A New Revisionist Interpretation of Operation Reinhardt

[PrudentRegret]

Bombsaway, you abuse the term "direct evidence" so let me correct you here. "Direct evidence" means the evidence is so strong it is standalone and doesn't require corroboration from other evidence. Sparse and inconsistent witness testimony describing a bizarre, undocumented shunting operation of 800,000 people several km from where the train is documented to have stopped is not direct evidence as there is a strong likelihood that the witnesses are wrong or lying.

This hypothesis heavily weighs on the dubious credibility of those like Zabecki. Zabecki and his coworkers saying in no amount of great detail that he saw such a thing is not direct evidence. It is only evidence you can consider in light of other evidence, meaning it is not direct evidence.

The Frpo showing that the train stopped at Malkinia like we are saying is direct evidence. There is, in fact, no direct evidence that ~700,000 people were brought to the camp you are calling "T-II".

It's direct evidence of the train stopping at Malkinia yes. I don't think anyone can say it's evidence of anything else. Similarly, the Frpo's in my mind do not directly evidence a killing operation at Treblinka, or even that Jews were mass delivered there.

If we're talking just about arrivals to Treblinka camp (wherever you may imagine it to be), the Hoefle telegram specifies "recoded arrivals" to Treblinka, 700k.

Now I know you have a different interpretation of this document; the problem is you don't have direct evidence for any other interpretation, whereas orthodoxy has witness statements from dozens of rail way workers, perpetrators, as well as reports from the Polish underground. The post-war archeological reports of Treblinka also directly evidence that mass body destruction took place at the site, which also would mean people would have to be mass transited there. Lastly the Korherr report links the figures specified in Hoefle to those Jews, subtracted from the population of Poland, which would mean they were either transited out or killed.

"I only care about direct evidence blah blah" immediately retreats to circumstantial and circular evidence.

"How do you know that 700,000 people were shunted to the Sorting Camp?"

"Look at the 'T' in the Hoefle telegram! That letter 'T' proves it!"

The fact is your view on this is informed by circumstantial evidence and witness testimony that entirely relies on intervening inference. So stop the blustering on "um, actually, I only care about Direct Evidence."

[bombsaway]

Bombsaway, you abuse the term "direct evidence" so let me correct you here. "Direct evidence" means the evidence is so strong it is standalone and doesn't require corroboration from other evidence. Sparse and inconsistent witness testimony describing a bizarre, undocumented shunting operation of 800,000 people several km from where the train is documented to have stopped is not direct evidence as there is a strong likelihood that the witnesses are wrong or lying.

This hypothesis heavily weighs on the dubious credibility of those like Zabecki. Zabecki and his coworkers saying in no amount of great detail that he saw such a thing is not direct evidence. It is only evidence you can consider in light of other evidence, meaning it is not direct evidence.

The Frpo showing that the train stopped at Malkinia like we are saying is direct evidence. There is, in fact, no direct evidence that ~700,000 people were brought to the camp you are calling "T-II".

It's direct evidence of the train stopping at Malkinia yes. I don't think anyone can say it's evidence of anything else. Similarly, the Frpo's in my mind do not directly evidence a killing operation at Treblinka, or even that Jews were mass delivered there.

If we're talking just about arrivals to Treblinka camp (wherever you may imagine it to be), the Hoefle telegram specifies "recoded arrivals" to Treblinka, 700k.

Now I know you have a different interpretation of this document; the problem is you don't have direct evidence for any other interpretation, whereas orthodoxy has witness statements from dozens of rail way workers, perpetrators, as well as reports from the Polish underground. The post-war archeological reports of Treblinka also directly evidence that mass body destruction took place at the site, which also would mean people would have to be mass transited there. Lastly the Korherr report links the figures specified in Hoefle to those Jews, subtracted from the population of Poland, which would mean they were either transited out or killed.

"I only care about direct evidence blah blah" immediately retreats to circumstantial and circular evidence.

"How do you know that 700,000 people were shunted to the Sorting Camp?"

"Look at the 'T' in the Hoefle telegram! That letter 'T' proves it!"

The fact is your view on this is informed by circumstantial evidence and witness testimony that entirely relies on intervening inference. So stop the blustering on "um, actually, I only care about Direct Evidence."

