title: Network (1976 film)

text: Chayefsky and producer Howard Gottfried had just come off a lawsuit against United Artists, challenging the studio's right to lease their previous film, "The Hospital", to ABC in a package with a less successful film. Despite this recent legal action, Chayefsky and Gottfried signed a deal with UA to finance "Network", until UA found the subject matter too controversial and backed out.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Undeterred, Chayefsky and Gottfried shopped the script around to other studios, and eventually found an interested party in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Soon afterward, United Artists reversed itself and looked to co-finance the film with MGM, since the latter had an ongoing distribution arrangement with UA in North America. Since MGM agreed to let UA back on board, the former (through United Artists as per the arrangement) controlled North American/Caribbean rights, with UA opting for overseas distribution.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In his notes, Chayefsky jotted down his ideas about casting. For Howard Beale, who would eventually be played by Peter Finch, he envisioned Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, James Stewart and Paul Newman. He went so far as to write Newman, telling him that "You and a very small handful of other actors are the only ones I can think of with the range for this part." Lumet wanted Fonda, with whom he had worked several times, but Fonda declined the role, finding it too "hysterical" for his taste. Stewart also found the script unsuitable, objecting to the strong language. Early consideration was given to real-life newscasters Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor, but neither was open to the idea. Although not mentioned in Chayefsky's notes, George C. Scott, Glenn Ford and William Holden reportedly also turned down the opportunity to play Beale, with Holden instead playing Max Schumacher: For that role, Chayefsky had initially listed Walter Matthau and Gene Hackman. Ford was under consideration for this part as well, and was said to be one of two final contenders. Holden finally got the edge because of his recent box-office success with "The Towering Inferno".


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Producers were wary that Finch, an Australian, wouldn't be able to sound authentically American; they demanded an audition before his casting could be considered. An actor of considerable prominence, Finch reportedly responded, "Bugger pride. Put the script in the mail." Immediately realizing that the role was a plum, he even agreed to pay his own fare to New York for a screen test. He prepared for the audition by listening to hours of broadcasts by American newscasters, and by weeks of reading the international editions of "The New York Times" and the "Herald Tribune" into a tape recorder, then listening to playbacks with a critical ear. Gottfried recalled that Finch "was nervous as hell at that first meeting over lunch and just like a kid auditioning. Once we'd heard him, Sidney Lumet, Paddy, and I were ecstatic because we knew it was a hell of a part to cast." Finch cinched the deal with Lumet by playing him the tapes of his newspaper readings.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Faye Dunaway wanted Robert Mitchum to play Max Schumacher, but Lumet refused, believing that Mitchum wasn't sufficiently urbane.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: For the role of Diana Christensen, Chayefsky thought of Candice Bergen, Ellen Burstyn, and Natalie Wood, while the studio suggested Jane Fonda, with alternate candidates Kay Lenz, Diane Keaton, Marsha Mason and Jill Clayburgh. Lumet wanted to cast Vanessa Redgrave in the film, but Chayefsky did not want her. Lumet argued that he thought she was the greatest English-speaking actress in the world, while Chayefsky, a proud Jew and supporter of Israel, objected on the basis of her support of the PLO. Lumet, also a Jew, said "Paddy, that's blacklisting!", to which Chayefsky replied, "Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile."


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Dunaway was cast as Diana in September 1975. Lumet told her that he would edit any attempts on her part to make her character sympathetic and insisted on presenting her without any vulnerability.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Lumet cast Robert Duvall as Frank Hackett. Duvall saw Hackett as a "vicious president Ford". On Duvall, Lumet said: "What's fascinating about Duvall is how funny he is."


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Ned Beatty was cast as Arthur Jensen on the recommendation of director Robert Altman after the original actor failed to live up to Lumet's standards. Beatty had one night to prepare a four-page speech, and was finished after one day's shooting.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Beatrice Straight played Louise Schumacher, Max's wife, on whom he cheats with Diana. Straight had won a Tony Award in 1953 for playing an anguished wife who is similarly cheated on in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible".


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Lumet recalled that Chayefsky was usually on set during filming, and sometimes offered advice about how certain scenes should be played. Lumet allowed that his old friend had the better comic instincts of the two, but when it came to the domestic confrontation between Holden and Straight, the four-times-married director had the upper hand: "Paddy, please, I know more about divorce than you!"


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Finch, who had suffered from heart problems for many years, became physically and psychologically exhausted by the demands of playing Beale.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: There was some concern that the combination of Holden and Dunaway might create conflict on the set, since the two had sparred during an earlier co-starring stint in "The Towering Inferno". According to biographer Bob Thomas, Holden had been incensed by Dunaway's behavior during the filming of the disaster epic, especially her habit of leaving him fuming on the set while she attended to her hair, makeup and telephone calls. One day, after a two-hour wait, Holden reportedly grabbed Dunaway by the shoulders, pushed her against a soundstage wall and snapped, "You do that to me once more, and I'll push you through that wall!"


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Lumet and cinematographer Owen Roizman worked out a complicated lighting scheme that in Lumet's words would "corrupt the camera". Lumet recalled: "We started with an almost naturalistic look. For the first scene between Peter Finch and Bill Holden, on Sixth Avenue at night, we added only enough light to get an exposure. As the movie progressed, camera setups became more rigid, more formal. The lighting became more and more artificial. The next-to-final scene—where Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, and the three network gray suits decide to kill Peter Finch—is lit like a commercial. The camera setups are static and framed like still pictures. The camera had also become a victim of television."


title: Network (1976 film)

text: The film premiered in New York City on November 27, 1976, and went into wide release shortly afterward.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: "Network" opened to acclaim from critics, and became one of the big hits of 1976–77. Vincent Canby, in his November 1976 review of the film for "The New York Times", called the film "outrageous ... brilliantly, cruelly funny, a topical American comedy that confirms Paddy Chayefsky's position as a major new American satirist" and a film whose "wickedly distorted views of the way television looks, sounds, and, indeed, is, are the satirist's cardiogram of the hidden heart, not just of television but also of the society that supports it and is, in turn, supported." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "a very funny movie that takes an easy target and giddily beats it to death." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" put the film on his list of the 10 best of the year.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In a review of the film written after it received its Academy Awards, Roger Ebert called it a "supremely well-acted, intelligent film that tries for too much, that attacks not only television but also most of the other ills of the 1970s," though "what it does accomplish is done so well, is seen so sharply, is presented so unforgivingly, that "Network" will outlive a lot of tidier movies." Seeing it a quarter-century later, Ebert added the film to his Great Movies list and said the film was "like prophecy. When Chayefsky created Howard Beale, could he have imagined Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, and the World Wrestling Federation?"; he credits Lumet and Chayefsky for knowing "just when to pull out all the stops."


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Not all reviews were positive: Pauline Kael in "The New Yorker", in a review subtitled "Hot Air", criticized the film's abundance of long, preachy speeches; Chayefsky's self-righteous contempt for not only television itself but also television viewers; and the fact that almost everyone in the movie, particularly Robert Duvall, has a shouting rant: "The cast of this messianic farce takes turns yelling at us soulless masses." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" declared that "the movie is too sternly, monotonously preachy for either persuasion or casual amusement." Michael Billington wrote, "Too much of this film has the hectoring stridency of tabloid headlines", while Chris Petit in "Time Out" described it as "slick, 'adult', self-congratulatory, and almost entirely hollow", adding that "most of the interest comes in watching such a lavishly mounted vehicle leaving the rails so spectacularly."


title: Network (1976 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 73 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critics consensus states, "Driven by populist fury and elevated by strong direction, powerful acting, and an intelligent script, "Network"s searing satire of ratings-driven news remains sadly relevant more than four decades later." On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote that "no predictor of the future—not even Orwell—has ever been as right as Chayefsky was when he wrote "Network"." The film ranks at number 100 in "Empire" magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: The film's catchphrase "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" and its derivatives have been referenced in a variety of media.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: "Telecide", the last song on The Tubes' 1979 album "Remote Control" references the "mad as hell" line specifically and the film's themes more broadly.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In the 1989 comedy "UHF", also set in a failing TV station looking for a ratings breakthrough, janitor Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards) becomes a star and catapults the TV station to great success after his on-air improvisation of a rant about his mop that crescendos with his exhortation to "stand right up" and "run to a window and say, 'Hey, these floors are dirty as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Arthur Jensen's speech to Beale is extensively sampled in "America Number One" by Consolidated (1990) and "Corporate Slave" by Snog (1992).


title: Network (1976 film)

text: The "Mad as Hell" monologue is sampled in the 2009 track "Recession" by Dutch hardstyle artist The Prophet, post-rock group Maybeshewill's song "Not for Want of Trying" on their album of the same name (2008), English speaking French rap duo Chill Bump's intro to their award-winning song "Life Has Value" from their 2012 release "Hidden Strings," in the song "Lullaby" by Scottish singer/songwriter Gerry Cinnamon on his debut album "Erratic Cinematic" (2017), in the song "I Am The Night" from Perturbator's second album "I Am the Night" (2013), and in the song "Dice of a Generation" by artist DEMONDICE on her album "American Saikoro" (2018).


title: Network (1976 film)

text: The first "Animaniacs" episode "De-Zanitized" (1993) spoofs the conference scene with Beale and Arthur Jensen.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Spike Lee's film "Bamboozled" (2000) parallels and references "Network" in its exploration of race and cynicism in television and popular culture.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In the first episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006), a character's on-air breakdown is compared to that of Beale by news reporters.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In Episode 15 of Season 4 of "Boston Legal" (2007), "Tabloid Nation", a lawyer character uses the film as evidence in his closing arguments to prove how debased modern American TV culture has become.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: "Mad As Hell", a satirical Australian news show starring Shaun Micallef which began in 2012, takes its title from Finch's monologue; the various different incarnations of the opening sequence all feature visual references to the sequence of viewers yelling from their windows into the street.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: The 2014 documentary film Mad as Hell, about the news series "The Young Turks", takes its title from the monologue.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: In "Better Call Saul"s first episode "Uno" (2015), Jimmy McGill quotes part of Jensen's diatribe when he is lambasting the board of his brother's law firm, addressing Howard Hamlin, then tells his confused audience that his quote came from "Network". The same camera angle is employed in both instances.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: A stage adaptation by Lee Hall premiered in the Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre in London in November 2017. The play was directed by Ivo Van Hove featuring Bryan Cranston making his UK stage debut as Howard Beale, and Michelle Dockery as Diana. It opened on Broadway on December 6, 2018, with Cranston reprising his role as Beale, and with Tatiana Maslany as Diana and Tony Goldwyn as Max Schumacher.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: At the Academy Awards, "Network" won three of the four acting awards (the only other film to achieve that was "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1951, when it won in three of the acting categories).


