You're saying we should just uncritically accept PR's hypothesis that when Nazi documents say Jews were being delivered to Treblinka camp or going from Malkinia to Treblinka they were really going to a camp dead in the middle of Malkinia? If you have issues with this weird tangent, I'm not the one driving it brother.borjastick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:23 am Bombsaway and the ever ridiculous Nessie have just made my point for me. Puffery, nonsense and a total lack of hard solid fact and evidence from them both. Time to grow up children and get another hobby. You're no good at this one...
Please tell me which, if any, revisionist claim about TII is correct and explain why you think that. What was the evidence that convinced you?borjastick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 8:23 am Bombsaway and the ever ridiculous Nessie have just made my point for me. Puffery, nonsense and a total lack of hard solid fact and evidence from them both. Time to grow up children and get another hobby. You're no good at this one...
Frankly, I don't trust mainstream supposition that the transit camp closed "either before, or in the first months that TII was open and operating" because this camp being open during the deportations would completely torpedo the extermination hypothesis. It of course makes no sense to close a camp dedicated to the transit of Jewish deportees in the midst of a deportation action. This camp being open "in the first months that TII was open" would encompass it being open during the greater part of the deportations from Warsaw.Nessie wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 7:47 am"In 1941–1942 there was a transit camp in Małkinia for the Jewish population, set up by Germans in the eastern part of the town, along Nurska Street. According to memories, it was under the open sky[1.9]. It is known that terrible conditions prevailed there, and people stayed in pits dug in the frozen ground"bombsaway wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:32 am ....
"In 1941–1942 there was a transit camp in Małkinia for the Jewish population, set up by Germans in the eastern part of the town, along Nurska Street"
https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/m/982-ma ... -community
....
That source refers to the Malkinia camp as a transit camp, because it was the first stage in the transportation process that then sent Jews to ghettos, such as in Warsaw, or to camp, such as TII. The Malkinia camp was closed either before, or in the first months that TII was open and operating.
The same happened in Tluszcz;
https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety. ... uszcz.html
"In September 1940, the Germans established a ghetto in Tluszc and the Jews were forced to move out of their homes and were resettled into the homes of Polish peasants located just outside the town"
That ghetto closed in May 1942, out of the 800 Jews, nearly 600 ended up at the Warsaw ghetto and the rest selected to work at labour camps in Wilanow. There is no direct link between the Malkinia or Tluszcz camp/ghetto and TII. That transports to Treblinka stopped at those places, is merely because those places had stations and were in small towns, all of which at some time, had a small temporary camp/ghetto, as local Jews were being initially rounded up.
Although "T-II" was not open according to historical accounts, we know by the accounts I have just learned about that the "Malkinia Transit Camp" was certainly operational and this time, and would have received transports of Jews and become the origin point of extermination rumors before T-II was even open. Thus, both Weirnik's map and the Dziennik Polski article suggest this Malkinia transit camp was known as "Treblinka."The situation of the Jews presents itself even worse. The matter of the Warsaw ghetto is well known. Hunger, death and diseases continually and systematically threaten the Jewish population. In the area of Lublin on the night of 23-24 March [1942] the Jewish population was deported. The sick and disabled were killed on the spot. All children aged 2-3 years from the orphanage, who numbered 108, were sent away from the city along with their nurses and murdered. Altogether 2,500 people were murdered that night, while the remaining 26,000 were sent to camps in Bełżec and Tremblinka [wywieziono do obozów w Bełżcu i Tremblince]. From Izbica Kujawska 8,000 people were deported in an unknown direction. Reportedly in Bełźec and Tremblinka the killing is going on with the help of poisonous gas [za pomoca gazów trujacych].