It's fair for you to question Hoefle, you're allowed to interpret it differently.

I should remind you that the camps are linked together in at least one document

Secret
Dear Party Comrade Wolff!

With reference to our phone conversation on 16.7.1942 I hereby transcribe the following report of our Gerneral Direction of Eastern Railways (Gedob) in Cracow for your information:

"Since 22.7. a train with 5 000 Jews goes daily from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka. Furthermore there is a train with 5 000 Jews going from Przemysl to Belzec twice a week. Gedob is constantly in touch with the security service in Cracow, who agrees that the transports from Warsaw via Lublin to Sobibor (near Lublin) rest as long as the conversion works on this line make transports impossible (until October 1942)" The trains are agreed with the commander of the Security Police in the General Government. The Head of SS and Police for the Lublin district, SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik, has been informed.

Heil Hitler!
Your truly
signed Ganzenmüller36

This is direct evidence linking all these camps together, with a Reinhardt (mass expulsion) and explicit Globocnik connection.

What would you say the B and S and T are in reference to?

I should also remind you that this is not the entirety of the direct evidence for mass transport to Treblinka. This was obvious to historians well before Hoefle, after all.

[PrudentRegret]

That is also not direct evidence for mass arrivals at the camp you are calling "Treblinka." You are inferring that when "Treblinka" is in these documents it is referring to the Sorting Camp operated by the SS-Bekleidungswerk Lublin. When I press you on this issue, you just point to documents that reference Treblinka, do you not see you are begging the question?

I have already pointed out the ambiguity as to exactly where this "extermination camp" was supposed to be, including in my previous post:

Another early witness who accused Franz of breathtaking atrocities at
Treblinka was a Warsaw-born Jew turned Israeli citizen, Kalman Tajgmann.
Tajgmann lived with his family in the Warsaw Ghetto after its erection. As a
trained mechanic, he was employed at the Okecie airport in the repair service
of Daimler Benz’s airplane motor division. Along with 150 other Jews from
the Ghetto, he was driven in a Luftwaffe truck each day to his workplace. In
early September 1942, the SS encircled the factory grounds and the workers
were brought under guard to the assembly area (Umschlagplatz), where a large
crowd had already gathered. Sixty boxcars stood empty on a nearby rail spur.
Everyone in the assembly area was loaded into a boxcar, and the train traveled
to Malkinia, where the transport (comprising, according to Tajgmann, around
six thousand people, one hundred per boxcar) was divided into groups of three,
each of which was sent on to the Treblinka camp at staggered intervals. On
arrival at the ramp, Tajgmann and the other Jews in his boxcar were hectored
by the Ukrainian and German guards to an area where the women with chil-
dren were strong-armed into a barracks on the left while the men remained
behind. From this latter group, four hundred healthy, younger men (including
Tajgmann) were ordered to stand aside.

...

These and other Jewish survivors of Treblinka would be essential to con-
victing and punishing the former camp staff. Less helpful were former railroad
employees of the German Reichsbahn who had operated the trains shipping
Jews to their doom at Treblinka. In the preliminary investigation, former (and
in some cases current) railroad officials informed the examining magistrates
that they had accompanied the Jewish transports to the camp. Now, when
confronted by their earlier testimony, the witnesses claimed that they did not
travel the full distance to the death camp but accompanied the transports only
to the train station in Malkinia, the closest station to Treblinka. (A one-track
line connected Malkinia to the station square in Treblinka I.)89 The witnesses
blamed their memory lapses on the passage of time since the event but also ar-
gued that the examining magistrate had misunderstood them. The court pres-
ident Gottlebe exclaimed impatiently to the former Reichsbahn men, “Have
you coordinated your story?” They denied doing so. One of them, Hans Pitsch,
a retired Bundesbahn chief inspector, presented a medical report certifying his
disability.90

Reichsbahn officials testified originally that they brought the transports to "the camp." Then later they said they just brought the transports to Malkinia.

