi) northeast of Warsaw . Before World War II, it was the location of a gravel mining enterprise for the production of concrete, connected to most of

6048-456: The Latin word 'ūrere' which means, to burn. However, regardless of professional build, pyres were unpredictable and would go wrong on a regular basis. The Elder Pliny writes of extreme cases in which bodies have been thrown from the pyre from the force of the flames. Other cases, described by Plutarch , involving deceased victims of poisoning, resulted in the human body bursting open and dousing

6174-565: The Pope, is burned. Funeral pyres were used by the Nazis to cremate the bodies of 1,500,000+ prisoners in Belzec , Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, in contrast to the crematoria used in other camps. Pyres have also been used to dispose of large quantities of livestock in agriculture, particularly those infected with disease. Pyres are lit around the clock in Varanasi , India as it

6300-503: The Schönbronn Company of Leipzig and the Warsaw branch of Schmidt–Münstermann, oversaw the construction of both camps. Between 1942 and 1943, the extermination centre was further redeveloped with a crawler excavator . New gas chambers constructed of brick and cement mortar were freshly erected, and mass cremation pyres were also introduced. The perimeter was enlarged to provide a buffer zone, making it impossible to approach

6426-513: The Treblinka station or to the layover yard in Małkinia for the next load, while the victims were pulled from the carriages onto the platform by Kommando Blau , one of the Jewish work details forced to assist the Germans at the camp. They were led through the gate amidst chaos and screaming. They were separated by gender behind the gate; women were pushed into the undressing barracks and barber on

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6552-507: The atmosphere from carbonaceous aerosols resulting from human activities is a significant contributor to climate change in South Asia . In this region, fossil fuel use and residential biofuels have been documented to be the primary emitter of light-absorbing black carbon aerosols. The study determined the emitted organic carbon contributed 40% to smoke absorption of visible solar radiation , about 92 Gg annually. A second study examined

6678-551: The bellies of pregnant women exploding from boiling amniotic fluid . He wrote that "the heat radiating from the pits was maddening." The bodies burned for five hours, without the ashing of bones. The pyres operated 24 hours a day. Once the system had been perfected, 10,000–12,000 bodies at a time could be incinerated. The open air burn pits were located east of the new gas chambers and refuelled from 4 a.m. (or after 5 a.m. depending on work-load) to 6 p.m. in roughly 5-hour intervals. The current camp memorial includes

6804-472: The belongings, including sacks of hair from women who had been murdered there. The Goldjuden unit ("gold Jews") collected and counted banknotes and evaluated the gold and jewellery. A different group of about 300 men, called the Totenjuden ("Jews for the dead"), lived and worked in Camp 3 across from the gas chambers. For the first six months they took the corpses away for burial after gold teeth had been extracted. Once cremation began in early 1943 they took

6930-501: The bodies were removed by dozens of Sonderkommandos , placed onto carts and wheeled away. The system was imperfect and required a lot of effort; trains that arrived later in the day had to wait on layover tracks overnight at Treblinka, Małkinia, or Wólka Okrąglik . Between August and September 1942, a large new building with a concrete foundation was built from bricks and mortar under the guidance of Erwin Lambert , who had supervised

7056-464: The building site to the original gas chambers. The new gas chambers became operational after five weeks of construction, equipped with two fume-producing engines instead of one. The metal doors, which had been taken from Soviet military bunkers around Białystok, had portholes through which it was possible to observe the dead before removing them. Stangl said that the old gas chambers were capable of murdering 3,000 people in three hours. The new ones had

7182-514: The camp from the outside. The number of trains caused panic among the residents of nearby settlements. They would likely have been killed if caught near the railway tracks. Opened on 1 September 1941 as a forced-labour camp ( Arbeitslager ), Treblinka I replaced an ad hoc company established in June 1941 by Sturmbannführer Ernst Gramss. A new barracks and barbed wire fencing 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high were erected in late 1941. To obtain

7308-483: The camp opened in 2006. It was later expanded and made into a branch of the Siedlce Regional Museum. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, most of the 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and confined to newly established ghettos by the Nazis. The system was intended to isolate the Jews from the outside world in order to facilitate their exploitation and abuse. The supply of food

