Talk:Treblinka extermination camp/Archive 1

General discussion

The first line states "Around 6 million[1] people - more than 99.5 percent of which were Jews, but also other victims (among them 2,000 Romani people) were killed there between July 1942 and October 1943" - How can this be correct? The Holocaust in total was around 6 million Jews killed, not all at Treblinka! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.107.109.183 (talk) 09:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Need a map of relative position to Poland! thanks

800,000 is calculated thus: 713,555 Jews for 1942 according to Hoefle's telegram + transport data from Arad, 'Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka", pp. 143, 144, 146, 392, 393, 395, 396, 398. --85.140.12.4 15:47, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

800,000 figures comes from the summation of the number in Hoefle's telegram and the info about transports from Arad's book. I thought the head of the camp was Franz Stangl. Andries 15:52, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Andries is correct. But there were more commanders:

1. Dr Irmfried Eberl, 2. Franz Stangl, 3. Ernst Schemmel (during Stangl's

vacations), and after the end of the gassings in Treblinka, 4. Kurt Franz. P. Witte 10:25, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article states: "The Höfle Telegram listed 713,555 Jews killed in Treblinka up to the end of December 1942." - That statement is simply not true. There is no mentioning of any killings in the Hoefle telegram. --41.16.75.66 (talk) 21:38, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I felt free to delete Jean Francois Steiner's book on Treblinka. I don't think that any "historical" novel or whatever it may be, should find a place in an historical article of an Encyclopedia. Scholars agree that this book has only little to nothing to do with fact based historiography. P. Witte 10:38, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Removed from first para, as it is wholly out of place in such a prominent position:

Among those who perished was Lidia Zamenhof, daughter of the initiator of Esperanto, L. L. Zamenhof.

Personally I am not particularly keen on singling out some particular famous victims over the many others, but as I don't like deleting content let's please keep this comment on the talk page so as not to lose information, and if at some time in future there is a section on well-known victims then let us include an entry. Nonetheless there is not even currently an article Lidia Zamenhof and there may be many others more famous to list first.

Agreed. Christopher Mahan 01:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am doing the same for this line from the introduction:

The most notorious person exterminated in the camp was probably Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogue.

Also, I don't think 'notorious' is the right word. 'Notable' or 'noteworthy' perhaps? 75.22.205.212 (talk) 03:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Hoefle's Telegram 71355 or 713555?

Pic here: deathcamps.org/reinhard/pic/bighoefletele.jpg

Or text here...

                   GPDD 355a 2.
 
12. OMX de OMQ 1000 89 ? ?
Geheime Reichssache! An das Reichssicherheitshauptamt, zu 
Händen SS Obersturmbannführer EICHMANN, Berlin ... rest missed ..
 
13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250
Geheime Reichssache! An den Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspol., 
zu Händen SS Obersturmbannführer HEIM, KRAKAU. 
Betr. 14-tägige Meldung Einsatz REINHART. Bezug:  dort. 
Fs. Zugang bis 31.12.42, L 12761,B 0, S 515, T 10335 zusammen 
23611. Stand ... 31.12.42, L 24733, B 434508, S 101370, 
T 71355, zusammen 1274166.
SS und Pol.führer LUBLIN, HOEFLE, Sturmbannführer.

Rich Farmbrough 17:42, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Problem with this article: Timing and number

I found the above note enlightening (did Hoefle miss a 5 when typing 71355, or did he use some form of calculator and accidentally hit an extra 5 when adding the results? Instinct tells me the former). At any rate, the article mentions:

In 2001, a copy of a decrypted telegram sent by the deputy commander of the Operation Reinhart was discovered among recently declassified information in Britian. The Höfle Telegram listed 713,555 Jews killed in Treblinka through the end of December, 1941, though the camp continued operating through 1943.

However, it looks to me as if the number through the end of 1942 was 23611 zusammen (all together). If "T" implies Jews, or perhaps implies Treblinka, then 10335 is correct. Since the end of 1942, the total is 1274166 or 631966, with "T" numbering 713555 or 71355, depending on whether Hoefle added or omitted the final 5, respectively.

If the camp was only open until October 1943, that means 713555 were killed in 9 months. Assuming 18 hour days, this means 146 persons were killed per hour, or 2.45 per minute. Grisley. Otheus

The Hoefle memo has its own wikipedia article. The memo mentions arrivals, not deaths. 159.105.80.141 14:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Problem with this article: The Germans

This article inaccurately writes about The Germans. This is at worst incorrect and at best inaccurate. Many of the guards were Ukranians. There were only a few SS men, who were not necessarily Germans. Note that several of the leading SS men were Austrians, not Germans, like Christian Wirth and Franz Stangl. Andries 13:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

NSDAP was a German political party, SS was a German organization, Operation Reinhard was a German operation, Treblinka was a German extermination camp.

There is nothing wrong with the article. Vorthax 23:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I apologize in advance for the length of this post; I wanted to be thorough. I see no rationale for leaving the phrase "the Germans" in the four spots it appears. First, "The Germans chose who would go..." Possibly, but more likely the guards (who were mainly Ukrainian) chose who went where. As noted in most historical accounts, while the operation was German, they assigned Eastern European troops to do work deemed beneath their "Super Race". It is certainly possible that the German or Austrian officers and troops conducted the gruesome selection process, but I suggest you either provide evidence of the race/nationality of the selectors or you change "the Germans" to "the guards" or "the soldiers". The second, "...so the Germans could see if the prisoners were dead yet" is again unlikely to be "the Germans" for two reasons: The stench of the chambers was notorious and the officers certainly would have sent their (Ukrainian) henchmen for this vile chore; second, the task of removing and carrying the bodies was given to the healthiest of the Jews sent to die at the camps -- horrific and abhorrent as that is, it reinforces the idea that "Germans" did not necessarily do the checking, and the phrase should be replaced by "guards" or "death-workers" or even "murderers" pending some evidence. Third, "The Germans had the camp decorated into a train station." This one is the most likely candidate for remaining. I have found no historical or documentary evidence that the non-Nazi soldiers had any monetary authority at all, and nothing in the operation of the Reich would suggest that they had. If the camp was changed structurally or in appearance, the "Germans" almost certain did it. It would be more accurate, however, to say "The Nazis had the camp decorated...". The last and the least valid says, "This caused a lot of work for the Germans." I doubt anything in that abomination of a place caused the Germans any work at all; they left that to their "less pure" cousins from Eastern Europe and the wretched victims they enslaved for the few days before they, too, died in the chambers. The sentence loses nothing of its callous horror if changed to, "This caused a lot of extra work." I respectfully suggest that the race and nationality of the subjects of those four sentences is irrelevant and undermines the credibility of the article. I have not made that change as I am not a normal contributor to this article.

One last note on the Vorthax statement: Pétain sent tens of thousands of Jews to die, but that atrocity is credited to the Vichy Regime. Many of the Service d'Ordre Légionnaire who rounded them up or shot them were Nazis, but none were Germans. While it's fine for the Mark twains of the world to off-handedly attribute governmental, systemic and individual act of horror to a whole race, I'd hope we were above that. We do not tar all Cambodians with the atrocities of Pol Pot or all Iraqis with those of Saddam. Lastly, please keep in mind that many of the people shipped to Treblinka had fled to Warsaw from homes in Germany; Germans who were also Jewish died in those chambers, too. Kevin/Last1in 23:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think perhaps a much better phrase for all of these instances would be "the German army." Even the Ukrainian guards who were involved, were still operating under the auspices of the German army. It's a fairly simple fix. -Etoile 16:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, is this better?

Vorthax 00:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There were non-German national socialist movements, there were German national socialists who did nothing wrong. Should we use term "Nazi" then?

Majority of Germans did support the NSDAP, they won the democratic elections didn't they. Nazi Germany was still a German state.

If there is no information about Germans, someone could think that Ukrainians (guards) or Poles ("in Poland") were responsible.

