Editing Treblinka extermination camp (section)

==Killing process==
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 fake train schedules, a fake train-station clock with hands painted on it, names of destinations,<ref name="ARC - Treblinka History">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/treblinka.html |title=Treblinka Camp History |publisher=ARC |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of The Holocaust |date=27 August 2006 |access-date=24 August 2013 |author=Webb, Chris |archive-date=19 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130819032955/http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/treblinka.html |url-status=live }}</ref> a fake ticket window, and the sign "Ober Majdan",{{sfn|Grossman|1946|p=379}} a code word for Treblinka commonly used to deceive prisoners arriving from Western Europe. Majdan was a prewar landed estate {{cvt|5|km}} away from the camp.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=81}}

===Polish Jews===
[[File:Umschlagplatz loading.jpg|thumb|Jews being loaded onto trains to Treblinka at the Warsaw Ghetto's ''[[Umschlagplatz]]'', 1942]]
{{further|Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)}}
The [[Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)|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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=94}} For the next two months, deportations from Warsaw continued daily, via two shuttle trains (the second one, from 6 August 1942),{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=92}} each carrying about 4,000 to 7,000 people crying for water. No other trains were allowed to stop at the Treblinka station.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=98}} The first daily trains came in the early morning, often after an overnight wait, and the second, in mid-afternoon.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=94}} 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 [[Stroop Report|official report]] by SS-''[[Brigadeführer]]'' [[Jürgen Stroop]], 265,000 Jews were transported in [[freight train]]s from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka during the period from 22 July to 12 September 1942.<ref name="ushmm-uprising">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188 |title=Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |publisher=US Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=10 June 2013 |access-date=25 August 2013 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502213631/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188 |archive-date=2 May 2012}}</ref>{{sfn|Court of Assizes|1965|loc=excerpts}}

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.<ref name="Bochen">{{cite web |url=http://www.kolejnictwo-polskie.pl/historia-kolei-w-polsce/ii-wojna-%C5%9Bwiatowa/okupacja-1939-1945/ |title=Okupacja 1939–1945 |publisher=Urząd Transportu Kolejowego |work=Kolejnictwo polskie: II wojna swiatowa |year=2015 |access-date=2 November 2015 |author=Antoni Bochen |archive-date=6 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106221659/http://www.kolejnictwo-polskie.pl/historia-kolei-w-polsce/ii-wojna-%C5%9Bwiatowa/okupacja-1939-1945 |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Holocaust trains]]' passage to their destination was routinely delayed; some transports took many days to arrive.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=95|ps=: Samuel Rajzman testimony.}} Hundreds of prisoners were murdered by exhaustion, suffocation and thirst while in transit to the camp in the overcrowded wagons.{{sfn|Friedländer|2009|p=432}} In extreme cases, such as the [[Biała Podlaska]] transport of 6,000 Jews travelling only a {{cvt|125|km|adj=on}} distance, up to 90 percent of people were already dead when the sealed doors were opened.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=95|ps=: Samuel Rajzman testimony.}} 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.<ref name="USHMM" /> 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.{{sfn|Klee|1988|p=246}}

===Foreign Jews and Romani people===
[[File:DR Class 52.80 entering tunnel.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Standard [[Holocaust train|Holocaust locomotive]], [[DRB Class 52]]]]
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 (region)|Macedonia]], and [[Pirot]] following an agreement with the Nazi-allied Bulgarian government.<ref name="USHMM">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007257 |title=Treblinka: Chronology |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=10 June 2013 |access-date=9 December 2013 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120605123023/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007257 |archive-date=5 June 2012 |format=Internet Archive |quote=Deportations from Theresienstadt and Bulgarian-occupied territory among others.}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Wiernik|1945}} Unlike Polish Jews arriving in Holocaust trains from nearby ghettos in cities like [[Warsaw Ghetto|Warsaw]], [[Radom Ghetto|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),<ref name="USHMM" />{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=96–100}} after which they were murdered like the others.{{sfn|Klee|1988|p=246}} 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.<ref name="ushmm-centers">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005372 |title=Deportations to Killing Centers |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |work=Holocaust History |date=11 May 2012 |access-date=9 November 2013 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |archive-date=17 September 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120917165840/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005372 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The frequency of arriving transports slowed down in winter.<ref name=Shoah>Lanzmann 1985.<!--needs more details, plus time or page number--></ref>