7434-401: The camp, there were two 19-year-olds, Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman , who had both arrived in 1942 and had been forced to work there under the threat of death. Taigman died in 2012 and Willenberg in 2016. Taigman stated of his experience, "It was hell, absolutely hell. A normal man cannot imagine how a living person could have lived through it – killers, natural-born killers, who without

7560-399: The capital for fear of similar incidents; the remaining 42,000 Warsaw Jews were deported to Majdanek , instead. The burning of unearthed corpses continued at full speed until the end of July. The Treblinka II conspirators became increasingly concerned about their future as the amount of work for them began to decline. With fewer transports arriving, they realised "they were next in line for

7686-957: The carbonaceous fractions associated with indoor PM2.5/PM10 during Asian cultural and ritual burning practices. (Dewangan, et al.) This study concluded drastically higher levels of biomass burning markers within burial rituals performed indoors compared to levels collected for residential indoors and ambient outdoors, with levels reaching three- to eightfold higher levels of carbonaceous aerosols. These high chemical levels were also found to correlate to higher aerosol fraction levels during winter months in both Muslim Holy Shrines and marriage places. The study concluded PM concentrations were significantly higher in indoor-ritual locations and suggested further studies and actions be taken to investigate risk and health assessment and calls for regulatory agencies to propose new guidelines for indoor cultural/ritual locations. A traditional Hindu funeral pyre takes six hours and burns 500–600 kg (1,102–1,323 pounds) of wood to burn

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7812-456: The centre next to his horse stables, containing two foxes, two peacocks and a roe deer (introduced in 1943). Smaller rooms were built as laundry, tailors , and cobblers , and for woodworking and medical aid. Closest to the SS quarters were separate barracks for the Polish and Ukrainian women who served, cleaned, and worked in the kitchen. The next section of Treblinka II (Camp 2, also called

7938-416: The construction of gas chambers for the Action T4 involuntary euthanasia program. It contained 8–10 gas chambers, each of which was 8 by 4 m (26 by 13 ft), and it had a corridor in the centre. Stangl supervised its construction and brought in building materials from the nearby village of Małkinia by dismantling factory stock. During this time victims continued to arrive daily and were led naked past

8064-574: The construction of stationary facilities for mass murder. Treblinka was the third extermination camp of Operation Reinhard to be built, following Bełżec and Sobibór, and incorporated lessons learned from their construction. Alongside the Reinhard camps, mass-murder facilities using Zyklon B were developed at the Majdanek concentration camp in March 1942, and at Auschwitz II-Birkenau between March and June. Nazi plans to murder Polish Jews from across

8190-402: The corpses to the pits, refuelled the pyres, crushed the remaining bones with mallets, and collected the ashes for disposal. Each trainload of "deportees" brought to Treblinka consisted of an average of sixty heavily guarded wagons. They were divided into three sets of twenty at the layover yard. Each set was processed within the first two hours of backing onto the ramp, and was then made ready by

8316-524: The cremation of the dead in the Hindu and Sikh religions, a practice which dates back several thousands of years. Funeral pyres were also used in Germanic and Roman culture. Pyres and bonfires are used in celebrations and remembrance in services. Examples of these are Guy Fawkes Night in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, where the 'Guy', either seen as an effigy of Guy Fawkes or

8442-528: The crowd. When Globocnik made a surprise visit to Treblinka on 26 August 1942 with Christian Wirth and Wirth's adjutant from Bełżec, Josef Oberhauser , Eberl was dismissed on the spot. Among the reasons for dismissal were: incompetently disposing of the tens of thousands of dead bodies, using inefficient methods of murder, and not properly concealing the mass-murder. Eberl was transferred to Berlin, closer to operational headquarters in Hitler's Chancellery , where

8568-541: The deadliest phase of the Final Solution . During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered in its gas chambers, along with 2,000 Romani people . More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz-Birkenau . Managed by the German SS with assistance from Trawniki guards – recruited from among Soviet POWs to serve with

8694-458: The deity. Pyres are crafted using wood. The composition of a pyre may be determined through use of charcoal analysis. Charcoal analysis helps to predict composition of the fuel and local forestry of the charcoal being studied. Specifically, in the Bronze Age , pyre materials were gathered based on local abundance and ease of access to the wood although materials were also selected due to