So the June 9, 1942 article on the "Death Camp in Trenblinka [sic]" could not be referring to the as-of-yet not opened "T-II." It is most likely referring to the Malkinia Transit camp which was also called "Trebinka". Likewise, claims that Jews were "sent to be gassed in Treblinka" already in March 1942 would pertain to rumors surrounding the transport of Jews to the already-existing Malkinia Transit camp that the Germans set up for Jews along Nurska street and, according to Wiernik, south of the main Warsaw-Bialystok line.“At that time, i.e. in late May and early June 1942, the clandestine press published reports on two camps in Treblinka: the labor camp and the death camp. The first reference to the killing center there is to be found in a text by Gutkowski entitled ‘The Scroll of Agony and Destruction,’ which probably constitutes the draft of an Oneg Shabbat press bulletin. In the entry dated May 29, 1942, we read: ‘There are two camps in Treblinka: a labor camp and a death camp. In the death camp people are not murdered by shooting (the criminals are saving ammunition), but by means of a lethal rod [in the Yiddish original: troytshtekn].’ This item, without mention of the ‘lethal rod,’ was printed on June 2, 1942 by the newspaper Yedies. The next issue of that paper, dated June 9, 1942, carried an article entitled ‘The Death Camp in Trenblinka [sic]’ In it we read:
‘A Pole who managed to bribe his way out of the camp relates: ‘I worked with the German personnel of the labor camp. The Poles present there were assigned the task of digging huge pits. The Germans brought a group of about 300 Jews every day. They were ordered to undress and get into the pit. The Poles then had to cover the pits with soil, burying the people there alive. After they finished their work, they were shot.’”
Yes, the Malkinia Transit Camp (AKA Treblinka) would have been the point of confiscation of the property carried by settlers. What would that camp have done with the property? According to that protocol, they would have needed to turn that property over to the Reinhardt personnel which constructed a secret Jewish sorting camp for this purpose- at the camp we all call "T-II". Note that this was also the exact pattern of the Pabianice Sorting Camp:On arrival they were disinfected in quarantine at 109 Leszno Street. A note preserved in the files of the JSS in Krakow, recording a message sent by a representative of the JSS for Kreis Warschau-Land, reports that of more than 800 Jews resettled from Tluszcz on 27 May 1942, only 582 people reached the quarantine section of the Warsaw ghetto, without any money or personal property.
This image shows the location of the "salvage sorting camp" Pabianice relative to the transit camp:Pabianice is first mentioned for the purpose of the central sorting site of the plundered Jewish property in a memo of the Ghetto Administration of 31 March 1942 on a forthcoming visit of the Kulmhof commandant. On 3 April 1942, Lange - and possibly already Bothmann [5b] - met in Litzmannstadt to discuss the transport of effects from Kulmhof with the Ghetto Administration. In the absence of the head of the office Hans Biebow, his deputy Friedrich Ribbe was to state the position of the Ghetto Administration that the Sonderkommando is responsible for the transport and has to use its own trucks to bring the effects of their victims to Pabianice or sent them by train (Document 89).
Lange maintained that "he has no vehicles at his disposal to drive luggage to Pabianice", which Ribbe - knowing that the Sonderkommando trucks travelled long distances to the Ghettos when deportations by train were not feasible - countered "to order the trucks on their way to the counties over Pabianice". The first such "load" to Pabianice was to go off on 9 April 1942 despite that it was "still not quite clear how the processing of the luggage shall proceed in Pabianice...since the storage rooms over there have to be first freed from machines" (Document 90). The earliest indication of a load with Jewish effects to Pabianice dates to 29 April 1942, when such truck had to refuel in the Ghetto Litzmannstadt. [6]
The "salvage sorting camp" (also called "special camp Pabianice", "work site Pabianice-Kulmhof", "Jewish working camp Pabianice-Dombrowa" and "camp Dobrowa") [7] was erected as "secret state affair" on the property of a former textile factory in the Litzmannstädter/Warschauer-Straße 127 in Pabianice
The "Treblinka Extermination camp" is a Mosaic of witness account and reports of both locations. With the earliest accounts being indexed on the Malkinia Transit Camp and then later accounts focusing on the Operation Reinhardt camp. It's a combination of the Malkinia Transit Camp and the Treblinka sorting camp. I even recall there were witnesses who, when interrogated, talked about being stationed at Malkinia but then they were prosecuted for being at Treblinka. And as I already mentioned the maps, i.e. Wienrik's map, obviously do not describe T-II and so the people that drew them had a different camp in mind.Malkinia camp is dead in the city, so why would it be confused for a place many kilometers away? You have suppositions, but I think documentary evidence is much much stronger
What is speculative is that there is no evidence that the evacuated Jews from all over Europe (see the document I just quoted which references a transport from Macedonia!) were being sent to that camp.PrudentRegret wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 11:00 pm Because Wiernik places a Treblinka (The Camp) off the Warsaw-Bialystok line, which is where this Transit Camp was. And there were written reports of a Treblinka Extermination camp at the time this Transit Camp was operational, with no chance those reports could have either been confused with the known Quarry or with the T-II camp which wasn't even constructed yet.
