Treblinka

 Treblinka was a death camp built 60 miles northeast of Warsaw, Poland.  Its sole purpose was to murder.  It was very small in size because it did not need space as 99% of those who arrived at Treblinka were dead within two hours.  Treblinka had no "selection".  The Nazis loaded 1900 carts of Jewish belongings in freight cars, which they sold, making 77 million marks from the Jews. 

Frank Stangl's, Treblinka's head SS commandant,  prime concern was to reduce the time it took between the arrival of the victims and their murder.  At his trial after war, he bragged that Treblinka could murder 15,000 people in a 14-hour period.  "I have done nothing to anybody that was not my duty.  My conscience is clear"  (Stangl). 

 Jews had NO idea that they would be dead within hours.  Like the victims of Majdanek, Treblinka's Jews were lied to.  Nazis made false promises that they would be rewarded if they worked hard.  They needed to delouse first and get their heads shaved.  The guards would beat them to run faster.  There was a purpose to this madness.  They wanted the Jews to get out of breath so they would breathe in the poisonous gas deeper and die faster.

There are no pictures of the 10 gas chambers because they were destroyed before liberation.  All that is left of Treblinka is fields, grass, trees, and monumental rocks to remember the victims. 

 An Israeli group of teenagers journey to learn and to promise NEVER AGAIN!  Sad part is they needed an an armed guard to protect them.... antisemitism still exists.

 The long rectangular benches by the trees represent the railroad tracks that unloaded the cattle cars from Warsaw.  The Nazis made sure the Jews could not see too far ahead.....

1% of the Jews were not killed so that the Nazis could have the slave labor needed to bring the bodies to mass graves.  The mass graves were overloaded and the camp was small.  So the Nazis reopened the graves, removed the bodies, and burned them on a grill.  Then, the Nazis removed the fat from heavier corpses and placed it onto the bones of the skinnier ones, so they could burn more efficiently! 

 Like Belzac, Treblinka honored its victims by erecting rocks/stones, not of their names, but of towns and cities they were from.  Look at the THOUSANDS of cities/towns represented.

 Few butterflies here....Instead they had BEES everywhere!  They followed us, circling our ankles during our walk down the Black Road, a trail that once led 300,000 Jewish people and Poles to forced labor and death.  I believed they might be eating the dead remnants of corpses.  I felt nauseous the entire time....UNTIL....

 

 I was the last one to the bus.  I was hesitant to  leave.  I don't know if it was because it was the last concentration camp we were to see or because this was the concentration camp closest to my grandparents.  I decided to make one more round through these rocks before I left, asking my grandmother to give me a sign...some kind of sign she was watching.   She did.  Her tiny, unknown town...Janow Podlaski...caught my eye.  She was there among the 17,000 stones and rocks, telling me she was watching.  I hope I make her proud.

 I left the Israeli flag on the stone held down by pine cones.  I was told pine cones represent life ....How fitting that they surrounded the rock. What wrapped me in comfort now shall wrap the victims in comfort.  Now the Jews don't have to wander or remain in a state of diaspora.  They have a homeland, Israel, somewhere Jews all over the world can feel safe and protected.  NO ONE will take that away from us again...NEVER AGAIN!

This was the last picture taken.  My journey is complete.

RESISTANCE

This blog mainly has been focusing on the deception and cruelty of the Nazis.  While this is true and needs to be studied so it never happens again, the Jews DID resist physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  

The question asked by both adults and teenagers are "Why didn't they fight back?"  With what???  They had no country, no government, no defense force, and no advocates.  The Jews were in a state of diaspora when Israel was taken from them by the Romans.  Consider the events that are taking place today between the Palestinians and Israelis...Is there any wonder why there is constant fighting over land?  But despite this, they did fight back!