Vorthax 00:00, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Treblinka must be open to questioning

Qualified historians and archological teams put Treblinka as non exsistant. To not allow these views put a tremendous cloud over this story. (Not signed, but it was User: Mark twain)

Again, if Frederick Toben is your "qualified historian" you should probably look at:[1]. The "archeaological team" you mention was described as:

The Adelaide Institute is a loose conglomeration of individuals around self-styled “Holocaust revisionist” Fredrick Toben. Its website is so extreme that even British Holocaust denier David Irving branded it antisemitic and a liability to Holocaust revisionists (see ASW 2000/1). Reporting on his participation in the 2001 Tehran conference (see Arab Countries) in the institute’s newsletter (June 2001, no.131), Toben stated that it was intended to garner support for the Palestinians after the efforts of “last year’s gathering of Holocaust proponents in Stockholm [January 2000 Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust organized by the Swedish prime minister]” to get “Holocaust studies established in all school curricula,” so that sympathy would flow to the State of Israel. Toben and his Canberra-based colleague Richard Krege spoke at the “Second International Conference on Authentic History and the First Amendment,” organized by The Barnes Review in Washington, DC (15–17 June). Krege tried to prove that Treblinka was not a death camp, while Toben made a series of observations on topics such as Zionists versus “Torah-true Jews,” law in Germany and Australia, and the way in which Iran benefited women.

The "study" your site mentioned seems to be mentioned in passing in the Institute for Historical Review and Stormfront, nowhere that would be a good indication that they are qualified. --Goodoldpolonius2 00:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The Treblinka story is an absurd fabrication. No one in their right mind believes that 2,000,000 jews are buried in a 2 acre plot, and there hasn't been archological teams from Yale, Harvard, museums, etc to verify the claim. You sit here and say "Two mill were gassed but there are no witnesses, no bodies, no documents, no photographs." You are refuting scientific evidence supplanting it with some old wives tales. Even the great Treblinka Trials convicted only seven people. (Not signed, but it was User: Mark twain)

Ah, well, at least you are showing that you aren't simply confused, but instead actively pushing Holocaust denial and willfully linking to a pretty awful site. I will try to clarify a bit, but have a feeling it will be hopeless, given your assertions and the fact that you haven't even read the article, which talks about witnesses and other evidence. First the death toll from Treblinka is typically 700,000 to under 1,000,000, not 2,000,000 (Jurgen Stroop, in his report to the SS Command, talks about over 310,000 Jews deported to Treblinka over the course of four months) -- even the article here on Wikipedia lists 800,000 deaths. Second, nobody claims bodies are buried at Treblinka, testimony from SS officers and other sources states that Himmler ordered the bodies disentered and burned in the fall of 1942, and Herbert Floss built the cremation system using a system of railroad ties. Finally, saying that the (First) Treblinka Trial convicted seven people as evidence that Treblinka was not a death camp is odd (others were convicted at other trials, like Sobibor-Bolender, Warsaw Ghetto, Nuremberg, later trials and others). Why would this mean anything in any case? In any case, you are not going to make a lot of progress citing Judicial-inc.biz as your souce, which blames Kristallnacht, the sinking of the Lusitania, Abu Nidal, and every other evil in history on the Jews. You may want to use an actual source, or at least stop pushing hate sites. Also, sign your comments. --Goodoldpolonius2 01:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

You can't possibly contend that 900,000 to 2,000,000 bodies are buried behind a tiny RR station? Why no archological digs? If my contentions are so absurd they why do you block my arguement. I always find letting a fool talk is great for my arguements. --User:Mark_twain 01:03, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Again, the bodies at Treblinka (and I have no idea why you keep misquoting numbers after repeated corrections) were disinterred and burned after Stalingrad in massive pyres. And there are indeed photographs of the disposal of enormous piles of ashes by crane, as well as of the gas chambers -- including photos taken by the camp commander, Kurt Franz. Some of those are here. I realize, again, that from your repeated statements of misinformation, your links to "judicial-inc.biz," and your decision to try to push particularly nasty Holocaust denier material (rejected by David Irving, no less!) make it unlikely that any information will convince you otherwise and that further discussion is pointless, but I did want to try to make it clear why this argument is bankrupt. --Goodoldpolonius2 14:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it or is it not true that no human remains have ever been found at Treblinka? No bones, hair, ashes, teeth, nails, skin? Mothing? If nothing has ever been found, how can this be explained? I cannot imagine a dismantlement so thorough that not a trace would be left. The only photos I've ever seen are long-distance earthmoving shots, site plans, close-ups of buttons and spoons disinterred, pictures of buildings, etc. I do not subscribe to any particular view. I am merely asking.

There was an examination by Poland's Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes right after the war that included excavations. They found bones, partly decayed remains, and ash as deep as 7.5 meters wherever they dug in the site. Today, bone fragments are still common in the soil. --Goodoldpolonius2 16:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe the Treblinka story should be left as is for eternity ( sort of a memorial, to what time will tell ). Abraham Bomba et al should be put up front and center - their stories alone are worth the price of admission. Someday - it will happen eventually - a small group with a couple of shovels, ground-penetrating radar, etc will probably ruin the whole story, but till then the fun never seems to end. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) .

Look up Richard Krege and ground penetrating radar on Wikipedia - never link to a good factual site when wiki can be used to destry itself - what a waste. Of course from there you can look up some truthful information - usually non-wikipedia unfortunately.

those photographs prove nothing, as usual. Notonekilled (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

RfC

The reason that holocaust denial propaganda and links to hate sites are removed should be fairly obvious. Now that you've drawn my attention to this page, I'll be helping remove them too. There is no debate about what Treblinka was, and how it operated, but there are a few anti-semites who try to pretend that there is. --Squiddy 11:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Durova 01:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Thirded. Historical revisionism has no place on Wikipedia. As poet T. Carmi said: "What happened, really happened." -Etoile 16:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Labelling anyone who questions the facts as an 'anti-semite' is not constructive nor is it truthful. Free and open discussion without intimidation and insults (labelling or insinuating that all those who disagree with you as being neo-nazis and anti-semites is a typical example of this) is almost completely lacking on this subject. You need to learn to be objective without instantly branding/assuming that anyone who questions as being a racist. You also need to consider that in many Western nations at the current time, for any academic to even question some of the cornerstones of the holocaust is careeer suicide, and possibly dangerous to themselves and their families. In a few nations, they can be jailed, and so can their lawyers and anyone who stands up in their defence. There is basically, no academic freedom for real open discussion on these cornerstone subjects and they are effectlvely becoming religious dogma (whether based on supporting evidence or not).

The term "Historical revisionism" has become somewhat pejorative by its association with Holocaust researchers of a certain political bent. In fact, most historical work is a process of revision--for instance, "The fall and decline of the Roman empire" vastly revised the view of Christianity with respect to Rome. There is hardly any reason to research or write on any subject unless that subject is meant to be "revised" in some sense. The "Holocaust" itself, with all of its implications, is a revision of the earlier view of Jewish persecution during that era. When the war was still personal, not abstract--when we all had a relative who died, or (in the case of Eastern Europeans) were sent to work camps, etc--the fact of Jewish persecution was not "special", but something shared by many peoples. These days, when people think WWII, they have a pavlovian response: "It all centers around the holocaust." That's not a fact at all--that's a result of revisionist history.

I don't think any other subject arouses a religious reaction quite like the Jewish holocaust does. It is probably more politically and personally dangerous in the United States to question the Holocaust than it is to question Allah in a mosque. I am saying all this for the sake of perspective--people are going to criticize your religion, whether it is based on fact or not.

It is fairly obvious - they have their site, you have yours.159.105.80.141 18:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Physical/Archaelogical Evidence

I am not being a holocaust denier. I'm just making that clear at the very beginning, to avoid a flame war.