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Peter Finch died before the 1977 ceremony and was the only performer to win a posthumous acting Academy Award (until 2009 when Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor). The statuette itself was collected by Finch's widow, Eletha Finch, after Chayefsky invited her onstage.


title: Network (1976 film)

text: Beatrice Straight's performance as Louise Schumacher occupied only five minutes and two seconds of screen time, making it the shortest performance to win an Oscar (breaking Gloria Grahame's nine minute and 32 second screen time record for "The Bad and the Beautiful" in 1953).


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: Natalie Morales (born February 15, 1985) is an American actress and director. She starred in the 2008 ABC Family series "The Middleman" and had a main role in 2009 on the first season of the USA Network series "White Collar". In 2010, she appeared in the feature films "" and "Going the Distance". Morales also had a starring role in the Fox comedy series "The Grinder", the NBC sitcom "Abby's", and recurring roles in the NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation", HBO's "The Newsroom" and the Netflix series "Dead to Me".


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: Her directorial debut film, the teen comedy "Plan B", was released May 28, 2021, on Hulu. She also directed "Language Lessons", a film she co-wrote with Mark Duplass and stars in. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was released in September 2021.


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: A native of Miami, Florida, Morales is of Cuban descent. She attended St. Agatha Catholic School and Southwest Miami Senior High School. She participated in the University of Miami's Dow Jones Minority High School Journalism Workshop.


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: Morales had a guest appearance on "" in 2006, and played a character in "Pimp My Ride" that year, a video game version of the MTV television series. Her first major role was in "The Middleman", a sci-fi dramedy which aired on the ABC Family network for one season. She starred as Wendy Watson; the series was adapted from the comic book, "The Middleman". Morales also starred in and executive produced a Web series, titled "Quitters". The series was an official selection of the 3rd annual ITVFest (Independent Television Festival) in Los Angeles in August 2008.


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: In 2009, Morales joined the cast of the USA Network television series "White Collar" for the first season. She portrayed Lauren Cruz, a junior FBI agent. In May 2010, after her dismissal from the "White Collar" cast, Morales began appearing as a regular in the NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation," appearing as Lucy, girlfriend of Aziz Ansari's character Tom Haverford and bartender at The Snakehole Lounge. Morales appeared in Oliver Stone's 2010 film, "," a sequel to his 1987 film "Wall Street." She was cast as Chelsea Handler's best friend in "Are You There, Chelsea?" She left the series when the cast was replaced for creative reasons. Morales also appeared on Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama, "The Newsroom," guest-starring as Kaylee, the girlfriend of Dev Patel’s character, Neal. In 2013, Morales joined the cast of "Trophy Wife" as Meg, Kate's best friend. In 2015, she joined the cast of the Fox series "The Grinder." In 2017, she appeared in some episodes of the NBC series "Powerless." Morales appeared as Detective Anne Garcia in the Netflix horror comedy series "Santa Clarita Diet."


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: Morales's most recent television series is the NBC multi-camera sitcom "Abby's," created by Josh Malmuth and executive produced by "Parks and Recreation" creator Michael Schur. Their third series for the network, it premiered on March 28, 2019. Later that year, Morales was cast as Michelle in the second season of the Netflix black comedy series "Dead to Me" (2019).


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: In 2021, Morales directed teen comedy "Plan B" starring Victoria Moroles and Kuhoo Verma. The story revolves around two teens looking for the plan b pill after a night of a regrettable first sexual encounter. The film earned critical acclaim with critics praising Morales' direction including Linda Holmes of NPR who wrote, "The creators and the cast deserve enormous credit for how deftly the broader comedy here is balanced with genuine fear and frustration, and how unexpectedly parts of the film unfold. A lot of it is somehow structurally familiar but specifically surprising."


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: That same year she also directed the drama film "Language Lessons" (2021) which she co-wrote with writer-director Mark Duplass. They both star in the feature, which they filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film is set over Zoom as a Spanish teacher (Morales) communicates with her student (Duplass). Katie Erbland, critic of "IndieWire" praised Morales' work on the film writing "Morales’ winning "Language Lessons" offers one of the best uses of the format yet, a 'Zoom film' that utilizes its constraints to craft an intimate, expressive two-hander, no fatigue in sight". The film had its debut at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival in March of 2021 to positive reviews, and was released in September 2021.


title: Natalie Morales (actress)

text: On June 30, 2017, Morales stated on social media that she identifies as queer. Morales uses she/they pronouns.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (; April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his work with the rock band Toto but is one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions. While already an established studio player in the 1970s, he came to prominence in the United States as the drummer on the Steely Dan album "Katy Lied".


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: AllMusic has characterized him as "arguably the most highly regarded studio drummer in rock from the mid-'70s to the early '90s" and says that "it is no exaggeration to say that the sound of mainstream pop/rock drumming in the 1980s was, to a large extent, the sound of Jeff Porcaro." He was posthumously inducted into the "Modern Drummer" Hall of Fame in 1993.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was born on April 1, 1954, in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest son of Los Angeles session percussionist Joe Porcaro (1930–2020) and his wife, Eileen. His younger brother Mike was a successful bassist and was a member of the band Toto. Younger brother Steve is still a studio musician and also was a member of Toto. Porcaro was raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and attended Ulysses S. Grant High School. Jeff's youngest sibling was sister Joleen, born in 1960.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: On October 22, 1983, Porcaro married Susan Norris, a Los Angeles television broadcaster at KABC-TV. Together, they had three sons, Christopher Joseph (1984), Miles Edwin Crawford (1986 - 2017) and Nico Hendrix (1991).


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Porcaro began playing drums at the age of seven. Lessons came from his father Joe Porcaro, followed by further studies with Bob Zimmitti and Richie Lepore. When he was seventeen, he got his first professional gig playing in Sonny & Cher's touring band. He later called Jim Keltner and Jim Gordon his idols at that time. During his twenties, Porcaro played on hundreds of albums, including several for Steely Dan. He toured with Boz Scaggs before co-founding Toto with his brother Steve and childhood friends Steve Lukather and David Paich. Jeff Porcaro is renowned among drummers for the drum pattern he used on the Grammy Award-winning Toto song "Rosanna", from the album "Toto IV". The drum pattern, called the Half-Time Shuffle Groove, was originally created by drummer Bernard Purdie, who called it the "Purdie Shuffle." Porcaro created his own version of this groove by blending the aforementioned shuffle with John Bonham's groove heard in the Led Zeppelin song "Fool in the Rain" while keeping a Bo Diddley beat on the kick drum. Porcaro describes this groove in detail on a Star Licks video (now DVD) he created shortly after "Rosanna" became popular.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Besides his work with Toto, he was also a highly sought session musician. Porcaro collaborated with many of the biggest names in music, including George Benson, Tommy Bolin, Larry Carlton, Eric Carmen, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Christopher Cross, Andrew Gold, Miles Davis, Dire Straits, Donald Fagen, Stan Getz, David Gilmour, James Newton Howard, Al Jarreau, Elton John, Leo Sayer, Greg Lake, Rickie Lee Jones, Paul McCartney, Michael McDonald, Bee Gees, Sérgio Mendes, Jim Messina, Pink Floyd, Lee Ritenour, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Hoyt Axton, Seals and Crofts, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Richard Marx, Warren Zevon,Don Henley, David Foster, Donna Summer, Frankie Valli and Joe Walsh. Porcaro contributed drums to four tracks on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and also played on the "Dangerous" album hit "Heal the World". He also played on 10cc's "...Meanwhile" (1992). Porcaro featured on Al Stewart's 1980 album 24 Carrots. On the 1993 "10cc Alive" album, recorded after his death, the band dedicated "The Night That the Stars Didn't Show" to him.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Richard Marx dedicated the song "One Man" to him and said Porcaro was the best drummer he had ever worked with. Michael Jackson made a dedication to Porcaro in the liner notes for his 1995 album "".


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Porcaro died at Humana Hospital-West Hills on the evening of August 5, 1992, at the age of 38 after falling ill while spraying insecticide in the yard of his Hidden Hills home. The coroner ruled out an accident and determined a heart attack due to occlusive coronary artery disease caused by atherosclerosis resulting from cocaine use. However, a Los Angeles County Coroner spokesman (and some doctors who treated Porcaro) attributed his death to a heart attack caused by an allergic reaction to inhaled pesticide. Bandmate Steve Lukather and Porcaro’s wife stated they believed that Porcaro had also been suffering from a long-standing heart condition, and a smoking habit, both of which contributed to his death. Lukather noted that several of Porcaro’s family member had indeed died of young age due to an heart disease.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: His funeral was held on August 10 in the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery, where he was buried on the Lincoln Terrace, lot 120. The Jeff Porcaro Memorial Fund was established to benefit the music and art departments of Grant High School in Los Angeles, California, where he was a student in the early 1970s. A memorial concert took place at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, with an all-star line-up that included George Harrison, Boz Scaggs, Donald Fagen, Don Henley, Michael McDonald, David Crosby, Eddie Van Halen and the members of Toto. The proceeds of the concert were used to establish an education trust fund for Porcaro's sons.


