The Operation Reinhardt Camp Trawniki

[PrudentRegret]

This is a thread for the Trawniki Labor Camp. In some ways this thread intersects with the Operation Reinhardt thread but it's worthy of its own thread due to being an "Operation Reinhardt" camp that is not discussed as frequently as B, S, and T.

The first point that's worth mentioning is that the mainstream regards this as an Operation Reinhardt camp. I agree with that characterization, and so we should dispense with the false dichotomy that an "Operation Reinhardt" camp must be either a transit camp or an extermination camp. Since there were AR labor camps, we must consider the possibility, the likelihood, that other AR camps like Treblinka, were labor camps similar to other AR labor camps. Remember that Eberl actually calls the Treblinka camp under construction a Labor Camp, so there's direct documentary evidence for that conclusion. But this thread is about establishing the existence and nature of other AR labor camps, most specifically Trawniki.

Here's what USHMM has to say:

German staff and their auxiliaries, most of them trained at the Trawniki training camp, murdered approximately 1.5 million Jews and an undetermined number of Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet POWs in the Operation Reinhard killing centers...

Victims’ property was stored in depots in the city Lublin, at the Lublin-Majdanek concentration camp, and at the Trawniki and Poniatowa forced labor camps.

Other Operation Reinhard Camps

Also part of Operation Reinhard were several forced labor camps for Jews in the Lublin District. The camps included Poniatowa, Trawniki, Budzyn, and Krasnik....

So it has been established that the category of "Operation Reinhardt" includes camps dedicated to labor as part of this economic operation, rather than a killing center OR a transit center. What kind of labor was performed at the Operation Reinhardt Trawniki Labor Camp?

Forced-Labor Camp

During the summer of 1942 (my note: Same time as the opening what Eberl called the labor camp Treblinka), Trawniki also began to serve as a forced-labor camp for Jews (Zwangsarbeitslager für Juden). Under the auspices of Operation “Reinhard,” the SS and police constructed the labor camp adjacent to the training camp, separated only by the original stone wall that surrounded the abandoned sugar factory.

The appearance of a Jewish workforce at Trawniki coincided with the establishment of procedures for disposing of the property of the Jews murdered in Operation Reinhard. Globocnik selected Trawniki to be a storage depot for clothing flowing in from the killing centers. The so-called Clothing Depot (Bekleidungslager) was located just outside the fence of the training camp. In June 1942, three freight cars stocked with baggage taken from Viennese Jews bound for Sobibor were diverted to Trawniki. That same month the SS brought in a Jewish labor detachment of 20 to 40 women to sort, wash, and repair the clothing.

Very interesting... so we have an Operation Reinhardt camp dedicated to sorting property, in which the property was confiscated from deportees. The closed wagons of the confiscated property (without the passengers) were sent to Trawniki to be sorted, washed, and repaired and the passengers themselves were deported to other transit camps like Sobibor.



Although this thread is not about Treblinka it's notable that I am saying the function of the Treblinka camp was the same as this Operation Reinhardt Labor Camp Trawniki. Trawniki served as a pendant to the Sobibor transit camp, and in a similar way the Treblinka sorted camp served as a pendant to the deportations at and through the Malkinia/Siedlce lines. Both camps received shipments of confiscated property in closed goods wagons which had been detached from the deportation trains.

So we already have a lot of parallels between Trawniki and my suggestion for the main functionality of Treblinka:

• Constructed as labor camps for Jews (Zwangsarbeitslager für Jude)
• Opened at the same time
• Both camps received shipments of closed wagons, detached from the main deportation train, containing confiscated property to be sorted, washed, repaired, and stored as part of Operation Reinhardt

The main difference between the two camps is that it is claimed the Trawniki labor camp received wagons of confiscated property primarily whereas it is claimed that Treblinka received wagons full of Jews to be gassed. I have argued the latter is an error of interpretation and false testimony which is not supported by a single shred of documentary evidence.

That does beg the question- was Trawniki the subject of similar errors in interpretation as my conclusions with respect to Treblinka? Yes it was. There was actually a fractal of errors in interpretation which was discussed at length in Mattogno, Kues, and Graf's work on The "Extermination Camps" of "Aktion Reinhardt" (please retain this text somewhere Germar there is a lot of good information here).

