A few
weeks ago, I told one of my lifelong friends about my visit to Auschwitz
last summer, and further, how beautiful I found Poland. I was a little
shocked when my friend said something like, “Poland? I
thought Auschwitz was in Germany. I thought the Holocaust took place
in Germany.” My friend is a very smart, well-educated person. It made
m realize that all of my study on The Holocaust may benefit my small
audience of readers. I know more than I want
to know.
Warning, this is not pretty reading. It isn’t intended to be. But I think we need to know.
Auschwitz
may be what comes to mind when people think of the Holocaust. The
reason you have likely heard of Auschwitz is likely because thousands of
people survived Auschwitz and lived to tell about what happened
there. The Russians liberated it before the Nazis could destroy the evidence of their mass murder.
On
December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl HarborI. President Roosevelt
said that it was a date that will live in infamy. There is another
reason that date should live in infamy. It was the day that Nazis
began their planned mass murder of Jews in Poland in what they called
Operation Reinhardt at a place called Chelmno.
 |
Most people have never heard of these other murder camps.
Belzec,
Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka. These were the other Death Camps in
Poland. There were few survivors. In some, fewer than 10, others a
hundred or so. The Nazis completely obliterated their evil
work at these camps. Today there are only memorials left where those
camps were. These places were sites of the unimaginable.
Belzec,
Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka existed for two reasons: (1) to steal
the very last traces of wealth from their victims down to gold teeth and
the hair of women and (2) to kill them.
Auschwitz,
on the other hand, existed for the same reasons but in addition it was
also a source of slave labor for surrounding industries. One would
never say you were lucky to be sent to Auschwitz but compared
to the other four death camps, if you did get sent there, you had at
least a chance to be chosen for work to survive another day, as long as
you weren’t too old, too young, too weak or a thousand other random
whims that might get you selected for death upon
arrival. Thousands were chosen for work upon arrival at Auschwitz,
giving them the slightest chance to survive for a few days or months and
for some, even years.
In Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka, most were dead within hours of arriving.
These
were tiny camps. There was no need for many barracks. Except for a few
hundred selected to work in the camps, thousands arrived and within
hours their remains were either dumped in a mass grave or, later
as the killing machine became more advanced, burned. In fact later, to
attempt to cover up their crimes, all of the bodies were exhumed and
burned.
 |
| Remains of human beings killed in Majdanek. There are no known photos from Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Treblinka except for pictures of perpetrators. |
They
were remarkably efficient. Almost all people were dead
with in 90 minutes upon arrival. These camps used exhaust fumes tank
engines piped into the sealed chambers. These death camps, except
Auschwitz, were in operation for under two years. In that time the
killing was almost nonstop.
At
Sobibor in fewer than 18 months as many as 250,000 human beings were
gassed by exhaust fumes from tank engines. On October 14, 1943, inmates
revolted. About 58 people survived.
In
Belzec in about 15 months as many as 600,000 men, women and children
were murdered. Only two people are known to have survived Belzec.
Treblinka,
the second most murderous place in the Nazi killing machine, in about
15 months, 600,000 - 900,000 people died. On August 2, 1943 workers in
the camp revolted, and set fire to much of the camp.
Two hundred people escaped half of them were killed in the next few
hours. Around 70 survived the war.
Chelmno
worked a bit differently. There was no camp. Three gas vans were
used. Each van held about 50 people. The people would be forced into
the vans. The exhaust of the van was piped into the compartment
where the people were crammed. The driver would drive to the graves
which had efficiently been chosen because it took just the right amount
of time for everyone to die of suffocation. Then Jewish prisoners were
chosen to empty the bodies from the vans, remove
any valuables including gold in teeth, and then put them into the mass
graves. At the end of the day, a couple of the Jewish workers would be
chosen and told to lie down on the graves. They would be shot and
replaced by new arrivals the next day.
At
Chelmno, 320,000 people were gassed in mobile vans and buried in mass
graves. A handful of survivors lived to tell their stories of horror.
It is important to remember that it is difficult to take in these huge numbers. Each one was a person with a story.
“I look around and think: Good God, what kind of hell is this?”
―