The decoupled locomotive went back to the Treblinka station or to the layover yard in Małkinia for the next load,{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=95|ps=: Samuel Rajzman testimony.}} 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.{{sfn|Klee|1988|p=246}} They were led through the gate amidst chaos and screaming.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=96–100}} 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.{{sfn|Wiernik|1945}} The Jews who resisted were taken to the "Lazarett", 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.<ref name="Yeger" /> The hair was used in the manufacture of socks for [[U-boat]] crews and hair-felt footwear for the ''[[Deutsche Reichsbahn]]''.{{efn|The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', (German Reich Railway<ref>Zeller, Thomas (2007). ''Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930–1970'', Bergbahn Books, p. 51. {{ISBN|978-1-84545-309-1}}</ref> or German Imperial Railway,<ref>''Germany's Economy, Currency and Finance: A Study Addressed by Order of the German Government to the Committees of Experts, as Appointed by the Reparations Commission.'' Zentral-Verlag G.M.B.H., 1924, pp. 4, 98–99.</ref><ref>Anastasiadou, Irene (2011). ''Constructing Iron Europe: Transnationalism and Railways in the Interbellum'', Amsterdam University Press, p. 134. {{ISBN|978-90-5260-392-6}}</ref>) was the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the [[German Empire]] following the end of [[World War I]].|name=Deutsche Reichsbahn}}<ref name="CID">{{cite book |author=Comité International de Dachau |year=1978 |title=Plate 282 |page=137 |publisher=Comité International de Dachau |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKF9-nkObTYC |quote=Directive sent to all concentration camp commanders from SS-''Gruppenführer'' [[Richard Glücks]] in 1942. |isbn=3-87490-528-4 |access-date=15 August 2015 |archive-date=27 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160427034548/https://books.google.com/books?id=dKF9-nkObTYC |url-status=live }}</ref>

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.<ref name=Romani/>

===Gas chambers===
[[File:Hoefletelegram.jpg|thumb|The [[Höfle Telegram]], a decoded telegram to Berlin from the deputy commander of Aktion Reinhard, [[Hermann Höfle]], 15 January 1943, listing the number of arrivals in Aktion Reinhard extermination camps. In this document, the 1942 total for Treblinka of 71355 is considered to be a transcription error for 713,555, which would yield a total of 1,274,166, matching the total in the telegram.]]

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.{{sfn|Shirer|1981|p=969|loc=[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1946Hoess.html Affidavit] (Hoess, Nuremberg)}} 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.<ref name="Shoah" />

Many survivors of the Treblinka camp testified that an officer known as '[[Ivan the Terrible (Treblinka guard)|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.<ref>''In the Matter of the Extradition of John DEMJANJUK, A.K.A. John Ivan Demjanjuk, A.K.A. John Ivan Demyanyuk.'' 603 F. Supp. 1468. (United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, E.D. 1985).</ref> One survivor testified that Ivan murdered an infant by bashing it against a wall;<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://apnews.com/30df5b6e5cfb0aa8cd1be09ce1c0b102 |title=Survivor Calls Ivan 'Worst Devil of All Treblinka' |website=AP News|access-date=2019-11-10 |archive-date=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109142910/https://apnews.com/30df5b6e5cfb0aa8cd1be09ce1c0b102 |url-status=live }}</ref> another claimed that he raped a young girl before cutting her abdomen open and letting her bleed to death.<ref>{{cite book | last=Zylbersztajn | first=Malka | title=L' Chaim: the exceptional life of Chaim Sztajer |publisher=Jewish Holocaust Centre| date=2018 | isbn=978-0-9875188-6-6 |location=Elsternwick, Vic| oclc=1088425969}}</ref>

The gas chambers were completely enclosed by a high wooden fence. Originally, they consisted of three interconnected barracks {{cvt|8|m}} long and {{cvt|4|m}} 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=82}}