8820-535: The disposal of the corpses, but the guards routinely refused to react. The Germans became aware of the political danger associated with the mass burial of corpses in April 1943 after they discovered the graves of Polish victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre carried out by the Soviets near Smolensk. The bodies of the 10,000 Polish officers executed by the NKVD were well preserved despite their long burial. The Germans formed

8946-473: The extensive damage to the camp, the gas chambers were intact, and the murder of Polish Jews continued. Speed was reduced, with only ten wagons rolled onto the ramp at a time, while the others had to wait. The last two rail transports of Jews were brought to the camp for gassing from the Białystok Ghetto on 18 and 19 August 1943. They consisted of 76 wagons (37 the first day and 39 the second), according to

9072-434: The following morning. For the next two months, deportations from Warsaw continued daily, via two shuttle trains (the second one, from 6 August 1942), each carrying about 4,000 to 7,000 people crying for water. No other trains were allowed to stop at the Treblinka station. The first daily trains came in the early morning, often after an overnight wait, and the second, in mid-afternoon. All new arrivals were sent immediately to

9198-712: The foreign Jews received a warm welcome upon arrival from an SS man (either Otto Stadie or Willy Mätzig), after which they were murdered like the others. Treblinka was mainly used for the murder of Polish Jews, Bełżec was used to murder Jews from Austria and the Sudetenland , and Sobibór was used to murder Jews from France and the Netherlands. Auschwitz-Birkenau was used to murder Jews from almost every other country in Europe. The frequency of arriving transports slowed down in winter. The decoupled locomotive went back to

9324-523: The fountain at Königsfelden Monastery . Vindonissa included the largest Roman amphitheater in modern Switzerland with seats for about 10,000. The foundations of the west and north walls and the remains of a Roman bath have been discovered. 47°28′50″N 8°13′19″E  /  47.480464°N 8.222051°E  / 47.480464; 8.222051 Funeral pyre A pyre ( Ancient Greek : πυρά , romanized :  purá ; from πῦρ ( pûr )  'fire'), also known as

9450-490: The gas chambers brick-by-brick and used them to erect a farmhouse on the site of the camp's former bakery. Globocnik confirmed its purpose as a secret guard post for a Nazi-Ukrainian agent to remain behind the scenes, in a letter he sent to Himmler from Trieste on 5 January 1944. A Hiwi guard called Oswald Strebel, a Ukrainian Volksdeutscher (ethnic German), was given permission to bring his family from Ukraine for "reasons of surveillance", wrote Globocnik; Strebel had worked as

9576-503: The gas chambers for their turn. During this time, the women and children could hear the sounds of suffering from inside the chambers, and they became aware of what awaited them, which caused panic, distress, and even involuntary defecation. Many survivors of the Treblinka camp testified that an officer known as ' Ivan the Terrible ' was responsible for operating the gas chambers in 1942 and 1943. While Jews were awaiting their fate outside

9702-473: The gas chambers, Ivan the Terrible allegedly tortured, beat, and murdered many of them. Survivors witnessed Ivan beat victims' heads open with a pipe, cut victims with a sword or a bayonet, cut off noses and ears, and gouge out eyes. One survivor testified that Ivan murdered an infant by bashing it against a wall; another claimed that he raped a young girl before cutting her abdomen open and letting her bleed to death. The gas chambers were completely enclosed by

9828-490: The gas chambers." The uprising was launched on the hot summer day of 2 August 1943 (Monday, a regular day of rest from gassing), when a group of Germans and 40 Ukrainians drove off to the River Bug to swim. The conspirators silently unlocked the door to the arsenal near the train tracks, with a key that had been duplicated earlier. They had stolen 20–25 rifles, 20 hand grenades, and several pistols, and delivered them in

9954-408: The gas chambers; hesitant men were treated particularly brutally. Rudolf Höss , the commandant at Auschwitz, contrasted the practice at Treblinka of deceiving the victims about the showers with his own camp's practice of telling them they had to go through a "delousing" process. According to the postwar testimony of some SS officers, men were always gassed first, while women and children waited outside

10080-683: The genocide of Jews, known as the "Final Solution" to the Jewish Question. The extermination programme was codenamed Operation Reinhard . and was separate from the Einsatzgruppen mass-murder operations in Eastern Europe, in which half a million Jews had already been murdered. Treblinka was one of three secret extermination camps set up for Operation Reinhard; the other two were Bełżec and Sobibór . All three were equipped with gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, for