Try to follow the train of errors, as it gets somewhat convoluted:

• Thomas Kues wrote an article about an important discovery in an article published by the newspaper Dziennik Polski dated 11 July 1942:

  “The Slaughter of the Jews 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 Bełżec and Tremblinka the killing is going on withthe help of poisonous gas

• By all accounts transports to Treblinka had not started by the time this was published, so this is an apocryphal accusation of a Treblinka extermination camp- before it even opened.
• However, Nick Terry supplies the following explanation for that article:

  “As the official protocol of the cabinet meeting apparently says ‘Trawniki,’ the gambit – trying to stir up suspicion about a too-early referece to deportations to Treblinka – fails utterly. Somewhere along the chain of transmission from local underground organisation to London and thence to the Dziennik Polski journalist, the information became garbled – something which was clear from re-reading Stola’s article for this critique.”

• So Terry points out that the minutes of the cabinet meeting mentions TRAWNIKI and then -somehow- things "became garbled" and the article published was about Treblinka.
• Mattogno points out that both Trawniki and Treblinka were subject to these apocryphal "death camp" accusations, with a 10 July 1942 paper speaking of "Belzec and Trawniki":
  

  “The […] mass-execution by poison gas of 26,000 Polish Jews […] was reported here today by the Polish vice-Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk on the basis of reliable information just received by the Polish Government here. […] The suffocating of the 26,000 Polish Jews by poison gas took place in the two ‘Jewish’ concentration camps which the Nazis have established at Belzec and Trawniki.”

• The false reports of an Extermination Camp at Trawniki in July 1942 corresponds with the shipment of closed good wagons detached from deportation trains, which were sent there to be sorted and stored as part of Operation Reinhardt:
  

  In June 1942, three freight cars stocked with baggage taken from Viennese Jews bound for Sobibor were diverted to Trawniki. That same month the SS brought in a Jewish labor detachment of 20 to 40 women to sort, wash, and repair the clothing.

So it seems Trawniki would be another clear-cut example of nondescript shipments of baggage in enclosed wagons becoming interpreted as an extermination operation. It would also mean that Trawniki is another camp that is similar to what I am claiming was the primary functionality of "T-II' with the same line of misunderstanding of closed wagons of confiscated property being interpreted as an extermination operation. Recall that the main sorting camp in Lublin, the Airfield Camp, also became the centerpiece to the accusation of an extermination camp at Majdanek. There's a pattern here.

Trawniki is also precedence for the general, and sensible, operation of shipping property directly to one camp and the deportees to another each dedicated for its purpose (Operation Reinhardt vs transit).

To summarize the similarity between Trawniki and Treblinka as camps of Operation Reinhardt:

• Both were constructed as labor camps for Jews (Zwangsarbeitslager für Jude), with the only documentary reference to the purpose of Treblinka also identifying it as a labor camp.
• Opened at a similar time around summer 1942
• Both camps received shipments of closed wagons, detached from the main transportation train, containing confiscated property to be sorted, washed, repaired, and stored as part of Operation Reinhardt
• Both camps, at the same time in summer of 1942, were accused in international reports to have been death camps where tens of thousands of Jews were shipped to be gassed.
• Nobody claims this any more, mainstream acknowledges that Trawniki was an economic camp, as a pendant to Sobibor, which received shipments of property that had been confiscated from deportees sent elsewhere.
• I am suggesting Treblinka was also a pendant to Malkinia, it had the same purpose as Trawniki and was subject to the same false misinterpretation of an extermination operation in the exact same way at the exact same time and for the same reasons.

We should no longer accept the false dilemma that Treblinka was either an Extermination Camp or a Transit Camp like Sobibor. I believe Treblinka was more comparable in its purpose and operation to the Trawniki labor camp than it was to Sobibor.

[Nessie]

.....

So we already have a lot of parallels between Trawniki and my suggestion for the main functionality of Treblinka:

• Constructed as labor camps for Jews (Zwangsarbeitslager für Jude)
• Opened at the same time
• Both camps received shipments of closed wagons, detached from the main deportation train, containing confiscated property to be sorted, washed, repaired, and stored as part of Operation Reinhardt

Where is the witness or documentary evidence TII received shipments of wagons containing property?

The main difference between the two camps is that it is claimed the Trawniki labor camp received wagons of confiscated property primarily whereas it is claimed that Treblinka received wagons full of Jews to be gassed. I have argued the latter is an error of interpretation and false testimony which is not supported by a single shred of documentary evidence.