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: Porcaro's tombstone was inscribed with the following epitaph, comprising lyrics from the "Kingdom of Desire" track "Wings of Time": "Our love doesn't end here; it lives forever on the Wings of Time."


title: Jeff Porcaro

text: The book "It's About Time: Jeff Porcaro - The Man And His Music", a new biography written by Robyn Flans, was released on September 1, 2020. Foreword by Jim Keltner.


title: Raya (app)

text: Raya is a private, membership-based, social network application for iOS, launched in 2015. The application was initially a dating app, but over time has added features to promote professional networking and social discovery.


title: Raya (app)

text: Raya was conceived by Daniel Gendelman in 2014 and went live in February 2015. The app is available on Apple devices. In 2016, Raya acquired Chime, a video messaging startup.


title: Raya (app)

text: Users link their profile to their Instagram account, and must create a photo montage set to music for their profile.


title: Raya (app)

text: Raya is not advertised and grows by word of mouth. If a user screenshots a profile, the app warns them that they may be removed from the platform. In May 2021, a user of Raya who met actor Matthew Perry through a match on the app created a controversy by sharing her conversation with the actor on TikTok. The TikTok video went viral but has since been deleted. The user who had shared the video has been removed from Raya for violation of the privacy policy of the app.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered in its gas chambers, along with 2,000 Romani people. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz-Birkenau.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Managed by the German SS with assistance from Trawniki guards – recruited from among Soviet POWs to serve with the Germans – the camp consisted of two separate units. Treblinka I was a forced-labour camp ("Arbeitslager") whose prisoners worked in the gravel pit or irrigation area and in the forest, where they cut wood to fuel the cremation pits. Between 1941 and 1944, more than half of its 20,000 inmates were murdered via shootings, hunger, disease and mistreatment.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The second camp, Treblinka II, was an extermination camp ("Vernichtungslager"), referred to euphemistically as the "SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka" by the Nazis. A small number of Jewish men who were not murdered immediately upon arrival became members of its "Sonderkommando" whose jobs included being forced to bury the victims' bodies in mass graves. These bodies were exhumed in 1943 and cremated on large open-air pyres along with the bodies of new victims. Gassing operations at Treblinka II ended in October 1943 following a revolt by the prisoners in early August. Several Trawniki guards were killed and 200 prisoners escaped from the camp; almost a hundred survived the subsequent pursuit. The camp was dismantled in late 1943. A farmhouse for a watchman was built on the site and the ground ploughed over in an attempt to hide the evidence of genocide.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: In the postwar Polish People's Republic, the government bought most of the land where the camp had stood, and built a large stone memorial there between 1959 and 1962. In 1964, Treblinka was declared a national monument of Jewish martyrdom in a ceremony at the site of the former gas chambers. In the same year, the first German trials were held regarding the crimes committed at Treblinka by former SS members. After the end of communism in Poland in 1989, the number of visitors coming to Treblinka from abroad increased. An exhibition centre at the camp opened in 2006. It was later expanded and made into a branch of the Siedlce Regional Museum.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, most of the 3.5 million Polish Jews were rounded up and confined to newly established ghettos by the Nazis. The system was intended to isolate the Jews from the outside world in order to facilitate their exploitation and abuse. The supply of food was inadequate, living conditions were cramped and unsanitary, and Jews had no way to earn money. Malnutrition and lack of medicine led to soaring mortality rates. In 1941, the initial victories of the Wehrmacht over the Soviet Union inspired plans for the German colonisation of occupied Poland, including all territory within the new district of General Government. At the Wannsee Conference held near Berlin on 20 January 1942, new plans were outlined for the genocide of Jews, known as the "Final Solution" to the Jewish Question. The extermination programme was codenamed Operation Reinhard. and was separate from the "Einsatzgruppen" mass-murder operations in Eastern Europe, in which half a million Jews had already been murdered.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka was one of three secret extermination camps set up for Operation Reinhard; the other two were Bełżec and Sobibór. All three were equipped with gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, for the murder of entire transports of people. The method was established following a pilot project of mobile extermination conducted at Soldau and at Chełmno extermination camp that began operating in 1941 and used gas vans. Chełmno (German: "Kulmhof") was a testing ground for the establishment of faster methods of murdering and incinerating bodies. It was not a part of Reinhard, which was marked by the construction of stationary facilities for mass murder. Treblinka was the third extermination camp of Operation Reinhard to be built, following Bełżec and Sobibór, and incorporated lessons learned from their construction.<ref name="Arad-1984/pdf"></ref> Alongside the Reinhard camps, mass-murder facilities using Zyklon B were developed at the Majdanek concentration camp in March 1942, and at Auschwitz II-Birkenau between March and June.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Nazi plans to murder Polish Jews from across the General Government during "Aktion Reinhard" were overseen in occupied Poland by Odilo Globocnik, a deputy of Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, in Berlin. The Operation Reinhard camps reported directly to Himmler. The staff of Operation Reinhard, most of whom had been involved in the Action T4 "involuntary euthanasia" programme, used T4 as a framework for the construction of new facilities. Most of the Jews who were murdered in the Reinhard camps came from ghettos.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The Operation Reinhard camps reported directly to Himmler, and not to the concentration camps inspector Richard Glücks.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The two parallel camps of Treblinka were built northeast of Warsaw. Before World War II, it was the location of a gravel mining enterprise for the production of concrete, connected to most of the major cities in central Poland by the Małkinia–Sokołów Podlaski railway junction and the Treblinka village station. The mine was owned and operated by the Polish industrialist Marian Łopuszyński, who added the new railway track to the existing line. When the German SS took over Treblinka I, the quarry was already equipped with heavy machinery that was ready to use. Treblinka was well-connected but isolated enough, halfway between some of the largest Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe, including the Warsaw Ghetto and the Białystok Ghetto, the capital of the newly formed Bialystok District. The Warsaw Ghetto had 500,000 Jewish inmates, and the Białystok Ghetto had about 60,000.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka was divided into two separate camps apart. Two engineering firms, the Schönbronn Company of Leipzig and the Warsaw branch of Schmidt–Münstermann, oversaw the construction of both camps. Between 1942 and 1943, the extermination centre was further redeveloped with a crawler excavator. New gas chambers constructed of brick and cement mortar were freshly erected, and mass cremation pyres were also introduced. The perimeter was enlarged to provide a buffer zone, making it impossible to approach the camp from the outside. The number of trains caused panic among the residents of nearby settlements. They would likely have been killed if caught near the railway tracks.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Opened on 1 September 1941 as a forced-labour camp ("Arbeitslager"), Treblinka I replaced an "ad hoc" company established in June 1941 by Sturmbannführer Ernst Gramss. A new barracks and barbed wire fencing high were erected in late 1941. To obtain the workforce for Treblinka I, civilians were sent to the camp "en masse" for real or imagined offences, and sentenced to hard labour by the Gestapo office in Sokołów, which was headed by Gramss. The average length of a sentence was six months, but many prisoners had their sentences extended indefinitely. Twenty thousand people passed through Treblinka I during its three-year existence. About half of them were murdered there via exhaustion, hunger and disease. Those who survived were released after serving their sentences; these were generally Poles from nearby villages.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: At any given time, Treblinka I had a workforce of 1,000–2,000 prisoners, most of whom worked 12- to 14-hour shifts in the large quarry and later also harvested wood from the nearby forest as fuel for the open-air crematoria in Treblinka II. There were German, Czech and French Jews among them, as well as Poles captured in "łapankas", farmers unable to deliver food requisitions, hostages trapped by chance, and people who attempted to harbour Jews outside the Jewish ghettos or who performed restricted actions without permits. Beginning in July 1942, Jews and non-Jews were separated. Women mainly worked in the sorting barracks, where they repaired and cleaned military clothing delivered by freight trains, while most of the men worked at the gravel mine. There were no work uniforms, and inmates who lost their own shoes were forced to go barefoot or scavenge them from dead prisoners. Water was rationed, and punishments were regularly delivered at roll-calls. From December 1943 the inmates were no longer carrying any specific sentences. The camp operated officially until 23 July 1944, when the imminent arrival of Soviet forces led to its abandonment.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: During its entire operation, Treblinka I's commandant was "Sturmbannführer" Theodor van Eupen. He ran the camp with several SS men and almost 100 "Hiwi" guards. The quarry, spread over an area of , supplied road construction material for German military use and was part of the strategic road-building programme in the war with the Soviet Union. It was equipped with a mechanical digger for shared use by both Treblinka I and II. Eupen worked closely with the SS and German police commanders in Warsaw during the deportation of Jews in early 1943 and had prisoners brought to him from the Warsaw Ghetto for the necessary replacements. According to Franciszek Ząbecki, the local station master, Eupen often murdered prisoners by "taking shots at them, as if they were partridges". A widely feared overseer was "Untersturmführer" Franz Schwarz, who executed prisoners with a pickaxe or hammer.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka II (officially the "SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka") was divided into three parts: Camp 1 was the administrative compound where the guards lived, Camp 2 was the receiving area where incoming transports of prisoners were offloaded, and Camp 3 was the location of the gas chambers. All three parts were built by two groups of German Jews recently expelled from Berlin and Hanover and imprisoned at the Warsaw Ghetto (a total of 238 men from 17 to 35 years of age). "Hauptsturmführer" Richard Thomalla, the head of construction, brought in German Jews because they could speak German. Construction began on 10 April 1942, when Bełżec and Sobibór were already in operation. The entire death camp, which was either or in size (sources vary), was surrounded by two rows of barbed-wire fencing high. This fence was later woven with pine tree branches to obstruct the view of the camp from outside. More Jews were brought in from surrounding settlements to work on the new railway ramp within the Camp 2 receiving area, which was ready by June 1942.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The first section of Treblinka II (Camp 1) was the "Wohnlager" administrative and residential compound; it had a telephone line. The main road within the camp was paved and named "Seidel Straße" after "Unterscharführer" Kurt Seidel, the SS corporal who supervised its construction. A few side roads were lined with gravel. The main gate for road traffic was erected on the north side. Barracks were built with supplies delivered from Warsaw, Sokołów Podlaski, and Kosów Lacki. There was a kitchen, a bakery, and dining rooms; all were equipped with high-quality items taken from Jewish ghettos. The Germans and Ukrainians each had their own sleeping quarters, positioned at an angle for better control of all entrances. There were also two barracks behind an inner fence for the Jewish work commandos, known as "Sonderkommandos". "SS-Untersturmführer" Kurt Franz set up a small zoo in the centre next to his horse stables, containing two foxes, two peacocks and a roe deer (introduced in 1943). Smaller rooms were built as laundry, tailors, and cobblers, and for woodworking and medical aid. Closest to the SS quarters were separate barracks for the Polish and Ukrainian women who served, cleaned, and worked in the kitchen.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The next section of Treblinka II (Camp 2, also called the lower camp or "Auffanglager"), was the receiving area where the railway unloading ramp extended from the Treblinka line into the camp. There was a long and narrow platform surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. A new building, erected on the platform, was disguised as a railway station complete with a wooden clock and fake rail terminal signs. SS-"Scharführer" Josef Hirtreiter, who worked on the unloading ramp was known for being especially cruel; he grabbed crying toddlers by their feet and smashed their heads against wagons. Behind a second fence, about from the track, there were two large barracks used for undressing, with a cashier's booth where money and jewelry were collected, ostensibly for safekeeping. Jews who resisted were taken away or beaten to death by the guards. The area where the women and children were shorn of their hair was on the other side of the path from the men. All buildings in the lower camp, including the barber barracks, contained the piled up clothing and belongings of the prisoners. Behind the station building, further to the right, there was a Sorting Square where all baggage was first collected by the "Lumpenkommando". It was flanked by a fake infirmary called "Lazaret", with the Red Cross sign on it. It was a small barracks surrounded by barbed wire, where the sick, old, wounded and "difficult" prisoners were taken. Directly behind the "Lazaret" shack, there was an open excavation pit seven metres (23 ft) deep. These prisoners were led to the edge of the pit and shot one at a time by "Blockführer" Willi Mentz, nicknamed "Frankenstein" by the inmates. Mentz single-handedly executed thousands of Jews, aided by his supervisor, August Miete, who was called the "Angel of Death" by the prisoners. The pit was also used to burn old worn-out clothes and identity papers deposited by new arrivals at the undressing area.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The third section of Treblinka II (Camp 3, also called the upper camp) was the main killing zone, with gas chambers at its centre. It was completely screened from the railway tracks by an earth bank built with the help of a mechanical digger. This mound was elongated in shape, similar to a retaining wall, and can be seen in a sketch produced during the 1967 trial of Treblinka II commandant Franz Stangl. On the other sides, the zone was camouflaged from new arrivals like the rest of the camp, using tree branches woven into barbed wire fences by the "Tarnungskommando" (the work detail led out to collect them). From the undressing barracks, a fenced-off path led through the forested area to the gas chambers. The SS cynically called it "die Himmelstraße" ("the road to heaven") or "der Schlauch" ("the tube"). For the first eight months of the camp's operation, the excavator was used to dig burial ditches on both sides of the gas chambers; these ditches were long, wide, and deep. In early 1943, they were replaced with cremation pyres up to long, with rails laid across the pits on concrete blocks. The 300 prisoners who operated the upper camp lived in separate barracks behind the gas chambers.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Unlike Nazi concentration camps in which prisoners were used as forced labour, extermination camps such as Treblinka had only one function: to murder those sent there. To prevent incoming victims from realising its nature, Treblinka II was disguised as a transit camp for deportations further east, complete with unreal train schedules, a fake train-station clock with hands painted on it, names of destinations, a fake ticket window, and the sign "Ober Majdan", a code word for Treblinka commonly used to deceive prisoners arriving from Western Europe. Majdan was a prewar landed estate away from the camp.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began on 22 July 1942 with the first transportation of 6,000 people. The gas chambers began to be operated the following morning. For the next two months, deportations from Warsaw continued daily, via two shuttle trains (the second one, from 6 August 1942), each carrying about 4,000 to 7,000 people crying for water. No other trains were allowed to stop at the Treblinka station. The first daily trains came in the early morning, often after an overnight wait, and the second, in mid-afternoon. All new arrivals were sent immediately to the undressing area by the "Bahnhofskommando" squad that managed the arrival platform, and from there to the gas chambers. According to German records, including the official report by SS-"Brigadeführer" Jürgen Stroop, 265,000 Jews were transported in freight trains from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka during the period from 22 July to 12 September 1942.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The Polish railway was very heavily used. An average of 420 German military trains were passing through every 24 hours on top of internal traffic already in 1941. The Holocaust trains passage to their destination was routinely delayed; some transports took many days to arrive. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered by exhaustion, suffocation and thirst while in transit to the camp in the overcrowded wagons. In extreme cases, such as the Biała Podlaska transport of 6,000 Jews travelling only a distance, up to 90 percent of people were already dead when the sealed doors were opened. From September 1942 on, both Polish and foreign Jews were greeted with a brief verbal announcement. An earlier signboard with directions was removed because it was clearly insufficient. The deportees were told that they had arrived at a transit point on the way to Ukraine and needed to shower and have their clothes disinfected before receiving work uniforms and new orders.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka received transports of almost 20,000 foreign Jews between October 1942 and March 1943, including 8,000 from the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia via Theresienstadt, and over 11,000 from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace, Macedonia, and Pirot following an agreement with the Nazi-allied Bulgarian government. They had train tickets and arrived predominantly in passenger carriages with considerable luggage, travel foods and drinks, all of which were taken by the SS to the food storage barracks. The provisions included such items as smoked mutton, speciality breads, wine, cheese, fruit, tea, coffee, and sweets. Unlike Polish Jews arriving in Holocaust trains from nearby ghettos in cities like Warsaw, Radom, and those of "Bezirk Bialystok", the foreign Jews received a warm welcome upon arrival from an SS man (either Otto Stadie or Willy Mätzig), after which they were murdered like the others. Treblinka was mainly used for the murder of Polish Jews, Bełżec was used to murder Jews from Austria and the Sudetenland, and Sobibór was used to murder Jews from France and the Netherlands. Auschwitz-Birkenau was used to murder Jews from almost every other country in Europe. The frequency of arriving transports slowed down in winter.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The decoupled locomotive went back to the Treblinka station or to the layover yard in Małkinia for the next load, while the victims were pulled from the carriages onto the platform by "Kommando Blau", one of the Jewish work details forced to assist the Germans at the camp. They were led through the gate amidst chaos and screaming. They were separated by gender behind the gate; women were pushed into the undressing barracks and barber on the left, and men were sent to the right. All were ordered to tie their shoes together and strip. Some kept their own towels. The Jews who resisted were taken to the "Lazaret", also called the "Red Cross infirmary", and shot behind it. Women had their hair cut off; therefore, it took longer to prepare them for the gas chambers than men. The hair was used in the manufacture of socks for U-boat crews and hair-felt footwear for the "Deutsche Reichsbahn".