In the book The Holocaust, the Jewish Tragedy, the author describes the different kinds of resistance:
       
"In every ghetto, in every deportation train, in every labor camp, even in the death camps, the will to resist was strong and took many forms.  Fighting with the few weapons that would be found, individual acts of defiance and protest,  the courage of obtaining food and water under the threat of death, the superiority of refusing to allow the Germans their final wish to gloat over panic and despair.  Even passivity was a form of resistance.  To die of dignity was a form of resistance.  To resist the demoralizing, brutalizing force of evil, to refuse to be reduced to the level of animals, to live through the torment, to outlive the tormentors, these too were acts of resistance.  Merely to give witness to these events in testimony was, in the end, a contribution to victory.  Simply to survive was a victory of the human spirit."

This view is supported by Yehuda Bauer, who disputes the popular view that most Jews went to their deaths passively.  He argues that given the circumstances in which the Jews of Eastern Europe had to endure, what is surprising is NOT how little resistance there was but rather how MUCH.

Also, remember that the Jews were deceived by the Nazis in so many ways and who would think that civilized people would want to exterminate an entire race...Hate, maybe...but eliminate?  

One example of physical resistance occurred between April and May of 1943, when Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto took up arms and rebelled against against the Nazis after it became clear that the Germans were deporting remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka death camp.  Warsaw Jews of the Jewish Combat Organization and The Jewish Military Union fought the Germans with a handful of small arms and Molotov cocktails.  Three hundred Germans died as a result.  After fierce fighting, vastly superior German forces murdered or deported all remaining to the death camps.  There were other uprisings as well as armed struggles in other ghettos, concentration and death camps and Jewish partisan groups.  

 Last remaining section of the Warsaw Ghetto wall. Parts of the wall which connected two buildings, such as this section, were built higher than the rest of the wall, which was mostly lower than 10 feet.

Vladka Meed, Warsaw Uprising Leader

It is because of Vldaka Meed that I'm on this trip.  She started the Holocaust and Jewish Teachers' Resistance Program because she wanted to educate teachers (who would then reach their students) about the Holocaust, the victims, and resistance.  Vladka Meed was a member of the Jewish underground in the Warsaw Ghetto from its first days. Meed's book, On Both Sides of the Wall, recounts how she served in the resistance by passing as a Christian outside the Warsaw Ghetto. Because of her typically "Aryan" appearance, and fluency in Polish, she was not only able to smuggle weapons to the Jewish Fighting Organization inside the ghetto but also to help Jewish children escape from the ghetto to be sheltered in Christian homes.  She secretly climbed these walls many times and put her life at risk. 

After the war, Vladka Meed continued to lecture on the Holocaust, and, together with her husband, Benjamin Meed, was extremely active in Holocaust education and memorialization.

Have you watched the movie "Defiance?"  It was about a group of Jewish resisters who lived in a forest for years and defied the Nazis both physically and spiritually.  I actually got to meet the son's leader in DC!!  He is so proud of his father, and rightfully so. 

Tuvia Bielski was born in Stankiewicze, in western Belorussia in 1906. When Germany invaded Russia in June of 1941, Tuvia and his younger brother Zus vowed never to be caught by the Germans. Tuvia's extensive knowledge of the area saved his life, allowing him to move around frequently to avoid being captured by the Germans, who had a warrant for his arrest.

In early 1942, Tuvia began hearing rumors about partisans, and decided that if he and his fellow Jews were to survive, he must acquire arms and organize all-Jewish resistance groups. Along with two of his brothers, Zus, and Asael, Tuvia began

 

Tuvia Bielski 

organizing Jews. By May of 1942, Tuvia was in command of a small group, which by the end of the war had grown to 1200 people, and was known as the Bielski Otriad. Tuvia had focused on saving as many Jews as possible, and would accept any Jew into his group. Many came through the family of Konstantin Kozlovski, a non-Jew, who provided shelter for Jews escaping from the Novogrudok Ghetto and worked with the partisans to free hundreds of Jews from the ghetto.
The Bielski Otriad carried out food raids, killed German collaborators, and sometimes joined with a Russian partisan group in anti-Nazi missions such as burning the ripe wheat crop so the German soldiers couldn't collect and eat the wheat. Additionally, the Bielski Otriad would seek out Jews in the ghetto willing to risk escape to the forest, and send in guides to help them.   By the summer of 1944, the group had grown to 1200. The group consisted mainly of the elderly, women, and children. Tuvia's group was the largest of the Jewish partisan groups.