How is there "an error of interpretation", when every single witness; the Jews on the transports, Polish people who lived near the camp and all the Nazis who worked at TII, describe mass transports arriving full of people?

The documentary evidence that supports the witnesses, comes from the Hofle Telegram, Stroop Report, Ganzenmuller Letter and ghetto transport timetables.

[PrudentRegret]

Nessie- There is no dispute at all that Treblinka received closed goods wagons containing the confiscated baggage carried by deportees- wagons which had been detached from the main deportation train and sent to the camp. Exact same as Trawniki.

The only dispute is that these wagons to Treblinka also contained hundreds of thousands of Jews to be gassed. This is based on an extremely thin body of evidence, namely only very inconsistent witness testimony from unreliable sources. Whereas there were also reports of Trawniki receiving shipments of thousands of Jews to be gassed, but the Trawniki labor camp, also, was receiving wagons of confiscated property, detached from the deportation trains, to be administered under the aegis of Operation Reinhardt.

The Treblinka Labor Camp under construction by Eberl (his words- he called it a labor camp) is more comparable to Trawniki, but in the Warsaw district, than it is to the transit camp Sobibor.

[Nessie]

Nessie- There is no dispute at all that Treblinka received closed goods wagons containing the confiscated baggage carried by deportees- wagons which had been detached from the main deportation train and sent to the camp. Exact same as Trawniki.

There is no dispute that the wagons contained Jews, carrying their one allowed suitcase of property.

Where is there evidence that TII received carriages containing only property? Name witnesses, produce documents, show your evidence.

The only dispute is that these wagons to Treblinka also contained hundreds of thousands of Jews to be gassed. This is based on an extremely thin body of evidence, namely only very inconsistent witness testimony from unreliable sources.

Every single Nazi who worked at TII, every single Jew who worked there, every single Jew who was on the transports and were selected at TII to move on to work at other camps and every single Polish local who saw the transports nearby to the camp, gives evidence that they were packed full of people. That is very consistent eyewitness testimony that is corroborated by multiple Nazi documents that record mass transports to the camp.

You dishonestly misrepresent the evidence.

Whereas there were also reports of Trawniki receiving shipments of thousands of Jews to be gassed, but the Trawniki labor camp, also, was receiving wagons of confiscated property, detached from the deportation trains, to be administered under the aegis of Operation Reinhardt.

I take it that you believe the Jewish and Nazi (German and Ukranian) witnesses who worked at Trawniki 1942-3, during the period TII was open?

The Treblinka Labor Camp under construction by Eberl (his words- he called it a labor camp) is more comparable to Trawniki, but in the Warsaw district, than it is to the transit camp Sobibor.

Eberl was hardly going to refer to TII as a death camp. The evidence from witnesses, documents and circumstances is that TII was very like Sobibor, and Belzec. The three camps were referenced in the Hofle Telegram and Ganzenmueller Letter as receiving regular mass transports of Jews.

Have you got any witness or documents to evidence Trawniki received such transports 1942-3?

[Archie]

This December 1943 JTA article also claims Trawniki as a "death camp."

https://www.jta.org/archive/germans-hav ... olish-jews

Nine of the many concentration camps which have been established by the German occupation authorities in Poland are used solely for Jewish prisoners, while Jews are also confined in three other camps, according to information gathered by a special commission of the Polish Government, which was made public here today.

The “Jewish camps” are located at Belezec, Starogard, Potulice, Sobibor, Kosow Podlaski, Treblinka, Trawniki, Poniechowek and also one between Chelo and Wlodawa. Of these, Treblinka, Trawniki and Poniechowek are “death camps” to which the Jews are sent to be executed. It is known that Treblinka has extensive execution facilities, such as gas and steam chambers. The Government report says that Jews are also confined in the Majdanek, Myslowice and Oswiecim camps and at several other unnamed places in Polish Silesia.

The report reveals that there are a total of 100 concentration camps in Poland, divided into nine categories: Segregation camps, where Poles and Jews are sent for a short period immediately after being arrested, concentration camps proper, forced labor camps, camps for priests, camps for women (non-Jewish), camps for Jews, “racial improvement” camps, corrective camps for young Poles, and children’s camps.