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Most of those murdered at Treblinka were Jews, but about 2,000 Romani people were also murdered there. Like the Jews, the Romani were first rounded up and sent to the ghettos. At a conference on 30 January 1940 it was decided that all 30,000 Romani living in Germany proper were to be deported to former Polish territory. Most of these were sent to Jewish ghettos in the General Government, such as those in Warsaw and Łódź. As with the Jews, most Romani who went to Treblinka were murdered in the gas chambers, although some were shot. The majority of the Jews living in ghettos were sent to Bełżec, Sobibór, or Treblinka to be murdered; most of the Romani living in the ghettos were shot on the spot. There were no known Romani escapees or survivors from Treblinka.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: After undressing, newly arrived Jews were beaten with whips to drive them towards the gas chambers; hesitant men were treated particularly brutally. Rudolf Höss, the commandant at Auschwitz, contrasted the practice at Treblinka of deceiving the victims about the showers with his own camp's practice of telling them they had to go through a "delousing" process. According to the postwar testimony of some SS officers, men were always gassed first, while women and children waited outside the gas chambers for their turn. During this time, the women and children could hear the sounds of suffering from inside the chambers, and they became aware of what awaited them, which caused panic, distress, and even involuntary defecation.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Many survivors of the Treblinka camp testified that an officer known as 'Ivan the Terrible' was responsible for operating the gas chambers in 1942 and 1943. While Jews were awaiting their fate outside the gas chambers, Ivan the Terrible allegedly tortured, beat, and murdered many of them. Survivors witnessed Ivan beat victims' heads open with a pipe, cut victims with a sword or a bayonet, cut off noses and ears, and gouge out eyes. One survivor testified that Ivan murdered an infant by bashing it against a wall; another claimed that he raped a young girl before cutting her abdomen open and letting her bleed to death.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The gas chambers were completely enclosed by a high wooden fence. Originally, they consisted of three interconnected barracks long and wide, disguised as showers. They had double walls insulated by earth packed down in between. The interior walls and ceilings were lined with roofing paper. The floors were covered with tin-plated sheet metal, the same material used for the roof. Solid wooden doors were insulated with rubber and bolted from the outside by heavy cross-bars.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: According to Stangl, a train transport of about 3,000 people could be "processed" in three hours. In a 14-hour workday, 12,000 to 15,000 people were murdered. After the new gas chambers were built, the duration of the killing process was reduced to an hour and a half. The victims were murdered via gas, using the exhaust fumes conducted through pipes from an engine of a Red Army tank. SS-"Scharführer" Erich Fuchs was responsible for installing it. The engine was brought in by the SS at the time of the camp's construction and housed in a room with a generator that supplied the camp with electricity. The tank engine exhaust pipe ran just below the ground and opened into all three gas chambers. The fumes could be seen seeping out. After about 20 minutes the bodies were removed by dozens of "Sonderkommandos", placed onto carts and wheeled away. The system was imperfect and required a lot of effort; trains that arrived later in the day had to wait on layover tracks overnight at Treblinka, Małkinia, or Wólka Okrąglik.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Between August and September 1942, a large new building with a concrete foundation was built from bricks and mortar under the guidance of Action T4 euthanasia expert Erwin Lambert. It contained 8–10 gas chambers, each of which was , and it had a corridor in the centre. Stangl supervised its construction and brought in building materials from the nearby village of Małkinia by dismantling factory stock. During this time victims continued to arrive daily and were led naked past the building site to the original gas chambers. The new gas chambers became operational after five weeks of construction, equipped with two fume-producing engines instead of one. The metal doors, which had been taken from Soviet military bunkers around Białystok, had portholes through which it was possible to observe the dead before removing them. Stangl said that the old gas chambers were capable of murdering 3,000 people in three hours. The new ones had the highest possible capacity of any gas chambers in the three Reinhard death camps and could murder up to 22,000 or 25,000 people every day, a fact which Globocnik once boasted about to Kurt Gerstein, a fellow SS officer from Disinfection Services. The new gas chambers were seldom used to their full capacity; 12,000–15,000 victims remained the daily average.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The killing process at Treblinka differed significantly from the method used at Auschwitz and Majdanek, where the poison gas Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) was used. At Treblinka, Sobibór, and Bełżec, the victims were murdered by suffocation and carbon monoxide poisoning from engine exhaust in stationary gas chambers. At Chełmno, they were carried within two specially equipped and engineered trucks, driven at a scientifically calculated speed so as to murder the Jews inside it during the trip, rather than force the drivers and guards to murder them at the destination. After visiting Treblinka on a guided tour, Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss concluded that using exhaust gas was inferior to the cyanide used at his extermination camp. The chambers became silent after 12 minutes and were closed for 20 minutes or less. According to Jankiel Wiernik, who survived the 1943 prisoner uprising and escaped, when the doors of the gas chambers had been opened, the bodies of the victims were standing and kneeling rather than lying down, due to the severe overcrowding. Dead mothers embraced the bodies of their children. Prisoners who worked in the "Sonderkommandos" later testified that the dead frequently let out a last gasp of air when they were extracted from the chambers. Some victims showed signs of life during the disposal of the corpses, but the guards routinely refused to react.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The Germans became aware of the political danger associated with the mass burial of corpses in April 1943 after they discovered the graves of Polish victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre carried out by the Soviets near Smolensk. The bodies of the 10,000 Polish officers executed by the NKVD were well preserved despite their long burial. The Germans formed the Katyn Commission to prove that the Soviets were solely responsible, and used radio broadcast and newsfilm to alert the Allies to this war crime. Subsequently, the Nazi leadership, concerned about covering up their own crimes, issued the secret orders to exhume the corpses buried at death camps and burn them. The cremations began shortly after Himmler's visit to the camp in late February or early March 1943.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: To incinerate bodies, large cremation pits were constructed at Camp 3 within Treblinka II. The burning pyres were used to cremate the new corpses along with the old ones, which had to be dug up as they had been buried during the first six months of the camp's operation. Built under the instructions of Herbert Floß, the camp's cremation expert, the pits consisted of railroad rails laid as grates on blocks of concrete. The bodies were placed on rails over wood, splashed with petrol, and burned. It was a harrowing sight, according to Jankiel Wiernik, with the bellies of pregnant women exploding from boiling amniotic fluid. He wrote that "the heat radiating from the pits was maddening." The bodies burned for five hours, without the ashing of bones. The pyres operated 24 hours a day. Once the system had been perfected, 10,000–12,000 bodies at a time could be incinerated.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The open air burn pits were located east of the new gas chambers and refuelled from 4 a.m. (or after 5 a.m. depending on work-load) to 6 p.m. in roughly 5-hour intervals. The current camp memorial includes a flat grave marker resembling one of them. It is constructed from melted basalt and has a concrete foundation. It is a symbolic grave, as the Nazis spread the actual human ashes, mixed with sand, over an area of .