Tuvia Bielski - 1960s

A high percentage of those he led survived, due to Tuvia's strong and effective leadership, and his determination to save as many Jews as possible.

After the war, Tuvia moved first to Israel and later to the United States, where he died at age 81.


 

Majdanek

Majdanek became a ghetto after the invasion of Poland in 1939.  It then became a POW camp.  After the Wannsee Conference, Majdanek became an add-on death camp.  That's why the gas chambers were located in the front of the camp.

Unlike Auschwitz, the Nazis did not have time to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria.   I actually got to enter them.

The camp was also not built away from prying eyes.  It could easily be reached by car, and all sides of the camp were exposed as no trees surrounded it.  Even the crematoria and gas chambers were visible from the outside, so claims to "not have known" by the locals are ludicrous and impossible!

Newly arriving Jews were tricked once again into believing that their fate was okay.  They had every reason to believe they would work, as people were walking around everywhere.  The barracks were falsely labeled as Bath and Disinfection Centers, so as new visitors they wouldn't suspect they were going to DIE!

Majdanek was captured whole in July 1944. Unlike what happened in Auschwitz, the Nazis had no time to evacuate the camp or to burn it and destroy the evidence. The story of Majdanek was featured on the front page of the New York Times, then as now, the most prestigious of American newspapers.
H.W. Lawrence, a correspondent for the New York Times, wrote: “I have just seen the most terrible place on earth.” These revelations were not given much credence. The very existence of something as awful as a death camp seemed impossible. Even graphic films of the camp shown in Britain and the United States were dismissed as Soviet propaganda.
Because it was captured whole,  Majdanek is more primitive, more actual, and more real.

 Look how deceitful the Nazis were.  They labeled the barrack Bath and Disinfection.  They told the victims that "Now a better life for you will begin.  You just need to be ready to work hard.  Your hair will be cut because of lice so you need to get disinfected."  They were SHAMED to get NAKED in front of everyone!  Jewish people were taught to be very modest, even in front of their families.  When you are naked, there is no resistance.  Notice how the construction of the barracks changed.....It went from wooden planks to bricks.  The brick building was the gas chamber. When I walked through the crematoria, it still smelled of burning charcoal after 70 YEARS!

Click on pictures to read in detail the process of death and deception. 

Deceptive showers.  The prisoners were told to get naked and to REMEMBER where they put their belongings....Really?  In a room with 3,000 people?  But they did their best....not knowing that they would never come back to this room to retrieve their possessions.  They were gassed in the next room.

Carbon monoxide was supplied through metal pipes connected with two steel cylinders. 

Zyklon B was also used here.  The remnants from the poisonous Zyklon B stained the walls blue.

This is the peep hole the Nazis looked through to make sure all were dead. 

To make pavements, the Jews would roll the heavy barrels...Guess what they made the pavements from....Headstones from Jewish cemeteries. 

This was the place of roll call.  Remember, before Majdanek was a death camp, it was a POW camp.  So Polish "prisoners" asked to make their place nicer.  Germans didn't suspect a thing and were trying to be "nicer" because they needed them to work.  What the Polish "prisoners" did was erect a statue.  The base of the column is made from ashes.  The eagle became a symbol of freedom, the turtle became a message to work SLOW, and the lizard cautioned them to be smart. 

There were ravens and crows everywhere.....I think they smelled the death.

 Largest massacre of Jews in one day....30.000 people were buried in these pits.

Dome memorial.....translated to "Let our Fate be a Warning to You."

Largest massacre of Jews in one day.....30,000 people were buried in these pits. 

Underneath the dome are preserved ashes from the bodies.  Close up, you could even see bone fragments. I tried to capture the perspective of how much ash there was.....Look at the person in the background and how small he looks compared to the mountain of ash!