I'm interested if we can link/reference any physical or archaelogical evidence of the camp's existence (since the modern location looks like little more than a plot of ground). I think it would be a worthwhile addition to the article. So far, all we have are eyewitness accounts and records.--Primalchaos 09:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I haven't heard of any archaeological digs at Treblinka, and I think it's unlikely that any have been conducted - the site is a mass grave, after all. Since the camp was dismantled by the Nazis after the revolt, there isn't much remaining 'physical' evidence. Unless someone else knows differently, we'll have to make do with the mass of testimony, photographs, and documents that exist. --Squiddy 20:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

There probably won't be any digs at Treblinka -- it is already designated a memorial site and mass grave, and, given that the bodies on the site were cremated and the camp destroyed, there is unlikely to be a compelling reason to do so. Belzec extermination camp has been subject to a number of excavations in the last few years, however, as it is not yet officially a memorial site. You can read about them, here. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Surely there was some initial excavation in the 40s or 50s of the site to verify that there were in fact bodies there? I doubt anyone interested in thwarting denial of the Holocaust would just let it sit. Has no one found anything (signs of destroyed foundations, aerial shots that show the previous location of the railway, etc.)? It would bolster the article a lot if we found it.--Primalchaos 02:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Primalchaos, you may want to read the above again. The mass graves at Treblinka were dug up and the bodies burned in 1943, the tracks and buildings removed. That does not mean that there was not substantial evidence. There were photos of the ash heaps and open mass graves taken by Kurt Franz, deputy commandant of the camp (some here) that include parts of the gas chambers. There are the aerial photographs from 1944 that show the remains of the railway siding and the remains of the posts around the buildings. There were bone fragments in the soil. There were detailed official reports, such as the ones by Jurgen Stroop. There was testimony by a number of camp officials. And there was, of course, the testimony of the guards. Denial of the Holocaust is not usually a motivating factor for scholars to research, since deniers won't listen to evidence anyway. I don't think we need to build the article around defending against the group of people (like User:Mark twain) above, who choose to deny the Holocaust and decide to start with Treblinka. --Goodoldpolonius2 03:22, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

There's a thin line between 'giving in' and ordering your article imperically by citing all available information and evidence of the camp's activities. The best defense against Holocaust denial is presenting the evidence in a straightforward manner. As the article was initially presented, I found the historical evidence surrounding the camp's activities to be based only on sparse documentation and eyewitness accounts, which made me balk since I utterly believe in the Holocaust but the article made the details of Treblinka seem based on flimsy info. I suggest rewriting the article to cite this further evidence of the camp's activities and operations. If all this evidence exists, it should be in this article. This is not feeding into Holocaust denial anymore than me citing engineering diagrams for my S-mine article is feeding into 'landmine denial'.--Primalchaos 12:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This entire section is bogus. Wiki has an article on Richard Krege. Using ground penetrating radar he found no evidence that there ever was a pit/mass grave/etc anywhere even near Treblinka.

Investigation section?

It might be worthwhile for us to consider adding a section on the Allied investigation or discovery of the Treblinka site during and after the war. Unlike Auschwitz and similar sites which were mostly intact, Treblinka was little more than a patch of ground. There must be some facts as to how the story of what this empty patch of ground used to be came to light.

• Who first reported Treblinka's existence?
• Who were the first Allied (Russian?) troops or officials to arrive at the site?
• Who broke the news to the Western public about the existence of the gas chambers and experiences there?
• Who were the first witnesses to come forward about the camp's activities?
• Were any other officers tried for war crimes related to the camp, besides the John Demjanjuk conviction?

I'll answer some of your Qs, before saying why I don't think an evidence/ investigation section is a good idea.

• Who first reported Treblinka's existence?

• • Treblinka was known to Jews still in Warsaw by April 1943 at the latest. There is a diary entry referring to it as a 'mechanised factory of slaughter' written in Warsaw on 20th April, by a Jewish man who survived the war. (Gilbert, 'The Holocaust' p 559-560). News of it had reached Warsaw either from Jewish people who escaped from the transports (Gilbert, p 490 & 565) or from Polish civilians (Franz Stangl mentioned 'whores from Warsaw' being in the camp when he arrived - Gitta Sereny, 'The German Trauma', p 117) or from relatives of the SS guards (Stangl's wife heard about Sobibor from a drunken SS officer - Sereny, p 115). The smell from the camp was noticeable 'kilometers away' and there were corpses on the railway tracks 'fifteen, twenty minutes drive' away (Sereny, p 117)

• Who were the first Allied (Russian?) troops or officials to arrive at the site?

• • Russian troops. The site didn't look like an empty patch of ground, despite Nazi efforts to hide the evidence. Whether the Soviets had been excavating, or the Nazis did a hasty job isn't clear, but Dr Adolph Berman, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, was brought to the site by the Russians and testified at the Eichmann trial: 'When I came there it was some weeks after I had been liberated by the Soviet army, this was in January 1945. I saw a scene which I shall never forget: a tremendous expanse, extending over many kilometers and on this area there were scattered skulls, bones, in tens of thousands, and very, very many shoes, amongst them tens of thousands of shoes of little children.' [2] and Gilbert, p 765-766

• (I don't know the answers to the next 2 Qs)

• Were any other officers tried for war crimes related to the camp, besides the John Demjanjuk conviction?

• • Kurt Franz and some others (six, IIRC, but can't now find ref) were tried in West Germany in 1964 (Franz sentenced to life imprisonment), and Stangl was tried later after extradition from Brazil. He was sentenced to life on 22 Dec 1970.

The reason I don't think an investigation section is needed is that none of this information is (a) hard to find, or (b) contested by historians. Presenting an overly-defensive article, as if defending a case in court, is counterproductive because it plays into the hands of deniers. They want it to look as if the issue is unclear, and that there is a debate over evidence. We don't want to act as if there is a debate among historians, because there isn't. In articles which aren't subject to 'historical revisionism' by politically motivated people, for example, the Bastille, there isn't a great effort to show that it did, in fact, exist, because everyone sane accepts the historical record. We want the same tone here, because everyone (except neo-Nazi cranks) accepts the historical record in this case too.

It is similar to the way some biologists refuse to debate creationists about evolution, because there is no debate among biologists about whether the theory of evolution by natural selection is a good theory, and they don't want to give (again, politically motivated) people a chance to pretend there is.

In short, I agree with goodoldpolonius2: 'Deniers won't listen to evidence anyway. I don't think we need to build the article around defending against the group of people ... who choose to deny the Holocaust' --Squiddy 17:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think this is merely an area of valid historical interest, not in being defensive. Unlike the Bastille, which is still standing to this day, Treblinka was little more than an empty patch of ground by the time anyone who wanted to find out the truth could get to it. This raises the valid question - and one that immediately came up to me even as a firm believer in the Holocaust - how did anyone find out what happened there in the first place? This is a fair question, and one that is not defensive. The site's history simply begs the question - if they completely destroyed the place, how does anyone know anything about it? I would point to articles covering similar situations of 'disappeared' sites that were rediscovered - Troy for instance, covers the discovery and digs of the city extensively.--Primalchaos 03:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Squiddy answered your question above, and Troy is a pretty terrible analogy. Also, the current article has this information in it, which is why I am confused as to what you want added. The article quotes from Stroop's report, it has a picture of a mass grave from Kurt Franz, it has quotes from Odilo Globocnik, it has quotes from victims, it talks about academic research, and the external links include even more info. If what you are asking for is whether there was an archeological survey of Treblinka, the answer is no, because nobody in the scholarly world feels a need to do so, because it is well-known what happened there, and mass graves are not disturbed lightly. But if you feel other info is needed to demonstrate the horror of Treblinka, add it. Between Squiddy and my responses, there is plenty of data that could be incorporated, but I am not sure what standards of proof you feel are missing here. --Goodoldpolonius2 04:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, Goodoldpolonius2, Squiddy's "Troy" analogy is bad. I'd recommend Jonestown or the mass graves in Kosovo. The atrocities of Treblinka are too horrific to allow the Mark twains to denigrate or disavow them. This article needs the addition of specific documentary or forensic evidence in support of the witness accounts if it is to be credible. Witness accounts alone are simply not enough. Articles on other camps either provide such references, or direct the reader to sources where such evidence can be found. IMHO, this one should, too. You might consider Nazi sources consolidated by the Wiesenthal Center (a camp with the scope of Treblinka generated a paper- or money-trail), or anything Nizkor might have. Kevin/Last1in 00:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is one thing in the article that I think should be removed, which are the repeated indications that the Germans would be in a hurry because "the Soviets closing in". Since the revolts took place in August 1943 and the camp was closed by October of the same year, and the Soviets only occupied it in January 1945 (15 months after its closure), any idea of hurriedness can't be accurate. At the time of the cleanup, the Soviets were trying to retake Kiev and driving a wedge between the Germans in the Deniepr area and in the Crimea. Indeed, the D-Day would take place eight months later and the whole of France would be retaken by the Allies before the Soviets entered Treblinka. In other words, the camp was very deep inside German lines at the time the events occurred.

Secondly, I found some aspects of this discussion odd. Goodoldpolonius2 mentioned above about the "disposal of enormous piles of ashes", and indeed the photos by Kurt Franz [3] show ashes. Goodoldpolonius2 also says that "The mass graves at Treblinka were dug up and the bodies burned in 1943, the tracks and buildings removed". Also, Squiddy notes that "Since the camp was dismantled by the Nazis after the revolt, there isn't much remaining 'physical' evidence".