We have two false positive "death camps," Trawniki and Poniechowek(?). Best I can tell, the later refers to Poniatowa, a Jewish labor camp near Lublin.

https://www.tracesofwar.com/sights/4526 ... iatowa.htm

We also have a big false negative (by orthodox standards) since they mention Oscwiecim (Auschwitz) but don't seem to know it is a mass murder camp.

[PrudentRegret]

It's really funny when you think about it. 2 out of the 3 camps they mentioned were false positives. But SURELY the third one is true! They wouldn't be wrong 3 times in a row! This is Nick Terry logic, ignoring that being wrong about one camp increases the likelihood that similar claims made at other camps are also wrong.

The more false positives there are the more unlikely it is that the more ambiguous cases are true. Nick Terry cannot wrap his head around this mathematical fact.

It's very notable that it mentions Trawniki and not Sobibor. Suggesting that the shipments of confiscated property to that camp were mistaken for shipments full of Jews to be gassed. There's a pattern of behavior of the (economic) Operation Reinhardt being misidentified as an extermination operation. Ditto at the Lublin Airfield camp, Trawniki, Poniatowa, Treblinka...

[Archie]

It's really funny when you think about it. 2 out of the 3 camps they mentioned were false positives. But SURELY the third one is true! They wouldn't be wrong 3 times in a row! This is Nick Terry logic, ignoring that being wrong about one camp increases the likelihood that similar claims made at other camps are also wrong.

The more false positives there are the more unlikely it is that the more ambiguous cases are true. Nick Terry cannot wrap his head around this mathematical fact.

It's very notable that it mentions Trawniki and not Sobibor. Suggesting that the shipments of confiscated property to that camp were mistaken for shipments full of Jews to be gassed. There's a pattern of behavior of the (economic) Operation Reinhardt being misidentified as an extermination operation. Ditto at the Lublin Airfield camp.

We made some similar points to him here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=319#p319

The way they usually try to salvage this is to say some were rumors or hearsay but the "real" death camps have eyewitnesses so they were able to straighten it out after the war. They did indeed "straighten it out" after the war, but not in the way they mean.

[bombsaway]

It's really funny when you think about it. 2 out of the 3 camps they mentioned were false positives. But SURELY the third one is true! They wouldn't be wrong 3 times in a row! This is Nick Terry logic, ignoring that being wrong about one camp increases the likelihood that similar claims made at other camps are also wrong.

The more false positives there are the more unlikely it is that the more ambiguous cases are true. Nick Terry cannot wrap his head around this mathematical fact.

It's very notable that it mentions Trawniki and not Sobibor. Suggesting that the shipments of confiscated property to that camp were mistaken for shipments full of Jews to be gassed. There's a pattern of behavior of the (economic) Operation Reinhardt being misidentified as an extermination operation. Ditto at the Lublin Airfield camp.

We made some similar points to him here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=319#p319

The way they usually try to salvage this is to say some were rumors or hearsay but the "real" death camps have eyewitnesses so they were able to straighten it out after the war. They did indeed "straighten it out" after the war, but not in the way they mean.

Who straightened it out?

If we're looking at the world of possibilities, it seems possible and even likely that during wartime rumors and false information are going to spread, and if there were mass killing operations taking place, there would be rumors and false information about this as well, specifically in secondary sources, where information can be misrepresented easily. What is less likely, absent of a conspiracy, is that witnesses would directly testify to the existence of death camps where there were none.

What you have to show, if you're engaging in this line of argumentation, is that the above is not possible, and the only explanation is a conspiracy to frame the Germans.

[Archie]

It's really funny when you think about it. 2 out of the 3 camps they mentioned were false positives. But SURELY the third one is true! They wouldn't be wrong 3 times in a row! This is Nick Terry logic, ignoring that being wrong about one camp increases the likelihood that similar claims made at other camps are also wrong.

The more false positives there are the more unlikely it is that the more ambiguous cases are true. Nick Terry cannot wrap his head around this mathematical fact.

It's very notable that it mentions Trawniki and not Sobibor. Suggesting that the shipments of confiscated property to that camp were mistaken for shipments full of Jews to be gassed. There's a pattern of behavior of the (economic) Operation Reinhardt being misidentified as an extermination operation. Ditto at the Lublin Airfield camp.

We made some similar points to him here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=319#p319

The way they usually try to salvage this is to say some were rumors or hearsay but the "real" death camps have eyewitnesses so they were able to straighten it out after the war. They did indeed "straighten it out" after the war, but not in the way they mean.