The "Stop" At this Malkinia Transit Camp/"Treblinka camp" would not be the same stop as Malkinia.
If sources place a Malkinia Transit Camp in the eastern part of Malkinia town along Nurska street, that could only refer to the location I've identified which would obviously make a logical place for a transit camp given the entire complex is surrounded by a loop of train tracks, and what appears to be a large extension of sidings to the main line on the northern end of the complex. A logical feature of a transit station, contrary to the single narrow-gauge spur that serviced "T-II" and the quarry.
It's not "entirely speculative" given that sources are saying there was a transit camp there, and there is nowhere else that matches that description which could have been the area containing the transit camp!
Why were there reports of a "Treblinka Extermination camp" before T-II was even constructed? Those rumors, similar to the early maps from those like Weirnik, were centered around a different camp. It's asinine to assume that Wiernik's map intended to depict "T-II" since nothing about that map bears any resemblance to any part of T-II, and the map puts the "Treblinka (The Camp)" on the Warsaw-Bialystok line, which is a reference match to the Malkinia Transit Camp and 8km away from "T-II".
T-II had been constructed or at least partially by this time according to mainstream sources"The newspaper report is from 11 July 1942, by all accounts before "T-II" even opened and received its first transport"
Don't you see how silly it is that you're picking and choosing which parts of his testimony to believe are true? The camp layout apparently is totally faithful, except for the parts that he indicates as being gas chambers etc. You can argue that he's a bad witness, but that doesn't mean he's suddenly reliable on certain points that are convenient for you."Because Wiernik places a Treblinka (The Camp) off the Warsaw-Bialystok line"
That's rich coming from a Holocaust believer!
I have responded to the question over why the Malkinia Transit Camp would be called "Treblinka".
SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka would have erected the Transit Camp for Jews wherever it was most appropriate regardless of the fact it would be in Malkinia contrary to the name of their command. Sources attest to a German-built transit camp for Jews at the exact location in question. This camp at the eastern part of the Malkinia town would have become known as "Treblinka" by nature of the fact it was under the command of the SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka. Following convention of all the other known examples, that would have been its designation in documents as well.The mining of gravel from the pits at Treblinka I was directed by the “SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka” (SS Special Command Treblinka),292 which according to Łukaszkiewicz was the official designation of the alleged ‘Death Camp’ (therefore of Treblinka II).293 This is confirmed by the fact that the mining of gravel was an operation conducted on the site by a corresponding firm, namely the Deutsche Herd- und Steinwerk GmbH Kieswerk Treblinka (German Hearth- and Masonry Works, Inc., Gravel Works Treblinka).294 Thus the “Sonderkommando Treblinka” had a perfectly institutional identity and consequently was a component of the administrative structure of the General Gouvernement. Politically, it was subordinate to the SS and Police Chief in the Warsaw district and to the Senior SS and Police Chief in the General Gouvernement (Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger), administratively to the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police at Warsaw as well as to the SS Administrator.
I mean to say you think he is a big time liar. Witnesses can be mistaken about things but not lying. That's a whole other level of unreliability.
Lucjan Puchala
Born 1897
Level Crossing Attendant with the Polish State Railways
Interviewed on October 26, 1945, in Kosow by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
I worked on the railways at the Malkinia Station during the occupation. In June 1942, I was assigned to be in charge of the construction of a railway track branch from the Treblinka station to the so-called gravel pit. The construction started on June 1.