However, later Squiddy says "The site didn't look like an empty patch of ground [in January 1945], despite Nazi efforts to hide the evidence";. If the SS had cleared the site in late 1943 to make it appear that nothing ever happened there to the unaware eye, how could it not look like an empty patch of ground in January 1945? The Nazis let SS caretakers behind to see to the removal of evidence, and they had well over a year to check on things.

According to the Nikzor quote of Dr. Adolph Berman at the Eichmann trial, he says he went there in January 1945, few weeks after the Soviet troops occupied the scene, and saw "a tremendous expanse, extending over many kilometers and on this area there were scattered skulls, bones, in tens of thousands, and very, very many shoes, amongst them tens of thousands of shoes of little children". [4]

Which is simply not compatible with the above claims. If the Nazis burned all the bodies to ashes and tried to hide the camp by destroying all physical evidence, how can Dr. Berman have seen tens of thousands of bones scattered all over the place? Not to mention an enormous amount of shoes (and all of it almost one year and a half after the Nazis had cleaned it). It would be amazing indeed that the Nazi teams that managed to remove even the buildings and traces of their foundations would have left all kinds of bones and hundreds of thousands of shoes on the scene.

Best regards JoãoMateus 16:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your comment about the approach of the Russians - the phrase 'with the Russian armies closing in' suggests that the Russians were closer than they actually were in late 1943, and I have edited out the reference to them.

With regard to Dr. Berman's testimony, I don't know. It seems highly likely that the Russians knew of the existance and function of the camp (probably from partisans, some of whom were survivors/escapees from the ghettos and camps), and they may have done some digging. None of the books I have here detail the dismantling of Treblinka or the efforts to hide the evidence there, and I therefore can't say whether it was particularly effective or not. I'll look into this when the library opens in a few days. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 20:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Mr. Squiddy for your attention. The article reads much better now :)

I admit I first thought about eventual digging by the Russians (a few weeks are enough for preliminary digs), but I remembered that, as Goodoldpolonius2 said above, "(...) nobody claims bodies are buried at Treblinka, testimony from SS officers and other sources states that Himmler ordered the bodies disentered and burned in the fall of 1942, and Herbert Floss built the cremation system using a system of railroad ties (...)", which, in conjunction with other sources, indicates that all victims were cremated, so as not to leave a trace of their bodies. Yet Dr. Berman clearly speaks of "tens of thousands" of bones, including skulls.

And the fact that all the bones were over all the area of the camp is puzzling, as it would indicate that the Nazis left thousands of corpses around, not even trying to concentrate them as to minimize the chances of discovery. Why hide all the ashes in one deep place and yet leave thousands of bodies all over the area?. I am having trouble concieving of such an odd cleanup, especially because the discovery of a human bone is sure to trigger immediate digging.

Also, the eventual dig is a problem because the only reason for which the Nazis could have removed even the building foundations would be precisely to guard against casual digs (it is the only rationale that justifies removing foundations), which indicates that the cleanup teams were taking particular care against that exact type of investigation.

Yet Dr. Berman saw tens of thousands of bones at the site, and that over a year after the cleanup was finished.

The shoes present at the place are also odd. Since the Nazis cleaned up the camp, how could they have left several tens (or possibly hundreds) of thousands of shoes behind? Clearly so many shoes in such an area were bound to raise suspicions if they were ever found. Besides, we know that the Nazis usually took the possessions of the victims and re-used them, so it is odd they would leave so many shoes at the scene.

I am eager to know what you were able to find out about such a puzzling set of circumstances.

Best regards JoãoMateus 22:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Almost all of the corpses were burned, and the bones crushed, and then the ashes and bone fragments placed back in the pits. Still, some intact pieces of bone and decaying tissue remained, much of it buried. When the Germans left, they set up a "farm" over the site, run by a Ukranian former camp guard. Local people began to come to the site and dig up the soil in an attempt to find valuables that the Germans may have missed. The result was what Dr. Berman saw - you can actually see pictures of the site from 1945, bones everywhere, bits of china, etc.. Take a look at www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/lasttracks.html]. --[[User:Goodoldpolonius2|Goodoldpolonius2 05:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

To Goodoldpolonius2.

Your link is idiotic as you need an hefty imagination to see proof of more than 30 bodies on your pictures. On top of that no features of the landscape is visible on the pictures with bones in them. If this investigation was made from the same people who then hung germans for the kathyn massacre it is in fact worthless.

surre-hue

Richard Krege - wiki article - using ground penetrating radar has shown that there never was a pit used to bury anyone at Treblinka - never dug and never filled in. He has been disliked for his findings but you will notice that noone has ever grabbed a GPR machine to prove him wrong - just swore at him alot.

Dr Berman - the obvious conclusion is that Dr Berman had an active imagination. The Polish investigation team has never been able to duplicate there results, if they ever actually did a study. GPR could clear this up over night if the believers really believed a bit of their own story. Leaving thousands of shoes after trying to hide a death camp - you must believe in Santa Claus if you fall for that one.

Source for deaths at Treblinka

A figure given by M.R.D Foot in his Oxford Comapanion to World War II cites around 900,000 deaths. I will add a citation and amend the figure accordingly. smr 23:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)smrgeog

Steiner's Treblinka

What do people think of Steiner's 'Treblinka'? When I read it I thought it was really powerful book on Nazi madness (like when the commandent decides to build a zoo on the site...) and was stunned by the account of the uprising and escape of some of the inmates. But now I hear that the book got rubbished in certain quarters, but I'm not sure whether this was due to caveats as to its historicity or to qualms as to the depictions of 'immorality' on the part of the inmates....Maybe someone here knows more about this than I do.... Colin4C 20:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Steiner tried to pass his novel off as true to life. However, he eventually, after getting exposed, admitted that it came from his imagination.

Important - Treblinka II messed up with Treblinka I, misleading

Treblinka I was just an Arbeitslager, not Vernichtungslager. Look at the Polish article: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_(KL) It's like the Auschwitz I concentration camp vs Auschiwtz II Birkenau concentration and extermination camp and the Auschiwtz III work camp. --HanzoHattori 12:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Different languages give completely different stories on the same subject - thanks wiki! By the way which one is true - if of course true means anything and/or if true means the same thing in English and Polish ( maybe I hope for too much ). The evidence in, and not in wiki, seems to point to Treblinka being a transit site - dropped off one train and picked up by another - I suspect the lack of physical evidence is because there probably never was any physical evidence. Krege etc couldn't find anything - his attempt could be duplicated by anyone, which is probably not going to be done ( why is a good question - deniers because they aren't allowed, believers because ????( they appear to not be very curious or believing). Isn't Treblinka the site that was totally sweep clean except for thousands of kiddie shoes left for the photographers - too much chutzpah/gall in that story for me.

Your inability to listen to the sources cited and the evidence available is truly staggering. It should not therefore surprise me that you are also unable to sign your name. Treblinka happened and the Nazis were not 100% able to clean up after their crimes. Darkmind1970 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

100% clean and thousands of childrens' shoes are too far apart to believe. Any photos of the shoes? I am sorry but the sources start with belief and end with certainty - not a good scholarly approach - actually the exact opposite of good reserch. Try reading sources that start with a solid scientific ( scholarly )approach and see the dradtically different results you obtain.

Such as? Why do I have a feeling that you are about to mention Richard Kriege and his so-called expertise? Enough. Darkmind1970 09:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Krege - wikipedia source - is an electrical engineer ( probably why he knew about and used GPR - real science not nitzor debate ). If nitzor, or you, have a better expert then good - send him/her to Poland and clear this up. Such as? this article for one - 100% clean up by those clever Germans and thousands of ( no less tearjerking ) kiddie shoes. If the Germans are so inept that they try to hide a death camp by leaving 1000s of kiddie shoes then how could they have remembered to burn all the bodies and take all the buildings. This story, Treblinka,etc, is getting too contorted to believe. Where are the shoes, or some of the shoes? Do they even exist - did they ever? What year were they manufactured?

