The problem with Malkinia is that no one survived the electric furnaces to write a book suitable for fourth-graders. As a result, confusion reigns.
However, with minimal searching, we have one official government report, two newspaper articles, one eyewitness statement, and one hearsay statement. Among dozens of other mentions in various sources.
Pre-ChGK, tales seem to be a little mundane.
I wonder what the inmates of "Postal Worker Reformation Camp Malkinia" thought of the rotting corpses on the ground, the Nazis firing poison gas bullets at sealed traincars all day, and the hundreds of thousands of suffocating Jews passing through. There's no mention of an orchestra drowning out the noise for the errant postal workers.
A circular from the German Post Office warns postal workers that leaving service requires the consent of the district postal authority. Involuntary cessation of work will be punished by deportation to the "reformation" camp in Małkinia.
- Dziennik Polski, January 27, 1942
The above doesn't have any atrocities, but fast forward and we uncover the elusive "Tremblinka III near Malkinia."
The camps were established in connection with the campaign to exterminate Jews in Europe. Some of them are actually execution sites, where Jews from Polish ghettos and from all over Europe are murdered using poison gas, electricity, and machine guns.
Three such camps gained the greatest notoriety as death camps: Bełżec, Sobibór near Włodawa, and Tremblinka III near Małkinia.
- Dziennik Polski, October 5, 1943
By September 1944, the USSR is putting things in order.
Building redundancy into their systematic industrial genocide, the Nazis used contagious poison gas bullets to kill everyone on the train passing through Postal Worker Reformation Camp Malkinia (but bypassing the electric furnaces) on the way to Treblinka who didn't already die of suffocation, but were going to be killed in the gas chambers if they survived the bloody postal worker reformation, the electric furnaces, the suffocation, and the contagious poison gas bullets.
Just try to poke holes in this story, Nazis! You can't do it!
Also, Malkinia was an open-air graveyard. Same as Treblinka.
These Jews figured out the trick before even seeing the fake shower room. The Dutch angle fence tipped them off. You wonder what the point of the orchestra here was if they'd already figured out the dying.
At Malkinya station, a seven-year-old boy climbed out of a train window. He managed to fetch water once, but when he tried to fetch it again, a German gendarme shot him. This wasn't an isolated incident. Many corpses could be seen on the railroad tracks.
...
As we approached the camp, we noticed a wooden fence, 2-3 meters high. Three rows of wire were attached to the wooden fence, at a slight angle. The Germans' diabolical plan to exterminate Jews immediately became apparent.
...
In the remaining 11 cars, almost everyone had died of suffocation. ... Many of the corpses, however, bore signs of gunshot wounds—the work of the gendarmes en route.
It's important to note that many of the corpses with gunshot wounds had unusual swelling and blackening of the body parts where the wounds had been. ... [the lone survivor] reported that after the gendarmerie fired on the train car, not only those who had been wounded died, but everyone else died too. He said that this destructive effect was caused by the poisonous gases contained in the bullets. And once the bullet hit a person, it caused swelling and blackening of the infected area.
- Interrogation report of Abram Goldfarb, who worked on the team transporting corpses from the Treblinka gas chambers. Kosów-Lacki, September 21, 1944.
(side note: Goldfarb is quoted as a reliable witness in Dr. Terry's book on A-R. He wouldn't impugn the credibility of this witness.)
By October 1944, the Extraordinary State Commission has unveiled the electric furnaces that were used to genocide an entire village of Jews.
During the occupation, the entire Jewish population was deported [from Berestovitsa] to Poland, to Malkinia Station, where they were burned in electric furnaces.
- From the report of the Berestovitsa District Commission of the Extraordinary State Commission on the extermination of the population in the district by German occupiers. Brestovitsa village. October 30, 1944.
Some people lost their paid-for tickets for the Warsaw-Malkinia train line and their tickets were canceled. Anyone using a canceled ticket would be punished.
USHMM Enc. V4 says there was also a "special camp" (labor camp) there. Maybe that was to reeducate the postal workers?
In all seriousness, there's a whole history of Malkinia train station waiting to be written (maybe it already has been?). The Germans were very proud of the infrastructure improvements they made to it.