10206-476: The group only allows people who are part of the local community to choose this alternative burial. In the time leading up to the 2nd century AD popular funeral practices in Rome consisted of cremation with a pyre. Ideal funeral practices meant burning an ornamental pyre for the deceased, that would burn with enough heat and a long enough time to only leave ashes and small bone fragments. Having to use another's pyre

10332-474: The guards. The area where the women and children were shorn of their hair was on the other side of the path from the men. All buildings in the lower camp, including the barber barracks, contained the piled up clothing and belongings of the prisoners. Behind the station building, further to the right, there was a Sorting Square where all baggage was first collected by the Lumpenkommando . It was flanked by

10458-430: The highest possible capacity of any gas chambers in the three Reinhard death camps and could murder up to 22,000 or 25,000 people every day, a fact which Globocnik once boasted about to Kurt Gerstein , a fellow SS officer from Disinfection Services. The new gas chambers were seldom used to their full capacity; 12,000–15,000 victims remained the daily average. The killing process at Treblinka differed significantly from

10584-418: The inmates. Mentz single-handedly killed thousands of Jews, aided by his supervisor, August Miete , who was called the "Angel of Death" by the prisoners. The pit was also used to burn old worn-out clothes and identity papers deposited by new arrivals at the undressing area. The third section of Treblinka II (Camp 3, also called the upper camp) was the main killing zone, with gas chambers at its centre. It

10710-537: The land where the camp had stood, and built a large stone memorial there between 1959 and 1962. In 1964, Treblinka was declared a national monument of Jewish martyrdom in a ceremony at the site of the former gas chambers. In the same year, the first German trials were held regarding the crimes committed at Treblinka by former SS members . After the end of communism in Poland in 1989, the number of visitors coming to Treblinka from abroad increased. An exhibition centre at

10836-433: The left, and men were sent to the right. All were ordered to tie their shoes together and strip. Some kept their own towels. The Jews who resisted were taken to the "Lazarett", also called the "Red Cross infirmary", and shot behind it. Women had their hair cut off; therefore, it took longer to prepare them for the gas chambers than men. The hair was used in the manufacture of socks for U-boat crews and hair-felt footwear for

10962-475: The local station master, Eupen often murdered prisoners by "taking shots at them, as if they were partridges". A widely feared overseer was Untersturmführer Franz Schwarz, who killed prisoners with a pickaxe or hammer. Treblinka II (officially the SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka ) was divided into three parts: Camp 1 was the administrative compound where the guards lived, Camp 2 was the receiving area where incoming transports of prisoners were offloaded, and Camp 3

11088-401: The lower camp or Auffanglager ), was the receiving area where the railway unloading ramp extended from the Treblinka line into the camp. There was a long and narrow platform surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. A new building, erected on the platform, was disguised as a railway station complete with a wooden clock and fake rail terminal signs. SS- Scharführer Josef Hirtreiter , who worked on

11214-464: The main architect of the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler, had just stepped up the pace of the programme. Globocnik assigned Wirth to remain in Treblinka temporarily to help clean up the camp. On 28 August 1942, Globocnik suspended deportations. He chose Franz Stangl, who had been the commandant of the Sobibór extermination camp, to assume command of the camp as Eberl's successor. Stangl had a reputation as

11340-576: The major cities in central Poland by the Małkinia – Sokołów Podlaski railway junction and the Treblinka village station. The mine was owned and operated by the Polish industrialist Marian Łopuszyński, who added the new 6 km (3.7 mi) railway track to the existing line. When the German SS took over Treblinka I, the quarry was already equipped with heavy machinery that was ready to use. Treblinka

11466-404: The method used at Auschwitz and Majdanek, where the poison gas Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) was used. At Treblinka, Sobibór, and Bełżec, the victims were murdered by suffocation and carbon monoxide poisoning from engine exhaust in stationary gas chambers. At Chełmno , they were carried within two specially equipped and engineered trucks, driven at a scientifically calculated speed so as to murder

11592-408: The murder of entire transports of people. The method was established following a pilot project of mobile extermination conducted at Soldau and at Chełmno extermination camp that began operating in 1941 and used gas vans . Chełmno (German: Kulmhof ) was a testing ground for the establishment of faster methods of murdering and incinerating bodies. It was not a part of Reinhard, which was marked by

