Treblinka uprising

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Clouds of smoke over the burning Treblinka II during the uprising (1943)

The Treblinka uprising took place on August 2, 1943 in the Treblinka extermination camp . It took place after months of planning, the prisoners called him Action H . Numerous prisoners were killed in the course of the uprising. Buildings were damaged or destroyed, but the brick gas chambers were not. “It was the first armed uprising in a Nazi extermination camp.” A second mass uprising, the Sobibór uprising , took place on October 14, 1943. After the end of the uprising, the SS murdered 8,000 prisoners from two transports in the gas chambers. After August 21, 1943, the SS abandoned the camp, tore down buildings and set up a farm on the site to cover up the crimes.

Organizing Committee

A first uprising was planned as early as the spring of 1943, when the prisoners registered declining transports and realized that they too should be liquidated. Since typhus broke out in the camp and numerous prisoners fell ill and died, the plans could not be put into practice.

The leading members of the uprising were labor prisoners with central tasks in the extermination camp who had organized themselves in an organizing committee. The original rebellion preparation committee consisted of: Dr. Julian Chorążycki , a former captain in the Polish army; Ze'ew Korland , the kapo of the "Lazarett" designated and camouflaged shooting site in the camp, Želomir "Želo" Bloch , a lieutenant in the Czechoslovak army, Israel Sudowicz , a farmer from Warsaw , and Władysław Salzberg , a tailor from Kielce . Bloch should plan the military details and Chorążycki procure the weapons. Chorążycki procured the funds, which was not particularly difficult, since the prisoners had to take money and valuables from the clothes of the murdered Jews in the Warsaw ghetto on behalf of the SS . The plan was to bribe the Ukrainian guards who were subordinate to the SS to obtain weapons. Although they took the money, they did not deliver any weapons. The SS learned that Chorążycki was holding large amounts of money and assumed that he wanted to flee. During a combative argument with Kurt Franz during his arrest, Chorążycki ingested poison and died. Even before the uprising in the second half of March 1943, the SS transferred Bloch to another post in the camp, which severely restricted his influence, and the Czech Rudolf Masarek took over his position. Due to these circumstances, Benjamin Rakowski was accepted as camp elder and on the organizing committee. August Miet shot him on orders from Otto Stadie in April 1943 or early May 1943, because the SS had found gold and money on him. The original planning of the organizing committee assumed that only 10 to 15 people should be let in on the plans. This changed and the inmates formed groups. In April 1943 they decided to get weapons from the SS depot. Jacob Wiernik , the camp carpenter, was given the task of maintaining the connection between the upper and lower camp.

Declining transports from the Warsaw Ghetto , defeats of the Wehrmacht in Africa , on the Eastern Front and the Allied troop landings in Italy strengthened the thoughts on the uprising.

Preparation of the uprising

In the spring, the SS had rooms built for the SS personnel, from which there was access to the ammunition depot. Those young Jews whom the SS used to clean their rooms had access to the SS barracks. Among them was the accordion-playing boy Edek . The prisoners who worked as locksmiths in the workshop had made a duplicate key from the depot lock. The boys carried out the organizing committee's order to steal two boxes of hand grenades from the depot. Then they discovered that the detonators on the hand grenades were missing and were initially able to bring the boxes back unnoticed. How the prisoners got hold of the detonators is not documented. The boxes with the hand grenades were of particular importance because the explosion of a hand grenade signaled the start of the uprising at 4 p.m. For the escape after the destruction of the camp, the insurgents independently raised funds in advance.

revolt

On the day when four SS and 16 Ukrainian guards were outside the camp to bathe in the Bug because of the heat that was prevailing that day , the Organizing Committee gave the signal for an uprising on August 2, 1943 at 4 p.m. 400 Jewish prisoners from both camps took part in the uprising, including some women. With a replica key they gained access to the weapons depot and shot at the SS man Kurt Küttner. With the help of rifles, pistols, hand grenades and other weapons, the prisoners attacked the Ukrainian and German guards remaining in the camp. The Ukrainian guards, who monitored the camp from their watchtowers, were to be prevented from shooting at the prisoners by handing over money and gold, as planned. However, contrary to the expectations of the insurgents, they fought the uprising from the watch towers with machine guns. At the beginning of the uprising, the insurgents had six firearms (five rifles and a pistol), two boxes with a maximum of 30 hand grenades and bottles filled with gasoline ( Molotov cocktails ). The inmate Standa Lichtblau had procured gasoline as a car mechanic for the SS fleet. The prisoners were supposed to eliminate the SS guards and then equip themselves with their weapons. The Trawniki men then fired at the prisoners. A Trawnik was shot dead in the armed conflict.