I have done a little research on this, and I now have enough information to ask you what the hell you're talking about. Just because someone knows about GPR does not necessarily mean that they can interpret the findings of GPR. I have a degree in history and all the GPR maps I've seen have been indications, not clear maps of what lies beneath the surface. I've also had a look at some of the images that Krege has produced. There are what are apparently 'pipes', as he has labelled them, in the images. Funny, they look awfully large and deep to be pipes. Perhaps they're, oh I don't know, burial pits? And you seem to have a bee in your bonnet about these shoes. Where did you see them? Or are you confusing them with Majdanek, where 20,000 shoes were found, after the Russians captured the filthy place before the Germans were able to destroy the evidence? Darkmind1970 13:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Darkmind, about the confusion. It is Dr Berman who say the shoes not me. The pipes above are pipes - the shadows of pipes are shadows from pipes. In a large camp I assume you would need large pipes for water, sewage, drainage, etc. Above the pipes there are narrow ditches, not pits. Below 3 meters there appears to be bedrock ( maybe not but looks that way ). Krege is an electrical engineer, his report might be informative, I don't have a link but one must be available at nitzor.159.105.80.63 14:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Carbon Monoxide source

I've seen lots of revisionist sources questioning the validity of the supposed diesel engines as sources for the carbon monoxide used to exterminate the prisoners at Treblinka. Shouldn't a section be added which deals with this issue in more detail? From everything I've read on diesel engines, they produce very little carbon monoxide.Ingres77 16:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say 'very little'. Just less than your average internal combustion engine. Diesel engines are about 40% to 50% more efficient than standard car engines in fuel economy, which translates into less fuel burnt and thus less C01. However, that still means we are talking about 66% of the normal output of a gasoline engine. Also, we are talking about a diesel engine built in the 1940s, without the benefit of computer controlled fuel regulation and so forth. So, your average diesel engine in 1942 probably has a *higher* carbon monoxide output than an average gasoline engine truck today.--Primal Chaos 17:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? Because I haven't read anything that says diesel puts out enough carbon monoxide to do what these Soviet engines are claimed to have done. Besides which, the question deserves to be asked: why would the Nazi's use diesel engines when there were far more "effecient" sources for carbon monoxide in Germany at the time (such as a producer gas vehicle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas). Ingres77 05:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It's a mistaken assumption that the tanks in question had diesel engines. From the information listed here, all but a relatively small handful of Soviet tanks at the time operated on gasoline. It is an understandable assumption to make, though, as most utility vehicles we see operate on diesel! Mary quite contrary 18:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

According to documents of the US government - VOSHA safety regulations,etc - diesel engines are quite safe. Getting a diesel to produce a dangerous amount of co2 is not impossible but requires more than idling effort. Adjusting fuel,oxygen, etc ruins the engine quickly - better have alot of engines on hand if you do this. Diesel and gas are totally different technologies - high compression modern gas engines and 1950 low compression engines are also totally different from each other. Someone should look up a check if older - pre1960 - gas engines were co2 factories like current cars - maybe maybe not - I'm going to check it out before I climb onto that limp.159.105.80.63 14:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a good article on diesel engines. The opening sentence says - drum roll - almost no co. The gasoline engine thing is harder to find - I know lower compression produces less of some pollutants but not which ones. Maybe some wikian knows a citation or a mechanic? But the diesel story is nearly dead - no need to beat it much further, that is if wiki is a reliable source.159.105.80.63 15:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This is apparently a common holocaust denial ploy about Treblinka. Click here for refutation and appropriate citations. Yes, diesel fumes are toxic, and can be made much more toxic just by partially covering the engine's air intake.--Primal Chaos 16:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The so-called diesel issue is absolutely irrelevant. Please read http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-diesel-issue-is-irrelevant.html --Sergey Romanov 15:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This link is above also I believe. Hate to lose the diesel gas story - how much has it been changed, still a sub engine?159.105.80.141 14:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)PS Sorry this link was shown to me on another article. With diesel irrelevant we are left with the rest of the Nuremberg testimony - the use of steam or electrocution. I believe the engine was a submarine engine - if so gas was not the sub fuel of choice. Maybe this as the tank engine on a wood platform. 159.105.80.141 17:22, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Returned after a quick check - Eichmann was the sub engine . The other engines seem to always be heavy Russian tank diesel engines - diesel is relavant here it seems. Of course vacuum was one sworn method at Nuremberg.159.105.80.141 17:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I found the names of two holocaust historians - proholocaust, reliable, ..... who have written that Treblinka was a transit camp ( dropped off, deloused, shipped out to a labor camp ). I believed I put their names here but they seem to have disappeared. Anyone have their names?159.105.80.141 14:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I found them Berenstein and Rutkowski(sp?). They used to be on this page - someone ( editor?) erased them. ( I had this on another site).I found thenm in a roundabout way - which I wont tell you about ). It is very hard to find Brenstein and Rutkowski on the web - not wiki featured folks it appears. They have all the characteristics of "reliability" except they got the wrong conclusion. Now they linger in academic limbo. 159.105.80.141 15:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly the trial transcripts of Demjanjuk confirms the transit idea. Witnesses - prosecution - repeatedly testified that Treblinka had been a 1 day layover before being moved on to a work camp. The source who got the transcripts got a redacted version ( names of witnesses crossed out ) - maybe witnesses were already well known for other testimony ( a guess ) or ? - most trial witnesses in the West testify openly and transcripts are unredacted except in national security cases. Here it appears is another archive of interest - redacted trial transcripts arouse the curiousity more than usual. ( Sorry the Demjanjuk data was not from his trial - it was from the US Dept of Justice extradition hearing. The US government has these records which they ( US ) redacted. If they had access to these hearings it is strange to see the Israelis continuing with Demjanjuk - particularly considering how it turned out. Israel may not have been given this data so they ended up reinventing the wheel, unfortunately in public.)159.105.80.141 17:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the above links about diesel engines leades to Nizkor that leads to another link that leades to Haaretz ( reliable source April 7 , 2007) that says that Walter Rauff who designed these gas vans was a Mossad agent after the war ( it appears thAT iSRAEL EITHER DIDN'T BELIEVE THE GAS VAN STORY OR THEY HAD A VERY IMPORTANT JOB FOR mR rAUFF TO DO. tHE cia DOCUMENTS THAT WERE RELEASED ( SORRY ) per Haaretz imply that Mossad use of what we thought were war criminals was fairly common. Thanks for the link.159.105.80.141 15:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This link is a goldmine. The Nizkor article uses references dumping on Berg. Going to Berg you find out that the diesel gas eye witnesses have the victims dying with a blue color. But the blue color comes from cyanide which diesels don't produce - but Zyklon does. The color of victims with co poisoning should be pink. So at Treblinka we have a very confusing situation, no wonder the historians are starting to back away from Treblinka. 159.105.80.141 15:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The above link - nizkor - actually leads to evidence republished ( given to him by Provan(believer) ) by FP Berg (revisionist) in 1994. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 1957,14,pp47-55. The tests (8 of them) used rabits,quinea pigs and mice under 5 hour bouts of gassing. Under low load all the animals survived 5 hours. Under heavy load, the rabbits survived, 1 of 10 quinea pigs died and a "few" mice died. Several of the smaller animals died during the next week. Using restricted air supply "choked engine", the rabbits and pigs lived over an hour but most of the mice didn't last an hour. ( As an aside - under air restriction and heavy load ( called the smoke limit ) the animals lasted about 1/2 hour. I believe the engine didn't last much longer. Under heavy load and air restriction the smoke, noise and extreme vibration of the wooden platform must have been memoraible - except none of the witnesses remembered anything about the smoke, noise, vibration, generator(etc - ie load). The restricted air concentrates the CO but it also appears to hurt the engine. The setup would require some knowledge, tools, equipment, etc and lots of work - anyone trying to do this would be trained and smart enough to back a car up to the hose and roll the stupid diesel off to the side, except the Germans who we all know are retarded.159.105.80.141 18:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Russian Occupation

I thought that the Soviet Army used Treblinka as an extermination camp for their own political enemies, and that it closed in mid-fifties. Can anyone verify this for me?

Couldn't find any mention of this - Russians used other camps after the war though. Treblinka completely diappeared - no buildings etc to use and I am sure the Russians didn't build anything there. Several historians list Trreblnka as a transit camp. The physical evidence on the ground is zero for Russians and about the same for any permanent labor-death camp of any size. The Russians did find some bodies - about 10. Forensic test since have been very disappointing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.181.165 (talk) 22:23, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I just read Grossman's A Writer at War; he was a Russian journalists, one of the first to see the camp. His report of the camp, interviews with surviving victims have been used at the Nuremberg Trials. According to his reports, there was not much left of the camp, except the field of lupine, with scattered remains of possessions of murdered people.