The Judge accuses them of changing their story, but I don't think they changed their story, they always meant facilities at the Malkinia Station and that was their notion of "the camp," just like many others described the Malkinia Train Station as the "fake" train station constructed at "the camp." Then later, courts were insisting "the camp" was this Sorting Camp several km from Malkinia and tried to apply their testimony to that camp, so the Reichsbahn officials said they didn't bring the transports there, but they were not changing their story or colluding.

So the Reichsbahn officials should be filed with Hirtreiter under very early witnesses attesting to Malkinia and then courts later on trying to interpret the testimony as pertaining to the Treblinka Sorting Camp 7 kilometers away.

The entire shunting operation is such a weak point in the story. It is obviously meant to pick up and drop these passengers off in the correct place since there are no documents putting them where they were supposed to be according to the extermination narrative. The Frpo is evidence against offloading at "T-II", in any case if you are saying that people got off a train at location X but X is several kilometers away from where the train is documented to have traveled then you have a claim that is very suspect.

You have cited the testimony of the station workers as "direct evidence" that the Treblinka Sorting Camp was the arrival point of ~700,000 people whereas their testimony is a textbook example of circumstantial witness testimony. To give just one example:

Railway transports arrived at the Treblinka station from the direction of Siedlce and from Małkinia, but I think that more transports came from the direction of Małkinia. Each wagon usually consisted of more than 100 people, which I can remember because the number of people in each wagon was written on the wagons’ doors in chalk.

Pop quiz Bombsaway: Is this direct evidence? If not, why not?

Answer, it's not direct evidence because it's an example of intervening inference. The witness has inferred the number of people that were on each wagon based on the number written in chalk on the wagon. I think even you can explain why this is a dangerous inference.

Maybe that number was pertinent to the departure point- i.e. for the station at the origin to tabulate the number of Jews leaving a ghetto- to make sure deportation quotas were met and the ghetto population was trending as expected. And that number was never meant to be relevant to the workers unloading confiscated property at the Treblinka Sorting Camp.

Especially given we know through actual direct evidence that these transports stopped at several stations and major junctions before appearing at the location of this witness, we should appreciate how circumstantial this testimony actually is in assuming that a number written in chalk was reflective of an underlying reality to the exact number of people in a specific wagon that was being sent to that camp.

Most likely that number- written in chalk by someone, somewhere, at some place, for some reason, was not representative of the number of people being sent on that spur and the witness has made a faulty inference. Many such cases in Holocaust Mythos.

That's not to entirely dismiss circumstantial evidence, circumstantial evidence is important and it's important to history. But stop calling things Direct Evidence which are no such thing!

[bombsaway]

That is also not direct evidence for mass arrivals at the camp you are calling "Treblinka." You are inferring that when "Treblinka" is in these documents it is referring to the Sorting Camp operated by the SS-Bekleidungswerk Lublin. When I press you on this issue, you just point to documents that reference Treblinka, do you not see you are begging the question?

I'm interpreting the document yeah, just how I would interpret Goebbels use of liquidate to mean kill in the famous diary entry.

Unless you can offer better interpretation, grounded in direct evidence, I think it stands as evidencing mass transit to Treblinka and most historians would agree. You've avoided my justification for saying that the T stood for Treblinka, and also avoided offering any alternative.

You have cited the testimony of the station workers as "direct evidence" that the Treblinka Sorting Camp was the arrival point of ~700,000 people whereas their testimony is a textbook example of circumstantial witness testimony. To give just one example:
Railway transports arrived at the Treblinka station from the direction of Siedlce and from Małkinia, but I think that more transports came from the direction of Małkinia. Each wagon usually consisted of more than 100 people, which I can remember because the number of people in each wagon was written on the wagons’ doors in chalk.
Pop quiz Bombsaway: Is this direct evidence? If not, why not?

Answer, it's not direct evidence because it's an example of intervening inference. The witness has inferred the number of people that were on each wagon based on the number written in chalk on the wagon. I think even you can explain why this is a dangerous inference.

That quote alone is direct evidence of mass transport of people to Treblinka station, often from Malkinia. The exact amount is vague, given the witnesses perspective. It's not direct evidence of people being moved into T2. Even if the numbers on the train aren't representative, the witness could still be expected to know that people were being transported rather than objects. What are you struggling with here exactly?