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.{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=120|ps=: Stangl trial testimony.}} After the new gas chambers were built, the duration of the killing process was reduced to an hour and a half.<ref name="ARC - Treblinka History" /> The victims were murdered via gas, using the exhaust fumes conducted through pipes from an engine of a [[Red Army]] tank.{{efn|Witnesses who had closer experiences to the actual gassing engine share a large agreement that they were run by gasoline/petrol, while those witnesses with only an indirect hearsay knowledge of the engine were more likely to identify it as diesel.<ref name="Critique">{{cite book |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard |first1=Jonathan |last1=Harrison |first2=Roberto |last2=Muehlenkamp |first3=Jason |last3=Myers |first4=Sergey |last4=Romanov |first5=Nicholas |last5=Terry |edition=1st |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/BelzecSobiborTreblinka.HolocaustDenialAndOperationReinhard.ACritique |date=December 2011 |page=316 |via=Internet Archive |id=With optional direct download as a [https://archive.org/download/BelzecSobiborTreblinka.HolocaustDenialAndOperationReinhard.ACritique/BelzecSobiborTreblinkaHolocaustControversies.pdf PDF file, 5.3 MB] |chapter=The Gassing Engine: Diesel or Gasoline}}</ref>{{pb}}
More recent research in newly-opened archives has shown that gasoline engines, and not diesel engines, were used in Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor. Direct eyewitness evidence supports this conclusion. It is a simple matter of new information becoming available.<ref name="Emory">{{cite web |first=Deborah E. |last=Lipstadt |author-link=Deborah E. Lipstadt |display-authors=etal |year=2017 |url=https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ds6-engines-used/ |title=Holocaust Denial on Trial |publisher=[[Emory University]], Institute for Jewish Studies. |access-date=12 January 2018 |archive-date=21 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200121232729/https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ds6-engines-used/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{pb}}
Water pipes that conducted the poisonous gas to the shower heads ran along the ceiling creating the illusion of a shower as in the simulated shower rooms. In Sobibor and Treblinka they applied the same system to produce carbon monoxide using heavy gasoline engines.<ref name="Cymet263">{{cite book |title=History Vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, the Third Reich, and the Catholic Church |first=David |last=Cymet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pp7DZigCaDcC&q=Erich%20Fuchs%20a%20200%20horsepower%2C%20water%20cooled%20V-8%20gasoline%20engine&pg=PA263 |publisher=Lexington Books |year=2010 |page=263 |isbn=978-0739132937 |access-date=21 October 2020 |archive-date=14 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210814164244/https://books.google.com/books?id=Pp7DZigCaDcC&q=Erich%20Fuchs%20a%20200%20horsepower%2C%20water%20cooled%20V-8%20gasoline%20engine&pg=PA263 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Blox">{{cite book |title=Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory |last=Bloxham |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Bloxham |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0198208723 |page=119 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fbDmCwAAQBAJ&q=inexactitude |quote=... details [regarding the Holocaust victims] are all accurate. The only inexactitude again involved the methods of murder.<sup>[p.119]</sup> |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=13 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813071233/https://books.google.com/books?id=fbDmCwAAQBAJ&q=inexactitude |url-status=live }}</ref>}}{{sfn |Webb|2014|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mV0ZBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA28 28–29]}} SS-''Scharführer'' [[Erich Fuchs]] was responsible for installing it.{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=31|ps=: Testimony of ''SS Scharführer'' Erich Fuchs in the Sobibór-Bolender trial, Düsseldorf.}}<ref name="JVL-Reinhard5">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth |archive-date=5 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905055409/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=82}} The tank engine exhaust pipe ran just below the ground and opened into all three gas chambers.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=82}} 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;<ref name="JVL-Reinhard5" /> trains that arrived later in the day had to wait on layover tracks overnight at Treblinka, Małkinia, or [[Wólka Okrąglik]].{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=98}}

[[File:Deportation to Treblinka from ghetto in Siedlce 1942.jpg|thumb|upright|Deportation of 10,000 Polish Jews to Treblinka during the liquidation of the [[Siedlce Ghetto|ghetto in Siedlce]] beginning 23 August 1942<ref name="statistics">Statistical data: [http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ "Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/ |date=8 February 2016 }} by ''[[Virtual Shtetl]]'' of the [[Museum of the History of the Polish Jews]]&nbsp;, as well as [http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html "Getta Żydowskie," by ''Gedeon''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141015055255/http://www.izrael.badacz.org/historia/szoa_getto.html |date=15 October 2014 }},&nbsp;{{in lang|pl}} and [http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm "Ghetto List"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141214124022/http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm |date=14 December 2014 }} by Michael Peters of ARC.&nbsp;Accessed {{nowrap|8 June 2014.}}</ref>]]

