Editing Treblinka extermination camp (section)

===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}}