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The camp was operated by 20–25 German and Austrian members of the "SS-Totenkopfverbände" and 80–120 "Wachmänner" ("watchmen") guards who had been trained at a special SS facility in the Trawniki concentration camp near Lublin, Poland; all "Wachmänner" guards were trained at Trawniki. The guards were mainly ethnic German "Volksdeutsche" from the east and Ukrainians, with some Russians, Tatars, Moldovans, Latvians, and Central Asians, all of whom had served in the Red Army. They were enlisted by Karl Streibel, the commander of the Trawniki camp, from the prisoner of war (POW) camps for Soviet soldiers. The degree to which their recruitment was voluntary remains disputed; while conditions in the camps for Soviet POWs were dreadful, some Soviet POWs collaborated with the Germans even before cold, hunger, and disease began devastating the POW camps in mid-September 1941.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The work at Treblinka was carried out under threat of death by Jewish prisoners organised into specialised work details. At the Camp 2 "Auffanglager" receiving area each squad had a different coloured triangle. The triangles made it impossible for new arrivals to try to blend in with members of the work details. The blue unit ("Kommando Blau") managed the rail ramp and unlocked the freight wagons. They met the new arrivals, carried out people who had died en route, removed bundles, and cleaned the wagon floors. The red unit ("Kommando Rot"), which was the largest squad, unpacked and sorted the belongings of victims after they had been "processed". The red unit delivered these belongings to the storage barracks, which were managed by the yellow unit ("Kommando Gelb"), who separated the items by quality, removed the Star of David from all outer garments, and extracted any money sewn into the linings. The yellow unit was followed by the "Desinfektionskommando", who disinfected the belongings, including sacks of hair from women who had been murdered there. The "Goldjuden" unit ("gold Jews") collected and counted banknotes and evaluated the gold and jewellery.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: A different group of about 300 men, called the "Totenjuden" ("Jews for the dead"), lived and worked in Camp 3 across from the gas chambers. For the first six months they took the corpses away for burial after gold teeth had been extracted. Once cremation began in early 1943 they took the corpses to the pits, refuelled the pyres, crushed the remaining bones with mallets, and collected the ashes for disposal. Each trainload of "deportees" brought to Treblinka consisted of an average of sixty heavily guarded wagons. They were divided into three sets of twenty at the layover yard. Each set was processed within the first two hours of backing onto the ramp, and was then made ready by the "Sonderkommandos" to be exchanged for the next set of twenty wagons.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Members of all work units were continuously beaten by the guards and often shot. Replacements were selected from the new arrivals. There were other work details which had no contact with the transports: the "Holzfällerkommando" ("woodcutter unit") cut and chopped firewood, and the "Tarnungskommando" ("disguise unit") camouflaged the structures of the camp. Another work detail was responsible for cleaning the common areas. The Camp 1 "Wohnlager" residential compound contained barracks for about 700 "Sonderkommandos" which, when combined with the 300 "Totenjuden" living across from the gas chambers, brought their grand total to roughly one thousand at a time.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Many "Sonderkommando" prisoners hanged themselves at night. Suicides in the "Totenjuden" barracks occurred at the rate of 15 to 20 per day. The work crews were almost entirely replaced every few days; members of the old work detail were murdered except for the most resilient.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: In early 1943, an underground Jewish resistance organisation was formed at Treblinka with the goal of seizing control of the camp and escaping to freedom. The planned revolt was preceded by a long period of secret preparations. The clandestine unit was first organised by a former Jewish captain of the Polish Army, Dr. Julian Chorążycki, who was described by fellow plotter Samuel Rajzman as noble and essential to the action. His organising committee included Zelomir Bloch (leadership), Rudolf Masaryk, Marceli Galewski, Samuel Rajzman, Dr. Irena Lewkowska ("Irka", from the sick bay for the "Hiwis"), Leon Haberman, Chaim Sztajer, Hershl (Henry) Sperling from Częstochowa, and several others. Chorążycki (who treated the German patients) killed himself with poison on 19 April 1943 when faced with imminent capture, so that the Germans could not discover the plot by torturing him. The next leader was another former Polish Army officer, Dr. Berek Lajcher, who arrived on 1 May. Born in Częstochowa, he had practised medicine in Wyszków and was expelled by the Nazis to Wegrów in 1939.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The date of the revolt was initially set for 15 June 1943, but it had to be postponed. A fighter smuggled a grenade in one of the early May trains carrying captured rebels from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which had begun on 19 April 1943. When he detonated it in the undressing area, the SS and guards were thrown into a panic. After the explosion, Treblinka received only about 7,000 Jews from the capital for fear of similar incidents; the remaining 42,000 Warsaw Jews were deported to Majdanek, instead. The burning of unearthed corpses continued at full speed until the end of July. The Treblinka II conspirators became increasingly concerned about their future as the amount of work for them began to decline. With fewer transports arriving, they realised "they were next in line for the gas chambers."


