MAIN MENU Home WWII Veterans Allied Leaders Axis Leaders   HOLOCAUST Camps Experiments Photos   NUREMBERG Main Trials Doctor Trials Einsatzgruppen   TIMELINE 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945   MISC. Music Actors Awards Trivia   CONTACT US E-Mail Guestbook

TREBLINKA CONCENTRATION CAMP Sign entering Treblinka Treblinka was established in the spring of 1942 near an existing penal labor camp. The camp was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence camouflaged with interwoven greenery to hide what was happening inside. Anti-tank obstacles and rolls of barbed wire were placed outside the fence. Watch towers were additionally placed around the camp. The first railway transports of victims destined for destruction arrived at Treblinka June 22, 1942, and from that time there was a constant stream of fresh arrivals. The women had their hair cut off, the naked men, women and children were led to the gas chambers, being told they were being led to take baths. at first the victims were told to take a zloty in their hands as bath fare, the better to deceive them, but later this practice was stopped to save money. Near the opening to the gas chambers stood the Ukrainians, who brutally drove the victims inside. The actual gassing lasted 15 minutes. After it was certain the people inside were dead, the doors would be opened and the corpses fell to the ground. Then workers would pile them on carts to be dragged away to the pits to be buried. It has been estimated that 850,000 people were killed here, mostly Jews. Treblinka was closed in November of 1943.