[PrudentRegret]

It's not direct evidence because the witness is inferring the contents of the wagon. How much clearer can I make that for you? It's circumstantial evidence, and not even good circumstantial evidence as a number written in chalk is such a flimsy basis for concluding the contents of the wagon so strongly.

[bombsaway]

It's not direct evidence because the witness is inferring the contents of the wagon. How much clearer can I make that for you? It's circumstantial evidence, and not even good circumstantial evidence as a number written in chalk is such a flimsy basis for concluding the contents of the wagon so strongly.

Here's the testimony you cite

https://www.zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/pub ... NDd6OzQ3Ng

Here's Claude's analysis

Based solely on the testimony provided by Kazimierz Gawkowski, here are the key points directly evidenced:

• Gawkowski worked as a railway employee at the Treblinka railway station from 1926 onwards.

• From early July 1942 to January 1, 1943, there were frequent railway transports of Jews arriving at Treblinka.

• Transports averaged two per day, sometimes up to four, during this period.

• A typical transport consisted of 60 wagons, divided into three parts of 20 wagons each.

• The wagons were moved to the Treblinka extermination camp ramp by a shunting steam engine from Małkinia.

• Two German railwaymen were permanently employed at Treblinka station to handle these transports.

• Transport personnel included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, or German Gendarmerie, commanded by Gestapo.

• People attempting to escape from the wagons were shot at by the transport personnel.

• Gawkowski personally traveled on the shunting steam engine to the camp several times.

• At the camp, people were ordered to leave their possessions on the platform and go behind a barbed-wire fence.

• Jewish laborers cleared the wagons of corpses, remaining bundles, and feces.

• Screams could be heard from behind the fence, which would eventually die out.

• A fake railway station was built at the camp ramp, complete with fake signs and a clock.

• Transports came from various places in Poland, as well as Bulgaria, Vienna, and Germany.

• Later transports, smaller in size, came from the East.

• Corpse cremation lasted about a year, producing constant smoke and a strong odor.

• The camp was surrounded by high fences with watchtowers manned by armed Ukrainians.

• Gawkowski observed four Bagier diggers working in the camp, digging pits.

• The witness estimated more than 100 people per wagon, based on numbers written in chalk on wagon doors.

Note that Claude doesn't assume that the witnesses estimate is hard fact, and includes justification for the witnesses estimation in the statement. It's kind of obvious that mere witness statements, and direct evidence in general isn't hard fact, or proof of something. As more corroborating direct evidence is added, the case for something gets stronger.

I'm not sure where you're going with all of this.

[Nazgul]

It's direct evidence of the train stopping at Malkinia yes. I don't think anyone can say it's evidence of anything else. Similarly, the Frpo's in my mind do not directly evidence a killing operation at Treblinka, or even that Jews were mass delivered there.

If we're talking just about arrivals to Treblinka camp (wherever you may imagine it to be), the Hoefle telegram specifies "recoded arrivals" to Treblinka, 700k.

There may well have been Fplo documents for direct transport to Treblinka, but there were also Fplo documents for the multitude of Jewish labour camps on the same line for which the Jews disembarked. You have no reason to suggest that the Fplo documents known were not related to the disembarked jews.

Steam trains can travel vast distances stopping once en route, for water and fuel; this transfer takes a little over 5 mins. The main tracks were double so that trains can travel in each direction safely without the use of railway sidings. Explain why you think the transports stopped for extended periods at the site of major Jewish Labour Camps if the intention was not to allow their human cargo to disembark.

[bombsaway]

It's direct evidence of the train stopping at Malkinia yes. I don't think anyone can say it's evidence of anything else. Similarly, the Frpo's in my mind do not directly evidence a killing operation at Treblinka, or even that Jews were mass delivered there.

If we're talking just about arrivals to Treblinka camp (wherever you may imagine it to be), the Hoefle telegram specifies "recoded arrivals" to Treblinka, 700k.

There may well have been Fplo documents for direct transport to Treblinka, but there were also Fplo documents for the multitude of Jewish labour camps on the same line for which the Jews disembarked. You have no reason to suggest that the Fplo documents known were not related to the disembarked jews.

