Editing Treblinka extermination camp (section)

==Organization of the camp==
[[File:Treblinka - Bredow Mentz Möller Hirtreiter.jpg|thumb|Members of [[SS-Totenkopfverbände]] from Treblinka (from left): [[Paul Bredow]], [[Willi Mentz]], [[Max Möller (SS officer)|Max Möller]] and [[Josef Hirtreiter]]]]

The camp was operated by 20–25 German and Austrian members of the ''[[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]'' and 80–120 ''[[Glossary of Nazi Germany#W|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,<ref name="Procknow-35">{{cite book |last=Procknow |first=Gregory |title=Recruiting and Training Genocidal Soldiers |year=2011 |publisher=Francis & Bernard Publishing |isbn=978-0-9868374-0-1 |page=35}}</ref>{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=21}} with some Russians, [[Tatars|Tatar]]s, Moldovans, Latvians, and [[Soviet Central Asia|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.{{sfn|Willenberg|1989|p=158}}{{sfn|Browning|2017|p=52}}{{efn|See [[Trawniki men#Known names of Trawnikis serving at death camps|list of known Hiwi guards]] with relevant commentary.}}{{sfn|Arad|1987|pp=45–46}} 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Black |first=Peter |date=Spring 2011 |title=Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=7 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dcr004 |s2cid=144929340}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=91}} 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".{{efn|The term ''durchgeschleust'' or "processed" to describe the annihilation of Jews in the occupied Eastern territories appeared in the [[Korherr Report]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/korherr/anweisung-himmler.php |title=Anweisung Himmler an Korherr |publisher=Der Reichsführer-SS, Feld-Kommandostelle |date=10 April 1943 |access-date=2 September 2014 |author-link=Richard Korherr |last=Korherr |first=Richard |archive-date=1 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150201123238/http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/korherr/anweisung-himmler.php |url-status=live }}</ref> at the request of [[Heinrich Himmler]], who had objected to the word ''Sonderbehandlung'' or "special treatment" being used for death since 1939 (following Heydrich's 20 September 1939 telegram to the Gestapo).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.holocaust-history.org/quick-facts/special-treatment.shtml |title="Special treatment" (Sonderbehandlung) |publisher=Holocaust history.org |year=2014 |access-date=2 September 2014 |quote=September 20th, 1939 telegram to Gestapo regional and subregional headquarters on the "basic principles of internal security during the war". |author=Himmler, Heinrich |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130528142643/http://www.holocaust-history.org/quick-facts/special-treatment.shtml |archive-date=28 May 2013}}</ref>}} 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 [[Yellow badge|Star of David]] from all outer garments, and extracted any money sewn into the linings.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=103}} 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=89}}

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.{{sfn|United States Department of Justice|1994|ps=: Appendix 3: 144.}} 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=97}}

Members of all work units were continuously beaten by the guards and often shot.{{sfn|Arad|2018|pp=249–250}} Replacements were selected from the new arrivals.{{sfn|Arad|2018|p=149}} 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=89–91}}

Many ''Sonderkommando'' prisoners hanged themselves at night. Suicides in the ''Totenjuden'' barracks occurred at the rate of 15 to 20 per day.{{sfn|Wiernik|1945|p=|loc=Chapter 7}} The work crews were almost entirely replaced every few days; members of the old work detail were murdered except for the most resilient.{{sfn|Arad|2018|pp=256}}