Who straightened it out?

If we're looking at the world of possibilities, it seems possible and even likely that during wartime rumors and false information are going to spread, and if there were mass killing operations taking place, there would be rumors and false information about this as well, specifically in secondary sources, where information can be misrepresented easily. What is less likely, absent of a conspiracy, is that witnesses would directly testify to the existence of death camps where there were none.

What you have to show, if you're engaging in this line of argumentation, is that the above is not possible, and the only explanation is a conspiracy to frame the Germans.

It was mostly at the war crimes trials.

Nick had suggested that the wartime reports were more coherent than they are. He was talking as though they are one bullseye after another when they are actually quite contradictory even on the point of which camps were extermination camps, to say nothing of the details of the exterminations.

[bombsaway]

We made some similar points to him here.
https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=319#p319

The way they usually try to salvage this is to say some were rumors or hearsay but the "real" death camps have eyewitnesses so they were able to straighten it out after the war. They did indeed "straighten it out" after the war, but not in the way they mean.

Who straightened it out?

If we're looking at the world of possibilities, it seems possible and even likely that during wartime rumors and false information are going to spread, and if there were mass killing operations taking place, there would be rumors and false information about this as well, specifically in secondary sources, where information can be misrepresented easily. What is less likely, absent of a conspiracy, is that witnesses would directly testify to the existence of death camps where there were none.

What you have to show, if you're engaging in this line of argumentation, is that the above is not possible, and the only explanation is a conspiracy to frame the Germans.

It was mostly at the war crimes trials.

Nick had suggested that the wartime reports were more coherent than they are. He was talking as though they are one bullseye after another when they are actually quite contradictory even on the point of which camps were extermination camps, to say nothing of the details of the exterminations.

I think he was talking reports from the Polish Underground, not unsourced newspaper articles

The camp was fully completed a few days before March 17, 1942. From that day
transports with Jews began to arrive from the direction of Lvov
and Warsaw. On
the first day five transports arrived, afterward, one transport arrived daily
from each direction. The transport enters the railway spur of Belzec camp after
disembarkation, lasting half an hour, the train returns empty. The observations
of the local population (the camp is within sight and hearing distance of the
inhabitants near the railway station) led all of them to one conclusion: that
there is a mass murder of the Jews inside the camp. The following facts testify
to this:

1. Between March 17 and April 13, about fifty-two transports (each of eighteen
to thirty-five freight cars with an average of 1,500 people) arrived in the
camp.

2. No Jews left the camp, neither during the day nor the night.

3. No food was supplied to the camp (whereas bread and other food articles had
been dispatched to the Jews who had worked earlier on the construction of the
camp).

4. Lime was brought to the camp.

5. The transports arrived at a fixed time. Before the arrival of a transport,
no Jews were seen in the camp.

6. After each transport, about two freight cars with clothing are removed from the
camp to the railway stores. (The guards steal clothes.)

7. Jews in underwear were seen in the area of the camp.

8. In the area of the camp there are three barracks; they cannot accommodate
even one-tenth of the Jews.

9. In the area of the camp, a strong odor can be smelled on warmer days.

10. The guards pay for vodka, which they drink in large quantities, with any
requested sum, and frequently with watches and valuables.

11. Jews arrived in Belzec (the township) looking for a witness who would testify
that Jews are being killed there. They were ready to pay 120,000 zloty. They
did not find a volunteer. It is unknown by which means the Jews are liquidated
in the camp. There are three assumptions: (1) electricity; (2) gas; (3) by
pumping out the air.

With regard to (1): there is no visible source of electricity; with regard to
(2): no supply of gas and no residue of the remaining gas after the ventilation
of the gas chamber were observed; with regard to (3): there are no factors to
deny this [possibility]. It was even verified that during the building of one
of the barracks, the walls and floors were covered with metal sheets (for some
purpose).

In the area of the camp huge pits were dug in the autumn. At that time it was
assumed that there would be underground stores. Now the purpose of this work is
clear. From the particular barrack where the Jews are taken to so-called
disinfection, a narrow railway leads to these pits. It was observed that the
"disinfected" Jews were transported to a common grave by this
trolley.

In Belzec the term Totenlager
("death camp") was heard in connection with the Jewish camp. The
leadership of the camp is in the hands of twelve SS men (the commander is Hauptmann Wirth) who have forty
guards for help.