11718-516: The narrow neck of the peninsula. The settlement came under Roman control either after the 58 BC conquest of the Helvetii by Julius Caesar or the 15 BC conquest of the Alps . A small guard post was established on the site around 15 BC. The Roman settlement and legion camp was probably established in 15 AD. In an expansion around 30, thermal baths were added. The Legio XIII Gemina

11844-430: The new corpses along with the old ones, which had to be dug up as they had been buried during the first six months of the camp's operation. Built under the instructions of Herbert Floß , the camp's cremation expert, the pits consisted of railroad rails laid as grates on blocks of concrete. The bodies were placed on rails over wood, splashed with petrol, and burned. It was a harrowing sight, according to Jankiel Wiernik, with

11970-410: The operation of Treblinka to turn disastrous; others point out that the number of transports that were coming in reflected the Nazi high command's wildly unrealistic expectations of Treblinka's ability to "process" these prisoners. The early gassing machinery frequently broke down due to overuse, forcing the SS to shoot Jews assembled for suffocation. The workers did not have enough time to bury them, and

12096-407: The outside by heavy cross-bars. According to Stangl, a train transport of about 3,000 people could be "processed" in three hours. In a 14-hour workday, 12,000 to 15,000 people were murdered. After the new gas chambers were built, the duration of the killing process was reduced to an hour and a half. The victims were murdered via gas, using the exhaust fumes conducted through pipes from an engine of

12222-470: The pits on concrete blocks. The 300 prisoners who operated the upper camp lived in separate barracks behind the gas chambers. Unlike Nazi concentration camps in which prisoners were used as forced labour, extermination camps such as Treblinka had only one function: to murder those sent there. To prevent incoming victims from realising its nature, Treblinka II was disguised as a transit camp for deportations further east, complete with unreal train schedules,

12348-503: The prisoner of war (POW) camps for Soviet soldiers. The degree to which their recruitment was voluntary remains disputed; while conditions in the camps for Soviet POWs were dreadful, some Soviet POWs collaborated with the Germans even before cold, hunger, and disease began devastating the POW camps in mid-September 1941. The work at Treblinka was carried out under threat of death by Jewish prisoners organised into specialised work details. At

12474-448: The pyre. A study conducted by Alunni, et al. examined the forensic science behind cremations on wooden pyres. The study concluded the average pyre does not completely destroy a human body effectively, and differences in suicide via pyres are evident in the remains. A pyre suicide shows signs of remains being more charred rather than completely oxidized by high temperatures, are in anatomically correct positions, poor bone fragmentation, and

12600-563: The remains from pyres. Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka ( pronounced [trɛˈbliŋka] ) was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II . It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw , 4 km (2.5 mi) south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship . The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard ,

12726-587: The revolt, Stangl met the head of Operation Reinhard, Odilo Globocnik, and inspector Christian Wirth in Lublin, and decided not to draft a report, as no native Germans had died putting down the revolt. Stangl wanted to rebuild the camp, but Globocnik told him it would be closed down shortly and Stangl would be transferred to Trieste to help fight the partisans there. The Nazi high command may have felt that Stangl, Globocnik, Wirth, and other Reinhard personnel knew too much and wanted to dispose of them by sending them to

12852-412: The river and others like Sperling ran 30 km (19 mi) and were then helped and fed by Polish villagers . Of those who broke through, around 70 are known to have survived until the end of the war, including the future authors of published Treblinka memoirs: Richard Glazar , Chil Rajchman , Jankiel Wiernik , and Samuel Willenberg . Among the Jewish prisoners who escaped after setting fire to

12978-479: The specific properties, potential traditional purpose, or due to economical reasons. In Templenoe, pyres typically consisted of oak and fruit wood compositions. From analyzing three necropolises , in Kokotów, Pawłowice and Korytnica, it seems that Polish pyres consisted of primarily Scots pine, birch, and oak trees, as pines, birch, and oak were dense in local woodlands. All parts of the tree were used including

13104-409: The structures of the camp. Another work detail was responsible for cleaning the common areas. The Camp 1 Wohnlager residential compound contained barracks for about 700 Sonderkommandos which, when combined with the 300 Totenjuden living across from the gas chambers, brought their grand total to roughly one thousand at a time. Many Sonderkommando prisoners hanged themselves at night. Suicides in