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The uprising was launched on the hot summer day of 2 August 1943 (Monday, a regular day of rest from gassing), when a group of Germans and 40 Ukrainians drove off to the River Bug to swim. The conspirators silently unlocked the door to the arsenal near the train tracks, with a key that had been duplicated earlier. They had stolen 20–25 rifles, 20 hand grenades, and several pistols, and delivered them in a cart to the gravel work detail. At 3:45 p.m., 700 Jews launched an insurgency that lasted for 30 minutes. They set buildings ablaze, exploded a tank of petrol, and set fire to the surrounding structures. A group of armed Jews attacked the main gate, and others attempted to climb the fence. Machine-gun fire from about 25 Germans and 60 Ukrainian "Trawnikis" resulted in near-total slaughter. Lajcher was killed along with most of the insurgents. About 200 Jews escaped from the camp. Half of them were killed after a chase in cars and on horses. The Jews did not cut the phone wires, and Stangl called in hundreds of German reinforcements, who arrived from four different towns and set up roadblocks along the way. Partisans of the "Armia Krajowa" (Polish: Home Army) transported some of the surviving escapees across the river and others like Sperling ran and were then helped and fed by Polish villagers. Of those who broke through, around 70 are known to have survived until the end of the war, including the future authors of published Treblinka memoirs: Richard Glazar, Chil Rajchman, Jankiel Wiernik, and Samuel Willenberg.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Among the Jewish prisoners who escaped after setting fire to the camp, there were two 19-year-olds, Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, who had both arrived in 1942 and had been forced to work there under the threat of death. Taigman died in 2012 and Willenberg in 2016. Taigman stated of his experience, "It was hell, absolutely hell. A normal man cannot imagine how a living person could have lived through it – killers, natural-born killers, who without a trace of remorse just murdered every little thing." Willenberg and Taigman emigrated to Israel after the war and devoted their last years to retelling the story of Treblinka. Escapees Hershl Sperling and Richard Glazar both suffered from survivor guilt syndrome and eventually killed themselves. Chaim Sztajer, who was 34 at the time of the uprising, had survived 11 months as a "Sonderkommando" in Treblinka II and was instrumental in the coordination of the uprising between the two camps. Following his escape in the uprising, Sztajer survived for over a year in the forest before the liberation of Poland. Following the war, he migrated to Israel and then to Melbourne, Australia where later in life he constructed from memory a model of Treblinka which is currently displayed at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: After the revolt, Stangl met the head of Operation Reinhard, Odilo Globocnik, and inspector Christian Wirth in Lublin, and decided not to draft a report, as no native Germans had died putting down the revolt. Stangl wanted to rebuild the camp, but Globocnik told him it would be closed down shortly and Stangl would be transferred to Trieste to help fight the partisans there. The Nazi high command may have felt that Stangl, Globocnik, Wirth, and other Reinhard personnel knew too much and wanted to dispose of them by sending them to the front. With almost all the Jews from the German ghettos (established in Poland) murdered, there would have been little point in rebuilding the facility. Auschwitz had enough capacity to fulfil the Nazis' remaining extermination needs, rendering Treblinka redundant.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The camp's new commandant Kurt Franz, formerly its deputy commandant, took over in August. After the war he testified that gassings had stopped by then. In reality, despite the extensive damage to the camp, the gas chambers were intact, and the murder of Polish Jews continued. Speed was reduced, with only ten wagons rolled onto the ramp at a time, while the others had to wait. The last two rail transports of Jews were brought to the camp for gassing from the Białystok Ghetto on 18 and 19 August 1943. They consisted of 76 wagons (37 the first day and 39 the second), according to a communiqué published by the Office of Information of the "Armia Krajowa", based on observation of Holocaust trains passing through the village of Treblinka. The 39 wagons that came to Treblinka on 19 August 1943 were carrying at least 7,600 survivors of the Białystok Ghetto Uprising.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: On 19 October 1943, Operation Reinhard was terminated by a letter from Odilo Globocnik. The following day, a large group of Jewish "Arbeitskommandos" who had worked on dismantling the camp structures over the previous few weeks were loaded onto the train and transported, via Siedlce and Chełm, to Sobibór to be gassed on 20 October 1943. Franz followed Globocnik and Stangl to Trieste in November. Clean-up operations continued over the winter. As part of these operations, Jews from the surviving work detail dismantled the gas chambers brick-by-brick and used them to erect a farmhouse on the site of the camp's former bakery. Globocnik confirmed its purpose as a secret guard post for a Nazi-Ukrainian agent to remain behind the scenes, in a letter he sent to Himmler from Trieste on 5 January 1944. A "Hiwi" guard called Oswald Strebel, a Ukrainian "Volksdeutscher" (ethnic German), was given permission to bring his family from Ukraine for "reasons of surveillance", wrote Globocnik; Strebel had worked as a guard at Treblinka II. He was instructed to tell visitors that he had been farming there for decades, but the local Poles were well aware of the existence of the camp.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: SS-"Obersturmführer" Irmfried Eberl was appointed the camp's first commandant on 11 July 1942. He was a psychiatrist from Bernburg Euthanasia Centre and the only physician-in-chief to command an extermination camp during World War II. According to some, his poor organisational skills caused the operation of Treblinka to turn disastrous; others point out that the number of transports that were coming in reflected the Nazi high command's wildly unrealistic expectations of Treblinka's ability to "process" these prisoners. The early gassing machinery frequently broke down due to overuse, forcing the SS to shoot Jews assembled for suffocation. The workers did not have enough time to bury them, and the mass graves were overflowing. According to the testimony of his colleague "Unterscharführer" Hans Hingst, Eberl's ego and thirst for power exceeded his ability: "So many transports arrived that the disembarkation and gassing of the people could no longer be handled." On incoming Holocaust trains to Treblinka, many of the Jews locked inside correctly guessed what was going to happen to them. The odour of decaying corpses could be smelled up to away.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Oskar Berger, a Jewish eyewitness, one of about 100 people who escaped during the 1943 uprising, told of the camp's state when he arrived there in August 1942:


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: When Globocnik made a surprise visit to Treblinka on 26 August 1942 with Christian Wirth and Wirth's adjutant from Bełżec, Josef Oberhauser, Eberl was dismissed on the spot. Among the reasons for dismissal were: incompetently disposing of the tens of thousands of dead bodies, using inefficient methods of murder, and not properly concealing the mass-murder. Eberl was transferred to Berlin, closer to operational headquarters in Hitler's Chancellery, where the main architect of the Holocaust, Heinrich Himmler, had just stepped up the pace of the programme. Globocnik assigned Wirth to remain in Treblinka temporarily to help clean up the camp. On 28 August 1942, Globocnik suspended deportations. He chose Franz Stangl, who had been the commandant of the Sobibór extermination camp, to assume command of the camp as Eberl's successor. Stangl had a reputation as a competent administrator with a good understanding of the project's objectives, and Globocnik trusted that he would be capable of resuming control.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Stangl arrived at Treblinka in late August 1942. He replaced Eberl on 1 September. Years later, Stangl described what he first saw when he came on the scene, in a 1971 interview with Gitta Sereny:


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Stangl reorganised the camp, and the transports of Warsaw and Jews from the Radom Ghetto began to arrive again on 3 September 1942. According to Israeli historian Yitzhak Arad, Stangl wanted the camp to look attractive, so he ordered the paths paved in the "Wohnlager" administrative compound. Flowers were planted along "Seidel Straße" as well as near the SS living quarters. He ordered that all arriving prisoners should be greeted by the SS with a verbal announcement translated by the working Jews. The deportees were told that they were at a transit point on the way to Ukraine. Some of their questions were answered by Germans wearing lab coats as tools for deception. At times Stangl carried a whip and wore a white uniform, so he was nicknamed the "White Death" by prisoners. Although he was directly responsible for the camp's operations, according to his own testimony Stangl limited his contact with Jewish prisoners as much as possible. He claimed that he rarely interfered with the cruel acts perpetrated by his subordinate officers at the camp. He became desensitised to the murders, and came to perceive prisoners not as humans but merely as "cargo" that had to be destroyed, he said.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: According to postwar testimonies, when transports were temporarily halted, then-deputy commandant Kurt Franz wrote lyrics to a song meant to celebrate the Treblinka extermination camp. In reality, prisoner Walter Hirsch wrote them for him. The melody came from something Franz remembered from Buchenwald. The music was upbeat, in the key of D major. The song was taught to Jews assigned to work in the "Sonderkommando". They were forced to memorise it by nightfall of their first day at the camp. "Unterscharführer" Franz Suchomel recalled the lyrics as follows: "We know only the word of the Commander. / We know only obedience and duty. / We want to keep working, working, / until a bit of luck beckons us some time. Hurray!"


