1943 rebellion and mass escape of prisoners
The Treblinka uprising, also known as the Treblinka revolt, was a rebellion and mass escape of prisoners that took place on 2 August 1943 at the German Nazi Treblinka extermination camp.
The uprising was organized by members of the camp's underground resistance, which had formed in the early months of 1943. Its goal was to destroy the extermination center and enable a mass escape of the prisoners. The conspirators managed to acquire weapons from a German warehouse, but due to the premature start of the fight, they were unable to eliminate the camp staff or destroy the gas chambers. Out of approximately 840 prisoners who were in the camp at the time of the uprising, several hundred were killed in the fighting, and nearly 400 managed to escape. Fewer than 70 of the escapees survived the war.
Origins.
Treblinka II was one of the three extermination centers established by the Germans as part of Operation Reinhard. The camp operated from July 1942 and was dedicated to the extermination of the Jewish population. According to Jacek Młynarczyk, the minimum number of victims of Treblinka is estimated at 780,863.
From the outset, the Germans planned that all physical labor in the extermination camps – especially tasks directly related to the process of extermination – would be carried out by "Arbeitsjuden", Jewish prisoners who were spared immediate death in the gas chambers. Skilled workers and young, strong men capable of heavy labor were selected from the transports arriving at Treblinka. The number of those "selected" varied based on current needs – sometimes a few hundred people were chosen, while at other times only a few or none were spared. On average, between 700 and 1,500 prisoners worked in the reception and administrative-living areas of the camp, commonly referred to as the "lower camp". Their tasks included leading victims from the trains, forcing them to undress, sorting looted clothing and belongings, cutting women's hair, and performing various other duties for the camp and its guards.
Up to 300 Jews worked in the extermination area, commonly known as the "upper camp" or "death camp" (, ). These prisoners faced particularly dire conditions, as their tasks involved emptying and cleaning the gas chambers, extracting gold teeth from corpses, and burying the bodies in mass graves (later, burning them).
In the early months of the camp's operation, there was a high turnover among the "Arbeitsjuden". The Germans and Trawniki men constantly tortured and killed prisoners, replacing the deceased with men selected from new transports. This constant turnover negatively impacted the efficiency of the prisoners' work. Additionally, each prisoner lived with the knowledge that they could be killed at any moment, leading some individuals to engage in acts of desperate resistance. A warning sign for the Germans was the death of SS officer Max Biala, who was fatally stabbed by Meir Berliner, a Jewish prisoner from Argentina. As a result, in September 1942, camp commandant Franz Stangl ordered the formation of permanent work squads. Over time, the number of executions was reduced, prisoners were assigned numbers, and their living conditions were slightly improved.
Camp resistance.
In early 1943, conditions arose that allowed for the organization of a resistance movement within the camp. First, the reduction in the number of executions significantly decreased the turnover among the "working Jews". Second, fewer transports were arriving at Treblinka, raising fears among the prisoners that the camp might soon be liquidated and that they themselves would be murdered. The Jews also received fragments of information about German defeats at Stalingrad and on other fronts, leading them to conclude that the Germans would seek to eliminate witnesses to the genocide. While there had been some chances of escaping the camp in its early months, by the fall of 1942, the Germans had significantly tightened security measures, causing escapes to nearly cease by the beginning of the following year. The restriction of individual escape opportunities, combined with the fear of a mass extermination of all prisoners, led the "Arbeitsjuden" to begin contemplating an armed uprising and collective escape.
In late February or early March 1943, a group of prisoners from the "lower camp" formed an Organizing Committee. Its founding members were: Julian Chorążycki (a medical doctor from Warsaw and a captain in the Polish Armed Forces), Cwi Kurland (a kapo at the execution site in the Treblinka camp), Želomir Bloch (an officer in the Czechoslovak Army and a "vorarbeiter" in the sorting command), Izrael Sudowicz (an agriculturist from Warsaw), and Władysław Salzberg (a furrier from Kielce and the head of the tailoring workshop). After some time, Adolf Friedman from Łódź (a kapo in the sorting command, allegedly a soldier in the French Foreign Legion) also joined them. Other prisoners were also members of the committee, though there is conflicting information about their identities. Chorążycki was the unofficial leader of the group, while Želomir Bloch served as the military expert. All conspirators were functionary prisoners or belonged to the group of "court Jews" (), placing them at the top of the camp’s prisoner hierarchy. Most of them were mature men from intellectual backgrounds.
The committee did not intend to recruit too many members and focused its efforts on acquiring weapons. Since the prisoners secretly hoarded gold and valuables left behind by the gassed Jews, they initially planned to bribe the Trawniki men or acquire weapons through Polish peasants, with whom the forest work commands near the camp maintained occasional contact. However, these attempts were unsuccessful. Moreover, before the Organizing Committee could expand its activities, it suffered several setbacks. In the second half of March, a large number of "lower camp" prisoners, including Želomir Bloch and Adolf Friedman, were transferred to work in the extermination area. In early April, Dr. Chorążycki committed suicide after the Germans discovered money intended to bribe the guards.