So if you can find as a source as detailed as this asserting killing operations at Trawniki or whatever, then I'd say you're in business.

[SanityCheck]

To point out something which might elude overenthusiastic 'revisionists', the Trawniki 'error' is reported *from exile*, based on a Polish government-in-exile press conference which was then reported on in the exile newspaper Dziennik Polski in July 1942. The reporting also pointed to Treblinka I as a site of murder - which it was, just not a full-blown extermination camp. There are no premature reports about gas chambers or other machinery of death at Treblinka before Treblinka II opened for 'business', there are numerous reports of prisoners dying or being killed at Treblinka I achieving a high turn over and becoming notorious in Warsaw as well as the Warsaw ghetto, since hundreds were sent there.

Thus, these are errors of interpretation at the receiving end, rather than the actual reports of the Polish underground/resistance (Delegatura and ZWZ-Armia Krajowa) or the Polish Jewish underground. These reports were transmitted to London via couriers. They were synthesised further in the process.

The Delegatura report series of greatest significance were the Current Information (Informacja biezaca) and Aneks series. Those were roughly 10 day or fortnightly reports, the Pro Memoria series were monthly or bimonthly reports, then there were 'Sprawozdanie' which synthesised several of these. The latter series was then translated to English in London for circulation to the British.

One can see the same content travel from separate reports (e.g. the 'grypsy' from Klodzinski and Cyrankiewicz out of Auschwitz) into the Informacja biezaca, Aneks, Pro Memoria and Sprawozdanie series and be repeated verbatim. But also see separate reports pinging into these series, or some form of interpretative editing, thus the April 1942 ZWZ-AK report on Belzec with all its detail and uncertainty about 'gas or electricity' was set aside in favour of a mid-1942 short report on Belzec only mentioning electricity. The electricity claim was then dropped in the Informacja biezaca, Aneks and Pro Memoria series over the summer of 1942, as more information evidently came through and the report-writers decided gas was overall more probable. Note that these Delegatura report series hardly ever mention steam at Treblinka, which was an interpretation by the Polish Jewish underground (Oneg Shabes), and which the Ringelblum group also dropped within a few months, by the end of 1943, after only a few repetitions.

The confusion over killing methods was exactly what one would expect when outside observers could not see into the camps and few escapees made it out of them. Treblinka II had the most escapees by the end of 1942, and the reports soon converged on gas. Bear in mind none were escaping from the inner camp.

In 1943, the underground reports *in Poland* thickened up further and were very consistent. While the Ringelblum group was now out of action, alongside the main Informacja biezaca, Aneks and Pro Memoria series, there were also reports compiled by the rescue section of the underground, Zegota. These noted among other things selections at Trawniki for Sobibor and vice versa, in spring 1943. Polish Jewish reporting continued with reports from the Bund as well as the ZKN (Jewish National Committee), a joint effort of Adolf Berman, Ringelblum and also frequently Yitzhak Zuckerman. These reports were longer and more synthesised, but contained basically no 'errors' of identification. Labour camps were labour camps and extermination camps were extermination camps. Trawniki, Poniatowa and Majdanek were universally identified by the main Delegatura reports, Zegota and the ZKN as hit by what we now know as Operation Harvest Festival in November 1943, shooting actions (followed by cremations).

The JTA story is once again *from exile* in London, and the synthesis by the Polish government-in-exile 'commission' contains obvious errors. There are by contrast no reports from inside Poland in 1943 identifying Trawniki or Poniatowa as having gas chambers or other murder machinery.

The Polish government-in-exile received many more separate reports as well as the ongoing report series, which added up to a pretty consistent picture by 1943 of the Reinhard extermination camps versus other forced labour camps and the KZs. A lot of good analysis came out of the government-in-exile, as Michael Fleming discusses in his book on them and the United Nations War Crimes Commission; they certainly anticipated Lemkin's analysis of genocide regarding both Poles and Jews. But there were also continued goofs and sloppiness, most famously a charge sheet submitted at IMT by the Polish government, drafted by London lawyers who had just switched allegiance to the postwar Polish state after the derecognition of the government-in-exile, which recycled extremely outdated reports about Treblinka using steam. There were many dozens of reports within the Polish underground papers as well as the government-in-exile records which reported Treblinka using gas.

Congratulations, you just discovered that Polish analysts in London were not perfect. BFD.