13230-454: The time environmental concerns did not play any factor in the creation of the law. In February 2010, a Hindu man named Davender Ghai was granted permission to be cremated on a traditional open-air pyre, when a court of appeals in the United Kingdom ruled them legal inside of a building with an open roof and away from roads or homes. In the U.S., a group in Crestone, Colorado , a part of

13356-412: The trunk, branches, twigs, and even pine cones. During World War II, pyres were used in German death camps on Polish territory, such as Treblinka . Worked antler and bone objects, along with flint and flake tools , and copper-alloys are most commonly found in pyre cremation remains. The copper-alloys leave a blue-green stain and are typically fused to the ribs, arms, and other areas where jewelry

13482-650: The undressing area by the Bahnhofskommando squad that managed the arrival platform, and from there to the gas chambers. According to German records, including the official report by SS- Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop , 265,000 Jews were transported in freight trains from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka during the period from 22 July to 12 September 1942. The Polish railway was very heavily used. An average of 420 German military trains were passing through every 24 hours on top of internal traffic already in 1941. The Holocaust trains ' passage to their destination

13608-407: The unloading ramp was known for being especially cruel; he grabbed crying toddlers by their feet and smashed their heads against wagons. Behind a second fence, about 100 m (330 ft) from the track, there were two large barracks used for undressing, with a cashier's booth where money and jewelry were collected, ostensibly for safekeeping. Jews who resisted were taken away or beaten to death by

13734-723: The workforce for Treblinka I, civilians were sent to the camp en masse for real or imagined offences, and sentenced to hard labour by the Gestapo office in Sokołów, which was headed by Gramss. The average length of a sentence was six months, but many prisoners had their sentences extended indefinitely. Twenty thousand people passed through Treblinka I during its three-year existence. About half of them were murdered there via exhaustion, hunger and disease. Those who survived were released after serving their sentences; these were generally Poles from nearby villages. At any given time, Treblinka I had

13860-412: Was a sign of poverty or emergency cases. The process of constructing and properly burning a funeral pyre is a skilled task. Often, pyres would not burn with enough heat to properly cremate human remains. Pyres had to be maintained by stoking the flame and raking the pyre to allow good oxygen flow. Ancient literature refers to the skilled job of an ustor, meaning a professional pyre builder derived from

13986-419: Was completely screened from the railway tracks by an earth bank built with the help of a mechanical digger. This mound was elongated in shape, similar to a retaining wall, and can be seen in a sketch produced during the 1970 trial of Treblinka II commandant Franz Stangl . On the other sides, the zone was camouflaged from new arrivals like the rest of the camp, using tree branches woven into barbed wire fences by

14112-414: Was concluded that if cremated bone is placed in an urn before burial the original bone fragment size will be preserved. This study was intended to explain that more cautionary measures should be taken during and after any cremation occurs and to educate those who are studying cremated bone that the size of the fragments will be smaller than there were right after cremation. Traditionally, pyres are used for

14238-400: Was either 17 ha (42 acres) or 13.5 ha (33 acres) in size (sources vary), was surrounded by two rows of barbed-wire fencing 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) high. This fence was later woven with pine tree branches to obstruct the view of the camp from outside. More Jews were brought in from surrounding settlements to work on the new railway ramp within the Camp 2 receiving area, which

14364-523: Was expelled by the Nazis to Wegrów in 1939. The date of the revolt was initially set for 15 June 1943, but it had to be postponed. A fighter smuggled a grenade in one of the early May trains carrying captured rebels from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising , which had begun on 19 April 1943. When he detonated it in the undressing area, the SS and guards were thrown into a panic. After the explosion, Treblinka received only about 7,000 Jews from

14490-709: Was inadequate, living conditions were cramped and unsanitary, and Jews had no way to earn money. Malnutrition and lack of medicine led to soaring mortality rates. In 1941, the initial victories of the Wehrmacht over the Soviet Union inspired plans for the German colonisation of occupied Poland , including all territory within the new district of General Government . At the Wannsee Conference held near Berlin on 20 January 1942, new plans were outlined for