At first we did not know what the purpose of the railway track branch was; it was not until the end of the construction that I learnt, from conversations with the Germans, that the branch line was to run to a camp for Jews. The construction continued for two weeks and came to an end on June 15. At the same time as the construction of the railway track branch, earthworks were carried out. The person in charge was a German, an SS captain.
At first, in order to carry out the earthworks, Polish labourers were used, the ones from the Labour Camp, which was already operational at Treblinka; then they started bringing in Jews from Wegrow and Stoczek using vehicles. Two or three vehicles full of Jews arrived every day. Several dozen people were killed daily by the supervising SS -men and Ukrainians out of the labourers who were brought to work; so when I looked from my workplace at the area where the Jews were working, I could see that it was always covered in corpses.
The labourers who were brought in were used to dig deep ditches and to build various huts. I know in particular, that buildings made of brick and concrete were erected, in which - as I learnt later - there were chambers for exterminating people. I heard there were eight chambers like that, and that each of them could hold about 700 people.
On the first day of July 1942, after we had finished working on the branch line, I was sent to work as a member of the administration of the gravel pit, where I worked until May 14, 1943, until I was put in the labour camp.
Since the gravel pit was near the extermination camp, I was able to observe many facts connected with the operation of the camp. I know that right after July 1, 1942, three diggers were brought in, and used to dig pits that were several dozen meters long, about fifteen meters deep, and about ten meters wide. On the day when the work on the railway track branch was completed, the building intended for housing the gas chambers was almost ready.
Wladyslaw Chomka
Born 1893
Senior Track Worker with the Polish State Railways
Interviewed on November 16, 1945, in Treblinka by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
I have been working on the railways since 1929. The part of the railway I supervise stretches from Malkinia as far as the second kilometer after the Treblinka station in the direction of Kosow.
I can vividly remember that in July 1942, a telegram came to the Treblinka station master from the Railway Head Office in Warsaw informing us that as of July 22, a permanent back and forth train would be running between Warsaw and Treblinka, consisting of 58 freight wagons and three carriages. According to the telegram, the train was to transport residents of Warsaw, who because of over-population in the city, would settle in Treblinka. Being aware of the local conditions, we were surprised as to the purpose of sending people to Treblinka, since there were no proper accommodation for them.
In reality, from July 23, 1942, onwards, transports of Jews started to arrive, at first from the direction of the Malkinia railway station, and later also from Siedlce. The highest frequency of transports lasted more or less until Christmas Day, but there was a break of two or three weeks, a short time after the first transports had arrived. During the peak period, there were from two to three transports daily without a break. After the New Year's Day, the frequency of the transports was not very high.
One day, while I was in a steam engine that was moving wagons full of Jews onto the camp's ramp, I was able to observe people being thrown out of the wagons. Immediately after the wagons were emptied, the people were ordered to hand over their luggage, the men were separated from the women, and they were ordered to strip naked. After a while, one could hear deafening screams, simultaneously an orchestra started to play and one could hear the noises of a hammer striking a piece of iron. After some time, all went quiet.
Fig 17 Treblinka Ramp 2002
Treblinka Camp Ramp July 2002 (Chris Webb Private Archive)
Kazimierz Gawkowski
Born 1899
Points Man with the Polish State Railways
Interviewed on November 21,1945, in Treblinka by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
From 1926, until now, I have been working continuously as a railway employee at the Treblinka railway station. If I remember correctly from the beginning of July 1942, until New Year's Day 1943, railway transports of Jews arrived without a break.
A transport usually consisted of 60 wagons; after it had arrived at the Treblinka railway station, it was divided into three parts, each with 20 wagons, which were gradually moved onto the ramp of the Treblinka extermination camp. This was done by a shunting steam engine, which came to the Treblinka railway station from Malkinia, specially for that purpose.
There were two German railwaymen permanently employed at the Treblinka railway station dealing with these transports and with their delivery to the camp. The personnel of the trains with Jews consisted of Ukrainians, or German Gendarmerie under the command of Gestapo men. They shot at the wagons whenever the transported Jews attempted to escape. One day, so many people were killed in this way at the Treblinka railway station, that later four flat wagons were filled with the corpses.