[SanityCheck]

a good rule of thumb is to be very, very suspicious of lists in any reports or 'later' synthesised sources. It was evidently very easy to add camps, nationalities and other details to such lists, this is how there were reports of prematurely deported French Jews murdered at Fort IX outside Kaunas, dated to late 1941, the French nationality was tacked on to correct reporting of German, Czech Jews being sent there. This is also how Hartley Shawcross lumped Buchenwald together with Auschwitz and implied that Buchenwald had gas chambers in his closing speech at IMT, when absolutely no prior source heard about Buchenwald at Nuremberg had mentioned this. If there are underlying or earlier sources further back down the chain of transmission, then one can often spot the errors creep in due to mental Chinese whispers and confusion.

[Archie]

Who straightened it out?

If we're looking at the world of possibilities, it seems possible and even likely that during wartime rumors and false information are going to spread, and if there were mass killing operations taking place, there would be rumors and false information about this as well, specifically in secondary sources, where information can be misrepresented easily. What is less likely, absent of a conspiracy, is that witnesses would directly testify to the existence of death camps where there were none.

What you have to show, if you're engaging in this line of argumentation, is that the above is not possible, and the only explanation is a conspiracy to frame the Germans.

It was mostly at the war crimes trials.

Nick had suggested that the wartime reports were more coherent than they are. He was talking as though they are one bullseye after another when they are actually quite contradictory even on the point of which camps were extermination camps, to say nothing of the details of the exterminations.

I think he was talking reports from the Polish Underground, not unsourced newspaper articles

The camp was fully completed a few days before March 17, 1942. From that day
transports with Jews began to arrive from the direction of Lvov
and Warsaw. On
the first day five transports arrived, afterward, one transport arrived daily
from each direction. The transport enters the railway spur of Belzec camp after
disembarkation, lasting half an hour, the train returns empty. The observations
of the local population (the camp is within sight and hearing distance of the
inhabitants near the railway station) led all of them to one conclusion: that
there is a mass murder of the Jews inside the camp. The following facts testify
to this:

1. Between March 17 and April 13, about fifty-two transports (each of eighteen
to thirty-five freight cars with an average of 1,500 people) arrived in the
camp.

2. No Jews left the camp, neither during the day nor the night.

3. No food was supplied to the camp (whereas bread and other food articles had
been dispatched to the Jews who had worked earlier on the construction of the
camp).

4. Lime was brought to the camp.

5. The transports arrived at a fixed time. Before the arrival of a transport,
no Jews were seen in the camp.

6. After each transport, about two freight cars with clothing are removed from the
camp to the railway stores. (The guards steal clothes.)

7. Jews in underwear were seen in the area of the camp.

8. In the area of the camp there are three barracks; they cannot accommodate
even one-tenth of the Jews.

9. In the area of the camp, a strong odor can be smelled on warmer days.

10. The guards pay for vodka, which they drink in large quantities, with any
requested sum, and frequently with watches and valuables.

11. Jews arrived in Belzec (the township) looking for a witness who would testify
that Jews are being killed there. They were ready to pay 120,000 zloty. They
did not find a volunteer. It is unknown by which means the Jews are liquidated
in the camp. There are three assumptions: (1) electricity; (2) gas; (3) by
pumping out the air.

With regard to (1): there is no visible source of electricity; with regard to
(2): no supply of gas and no residue of the remaining gas after the ventilation
of the gas chamber were observed; with regard to (3): there are no factors to
deny this [possibility]. It was even verified that during the building of one
of the barracks, the walls and floors were covered with metal sheets (for some
purpose).

In the area of the camp huge pits were dug in the autumn. At that time it was
assumed that there would be underground stores. Now the purpose of this work is
clear. From the particular barrack where the Jews are taken to so-called
disinfection, a narrow railway leads to these pits. It was observed that the
"disinfected" Jews were transported to a common grave by this
trolley.

In Belzec the term Totenlager
("death camp") was heard in connection with the Jewish camp. The
leadership of the camp is in the hands of twelve SS men (the commander is Hauptmann Wirth) who have forty
guards for help.

So if you can find as a source as detailed as this asserting killing operations at Trawniki or whatever, then I'd say you're in business.

I'm well aware of that report. I don't find it even remotely convincing. Nor any of the ones I have read from the Delegatura or the Home Army. This idea that the material "inside Poland" was solid but was unfortunately mangled by incompetent editors in Britain is definitely not true. Even Arad was groaning at a lot of these reports. It is an excuse used to explain away the obviously poor quality of these reports.