Steam trains can travel vast distances stopping one en route for water and fuel; this transfer takes a little over 5 mins. The main tracks were double so that trains can travel in each direction safely without the use of railway sidings. Explain why you think the transports stopped for extended periods at the site of major Jewish Labour Camps if the intention was not to allow their human cargo to disembark.

Rail traffic, picking up people, repairing damage done to the cars by people trying to to escape. these are speculations, but you're speculating as well.

As I said I don't think these documents themselves are evidence of people embarking or disembarking. Unless they were specified to have passengers and then none.

[SanityCheck]

There are only four Fahrplananordnung (Fplo) that seem to be available:

There are more than this - nine Fahrplananordungen were saved by Zabecki, one documenting a shuttling transport, and maybe one more

Fahrplananordnung Nr 548: 1 daily transport from Warsaw to Treblinka, 6.8.42 onwards
Fahrplananordnung Nr 562: 2 transports from Międzyrzec Podlaski ‘mit Arbeitern’ on 25-26.8.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 565: 1 transport from Lukow, 28.8.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 566: 1 transport from Wloszowa, 1.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Sedziszow, 21.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Szydlowiec, 23.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Szydlowiec, 25.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Kozienice, 23.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 592: 1 transport from Lochow, 24.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 594: 6 transports from Tschenstochau on 22, 25, 28 Sept and 1, 4, 7 Oct

Fahrplananordnung Nr 552: 5 transports from Białystok, 1 transport from Grodno, 9-14.2.43
Fahrplananordnung Nr 290: 3 transports from Białystok on 21-23.8.43

These from the original files in the Ludwig Fischer NTN trial

Thank you please post the content of these Fplo for further investigation. The Fplo are all mentioned in Treblinka Transports but the content is not available.

Can't, I'm afraid, due to archive copying agreements prohibiting this. There may well be more copies of these timetables at the Arolsen Archives, in addition to what might be found at Yad Vashem's online document archive, but I'm unaware of a 'complete' online copy of the entire file or the many other documents in the file relating to transports to Treblinka as well as the shipments out of the camp (of clothing and then the dismantling of the camp in late 1943).

[Nazgul]

Rail traffic, picking up people, repairing damage done to the cars by people trying to to escape. these are speculations, but you're speculating as well.

As I said I don't think these documents themselves are evidence of people embarking or disembarking. Unless they were specified to have passengers and then none.

How do you think the inmates of those Jewish labour camps got to their locations? Alex Cohen from Sobibor left their by train as did hundreds of others. Do you think that those transports to those labour camps did not use Train Schedules or Fplo?

[Nazgul]

There are more than this - nine Fahrplananordungen were saved by Zabecki, one documenting a shuttling transport, and maybe one more

Fahrplananordnung Nr 548: 1 daily transport from Warsaw to Treblinka, 6.8.42 onwards
Fahrplananordnung Nr 562: 2 transports from Międzyrzec Podlaski ‘mit Arbeitern’ on 25-26.8.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 565: 1 transport from Lukow, 28.8.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 566: 1 transport from Wloszowa, 1.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Sedziszow, 21.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Szydlowiec, 23.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Szydlowiec, 25.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 587: 1 transport from Kozienice, 23.9.42 (same train)
Fahrplananordnung Nr 592: 1 transport from Lochow, 24.9.42
Fahrplananordnung Nr 594: 6 transports from Tschenstochau on 22, 25, 28 Sept and 1, 4, 7 Oct

Fahrplananordnung Nr 552: 5 transports from Białystok, 1 transport from Grodno, 9-14.2.43
Fahrplananordnung Nr 290: 3 transports from Białystok on 21-23.8.43

These from the original files in the Ludwig Fischer NTN trial

Thank you please post the content of these Fplo for further investigation. The Fplo are all mentioned in Treblinka Transports but the content is not available.

Can't, I'm afraid, due to archive copying agreements prohibiting this. There may well be more copies of these timetables at the Arolsen Archives, in addition to what might be found at Yad Vashem's online document archive, but I'm unaware of a 'complete' online copy of the entire file or the many other documents in the file relating to transports to Treblinka as well as the shipments out of the camp (of clothing and then the dismantling of the camp in late 1943).