14616-555: Was instrumental in the coordination of the uprising between the two camps. Following his escape in the uprising, Sztajer survived for over a year in the forest before the liberation of Poland. Following the war, he migrated to Israel and then to Melbourne, Australia where later in life he constructed from memory a model of Treblinka which is currently displayed at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne. After

14742-487: Was killed along with most of the insurgents. About 200 Jews escaped from the camp. Half of them were killed after a chase in cars and on horses. The Jews did not cut the phone wires, and Stangl called in hundreds of German reinforcements, who arrived from four different towns and set up roadblocks along the way. Partisans of the Armia Krajowa (Polish: Home Army) transported some of the surviving escapees across

14868-407: Was part of the strategic road-building programme in the war with the Soviet Union. It was equipped with a mechanical digger for shared use by both Treblinka I and II. Eupen worked closely with the SS and German police commanders in Warsaw during the deportation of Jews in early 1943 and had prisoners brought to him from the Warsaw Ghetto for the necessary replacements. According to Franciszek Ząbecki ,

14994-553: Was rationed, and punishments were regularly delivered at roll-calls. From December 1943 the inmates were no longer carrying any specific sentences. The camp operated officially until 23 July 1944, when the imminent arrival of Soviet forces led to its abandonment. During its entire operation, Treblinka I's commandant was Sturmbannführer Theodor van Eupen . He ran the camp with several SS men and almost 100 Hiwi guards. The quarry, spread over an area of 17 ha (42 acres), supplied road construction material for German military use and

15120-578: Was ready by June 1942. The first section of Treblinka II (Camp 1) was the Wohnlager administrative and residential compound; it had a telephone line. The main road within the camp was paved and named Seidel Straße after Unterscharführer Kurt Seidel, the SS corporal who supervised its construction. A few side roads were lined with gravel. The main gate for road traffic was erected on the north side. Barracks were built with supplies delivered from Warsaw, Sokołów Podlaski, and Kosów Lacki . There were

15246-528: Was routinely delayed; some transports took many days to arrive. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered by exhaustion, suffocation and thirst while in transit to the camp in the overcrowded wagons. In extreme cases, such as the Biała Podlaska transport of 6,000 Jews travelling only a 125 km (78 mi) distance, up to 90 percent of people were already dead when the sealed doors were opened. From September 1942 on, both Polish and foreign Jews were greeted with

15372-474: Was stationed at Vindonissa until 44 or 45. With the arrival of the 21st legion ( XXI Rapax ) the camp was rebuilt with stone fortifications. After the 21st legion had looted the countryside in 69, it was replaced by the 11th legion ( XI Claudia ) which remained stationed until 101. After this date, Vindonissa was a civilian settlement, with a castle built in the 4th century. The camp established around 15 AD covered an area of about 20 ha (49 acres) and

15498-511: Was surrounded by an 1.8 km (1.1 mi) long wooden and earthen wall with wooden gates and low watchtowers surrounded by a double ditch . By 72 AD this had been replaced by a 3.6 m (12 ft) thick wall with massive gates, watchtowers and a single ditch. The first systematic excavation of the ruins began in 1896. This and later excavations discovered the ruins of several buildings and numerous artifacts. A 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) long Roman underground canal still provides water to

15624-560: Was the largest squad, unpacked and sorted the belongings of victims after they had been "processed". The red unit delivered these belongings to the storage barracks, which were managed by the yellow unit ( Kommando Gelb ), who separated the items by quality, removed the Star of David from all outer garments, and extracted any money sewn into the linings. The yellow unit was followed by the Desinfektionskommando , who disinfected

15750-527: Was the location of the gas chambers. All three parts were built by two groups of German Jews recently expelled from Berlin and Hanover and imprisoned at the Warsaw Ghetto (a total of 238 men from 17 to 35 years of age). Hauptsturmführer Richard Thomalla , the head of construction, brought in German Jews because they could speak German. Construction began on 10 April 1942, when Bełżec and Sobibór were already in operation. The entire death camp, which

15876-615: Was well-connected but isolated enough, halfway between some of the largest Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe, including the Warsaw Ghetto and the Białystok Ghetto , the capital of the newly formed Bialystok District . The Warsaw Ghetto had 500,000 Jewish inmates, and the Białystok Ghetto had about 60,000. Treblinka was divided into two separate camps 2 km (1.2 mi) apart. Two engineering firms,

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