Since I traveled in a shunting steam engine to the camp several times, I know how individual parts of the transport were moved onto the camp ramp. When the steam engine moved the wagons onto the ramp, it moved back to the gate, with only Ukrainians, SS-men and the Jewish labourers from the camp remaining on the platform. The people were immediately ordered to leave the wagons, but all their possessions and suitcases had to be left on the platform.
All the people were sent behind a barbed-wire fence, intertwined thickly with branches, so that one could not see what was happening in there. At that time, Jewish labourers, two for each wagon, cleared the wagons of the corpses, any remaining bundles and feces. After some time, one could hear screams, which lasted for a while and then died out.
There was a fake railway station built at the camp ramp with a fake clock and various notices e.g. 'Ticket Office,' First Class and Second Class Waiting Room,' Railway Dispatch' and so on. I suppose this was done in order to make the victims believe that it was an ordinary labour camp rather than an extermination camp.
Railway transports arrived at the Treblinka station from the direction of Siedlce and from Malkinia. 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 wagon's doors in chalk.
Fig 20 Treblinka Station Area 2002002457
Treblinka Station Area July 2002 (Chris Webb Private Archive)
Stanislaw Borowy
Born 1908
Train Dispatcher with the Polish State Railways
Interviewed on November 21,1945, in Treblinka by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
Since 1939, I have been working at the Treblinka railway station.
Each transport consisted of 60 wagons; there were between 150 and 200 people in each. As trains approached the Treblinka railway station, many victims were trying to escape from the wagons, and the Ukrainians and Lithuanians who manned the transport trains, killed a lot of them. There were often so many corpses at the Treblinka railway station that they were loaded into carts and transported to the camp.
After having arrived at the station, each transport was divided into three parts, since there was room for only 20 wagons on the loading ramp of the camp. Each part of the transport was moved onto the ramp with a shunting steam engine. I drove this engine a few times as a points-man. At first, the engine was left behind the gate; later to accelerate the unloading of the wagon's, and the moving away of empty wagons, the engine was left with the wagons at the ramp.Nobody was allowed to enter the area of the camp, so even the Germans who were manning the transports did not have easy access.
The camp was separated from the ramp with a high fence made of barbed-wire, so thickly intertwined with branches that there was no good view of the camp premises from the ramp. Nevertheless, I managed to observe certain facts. I know that after the unloading of people from the wagons, the men were separated from the women and children. After some time one could hear screams, which lasted about 20 minutes and then died out. Between 40 and 50 minutes passed between leaving Treblinka railway station and returning to it with empty wagons.
Fig 23 Treblinka Symbolic Tracks 2002
Treblinka - Symbolic Stones representing the train tracks -July 2002 (Chris Webb Private Archive)
Jozef Kuzminski
Born 1909
Station Master Treblinka - Polish State Railways
Interviewed on October 16, 1945, in Siedlce by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
At the beginning of January 1943, I was transferred to the Treblinka railway station, where I was to work as a station-master. I worked there until the arrival of the Red Army.
Because of my work at the Treblinka railway station, I know exactly what the procedure for a transport was from its arrival at the Treblinka railway station. The train's arrival was announced in a phone call from Siedlce or Malkinia, depending on the direction from which it was coming. It was done with a code, which the Polish personnel did not know, but it was clear that when the announcement was made with a code, what was meant was a transport of Jews.
i am completely certain about the transports from Greece and Belgium, since they were completely different from ordinary transports from Poland. They usually arrived in locked freight wagons, under the supervision of armed guards - Ukrainians and Lithuanians, whereas the foreign transports arrived in completely different conditions. These trains consisted of Pullman carriages, with each passenger holding a ticket and having a lot of luggage; there were luggage wagons in the train.
As for the transport from Greece, I had ticket stubs (their spines) left from the passenger tickets that had been issued - these stubs went missing at the Treblinka railway station during military operations. These tickets were issued to 6,500 people, since I specially checked the number. As for the transport from Belgium, I am also absolutely certain, since I talked to the people on the train and learnt from them where they were coming from. It is necessary to explain that people from foreign transports were able to leave their train freely at stations and they were confident that they were going to a labour camp.