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: A musical ensemble was formed, under duress, by Artur Gold, a popular Jewish prewar composer from Warsaw. He arranged the theme to the Treblinka song for the prisoner orchestra which he conducted. Gold arrived in Treblinka in 1942 and played music in the SS mess hall at the "Wohnlager" on German orders. He died during the uprising.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: After the Treblinka revolt in August 1943, and termination of Operation Reinhard in October 1943, Stangl went with Globocnik to Trieste in northern Italy where SS reinforcements were needed. The third and last Treblinka II commandant was Kurt Franz, nicknamed "Lalka" by the prisoners () because he had "an innocent face".<ref name="Berliner/Biala"> "Also in:" .</ref> According to survivor testimonies, Franz shot and beat prisoners to death for minor infractions or had his dog Barry tear them to pieces. He managed Treblinka II until November 1943. The subsequent clean-up of the Treblinka II perimeter was completed by prisoners of nearby Treblinka I "Arbeitslager" in the following months. Franz's deputy was "Hauptscharführer" Fritz Küttner, who maintained a network of informers among the prisoners and did the hands-on murders.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Kurt Franz maintained a photo album against orders never to take photographs inside Treblinka. He named it "Schöne Zeiten" ("Good Times"). His album is a rare source of images illustrating the mechanised grave digging, brickworks in Małkinia and the Treblinka zoo, among others. Franz was careful not to photograph the gas chambers.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The Treblinka I gravel mine functioned at full capacity under the command of Theodor van Eupen until July 1944, with new forced labourers sent to him by "Kreishauptmann" Ernst Gramss from Sokołów. The mass shootings continued into 1944. With Soviet troops closing in, the last 300 to 700 prisoners disposing of the incriminating evidence were executed by "Trawnikis" in late July 1944, long after the camp's official closure. Strebel, the ethnic German who had been installed in the farmhouse built in place of the camp's original bakery using bricks from the gas chambers, set fire to the building and fled to avoid capture.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: In late July 1944, Soviet forces approached from the east. The departing Germans, who had already destroyed most direct evidence of genocidal intent, burned surrounding villages to the ground, including 761 buildings in Poniatowo, Prostyń, and Grądy. Many families were murdered. The fields of grain that had once fed the SS were burned. On 19 August 1944, German forces blew up the church in Prostyń and its bell tower, the last defensive strongpoint against the Red Army in the area.<ref name="Rytel-Andrianik/Prostyń"></ref> When the Soviets entered Treblinka on 16 August, the extermination zone had been levelled, ploughed over, and planted with lupins. What remained, wrote visiting Soviet war correspondent Vasily Grossman, were small pieces of bone in the soil, human teeth, scraps of paper and fabric, broken dishes, jars, shaving brushes, rusted pots and pans, cups of all sizes, mangled shoes, and lumps of human hair. The road leading to the camp was pitch black. Until mid-1944 human ashes (up to 20 carts every day) had been regularly strewn by the remaining prisoners along the road for in the direction of Treblinka I. When the war ended, destitute and starving locals started walking up the Black Road (as they began to call it) in search of man-made nuggets shaped from melted gold in order to buy bread.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The new Soviet-installed government did not preserve evidence of the camp. The scene was not legally protected at the conclusion of World War II. In September 1947, 30 students from the local school, led by their teacher Feliks Szturo and priest Józef Ruciński, collected larger bones and skull fragments into farmers' wicker baskets and buried them in a single mound. The same year the first remembrance committee "Komitet Uczczenia Ofiar Treblinki" (KUOT; Committee for the Remembrance of the Victims of Treblinka) formed in Warsaw, and launched a design competition for the memorial.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Stalinist officials allocated no funding for the design competition nor for the memorial, and the committee disbanded in 1948; by then many survivors had left the country. In 1949, the town of Sokołów Podlaski protected the camp with a new fence and gate. A work crew with no archaeological experience was sent in to landscape the grounds. In 1958, after the end of Stalinism in Poland, the Warsaw provincial council declared Treblinka to be a place of martyrology. Over the next four years, of land that had formed part of the camp was purchased from 192 farmers in the villages of Prostyń, Grądy, Wólka Okrąglik and Nowa Maliszewa.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The construction of a monument in height designed by sculptor Franciszek Duszeńko was inaugurated on 21 April 1958 with the laying of the cornerstone at the site of the former gas chambers. The sculpture represents the trend toward large avant-garde forms introduced in the 1960s throughout Europe, with a granite tower cracked down the middle and capped by a mushroom-like block carved with abstract reliefs and Jewish symbols. Treblinka was declared a national monument of martyrology on 10 May 1964 during an official ceremony attended by 30,000 people. The monument was unveiled by Zenon Kliszko, the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, in the presence of survivors of the Treblinka uprising from Israel, France, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The camp custodian's house (built nearby in 1960) was turned into an exhibition space following the collapse of communism in Poland in 1989 and the retirement of the custodian; it opened in 2006. It was later expanded and made into a branch of the Siedlce Regional Museum.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: There are many estimates of the total number of people murdered at Treblinka; most scholarly estimates range from 700,000 to 900,000, meaning that more Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp except for Auschwitz. The Treblinka museum in Poland states that at least 800,000 people were murdered at Treblinka; Israel's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, puts the number at 870,000; and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gives a range of 870,000 to 925,000.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The first estimate of the number of people murdered at Treblinka came from Vasily Grossman, a Soviet war reporter who visited Treblinka in July 1944 as the Soviet forces marched westward across Poland. He published an article called "The Hell Called Treblinka", which appeared in the November 1944 issue of "Znamya", a monthly Russian literary magazine. In the article, he claimed that 3 million people had been murdered at Treblinka. He may not have been aware that the short station platform at Treblinka II greatly reduced the number of wagons that could be unloaded at one time, and may have been adhering to the Soviet trend of exaggerating Nazi crimes for propaganda purposes. In 1947, the Polish historian Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz gave an estimate of 780,000 murders, based on the accepted record of 156 transports with an average of 5,000 prisoners each.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The Treblinka trials of the 1960s took place in Düsseldorf and produced the two official West German estimates. During the 1965 trial of Kurt Franz, the Court of Assize in Düsseldorf concluded that at least 700,000 people were murdered at Treblinka, following a report by Dr. Helmut Krausnick, director of the Institute of Contemporary History. During Franz Stangl's trial in 1969, the same court reassessed the number to be at least 900,000 after new evidence from Dr. Wolfgang Scheffler.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: A chief witness for the prosecution at Düsseldorf in the 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1970 trials was Franciszek Ząbecki, who was employed by the "Deutsche Reichsbahn" as a rail traffic controller at Treblinka village from 22 May 1941. In 1977 he published his book "Old and New Memories", in which he used his own records to estimate that at least 1,200,000 people were murdered at Treblinka. His estimate was based on the maximum capacity of a trainset during the "Grossaktion" Warsaw of 1942 rather than its yearly average. The original German waybills in his possession did not have the number of prisoners listed. Ząbecki, a Polish member of railway staff before the war, was one of the few non-German witnesses to see most transports that came into the camp; he was present at the Treblinka station when the first Holocaust train arrived from Warsaw. Ząbecki was a member of the "Armia Krajowa" (Polish: Home Army), which formed most of the Polish resistance movement in World War II, and kept a daily record of the extermination transports. He also clandestinely photographed the burning Treblinka II perimeter during the uprising in August 1943. Ząbecki witnessed the last set of five enclosed freight wagons carrying "Sonderkommandos" to the Sobibór gas chambers on 20 October 1943. In 2013, his son Piotr Ząbecki wrote an article about him for "Życie Siedleckie" that revised the number to 1,297,000. Ząbecki's daily records of transports to the camp, and demographic information regarding the number of people deported from each ghetto to Treblinka, were the two main sources for estimates of the death toll.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: In his 1987 book "Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps", Israeli historian Yitzhak Arad stated that at least 763,000 people were murdered at Treblinka between July 1942 and April 1943. A considerable number of other estimates followed: see table (below).


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: A further source of information became available in 2001. The Höfle Telegram was an encrypted message sent to Berlin on 31 December 1942 by Operation Reinhard deputy commander Hermann Höfle, detailing the number of Jews deported by DRB to each of the Operation Reinhard death camps up to that point. Discovered among declassified documents in Britain, it shows that by the official count of the German Transport Authority 713,555 Jews were sent to Treblinka in 1942. The number of murders was probably higher, according to the "Armia Krajowa" communiqués. On the basis of the telegram and additional undated German evidence for 1943 listing 67,308 people deported, historian Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk calculated that by the official DRB count, 780,863 people were brought by "Deutsche Reichsbahn" to Treblinka.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The first major trial for war crimes committed at Treblinka was held in Düsseldorf between 12 October 1964 and 24 August 1965, preceded by the 1951 trial of "SS-Scharführer" Josef Hirtreiter, which was triggered by charges of war crimes unrelated to his service at the camp. The trial was delayed due to the decreased interest by the United States and the Soviet Union in prosecuting German war crimes with the onset of the Cold War. Many of the more than 90,000 Nazi war criminals recorded in German files were serving in positions of prominence under West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. In 1964 and 1965, eleven former SS camp personnel were brought to trial by West Germany, including commandant Kurt Franz. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, along with Artur Matthes ("Totenlager") and Willi Mentz and August Miete (both from "Lazaret"). Gustav Münzberger (gas chambers) received 12 years, Franz Suchomel (gold and money) 7 years, Otto Stadie (operation) 6 years, Erwin Lambert (gas chambers) 4 years, and Albert Rum ("Totenlager") 3 years. Otto Horn (corpse detail) was acquitted.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The second commandant of Treblinka II, Franz Stangl, escaped with his wife and children from Austria to Brazil in 1951. Stangl found work at a Volkswagen factory in São Paulo. His role in the mass murder of Jews was known to the Austrian authorities, but Austria did not issue a warrant for his arrest until 1961. Stangl was registered under his real name at the Austrian consulate in Brazil. It took another six years before Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal tracked him down and triggered his arrest. After his extradition from Brazil to West Germany, Stangl was tried for the murders of around 900,000 people. He admitted to the murders but argued: "My conscience is clear. I was simply doing my duty." Stangl was found guilty on 22 October 1970, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died of heart failure in prison in Düsseldorf on 28 June 1971.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Between the 1940s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union tried 21 people, for crimes committed at Treblinka. All of them were either executed or died in prison. In 1986, the Soviet Union tried another Treblinka guard, Feodor Fedorenko. Fedorenko had been deported to the Soviet Union after his crimes were exposed, resulting in him being stripped of his American citizenship. Fedorenko was sentenced to death and executed in 1987.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The theft of cash and valuables, collected from the victims of gassing, was conducted by the higher-ranking SS men on an enormous scale. It was a common practice among the concentration camps' top echelon everywhere; two Majdanek concentration camp commandants, Koch and Florstedt, were tried and executed by the SS for the same offence in April 1945. When the top-ranking officers went home, they would sometimes request a private locomotive from Klinzman and Emmerich at the Treblinka station to transport their personal "gifts" to Małkinia for a connecting train. Then, they would drive out of the camp in cars without any incriminating evidence on their person, and later arrive at Małkinia to transfer the goods.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The overall amount of material gain by Nazi Germany is unknown except for the period between 22 August and 21 September 1942, when there were 243 wagons of goods sent and recorded. Globocnik delivered a written tally to Reinhard headquarters on 15 December 1943 with the SS profit of ℛℳ 178,745,960.59, including of gold, of silver, of platinum, and 249,771.50 American dollars, as well as 130 diamond solitaires, of brilliants, of diamonds, and of pearls. The amount of loot Globocnik stole is unknown; Suchomel claimed in court to have filled a box with one million Reichsmarks for him.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Neither the Jewish religious leaders in Poland nor the authorities allowed archaeological excavations at the camp out of respect for the dead. Approval for a limited archaeological study was issued for the first time in 2010 to a British team from Staffordshire University using non-invasive technology and Lidar remote sensing. The soil resistance was analysed at the site with ground-penetrating radar. Features that appeared to be structural were found, two of which were thought to be the remains of the gas chambers, and the study was allowed to continue.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: The archaeological team performing the search discovered three new mass graves. The remains were reinterred out of respect for the victims. At the second dig the findings included yellow tiles stamped with a pierced mullet star resembling a Star of David, and building foundations with a wall. The star was soon identified as the logo of Polish ceramics factory manufacturing floor tiles, founded by Jan Dziewulski and brothers Józef and Władysław Lange (Dziewulski i Lange – D✡L since 1886), nationalised and renamed under communism after the war. As explained by forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls, the new evidence was important because the second gas chambers built at Treblinka were housed in the only brick building in the camp; Colls claimed that this provides the first physical evidence for their existence. In his memoir describing his stay in the camp, survivor Jankiel Wiernik says that the floor in the gas chambers (which he helped build) was made of similar tiles. The discoveries became a subject of the 2014 documentary by the Smithsonian Channel. More forensic work has been planned.