[bombsaway]

It was mostly at the war crimes trials.

Nick had suggested that the wartime reports were more coherent than they are. He was talking as though they are one bullseye after another when they are actually quite contradictory even on the point of which camps were extermination camps, to say nothing of the details of the exterminations.

I think he was talking reports from the Polish Underground, not unsourced newspaper articles

The camp was fully completed a few days before March 17, 1942. From that day
transports with Jews began to arrive from the direction of Lvov
and Warsaw. On
the first day five transports arrived, afterward, one transport arrived daily
from each direction. The transport enters the railway spur of Belzec camp after
disembarkation, lasting half an hour, the train returns empty. The observations
of the local population (the camp is within sight and hearing distance of the
inhabitants near the railway station) led all of them to one conclusion: that
there is a mass murder of the Jews inside the camp. The following facts testify
to this:

1. Between March 17 and April 13, about fifty-two transports (each of eighteen
to thirty-five freight cars with an average of 1,500 people) arrived in the
camp.

2. No Jews left the camp, neither during the day nor the night.

3. No food was supplied to the camp (whereas bread and other food articles had
been dispatched to the Jews who had worked earlier on the construction of the
camp).

4. Lime was brought to the camp.

5. The transports arrived at a fixed time. Before the arrival of a transport,
no Jews were seen in the camp.

6. After each transport, about two freight cars with clothing are removed from the
camp to the railway stores. (The guards steal clothes.)

7. Jews in underwear were seen in the area of the camp.

8. In the area of the camp there are three barracks; they cannot accommodate
even one-tenth of the Jews.

9. In the area of the camp, a strong odor can be smelled on warmer days.

10. The guards pay for vodka, which they drink in large quantities, with any
requested sum, and frequently with watches and valuables.

11. Jews arrived in Belzec (the township) looking for a witness who would testify
that Jews are being killed there. They were ready to pay 120,000 zloty. They
did not find a volunteer. It is unknown by which means the Jews are liquidated
in the camp. There are three assumptions: (1) electricity; (2) gas; (3) by
pumping out the air.

With regard to (1): there is no visible source of electricity; with regard to
(2): no supply of gas and no residue of the remaining gas after the ventilation
of the gas chamber were observed; with regard to (3): there are no factors to
deny this [possibility]. It was even verified that during the building of one
of the barracks, the walls and floors were covered with metal sheets (for some
purpose).

In the area of the camp huge pits were dug in the autumn. At that time it was
assumed that there would be underground stores. Now the purpose of this work is
clear. From the particular barrack where the Jews are taken to so-called
disinfection, a narrow railway leads to these pits. It was observed that the
"disinfected" Jews were transported to a common grave by this
trolley.

In Belzec the term Totenlager
("death camp") was heard in connection with the Jewish camp. The
leadership of the camp is in the hands of twelve SS men (the commander is Hauptmann Wirth) who have forty
guards for help.

So if you can find as a source as detailed as this asserting killing operations at Trawniki or whatever, then I'd say you're in business.

I'm well aware of that report. I don't find it even remotely convincing. Nor any of the ones I have read from the Delegatura or the Home Army. This idea that the material "inside Poland" was solid but was unfortunately mangled by incompetent editors in Britain is definitely not true. Even Arad was groaning at a lot of these reports. It is an excuse used to explain away the obviously poor quality of these reports.

What would a convincing report look like?

[Nessie]

....

I'm well aware of that report. I don't find it even remotely convincing...

What would a convincing report look like?

Exactly. Revisionists are far too opinionated. If they followed the evidence (and understood it better) they would see a developing narrative from Polish (not Soviet) intelligence that the Nazis were operated death camps. That is not what revisionists want to believe, so every report will be found wanting, in their opinion. If a report contains what is now accepted to be inaccurate, it is all wrong. If it was too close to what is now accepted to be true, it is wrong. By default, with no neutral, evidence led explanation, all reports will be not at all "remotely convincing".

The evidenced reality is that of course early intelligence reports will contain inaccuracies and it is to be expected that as more evidence was gathered, a more accurate assessment can be made. Common sense applies. As rumour and hearsay is replaced by eyewitness evidence, the details about the camp will become more reliable. As more eyewitness is evidence is gathered, a more accurate picture of events develops.