It begs the question of how thousands and thousands of Fplo documents simply vanished, like the Jews I suppose.
However, thank you for trying.

[bombsaway]

Rail traffic, picking up people, repairing damage done to the cars by people trying to to escape. these are speculations, but you're speculating as well.

As I said I don't think these documents themselves are evidence of people embarking or disembarking. Unless they were specified to have passengers and then none.

How do you think the inmates of those Jewish labour camps got to their locations? Alex Cohen from Sobibor left their by train as did hundreds of others. Do you think that those transports to those labour camps did not use Train Schedules or Fplo?

Sure they got there in trains. The question is how many got off and did they get off on the way to Treblinka? I remind you of the document at the start of Reinhardt 10k to Treblinka per week. The fplos in themselves don't evidence very much, other than Treblinka was the last stop of a route and trains left there empty

[PrudentRegret]

Nazgul's point about the Fplo showing stops at stations and junctions connected to camps is very important, but I also want to revisit some more documents below tying "Operation Reinhardt" to an economic use action under the SS-WVHA and SS-Standortverwaltung Lublin:

I have literally just started perusing these documents individually and the very first one I click on to expand and read in more detail fascinates me:

1944-01-05 Letter from Globocnik to Himmler on Operation Reinhard (Aktion Reinhard): “the documents of all other works in this matter have already been destroyed”
Introduction

In a letter dated January 5, 1944, the Higher SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik, addressed Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler regarding the economic settlement of Operation Reinhardt (Aktion Reinhard). The letter was submitted in response to Himmler’s order from September 22, 1943, which requested its completion by December 31, 1943. He outlined the two-part structure of the accounting of the “economic part of Operation Reinhardt… a) accounting and delivery of confiscated valuables and b) accounting of values generated from labor”. Globocnik also stressed that “With the entire accounting of Reinhardt, it must also be noted that their documents must be destroyed as soon as possible since the documents of all other works in this matter have already been destroyed.”

Do you know why this document fascinates me? It is because it serves as a documented proof of the extent that documents regarding this economic operation (explicitly written here in an economic context) were destroyed as a general practice.

Recall that the usage of "Einsatz Reinhardt" is ostensibly rare in documents, but in reality there are hundreds of documents pertaining to the administration of confiscated property exactly like those I am going to post below. This is just a sample from hundreds:

Note the deposits to the account of the SSPF, Department IVa - "Einsatz R". In this case the document pertains to mirrors and spoons but there are many more documents like it with various items:



Note the document pertains "to the Standortverwaltung Reinhardt Department":



Documents pertaining to "SS-Standortverwaltung Lublin" to the "Materiallager Reinhardt, Lublin"



Note that I am also suggesting that the camp we currently call "T-II" was actually a Materiallager for SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka. The property carried by deportees, whether the transports camp via Malkinia or Siedlce, would have ended up at the Treblinka station and taken to the Treblinka Sorting Camp / Materiallager Reinhardt, Treblinka.

Then the property was sorted, stored, deloused, all identical to operation of the Pabianice Sorting camp

Then it was sent to Einsatz Reinhardt, which referred to department IVa of the SS-Standortverwaltung:



You can read the German Wikipedia entry on the SS-Standortverwaltung

The site administration was one of five departments (Department I: Commandant’s Staff , Department II: Political Department , Department III: Protective Custody Camps , Department IV: Site Administration, Department V: Medical Services ) that carried out various camp-related tasks in the National Socialist concentration camps and extermination/death camps . After the establishment of the Concentration Camp Inspection (IKL), it came under this authority and, as “Department IV,” was an obligatory part of the commandant’s staff in the concentration camps. Towards the end of the 1930s, under Oswald Pohl, the concentration camp administration was reorganized. Within the concentration camp, administration was placed under the control of the respective commandant’s office and, at the IKL, was organizationally assigned to the “Administration of the Leader of the SS-TV and KL.” In addition, administration was subject to instructions from the administration office at the SS Main Office (WVHA).

The site administration regulated the economic affairs within the concentration camps and was subordinate to the administrative leader , who was formally subordinate to the commandant's office. It was responsible for ensuring that the camp staff and prisoners were provided with food, accommodation and clothing , as well as for processing income from prisoner deployments, managing the property (money, effects ) of the prisoners, and the facilities (laundry, workshops, kitchens) in which the prisoners were deployed.

