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Old June 22nd, 2008 #172
Roberto Muehlenkamp
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OK Gentlemen, I don’t think we’re getting anywhere haggling over details, with ps throwing meaningless commonplaces and baseless assertions around and parading his "scientific" wisdom while Gerdes yells for photographs without being able to explain why he is "interested" in photographs alone. So I’ll leave response to ps’ post # 171 for later and no do a recap of my own.

Regarding what happened in 1942/43 at a place in Nazi-occupied Poland called Treblinka II, we have the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis A: Treblinka II was an extermination camp where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered.

Hypothesis B: Treblinka II was a transit camp through which hundreds of thousands of Jews were moved to final destinations in the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, where some died but most survived the war and later went back to their homes or emigrated to some other place, e.g. Israel or the US.

I will now test Hypothesis A against the evidence I have presented. My opponents are invited to test Hypothesis B against the same evidence and what other evidence they can provide.

The evidence I have presented in support of Hypothesis A can be divided into the following categories:

A1 Eyewitness testimonies, subdivided into testimonies of former Treblinka inmates, former members of the Treblinka SS staff, former Ukrainian guards, German visitors to the camp and Polish civilians living in the surroundings.

A2. Documentary evidence, consisting of transport records and German reports, memoranda and correspondence, which provides information about how many people where transported at what time to Treblinka, what the purpose of their being transported there was (namely if they were supposed to move on from there or stay there, and if they were transported there in order to be killed of for some other purpose), and how the camp was perceived at the time by officers, officials and other observers from the German side who had something to do with it or came in contact with it.

A3. Physical evidence, as:

A3.1 Described in site investigation reports by criminal investigators and by other persons visiting or inspecting the site, and

A3.2 Visible on

A.3.2.1 Air photographs
A.3.2.2 Ground photographs taken during the camp’s operation
A.3.2.3 Ground photographs taken after the camp’s dismantlement, by
A.3.2.3.1 Soviet investigation commissions
A.3.2.3.2 Polish investigation commissions or inspection delegations
A.3.2.3.3 Others

Category A1: Eyewitness testimonies

I have quoted, quoted from or referred to the eyewitness testimonies contained, quoted or referred to in or by the following sources:

A1.1 Report about the Treblinka Extermination Camp by the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, online under http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm

A.1.2 Expert Report "Evidence for the Implementation of the Final Solution", by Prof. Christopher Browning, online under http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.co...ense/browning/

A.1.3 Article "Final Destination Treblinka", by Stephen Potyondi, online under http://www.holocaust-history.org/ope...tion-treblinka

A.1.4 Article "The Reconstruction of Treblinka", by Alex Bay, online under http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/

I have quoted from the following among the eyewitness testimonies mentioned in the above and/or other sources:

Abraham Krzepicki, as quoted under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/384...ml#reply-38414 :

Quote:
The SS man lined us up in double columns, and took us out of the fenced-off area between the two barracks into the wider yard through which we had passed when we were first unloaded from the train. The SS man led us to the right behind the narrower enclosure and from there into a large, open area.
Ten Thousand Corpses In One Place. Here we beheld a horrible sight. Countless dead bodies lay there, piled upon each other. I think that perhaps 10,000 bodies were there. A terrible stench hovered in the air. Most of the bodies had horribly bloated bellies; they were covered with brown and black spots, swollen and the surfaces of their skin already crawling with worms.
The lips of most of the dead were strangely twisted and the tips