After the uprising, during which the residential huts, chambers*, and a fuel depot were burnt down, the liquidation of the camp was started. They began to transport dismantled huts away - those that had not been burnt down, diggers and the contents of the storehouses, and so in the spring of 1944, there were only three Ukrainians left in the camp, whereas the area of the camp itself had been ploughed and sown with various plants. These Ukrainians escaped before the arrival of the Red Army.
* The gas chambers were not destroyed during the uprising.
treblinka station area 2005047
Treblinka Station Area 2005 (Chris Webb Private Archive)
Jozef Pogorzelski
Born 1911
Train Dispatcher with the Polish State Railways
Interviewed on October 18, 1945, in Sokolow by Judge Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz
As far as I can remember, in June 1942, I was transferred to the Treblinka railway station, where I was to work as a train dispatcher. I worked as one until the arrival of the Red Army.
Some time after the first transports - I can remember that the first transports came in the second half of July 1942 - there was a horrible smell of dead bodies wafting to the station, and it was then that we all realized that there was another camp in Treblinka, next to the labour camp - an extermination camp.
As for the way the transports were handled at the Treblinka railway station, it was as follows. When a transport arrived, it was manned by two German railwaymen, employed at the station especially for that purpose, who usually divided the transport into three parts with each one being gradually pushed by a shunting steam engine onto a siding which led to the camp.
No member of the Polish personnel of the railway station was permitted to enter the camp premises and that is why I do not know what happened to the transports after they had been moved into the camp and how the people were exterminated. I can remember a transport from Miedzyrzec, in which a Gendarme from the train personnel said there were 10,000 people. Reportedly there were a lot of corpses in the wagons.
I want to add the names of the Germans who worked at the Treblinka railway station. The name of the first one was Rudolf Emmerich and the name of the other one was Willy Klinzmann.
It makes perfect sense that camps and ghettos closed during a deportation operation. Once the Jews of Tluszcz have been deported from the temporary ghetto in the town, close it down. When the Warsaw ghetto is empty close it. Camps and ghettos closing down is evidenced throughout the war. It is part of the circumstantial evidence for mass killings. Kill people and they do not need to be accommodated. Revisionist claims there was no mass killing of millions of Jews 1941 to 1944, does not fit with the circumstantial evidence of mass ghetto and camp closures.PrudentRegret wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 7:29 pmFrankly, I don't trust mainstream supposition that the transit camp closed "either before, or in the first months that TII was open and operating" because this camp being open during the deportations would completely torpedo the extermination hypothesis. It of course makes no sense to close a camp dedicated to the transit of Jewish deportees in the midst of a deportation action. This camp being open "in the first months that TII was open" would encompass it being open during the greater part of the deportations from Warsaw.Nessie wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 7:47 am"In 1941–1942 there was a transit camp in Małkinia for the Jewish population, set up by Germans in the eastern part of the town, along Nurska Street. According to memories, it was under the open sky[1.9]. It is known that terrible conditions prevailed there, and people stayed in pits dug in the frozen ground"bombsaway wrote: ↑Sat Oct 05, 2024 12:32 am ....
"In 1941–1942 there was a transit camp in Małkinia for the Jewish population, set up by Germans in the eastern part of the town, along Nurska Street"
https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/m/982-ma ... -community
....
That source refers to the Malkinia camp as a transit camp, because it was the first stage in the transportation process that then sent Jews to ghettos, such as in Warsaw, or to camp, such as TII. The Malkinia camp was closed either before, or in the first months that TII was open and operating.
The same happened in Tluszcz;
https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety. ... uszcz.html
"In September 1940, the Germans established a ghetto in Tluszc and the Jews were forced to move out of their homes and were resettled into the homes of Polish peasants located just outside the town"
That ghetto closed in May 1942, out of the 800 Jews, nearly 600 ended up at the Warsaw ghetto and the rest selected to work at labour camps in Wilanow. There is no direct link between the Malkinia or Tluszcz camp/ghetto and TII. That transports to Treblinka stopped at those places, is merely because those places had stations and were in small towns, all of which at some time, had a small temporary camp/ghetto, as local Jews were being initially rounded up.