I don't think the soviets have ever considered recycling the horrendous site, which it obviously was.

BTW. There's nothing about the soviet liberation of Treblinka in the wiki article. I think its worth mentioning. If I remember it, I will use my book to add smt. Eiland (talk) 15:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"Liberation" implies there was anyone or anything to liberate. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 21:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe Treblinka had been abandoned several months before the Russians were near the area. Liberated would be an exaggeration - there was noone there.159.105.80.141 (talk) 13:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes well, Grossman was an eyewitness and reported to talk to survivors who hid in the forests. The camp was dismantled but there were still some people there. But I again don't have my book at hand. And I think its fair to call the seizing by soviet troops of the Treblinka site the liberation of Treblinka? -- Eiland (talk) 15:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Diesel vs Gasoline

Glad to hear that the Treblinka historians are beginning to dump the diesel and use gasoline for their murder weapon. They must read the wiki discussion pages. There are a few problems with the gasoline angle but at least the story is beginning a better(more plausible) direction. Dumping the "reliable and numerous" witnesses is an unfortunate necessity, but with the rehabilitation of the gas witnesses there is still some fight left in the old dog. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.141 (talk) 17:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

A problem - many sites have a German sub coming up the Bug River to deposit its diesel engine at Treblinka. There were numerous witnesses to this event ( so much for witnesses I guess) - any way to track this all down to get all the , probably hundreds, sites to agree? 159.105.80.141 (talk) 12:35, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Establishment of Treblinka last para

".....waiting in the train wagons knew what would happen and thousands committed suicide in the trains." This should be cited tbh, I've never heard this before, and it doesn't present itself as immediately credible. Hakluyt bean (talk) 04:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Ditto - committed suicide - how? Rope - who supplied it, poison - who supplied it, gunshot - who supplied it ...... Sounds like one of many improbable scenarios.159.105.80.141 (talk) 12:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone should browse the net and expugne some junk from some sites - one is still floating a cached page that 300,000 Italian Jews were sent to Treblinka - I think soon after the place was closed down. The main article is so lacking in citations ( either truthful or wiki-reliable ) it is almost stunning. 159.105.80.141 (talk) 16:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

No where in the article are the gassing or incineration methods detailed, other than these 3 sentences: "Behind this building there was a large pit, one meter wide by twenty meters long, inside which burned fires. Rails were laid across the pit and the bodies of gassed victims were placed on the rails to burn.....Some 800–1,000 bodies were burned at the same time, and would burn for five hours. The incinerator operated twenty-four hours a day." (These latter figures, by the way, would equate to an estimated death toll of between 1.5 and 1.8 million, not the 780,000 that is claimed by modern historians). There is no mention of what fuel was used to burn the bodies (many of which in the second phase of the operation had been exhumed so they could be burnt) - was it gasoline; was it wood; or a combination of both; where did the fuel come from, how did it get to Treblinka, where is the documentary evidence to confirm this information? The article further states: "In September 1942, new gas chambers were built. They could kill three hundred people in two hours." - yet Vassili Grossman, who is cited as a source in the article and whose book, it is claimed, was used as evidence and distributed at the Nuremberg Trials, wrote: "When fully loaded, therefore, the ten chambers during one operation annihilated an average of four thousand five hundred people. At their most typical loading, the chambers of the Hell of Treblinka were filled at least two or three times every day (there were days when this happened five times)." He then goes on to extrapolate that allowing for repairs, idleness, smaller transports, etc., that 3 million people were exterminated over a period of 10 months. (Quotes taken from the Russian book version of Treblinka Ad (The Hell of Treblinka)) A few paragraphs before his estimates for the numbers killed in the gas chambers, Grossman makes the wild, not to say impossible, claim that "the SS-man Zepf" picked up a child and tore the poor unfortunate "right in two"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthpremium (talk • contribs) 15:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the establishment, this source says that: "Parenthetically, only one physician ever came to command an extermination camp. His name was Dr Irmfried Eberl, a psychiatrist, who established Treblinka based on his experience as the Brandenburg Psychiatry Facility medical superintendent. He managed the camp for six months until he was fired for inefficiency in disposing of the thousands of bodies he succeeded in accumulating."[Rael D Strous (2007) Psychiatry during the Nazi era: ethical lessons for the modern professional Annals of General Psychiatry 2007, 6:8doi:10.1186/1744-859X-6-8] Not sure how this fits in to this article/any other sources. EverSince (talk) 14:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Photo with caption

So, I found this schematic at the Bundesarchiv and I posted it. Unfortunately I don't speak German. "Gaskammer" isn't hard to figure out but I had to use an online translator to figure out what the other numbers in the image description meant. Anybody who speaks German, please check.

Also, I see Holocaust deniers have left their trail of slime on this talk page. Unfortunate. Vidor (talk) 04:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

And it seems the deniers have friends who've intervened on their behalf. Anyway, if anyone who speaks German could please check and confirm that my crude "translation" of the numbered caption information is correct, that would be great. Vidor (talk) 15:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is the translation: "1) Disembarkation point. 2) False train station. 3) Undressing rooms for victims. 4) Gas chambers. 5) Pit where the victims where burned". BTW, I hope you comment about the "denier's friends" where not intended at me, because I will feel really offended (among others, but not only, because there is no application of the "assume good faith principle - even if I can agree that on articles or discussion pages like this one it can be more difficult than for many others). If you have a closer look to these comment you will see that some of them are as old as 2005 and that nobody has removed them. And if you look at other discussion pages of Holocaust related articles, you will see it is the same. Most of the people who write on concerned articles usually forbid that denialist garbage is put into these articles and rebut the deniers' arguments when writen into the discussion pages. By removing the denier's "arguments" you have also removed their rebutals. --Lebob-BE (talk) 16:06, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Vidor's comment regarding "friends of Holocaust deniers" is a reference to my reverting his removal of what I considered good faith comments made on this page without leaving edit summaries. I also consider it a personal attack. See discussion I started on his talk page here.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 18:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

And I'll repeat what I said there, which is that lies are not held to be deserving of "free speech" protection, removing lies and disinformation from an encyclopedia is not vandalism, and littering an article or it's talk page with assertions that a historical personage did not exist or a historical event did not happen is vandalism. If I went to the Heinrich Himmler article and asserted that there was no such person as Heinrich Himmler, or went to the Beer Hall Putsch article and said that it never happened, would that be deserving of Wikipedia's protection? Or would it be deleted as vandalism? Rest assured, though, that I will make no further attempt to remove the lies of the Holocaust deniers from this page. Vidor (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Your point is based in part on an assumption: that these comments were made because people are lying and would be comments that were disruptive and made in bad faith. Under those circumstances, I might agree that the comments should be removed. But according to another one of wikipedia's policies, "Assume Good Faith" (See WP:GOODFAITH), I can't make such an assumption. I can't track down the people who made these comments and read their minds and see whether or not they truly believe the Holocaust happened. In addition, I must echo Lebob-BE's point that you not only removed the comments but the well reasoned responses to those comments. The record of the debate that was left clearly favored the conclusion (I believe a quite rational one) that the holocaust in fact happened. By removing the discussion in it's entirety, you allow holocaust deniers to repeatedly make fallacious arguments.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 19:40, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Picture question

I have seen this picture elsewhere on the Internet identified as Jews being taken to Treblinka. However the caption at the Bundesarchiv does not identify it with any particular camp. Is there a source specifying where this train was going? Vidor (talk) 23:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Curious

After watching various documentaries and testimonies from survivors of Treblinka, I have a few questions regarding this article:

1. Abraham Bomba is a survivor whom has stated that the separate gas chambers were "... size, by feet, around twelve by twelve". This article cites a source that states: "About 400 people, women, children, old men and adult men were pushed in together into each chamber." Excuse me if I'm missing something, but how can this be possible? The layout as depicted in Jankel Wiernik's (another survivor) book 'A year in Treblinka' also supports the statement that the gas chambers were small.

2. Where the heck are all the citations supporting all the statements in the article? There are some figures and 'facts' written in the article without any citations at all - In fact, just about all statements.