Between August and September 1942, a large new building with a concrete foundation was built from bricks and mortar under the guidance of [[Erwin Lambert]], who had supervised the construction of gas chambers for the [[Action T4]] involuntary euthanasia program. It contained 8–10 gas chambers, each of which was {{cvt|8|by|4|m|ft}}, 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=82}} During this time victims continued to arrive daily and were led naked past the building site to the original gas chambers.<ref name="Arad-1984/pdf"/> The new gas chambers became operational after five weeks of construction, equipped with two fume-producing engines instead of one.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=84}} 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.<ref name="Yeger" />{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=84}} Stangl said that the old gas chambers were capable of murdering 3,000 people in three hours.{{sfn|Arad|1987|p=120|ps=: Stangl trial testimony.}} 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<ref name="Sumler" /> or 25,000<ref name="Ainsztein">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L-1mAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Treblinka+25%2C000%22 |title=Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe |publisher=University of Michigan (reprint) |orig-date=1974 |year=2008 |access-date=21 December 2013 |author=Ainsztein, Reuben |page=917 |isbn=978-0-236-15490-6 |format=Google Books snippet view |archive-date=3 May 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503040505/https://books.google.com/books?ei=XWW2UrfyGNjtoASaw4HgDA&id=L-1mAAAAMAAJ&dq=Treblinka+maximum+gassing+capacity&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Treblinka+25,000%22 |url-status=live }}</ref> people every day, a fact which Globocnik once boasted about to [[Kurt Gerstein]], a fellow SS officer from Disinfection Services.<ref name="Gerstein">{{cite web |url=http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/gerstein/gerstein-bericht.php |title=Der Gerstein-Bericht |publisher=NS-Archiv |work=Dokumente zum Nationalsozialismus |year=2013 |access-date=26 December 2013 |author=Langowski, Jürgen |trans-title=Gerstein Report by ''Obersturmführer'' Kurt Gerstein |language=de |quote=Original text of the [[Gerstein Report]] signed at Tübingen (Württemberg), Gartenstraße 24, den 4. Mai 1945. Gerstein betrayed the SS and sought to leak information about the Holocaust to the Allies. |archive-date=10 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910222434/http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/gerstein/gerstein-bericht.php |url-status=live }}</ref> The new gas chambers were seldom used to their full capacity; 12,000–15,000 victims remained the daily average.<ref name="Sumler">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e-Y7AAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+maximum+capacity+of+the+camp+was+probably+the+22000+executions+in+twenty-+four+hours%22 |title=A history of Europe in the twentieth century |publisher=Dorsey Press |year= 1973 |access-date=1 November 2013 |author=Sumler, David E. |page=250 |isbn=0-256-01421-3 |archive-date=15 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815071455/https://books.google.com/books?id=e-Y7AAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+maximum+capacity+of+the+camp+was+probably+the+22000+executions+in+twenty-+four+hours%22 |url-status=live }}</ref>

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 extermination camp|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.{{sfn|Shirer|1981|pp=967–968|ps=: Affidavit 5 April 1946 (Hoess, Nuremberg).}} The chambers became silent after 12 minutes{{sfn|Klee|1988|p=244}} and were closed for 20 minutes or less.{{sfn|Rajzman|1945|loc=U.S. Congress}} 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.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=102}} 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.{{sfn|Klee|1988|p=246}} Some victims showed signs of life during the disposal of the corpses, but the guards routinely refused to react.{{sfn|Rajzman|1945|loc=U.S. Congress}}

===Cremation pits===
[[File:Treblinka Cremation Pit 2.jpg|thumb|Stone memorial resembling one of the original cremation pits where the bodies were burned. It is a flat grave marker constructed of crushed and cemented black basalt symbolising burnt charcoal. The actual human ashes were mixed with sand and spread over an area of {{cvt|2.2|ha}}.{{sfn|Cywiński|2013}}]]

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.<ref name="Zawodny-77">{{cite book |title=Death in the Forest: The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre |first=Janusz K. |last=Zawodny |author-link=Janusz K. Zawodny |year=1962 |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |oclc=59791617 |pages=15, 77 |url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27886543 |access-date=19 March 2017 |archive-date=5 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605002045/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27886543 |url-status=live }}</ref> 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.<ref name="ipn_eng_katyn">{{cite press release |url=http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/en/2/77/Decision_to_commence_investigation_into_Katyn_Massacre.html |title=Decision to commence investigation into Katyn Massacre |first=Małgorzata |last=Kużniar-Plota |date=30 November 2004 |publisher=Departmental Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Arad|1987|pp=300–301}}

To incinerate bodies, large cremation pits were constructed at Camp 3 within Treblinka II.{{efn |according to court judgement of the 1st Treblinka trial in Düsseldorf,<ref name="nizkor.org"/> in the case main proceedings the number of cremation pyres could not be established exactly.}} 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|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]].{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=104–105}}{{sfn|Wiernik|1945|p=13}} He wrote that "the heat radiating from the pits was maddening."{{sfn|Wiernik|1945|p=13}} 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.{{sfn|Wiernik|1945}}{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=104–105}}

The open air burn pits were located east of the new gas chambers and refuelled from 4&nbsp;a.m.{{sfn|Wiernik|1945|loc=chapt. 13}} (or after 5&nbsp;a.m. depending on work-load) to 6&nbsp;p.m. in roughly 5-hour intervals.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=91}} 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,<ref name="Rescue">{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Martin |title=The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War |year=1987 |publisher=Henry Holt |isbn=0-8050-0348-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/holocausthistory0000gilb}}</ref> as the Nazis spread the actual human ashes, mixed with sand, over an area of {{cvt|2.2|ha}}.{{sfn|Cywiński|2013}}