 OMG!  When we went to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, we were nauseated by the smell of shoes in a small area.  Look at all the shoes here.  The following poem says it all: 

Shoes
Visitors would walk through a barracks of shoes, the shoes of 500,000 Jews from the various ghettos and camps, who entered but did not leave.

Moshe Shulstein, the great Yiddish poet wrote of these shoes:


I saw a mountain
Higher than Mt. Blanc
And more Holy that the Mountain of Sinai
On this world this mountain stood.
such a mountain I saw—Jewish shoes in Majdanek….
Hear! hear the march.
Hear the shuffle of shoes left behind—that which remained.
From small, from large, from each and every one.
Make ways for the rows—for the pairs—
For the generations—for the years.
The shoe army—it moves and moves.
We are the shoes, we are the last witnesses.
We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers,
From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam,
And because we are only made of stuff and leather
And not of blood and flesh, each one of us avoided the hellfire.
We shoes—that used to go strolling in the market
Or with the bride and groom to the chuppah
We shoes from simple Jews, from butchers and carpenters,
From crocheted booties of babies just beginning to walk and go On happy occasions, weddings and even until the time
Of giving birth, to a dance, to exciting places of life…
Or quietly—to a funeral.
Unceasingly we go. We tramp.
The hangman never had a chance to snatch us into his
Sack of loot—now we go to him.
Let everyone hear the steps which flow as tears.
The steps that measure out the judgment.

Belzac

Remember at the Wannsee Conference the Final Solution was formally implemented.  Notice how they never came out and said MURDER!  They used code words such as "Resettlement to the East," "Final Solution" and "Operation Action Reinhard" (He was the leader of the conference) to positively propagandize their intentions.  The concentration camps of Belzac, Sobidor, and Treblinka were created solely to murder the Jews.    

Initially, there were three gas chambers in use.  This was later increased to six to cope with the increased number of "victims."  Unlike Auschwitz, Belzac was reasonably small.  A railroad led directly to the camp where one part was used to store the clothes and valuables stolen from the Jews, and another part held the gas chambers and burial pits.  The two sections were connected by "The Tube"...a narrow passageway topped with barbed wire.  Branches were interwoven into the barbed wire to screen it off from the camp's other section.  The Nazis couldn't chance the Jews getting out of order and rebelling!  

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU CLICK ON EACH PICTURE TO READ.  IT TELLS THE DETAILS MUCH BETTER THAN I COULD EVER CONVEY.  

Belzac concentration camp

 Completely desolate.  This is all that remains of the concentration camp after the Nazis destroyed their evidence of torture and hatred.

 However, life still persists and prospers.  Look at the growth of plants despite the destruction.  Very symbolic.

 Having been told that they needed to shower before starting labor duties, the Jews were forced through "The Tube" and then to the gas chambers.  The process of mass murder took about 30 minutes.  Belzac used carbon monoxide gas piped in from a diesel engine.  It took about three hours to kill and then clean up one trainload of Jews.  However, when the number of gas chambers doubled, the process was greatly reduced in time. 

 All who came to Belzac died.  It was simply a death camp.  No names were recorded, so to honor the victims, a memorial of the most popular Jewish names are displayed.  My son Ethan (Ephraim in Hebrew) and mother Rifka are among these names. 

 Because names were not recorded, a list of TOWNS and CITIES were used to represent the Jews....Hundreds of towns....can you imagine how many people?

 The Nazis were efficient creatures.  As time passed, they perfected their methods of destroying the corpses.  On top of the railroad tracks, they would alternate bodies and wooden planks..  This quickened the rate at which the bodies were disposed. 

 Look at how they rationalized their heinous behavior.....

 Only two known survivors from this camp!

 I fell apart reading this sign....No words.......

Remnants of life....

 Make sure you click on the picture to read the above.  Staggering.....

 Knowing that these people were to die, the Nazis didn't bother tattooing them for identification.  In order to maintain control and deceive the Jews into cooperating, the Nazis issued these concrete "tickets" for their personal valuables.