Thanks

87.102.79.157 (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Size of the camp

The following edit changed the text to say that the camp was 20 by 10 feet:

    00:02, 21 March 2009 77.96.173.94 (talk) (22,959 bytes) (undo) 

I undid the change as soon as I found it, on 23 March, but just wanted people to be aware of such things. The previous version (which I restored) says that the area was just 600 by 400 metres (1968' x 1312'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alastair Farrugia (talk • contribs) 08:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Error in numbers

Quote: "Around 6 million people - more than 99.5 percent of which were Jews, but also other victims (among them 2,000 Romani people) were killed there between July 1942 and October 1943; the camp was closed after a revolt during which a few Germans were killed and a small number of prisoners escaped." (2nd line of article)

Around 6-7 million Jews were massacred by the Nazis during WWII, but close to 2 million people died at Auschwitz II alone, how can Treblinka have killed 6 million alone? Could someone find a source and get a correct number? In the "Death toll and the aftermath" section it mentions 1-1.4 million by the way so can we get a general consensus to put this number on the top? Assassin3577 (talk) 15:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

what the hell?

why were my edits removed? Statesboropow (talk) 19:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll let you guess why. This is a talk page whose purpose is to discuss how to improve the article. Not a deniers forum. --Lebob-BE (talk) 08:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

i am not a denier you moron. i am simply asking questions. what's the problem? you dont have the intestines to answer the questions i asked? Statesboropow (talk) 01:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Not a denier? This must be the reason why you spoke about the "alleged massacre" of six millions Jews on this talk page. A wording used by the deniers. A mere coincidence, most probably. --Lebob-BE (talk) 10:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

disfigured, bitten prisoners, with ears torn off?

why were they disfigured? why were their ears torn off? who bit them? Statesboropow (talk) 01:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Not even sure if I should respond to you, but obviously the text is saying as they panicked and died in pain people bit each other and tore at each other. AniMate^talk 02:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

the aliens bit them. the same aliens that washed the walls of the gas chambers as to not leave any residue of the gas used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.207.170.123 (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

good question. and why did the women get a haircut before being gassed? what was the point of the haircut? what was done with the hair? and what about the men? no haircuts for them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.163.18.2 (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

can someone show me one other instance where people paniced and tore and bit eachother? since when do people bit eachother when there is a panic? does it happen in house fires? do you think if you were in a panic you would be tempted to gnaw on someones leg? Notonekilled (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I read, and re-read that paragraph many times, and am also confused. If the victms were in a panic say so, don't use ambigious visual explanations. --67.70.90.211 (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• I wrote the original paper that became this article. I went back to look at the reference to the ears. In http://christophermahan.com/writings/treblinka.html, in the 8th reference, there is a url and link to the interrogation of Pavel Lelenko (http://www.nizkor.com/ftp.cgi/people/ftp.py?people//l/leleko.pavel.v) This was in the wikipedia article but was apparently later lost. You will find the quote in http://www.nizkor.com/ftp.cgi/people/ftp.py?people//l/leleko.pavel.v/leleko.002 if you look for the word "ears". Note that this is not a very pleasant read and is more brutal and disturbed than the paper I wrote. Hope this helps. Christopher Mahan (talk) 14:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• There might be some problems with the confessions made during interrogation of collaborators conducted by the Fourth Department of the SMERSH Directorate of Counterintelligence of the Second Belorussian Front (such as the one above). Unlike the Allied military courts and judiciary, the Soviet NKVD routinely tortured their prisoners to force them to confess to various war crimes. This was proven during a series of communist show trials both in the USSR and in Poland following World War II. The confessions were usually composed by the interrogators, and only signed by the accused, following prolonged beatings. The torture would not stop even after the court sessions ended. Therefore, some of the most gruesome depictions of murder would have to be adjusted for the truthfulness of their original Soviet sources. -- Poeticbent talk 20:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  References: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, The Dialectics of Pain Glaukopis, vol. 2/3 (2004-2005).[5] See also: John S. Micgiel, “‘Frenzy and Ferocity’: The Stalinist Judicial System in Poland, 1944-1947, and the Search for Redress,” The Carl Beck Papers in Russian & East European Studies [ Pittsburgh], no. 1101 (February 1994): 1-48. For concurring opinions see: Krzysztof Lesiakowski and Grzegorz Majchrzak interviewed by Barbara Polak, “O Aparacie Bezpieczeństwa,” Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, no. 6 (June 2002): 4-24; Barbara Polak, “O karach śmierci w latach 1944-1956,” Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, no. 11 (November 2002): 4-29.

Gas?

The word "gas" is written many times in the article, but no explanation is given for the source of the deadly gas. This problem should be fixed, lest the absence of explanation attracts all sorts of questions. Was it a diesel engine or a gasoline engine? Also, I am reading the original witnesses' accounts, from during and from after the operation of the camp, and the official reports from the first commissions, and I find that many different ways of killing are discussed: Gas (from a diesel engine?), steam, electricity, and pumping out the air of the chambers. I feel that this is an important issue: People need to know! otherwise they will have many doubts... Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.62.106.225 (talk) 00:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

there was never one person gassed using poison gas or anything else for that matter. the gas chamber story is a legend and nothing more. it has been proven that stories of gassings of humans in "gas chambers" are false. there is no physical evidence that it happened and no documentary evidence either. sorry if this offends anyone, but prove me false with physical, photographic or documentary evidence. Notonekilled (talk) 16:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The story says that people were killed by gas in a chamber. Whether that story is true or false is irrelevant in the context of my question: What was the source of the deadly gas in Treblinka according to the story? There is no answer for this question to be found anywhere in the article as it is today (October 16, 2009). Right now this Wikipedia article should read like this: 850,000 people were murdered with an undescribed gas produced in an undescribed way. Should we proceed with this change? Can you suggest a better wording? 86.62.106.225 (talk) 10:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It was carbon monoxide. --Alchemist Jack (talk) 12:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

What was the source of this carbon monoxide? 86.62.106.225 (talk) 00:25, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Zyklon B produces carbon monoxide? Notonekilled (talk) 16:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

99.5% Jewish?

where is the citation for this claim? if such an exact statistic is to be given, then where is the citation? and so what if they were Jewish? is there something more terrible about it if they were Jews? Notonekilled (talk) 17:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not aware of any such statistic existing. I believe that the 99.5 percent was more likely supposed to be a reference to the estimated percentage of the prisoners who were killed immediately upon arrival, and the statistic was incorrectly interpetrated by the person who added it.

For the record, sources point towards a figure of about 800,000 out of 850,000 victims at Treblinka being Jewish. But those figures are extremely rough.

And yes, it is slightly more terrible that they were targeted for being Jews. This logically implies (and of course the burden of evidence proves this as well) premeditation and calculation in the act of the murders to a greater degree than "regular" murder. Also, it was an act of genocide, which attempts to destroy not only an entire people, but an entire culture as well. As well as the fact that the main motive behind the mass murder was their religious belief, which is considered a fundamental human right. These considerations (as well as others) make the actions more grievous and destructive than "regular" mass murder.Hoops gza (talk) 00:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

They weren't murdered for their religious beliefs at all; many were agnostic or atheist, and some were even Christians. They were murdered because they were Jews, not because of anything they believed, thought, or did. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:52, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. I see your point but I think you're being ridiculously pedantic, as though I put this in the article. You're misinterpreting what I said. That wasn't the point of that part of the comment. The point was to demonstrate a fundamental human right being violated that is unique and uniquely "worse" from the premeditated mass murder of non-Jews. Religious belief is perhaps the most fundamental of all human rights after life, liberty and happiness, and an attempt was made to remove these latter three rights from many Non-Jews, whereas the non-Jews were not victims of the former first right.

I don't think you really understand what I said. Jews are an ethnoreligious group and by definition (and more to the point, by the Nazi's definition) they must either a. practice the religion of Judaism, or
b. be ethnically Jewish, or
c. both

Anyone who practices Judaism is Jewish.

The Nazis perpetrated a genocide. That means that they attempted to destroy all Jewish culture, including all people who were ethnically Jewish, and all people who held Judaism as their religious belief. In many cases (actually, in most cases), they were murdered for their Jewish beliefs. I guess I should have included "or their ethnic origin" after that to make it all-inclusive, but that's about it. You seem to fail to understand that their being Jewish is defined by their religious beliefs, culture and ethnicity. Many of the things that they believed, thought or did are what made them Jewish. So, yes, they were murdered for what they believed, thought or did. Some (I do not know how many) Jews' only claim to being Jewish was their religious belief. The Nazis killed rabbis with the intention of removing religious leaders of the Jewish people. So, most of the Jews were murdered for their beliefs even if it is not the catch-all reason. And yes, you could say that all of the Jews who were murdered were murdered for being Jews. I understand how your wording is more accurate and includes all Jews, and my wording excluded a certain percentage of the Jews. It was just worded poorly, the point of that was to demonstrate why it was a "worse" crime than non-Jews.