The tasks also included sorting, processing and forwarding the assets of Jewish victims, as well as ordering Zyklon B for gassing . The funds and valuables were registered in the site administration, the foreign currency and banknotes were deposited in accounts at the Reichsbank and the valuables were sent to the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in Berlin.

Site management usually consisted of five to six subsections, which were structured as follows:

• registry and cash registers
• clothing
• food
• Technical Department
• Building
• prisoner property management

As another reminder, from testimony at the WVHA Pohl trial:

Q. [sic] Therefore, I assume from your answer that from the type of watches which were being repaired here one could not draw the conclusion that these watches had been taken away from inmates who had been killed?

A. No, that assumption could not be drawn. I myself tried on one occasion to see an order according to which these watches had been confiscated. As far as I can recall, I talked to Melmer about that on one or two occasions. As far as I remember, it was Melmer told me at that time that these watches had been confiscated by virtue of a decree which the State Secretary Reinhardt in the Reich Ministry of Finance had issued, and that was the reason why this action had been given the name of Action Reinhardt.

...

Q. You just said that they knew nothing about it. Do you mean by this the term "Reinhardt Action"? Or do you mean the confiscation of Jewish property, generally speaking?

A. I would like to say as of now in answering this question the following: When the Action Reinhardt is mentioned, then at that particular moment when I was in the WVHA, it could never have been the extermination action. I would like to point out clearly that the Reinhardt Action, the term as such, was always known to the WVHA as an economic use action, an action where the Jewish property could be utilized. It was approximately six weeks after the conference between Pohl and Puhl when the WVHA received a draft of an order from Lublin which bore Himmler's initials and which was the authentic basis for NO-724.

[Nessie]

It's not direct evidence because the witness is inferring the contents of the wagon. How much clearer can I make that for you?

There are numerous Polish witnesses, such as Zabecki, who speak to people on the trains that were waiting at Treblinka. They were mostly rail workers, who got a good view of what was happening. The train drivers also speak to the carriages being full of people, as do the Nazis and Jewish workers inside TII. That is corroborating eyewitness evidence with no inference. Statements here;

https://www.zapisyterroru.pl/dlibra/res ... 20camp&p=0

It's circumstantial evidence, and not even good circumstantial evidence as a number written in chalk is such a flimsy basis for concluding the contents of the wagon so strongly.

Zabecki's reference to chalk numbers on the carriages, is part of his eyewitness evidence. He is making an inference as to what the numbers referred to.

Typically, you dumb down and confuse the evidence that does not suit your belief. You cannot produce a single witness to carriages of property arriving at TII. They all speak to people, which does not suit your desired belief, so you need a way to dismiss the inconvenient evidence. The result is that you cannot produce any evidence from within TII, that it was a place where only property was sorted and that it did not receive mass transports of people.

[curioussoul]

What about the location of Treblinka (Belzec & Sobibor) in relation to its supposed primary purpose as a sorting facility for confiscated goods? It was located right on the eastern border of Poland, crossing into former Soviet territory with different railway gauge sizes. The location of these camps has been stated as one of the key evidences for their purpose as transit camps. Unless I'm missing something, it makes little sense for Treblinka II to have primarily been a sorting facility when it was located - essentially - out in the middle of nowhere, in the forest close to the Ukrainian border. That makes a whole lot of sense if it was primarily a transit camp, though.

In my view, it's possible that TII served a dual function as a sorting facility for goods seized from the Jews being deported eastwards, but this wouldn't have been its primary function. If we assume that TII, Sobibor and Belzec served the same purpose, it has to be pointed out that Sobibor is referred to as a "Durchgangslager" in a document from Himmler. It is the only instance in which one of the AR camps are referred to explicitly as a transit camp. This meaning is easy to carry over to Belzec and TII.

In Thomas Kues' series on the presence of 'gassed' Jews in the OET, there is significant evidence of Sobibor serving as a sorting station for confiscated goods as well. Jews from the Netherlands who were deported to Sobibor and (according to Kues) transited through to the Baltics had the goods seized and sorted as Sobibor.