Numerous insurgents were killed in the course of the uprising, but 200 to 250 prisoners managed to escape from the camp. However, the SS shot many of them while they were on the run during the persecution that followed, or brought them back to the camp and executed them with the fighters captured there. The SS deported 100 prisoners who did not take part in the uprising, stayed behind or survived the punitive measures to the Sobibor extermination camp .

During their uprising, the prisoners were able to set fire to numerous buildings as well as the petrol tank and destroy them. However, the brick gas chambers remained undamaged. After the uprising, on August 21, 1943, the prisoners from two trains were gassed. Then the SS had the camp dismantled. According to the latest information, only the names "of a little more than 60 survivors of the extermination camp are known".

As the only survivor of the organizing committee, Wiernik made it to Warsaw. He contacted the Żegota , a Polish underground organization with the purpose of helping Jews. With their help, he printed 2,000 copies of the Rok w Treblince report (One year in Treblinka) in 1944 . The report was microfilmed to London by courier and was published in Yiddish and English during the war. News of the Treblinka uprising also spread abroad.

See also

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Wiernik is mentioned by Willenberg and Benz by the first name Jankiel.
  2. ↑ There are other committee members, such as B. Alfred Freidman , Samuel Rajzman etc., which, according to the current state of knowledge, cannot be assigned with absolute certainty including their tasks.
  3. ↑ There are two versions of the depot key for the ammunition depot: At Glazar (p. 112) the 14-year-old boy Edek played the main role, according to Willenberg (p. 145) two locksmiths in the workshop manufacture on the advice of a "master builder" this before installing the door.
  4. ↑ The information in the literature used varies between 25 and 30 hand grenades.
  5. ↑ There is a different time of 4.30 p.m. at Yitzhak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. P. 289.
  6. ↑ Since different information is given about the number of prisoners involved in the uprising (400, 600, 700), the number 400 was entered here, which is recorded in the regional court judgment in the Treblinka trial.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka, p. 72 ff. (See literature)
  2. ↑ Willenberg: Treblinka Lager, p. 9. (see literature)
  3. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. P. 75. (see literature)
  4. ^ Yitzhak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka - The Operation Reinhardt Camps . Pp. 271/272, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis 1987, ISBN 0-253-21305-3, available online , accessed September 26, 2009.
  5. ^ Willenberg: Treblinka Lager: p. 139 ff.
  6. ↑ a b c Düsseldorf Regional Court: Treblinka trial judgment of September 3, 1965, 8 I Ks 2/64 ( Memento of the original of March 21, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 26, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.holocaust-history.org
  7. ^ Yitzhak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. P. 274.
  8. ^ Yitzhak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Pp. 277-279.
  9. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. P. 112.
  10. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. P. 114.
  11. ↑ a b Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. P. 136.
  12. ↑ Encyclopedia of the Holocaust ; Piper Verlag, Munich 1998, Volume 3, p. 1438.
  13. ^ Yitzhak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. P. 285.
  14. ^ Benz: Treblinka extermination camp. P. 428. (see literature)
  15. ^ Benz: Treblinka extermination camp. P. 427.
  16. ^ Willenberg: Treblinka extermination camp. P. 147.
  17. ↑ Richard Glazar: How heavy does “nothing” weigh? ; in: Die Zeit, issue 43/1983 of October 21, 1983; Retrieved September 26, 2009.
  18. ^ Foreword by the Stanisław Hantz educational institute ; in: Willenberg: Treblinka Lager . P. 9.
  19. ^ Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team , accessed March 11, 2014.
  20. ↑ Glazar: Survival in Treblinka. Note d. Ed. 21. pp. 218/219.
  21. ↑ Information on www.motlc.wiesenthal.com
  22. ^ Władysław Bartoszewski on the creation of the report