I'm well aware that many of the victims of the camps were Gentiles; that is, they were both practicioners of other (or no) faiths and not ethnically Jewish, I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to in the first sentence.Hoops gza (talk) 03:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

haircut?

the article states that women had their hair cut off before going into the gas chamber. can someone tell me why? what was the point of the haircut? no haircut for the men? what was done with the hair? does anyone else find this odd? Notonekilled (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

No it is not odd. Long hair is used in wigs. Men tend to have short hair. --Alchemist Jack (talk) 12:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that the hair of hundreds of thousands of women of all ages were really needed to produce wigs, in times of war? 86.62.106.225 (talk) 00:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Alchemist Jack you are a riot! you are one funny man! so you want us to believe that the Nazis, while they were struggling to fight a war on many fronts, they were concerned with having a cheap source of hair for wigs? wow, the damn Nazis! always trying to find a cheap way to make things. you crack me up Jack Notonekilled (talk) 16:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Note: The above user has been sent to the wikipedia phantom zone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You are right it was not wigs. Hair was used as industial felt as seen in this posting [6]. --Alchemist Jack (talk) 11:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Notonekilled" - well a name there that maybe gives away a pov. having seen every Wiki site loaded with comments by revisionists I just come back to - so where did almost the entire Jewish population of Poland (and many other countries too) go to - did they all in fact emigrate to Palestine - were they all killed in cross fire/allied bombing - or actually murdered by the Soviets? It rather like one survivor commented - the Nazis said we will do this to you but the world will never believe you. It really is insulting the memory of the dead —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.42.144.254 (talk) 23:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

If you just wanted an answer to the question, supposedly the hair was used in the manufacture of sockyarns and other apparel for German submarine crews. Logically, this does seem like a practical (albeit completely unethical) use of human hair, since U-boat crews frequently had to go long periods of time without bathing or washing of clothes, and relatively so little clothes on board. I don't think this has ever been confirmed by anyone in history.Hoops gza (talk) 01:06, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

About the article.

I wrote the Treblinka article as a college paper in 1996. I had about 6 weeks to gather info and write the paper. I checked out some books from the college library, which provided for the majority of the info in the article. I also found some information online, but I only used what I considered to be reliable. Remember that this was 1996, and it was hard going getting stuff. I also wanted the paper to be balanced and not spend too long on any details. The goal of the paper was passing the class, not really anything else. I did not create anything. I either quoted or paraphrased from the sources. I admit I did not do a very good job, in hindsight, in referencing the sources, but that was English 101 in a community college, and that was my first college class, so I'm not altogether sure I could have done a better job at the time.

I was also constrained that the paper could not be longer than 10 double-spaced pages, so I had to just touch up on a variety of subjects. Further, I was under the constraint of having an intro and conclusion, that sort of thing. This dictated a lot of what I had to put in and leave out.

When I placed the article on Wikipedia in February of 2002, the site was still getting its footing. I fully expected that the article would be fleshed out and mercilessly edited, as it has been. I've seen some very good information added to the article over the years. I also have been disappointed by the revisionist/believer debates.

I would simply add to those who seek answers: there may be none. There is enough misinformation out there that seems plausible and rational that I believe one cannot use logic to reveal truth from fiction. There is just too little information available.

One of things I would say is that while we certainly need to learn from the past we should not become wrapped up in it to the point that we forget about dealing with the present and working toward a better future. Knowing whether it was gas/diesel/Zyklon matters not so much as understanding the reasons the camps came into being and the mental processes that led well-educated professionals to think this was a way to solve problems. I tried to show this somewhat in the original paper, but I had few sources at my disposal and didn't want to increase the scope of the paper.

I am glad however that this has spurred plenty of discussion :) Christopher Mahan (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but I would say that the distinction between poison gas and exhaust fumes is an important one, because one is a more efficient method of killing people.Hoops gza (talk) 01:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Gypsies vs. Romani in lead paragraph

Is this not redundant? And should this not be cited anyway?

68.200.69.226 (talk) 07:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Railroad Guage

In Europe preWar the railroad gauge was not standard thourghout Europe - it may not be still I don't know. Was Treblinka on a one gauge system coming and going or was it a switching site? I know that when you went into Russia and Poland you had to switch trains somwhere along that line.159.105.80.141 (talk) 12:52, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Above the word photos was mentioned several times. In 1989 in the National Archives there was uncovered aerial photos taken by the Germans of Treblinka while it was in operation. They have been little discussed anywhere that I could find. The photos show a "camp" of very small size, staff,etc - hard to imagine it ( with it's very small acerage etc) being a major site for anything but a transit(actually a train switch).159.105.80.103 (talk) 11:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that Treblinka was on a one gauge system. The Soviet Union had different gauge track than most of the rest of the world, and probably still does. I believe that China has different gauge track as well, could be wrong about that.

Some statistical estimates of transports to Treblinka can be found here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.net/ar/treblinkadaytoday.html

As you can see, almost every train that went to Treblinka, if not all of them, came from Poland, not Russia. So the argument about Russia is moot.

In fact, it is my understanding that only one rail line went to Treblinka. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Of course, that implies that the trains entered and left Treblinka on the same track, and so that would mean that it must have been a one gauge system.Hoops gza (talk) 17:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

to be edited into article, monographically

Dr. Irmfried Eberl was the first commandant of the death camp, from July 11, 1942 until August 31, 1942, when he was relieved of his duty for not being efficient and secretive enough in the camp's killing process. He was succeeded by Franz Stangl, previously the commandant of Sobibor extermination camp, as the second and last commandant of Treblinka, from September 1, 1942 until its close of operations on October 19, 1943. Treblinka was the first death camp to experience an uprising against the SS, on August 2, 1943. As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 7,000 survivors were sent to Treblinka (on April 19, 1943, the first day of the most significant period of the uprising), where purportedly they developed again into resistance groups, and then planned and executed an uprising.

Treblinka was the first death camp to experience an uprising against the SS, on August 2, 1943. As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, 7,000 survivors were sent to Treblinka (on April 19, 1943, the first day of the most significant period of the uprising), where purportedly they developed again into resistance groups, and then planned and executed an uprising. Hoops gza (talk) 00:58, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Camp's "dates of operation"

Technically, the first official records of the camp's existence are from July 11, 1942, the records generated by Irmfried Eberl.

But the records show that the first transport of prisoners to the camp was July 22, 1942. And the records show that the gas chambers of the camp did not begin operation until July 23, 1942.

So which date should be put in the lede?Hoops gza (talk) 01:15, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Growing problem with third party reliable sourcing

A lot of new info, added to this article recently, is based on a single PDF file hosted by Ounsdale secondary school, located in Wombourne, England (see Wikipedia article Ounsdale High School). The Google search reveals that some of the new data, originating from that PDF file, cannot be confirmed anywhere else. By the way, the source file uses historical photographs with copyright tags, and it does not reveal the name of its author and his-or-her academic credentials. You're free to browse around. For example, the internet search for the Warsaw branch of "Schmidt und Muenstermann" company, which is listed here as the building contractor of the camp, yields only two troubling results: this Wikipedia article, and the PDF file in question. No more. The HolocaustResearchProject.org in contrast, calls it "Schmidt – Munstermann" (with "an office in Warsaw"). It looks like, the name has been altered at Ounsdale for dramatic reasons. — Pétrarque (talk) 15:22, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

3RR on Treblinka extermination camp

Hoops gza, please cease reverting of this article, a 3RR Violation has been opened. Ajh1492 (talk) 21:49, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Hoops has been having some trouble understanding and following Wikipedia policies and I was afraid something like this would happen. I raised the issue here but there wasn't a lot of interest by administrators. I would really suggest forced mentorship at this point. I was also a bit surprised there hasn't been more interest in the string of image warning notices on the user's talk page, many of which were uploaded with incorrect or misleading copyright tags. This is very touchy since I don't believe Hoops is doing any of this on purpose - just doesn't understand the rules here. -OberRanks (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

It just doesn't make sense to have a blank timeline section for the article. It does maintain the link back to the subsidiary article with the entire list - tried to edit out only the "lowlights" from the list. Could use further paring down. Maybe we can find someone on WPP:Poland to mentor him. Ajh1492 (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2011 (UTC)