The sadists of Treblinka

22nd June 1943: Amongst the unspeakable horrors of one of the Nazi centres for mass murder the SS torment and torture the forced labourers

Franz Stangl (1908-1971) the commandant of Treblinka, with whip, and his deputy Kurt Franz (1914-1998) at the entrance to one of Treblinka’s staff residences – built in Tyrolean style.

Under guard, Jewish men, women, and children board a train during deportation from Siedlce to the Treblinka killing centre. Siedlce, Poland, August 1942.

In addition to the main programme to exterminate the Jews of Poland, Treblinka also took some Jews from around Europe. Jews being deported from Macedonia to the Treblinka Death Camp, March 1943

Macedonian Jews prepare to board a deportation train in Skopje. Skopje, Yugoslavia, March 1943. An estimated 925,000 Jews, as well as an unknown number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet POWs, were murdered in Treblinka.

In Treblinka, one of the principal death 'camps' that were being used to exterminate the Jews of Poland, a number of Jews were temporarily reprieved. A few hundred were diverted from the gas chambers to work, in the most appalling conditions, on the disposal of the bodies and the sorting of personal possessions. At first, the SS had periodically killed these workers and taken new 'recruits' from the arriving transports. But it became too troublesome to train the new workers constantly. It was for this reason that some of the forced labourers survived for more than a few months.