Shortly after Chorążycki’s death, Benjamin Rakowski, the camp elder (), joined the committee. In April, their efforts to obtain weapons finally met with success. One day, the lock on the door of the armory in the German quarters broke, and a Jewish locksmith, Eugeniusz Turowski, took the opportunity to secretly make a key. Later that month, an "ad hoc" attempt was made to steal weapons. During the day, Jewish boys who served as orderlies for the SS ("Putzer") secretly removed two boxes of grenades from the armory. However, when they delivered them to the conspirators, it was discovered that the grenades lacked fuses (which were stored separately). As a result, the boys had to discreetly return the boxes to the armory. After this incident, the committee's activities temporarily decreased. "Lagerälteste" Rakowski abandoned the idea of armed resistance, planning instead to escape with his lover and a group of trusted prisoners. However, before he could execute his escape plan, the Germans discovered hidden gold and valuables in his possession and executed him (around late April or early May).
In May, news of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto reached the camp. The example set by the ghetto fighters served as inspiration for the prisoners in Treblinka. The impetus to resume preparations for the uprising was also provided by information about further defeats suffered by the "Wehrmacht" on the Eastern Front and in Africa. In June, new members joined the committee: Engineer Marceli Galewski, who took over as "camp elder" after Rakowski’s death, and a man named Moniek from Warsaw (a kapo of the "court Jews"). Some sources also mention Rudolf Masarek (a half-Jew and officer in the Czechoslovak Army) and "Dr. Leichert from Węgrów". The latter, whose real name was Berek Lajcher, is said by Samuel Rajzman to have replaced Dr. Chorążycki and become the de facto leader of the conspiratorial group. Other sources identify Galewski as the new leader of the resistance, while more recent publications suggest that the leader could also have been Mojshe Lubling from Wolbrom, who arrived in Treblinka in early October 1942. There is no consensus on this matter. The renewed committee consisted of about 10 members, with only Kurland, Sudowicz, and Salzberg remaining from the original group. Soon, the conspiracy began recruiting new members, and by July 1943, its numbers had grown to about 60 people. The conspirators were divided into sections of 5 to 10 members.
Parallel to the development of the resistance in the "lower camp", its foundations were also being laid in the "Totenlager" (extermination area). The main initiators were Želomir Bloch and Adolf Friedman, who had been transferred from the "lower camp" in March 1943. The conditions under which they conducted their conspiracy work were very difficult. Unlike the conspirators in the "lower camp", who had the support of the prisoner leadership, they had to avoid contact with "Oberkapo" Singer and his supporters, who were reputed to be collaborators and informers. They also had no way to secretly acquire firearms. The relatively small number of prisoners and the unfavorable topography of the "upper camp" also placed potential insurgents at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, by late May or early June, a separate Organizing Committee was already operating in the "upper camp", though the names of its members, apart from Bloch and Friedman, remain unknown. The total number of conspirators reached several dozen; like in the "lower camp", they were divided into five-person teams. The carpenter Jankiel Wiernik, who was one of the few prisoners with the right to move between different camp zones due to his work, became the liaison between the two committees.
Despite the presence of some German informants among the "working Jews", both branches of the camp's resistance movement managed to avoid exposure.
Decision.
Despite the growing ranks of the resistance, the Organizing Committee delayed the decision to start the uprising. This hesitation was due both to the awareness of the risks involved and to the fact that living conditions in the "lower camp" noticeably improved between June and July 1943. The Germans slightly relaxed discipline, and the reduced number of transports meant that prisoners were no longer overburdened with work. Additionally, the camp staff began to initiate or allow various "entertainments" or cultural activities for the Jews, aiming to distract them from the impending liquidation of the camp.
In contrast, the atmosphere among the prisoners in the "upper camp" was entirely different. Since March, they had been working on the exhumation and cremation of nearly 700,000 corpses buried in mass graves. By the second half of July, this work was nearing completion, and it became clear to the prisoners that they would be murdered soon after the last of the bodies were burned. Through Jankiel Wiernik, they began to pressure the Organizing Committee to urgently set a date for the uprising. However, Galewski and his comrades responded evasively to these demands. Meanwhile, the cremation of bodies had progressed so far that the Germans held a celebration to mark the nearing end of the work. The tension among the prisoners in the "Totenlager" (extermination area) reached its peak at this point. Eventually, the leaders of the resistance in the "upper camp" issued an ultimatum to the "lower camp", threatening that if a date for the uprising was not immediately set, the "upper camp" would revolt on its own. It was clear to Galewski and the other leaders that a revolt in the "Totenlager" alone had no chance of success and could lead to the retaliatory massacre of all the prisoners. It is likely that during meetings held from 30 to 31 July, the decision was made for the uprising to begin on Monday, August 2, in the afternoon.
Plan.
The primary objective of the conspirators in the Treblinka extermination camp was to seize control and destroy the camp. Only after achieving this would they attempt a mass escape. The escape plan involved fleeing northward and eastward, crossing the Bug river, and hiding in the Białowieża Forest.
The leaders of the Organizing Committee recognized that the revolt had to begin during the day. At that time, the German barracks were empty, which was crucial for the boys serving the Germans to retrieve weapons from the armory. Additionally, during the day, the Germans and Ukrainian guards were dispersed throughout the camp and somewhat mingled with the Jewish prisoners, whereas at night, they were concentrated in the residential zone, and the prisoners were confined under guard in locked barracks. The conspirators understood that the Germans would likely launch a large-scale pursuit of the escapees, so they concluded that