title: Treblinka extermination camp

text: Treblinka museum receives most visitors per day during the annual March of the Living educational programme which brings young people from around the world to Poland, to explore the remnants of the Holocaust. The visitors whose primary destination is the march at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, visit Treblinka in the preceding days. In 2009, 300 Israeli students attended the ceremony led by Eli Shaish from the Ministry of Education. In total 4,000 international students visited. In 2013 the number of students who came, ahead of the Auschwitz commemorations, was 3,571. In 2014, 1,500 foreign students visited.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Steppenwolf was an American-Canadian rock band that was prominent from 1968 to 1972. The group was formed in late 1967 in Los Angeles by lead singer John Kay, keyboardist Goldy McJohn, and drummer Jerry Edmonton, all formerly of the Canadian band the Sparrows. Guitarist Michael Monarch and bass guitarist Rushton Moreve were recruited via notices placed in Los Angeles-area record and musical instrument stores.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Steppenwolf sold over 25 million records worldwide, released seven gold albums and one platinum album, and had 13 "Billboard" Hot 100 singles, of which seven were Top 40 hits, including three top 10 successes: "Born to Be Wild", "Magic Carpet Ride", and "Rock Me". Steppenwolf enjoyed worldwide success from 1968 to 1972, but clashing personalities led to the end of the core lineup. Today, John Kay is the only original member, having been the lead singer since 1967. The band was called John Kay & Steppenwolf from 1980 to 2018. In Canada, they had four top 10 songs, 12 top 40, and 14 in the top 100.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: In 2016, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominated them for induction in 2017. Although they fell short of enough votes to qualify for induction that year, in 2018 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame selected one of their biggest singles – 1968's "Born to Be Wild" – as one of the first five singles that shaped rock and roll to be inducted into the hall in its history.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: In 1965 John Kay joined the Sparrows, a popular Canadian band, and was followed by Goldy McJohn. The group eventually broke up.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: In late 1967, Gabriel Mekler urged Kay to re-form the Sparrows and suggested the name change to Steppenwolf, inspired by Hermann Hesse's novel of the same name. Steppenwolf's first two singles were "A Girl I Knew" and "Sookie Sookie". The band finally rocketed to worldwide fame after their third single, "Born to Be Wild", was released in 1968, as well as their version of Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher". Both of these tunes were used prominently in the 1969 counterculture cult film "Easy Rider" (both titles originally had been released on the band's debut album). In the movie, "The Pusher" accompanies a drug deal, and Peter Fonda stuffing dollar bills into his Stars and Stripes-clad fuel tank, after which "Born to Be Wild" is heard in the opening credits, with Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding their Harley choppers through the America of the late 1960s. The song, which has been closely associated with motorcycles ever since, introduced to rock lyrics the signature term "heavy metal" (though not about a kind of music, but about a motorcycle: "I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder, racin' with the wind..."). Written by Sparrow guitarist Dennis Edmonton, who had begun using the pen name Mars Bonfire and inspired by a billboard roadside advertisement Bonfire liked which depicted a motorcycle tearing through the billboard artwork, the song had already reached number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in August 1968. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: In 1968, Steppenwolf played one of their biggest shows up to that time at the Fillmore East to rave reviews, sharing the bill with Buddy Rich and Children of God. On November 27, 1968, they played a concert with Iron Butterfly at the Baltimore Civic Center.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: The group's following albums had several more hit singles, including "Magic Carpet Ride" (which reached number three) from "The Second" and "Rock Me" (with its bridge lasting 1:06, which reached number 10) from "At Your Birthday Party". It also sold in excess of a million units. "Monster", which questioned US Vietnam War policy, was the band's most political album. Following the "Monster" album from 1969, the following year, the band released "Steppenwolf 7", which included the song "Snowblind Friend", another Hoyt Axton-penned song about the era and attitudes of drugs and associated problems. The band lineup for their live performances in the middle of 1970 was John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Goldy McJohn, Larry Byrom, and George Biondo. This lineup was also unable to remain together, as Byrom became upset with McJohn over personal issues and quit the band in the early part of 1971.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Several changes in the group's personnel were made after the first few years. Moreve was fired from the group in 1968 for missing gigs after he became afraid to return to Los Angeles, convinced by his girlfriend that it was going to be leveled by an earthquake and fall into the sea. Rob Black briefly filled in for Moreve until former Sparrow bandmate Nick St. Nicholas came aboard in the latter months of 1968. Monarch quit the group in August 1969 as his relationship with Kay deteriorated. Larry Byrom, who had been in TIME with Nick St. Nicholas, ably replaced Monarch. Nick St. Nicholas was let go in mid-1970. He had supposedly appeared in nothing but rabbit ears and a jock strap at the Fillmore East in April 1970 – and his habit of wearing muumuus and kaftans on stage began to wear on Kay, whose penchant for leather vests and pants was more in line with the image he wanted for the band. George Biondo was then recruited, and guitarist Kent Henry replaced Byrom in early 1971. In November 1971, the band released "For Ladies Only", with the lineup consisting of Kay, Henry, Biondo, McJohn, and Edmonton. The album was notable for several reasons, most notably the controversial LP inside cover art, the romantic, political, and social lyrical content, and the fact that it featured several of the group members on lead vocals.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: The band broke up after a farewell concert in Los Angeles on Valentine's Day, 1972. Kay went on to a brief solo career, scoring a minor solo hit in 1972 with "I'm Movin' On" from his album "Forgotten Songs and Unsung Heroes". Although it received generally high marks from most critics, the album sales were disappointing in the US. Kay released a second solo album in 1973 on the Dunhill label titled "My Sportin' Life". This album sold less than his first solo album and was less gritty and more LA studio-polish in sound.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Following the first official breakup of Steppenwolf, and after the release of Kay's first solo album, a late summer and autumn 1972 tour in the US and Europe occurred, which featured Kay heading both the John Kay Band and Steppenwolf, at the top of the bill. Dunhill had released an album of a collection of Steppenwolf songs titled "Rest in Peace". Thus, the tour was known as the RIP tour. The John Kay Band included Hugh Sullivan on keyboards and Whitey (Pentti) Glan on drums (both were contributors to John Kay's first solo album). Kent Henry on lead and slide guitar and George Biondo on bass joined Kay in both lineups. The Steppenwolf band lineup featured Goldy McJohn on keyboards and Jerry Edmonton on drums. This tour proved to be a fairly positive experience for all of the musicians and drew respectable crowd turnouts.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Following this tour, while Kay was recording his second solo album in 1973, McJohn and Edmonton continued to play and formed a band called Manbeast. Some of the material created in the Manbeast days showed up on the 1974 Steppenwolf reunion album "Slow Flux", most notably "Gang War Blues", which was recorded as a demo with Edmonton singing slightly different lyrics.


title: Steppenwolf (band)

text: Steppenwolf reformed in 1974 with its core lineup of Kay, Edmonton, and McJohn, along with longtime bassist Biondo and newcomer Bobby Cochran, Eddie Cochran's nephew, on lead guitar. The band signed with Mums Records in retaliation for what Kay perceived as a lack of support by Dunhill Records for his solo albums. Their first reunion album was "Slow Flux", which included their last top 40 hit, "Straight Shootin' Woman". In February 1975, McJohn was dismissed for what Kay described as a decline in the quality of his performances, as well as erratic behavior. McJohn was replaced by Andy Chapin on "Hour of the Wolf" in 1975, though McJohn appeared in artwork for the single to "Caroline". After the album peaked at number 155, Kay attempted to dissolve the band again, but the label, now having been absorbed by Epic Records, insisted Steppenwolf record one more album to satisfy their contractual obligations. The ensuing album, "Skullduggery" (1976), featuring Wayne Cook on keyboards, was released without a tour to support it, and by the early fall of 1976, Steppenwolf disbanded a second time. Kay appeared in a segment of the popular music TV show "The Midnight Special" to announce the end of Steppenwolf and also played a solo version of the song "Hey I'm Alright". This song appeared on Kay's third solo album "All In Good Time", released on Mercury Records in 1978.