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of their tongues could be seen protruding between the swollen lips.
The mouths resembled those of dead fish. I later learned that most of these people had died of suffocation in the boxcar. Their mouths had remained open as if they were still struggling for a little air. Many of the dead still had their eyes open.
We, the new arrivals, were terror-stricken. We looked at each other to confirm that what we were seeing was real. But we were afraid to look around too much, because the guards could start shooting any minute. I still did not want to believe my eyes. I still thought that it was just a dream.
The Corpse Processing Plant at Work. Five hundred meters farther away, a machine was at work digging ditches. This machine, together with its motor, was as big as a railroad car. Its mechanical shovels were digging up piles of dirt. The machine loaded the dirt into little wagons, which turned away and dumped it onto the side. Things were humming out there on that big field. Many Jews had already been working there earlier. They were dragging corpses into the ditches which had been dug for them by the machine. We could also see Jews pushing carts piled with bodies toward the big ditches at the edge of the field.
There it was again, that stench. They were all running, pursued by Germans, Ukrainians, and even Jewish group leaders called kapos (Kameraden-Polizei), who kept driving them on: Faster! Faster! All the while, we could hear the crack of pistols and rifles and the whine of bullets. But there were no cries or groans from those who were shot because the Germans shot them from the back in the neck. In that way, the person drops dead quick as lightning and never even has a chance to make his voice heard one last time.
There were various kinds of ditches in that place. At a distance, running parallel with the outermost camp fence, there were three giant mass graves, in which the dead were arranged in layers. Closer to the barracks, a somewhat smaller ditch had been dug. This was where our 60 men were put to work. A group of workers walked around the area, dusting the corpses with chlorine powder, which they dipped from big barrels with their buckets.[...]
I should point out here that none of the gassing victims were buried in this area; only those who had died in the transports or who had been shot on arrival at the camp, before entering the showers.
Jankiel Wiernik, as quoted under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/384...ml#reply-38414 :

Quote:
Late in the afternoon another train arrived from Międzyrzecz (Mezrich), but 80 per cent of its human cargo consisted of corpses. We had to carry them out of the train, under the whiplashes of the guards. At last we completed our gruesome chore.[…] I was put with a group that was assigned to handle the corpses. The work was very hard, because we had to

Page 153

drag each corpse, in teams of two, for a distance of approximately 300 meters. Sometimes we tied ropes around the dead bodies to pull them to their graves.

Suddenly, I saw a live, nude woman in the distance. She was entirely nude; she was young and beautiful, but there was a demented look in her eyes. She was saying something to us, but we could not understand what she was saying and could not help her. She had wrapped herself in a bed sheet under which she was hiding a little child, and she was frantically looking for shelter. Just then one of the Germans saw her, ordered her to get into a ditch and shot her and the child. It was the first shooting I had ever seen.

I looked at the ditches around me. The dimensions of each ditch were 50 by 25 by 10 meters. I stood over one of them, intending to throw in one of the corpses, when suddenly a German came up from behind and wanted to shoot me. I turned around and asked him what I had done, whereupon he told me that I had attempted to climb into the ditch without having been told to do so. I explained that I had only wanted to throw the corpse in.

Next to nearly every one of us there was either a German with a whip or a Ukrainian armed with a gun. As we worked, we would be hit over the head. Some distance away there was an excavator, which dug out the ditches.

We had to carry or drag the corpses on the run, since the slightest infraction of the rules meant a severe beating. The corpses had been lying around for quite some time and decomposition had already set in, making the air foul with the stench of decay. Already worms were crawling all over the bodies. It often happened that an arm or a leg fell off when we tied straps around them in order to drag the bodies away. Thus we worked from dawn to sunset, without food or water, on what some day would be our own graves. During the day it was very hot and we were tortured by thirst.
Former members of the camp's SS staff, as quoted in Stephen Potyondi’s article:

Quote:
Testimony of Treblinka's kommandant, SS-Unterscharführer Franz Stangl, who replaced Eberl in September 1942:

Michel [the sergeant-major of the camp] told me later that Wirth suddenly appeared, looked around on the gas chambers on which they were still working, and said:'right, we'll try it out right now with those twenty-five working Jews. Get them up here'. They marched our twenty-five Jews up there and just pushed them in and gassed them. Michel said Wirth behaved like a lunatic, hitting at his own staff with his whip to drive them on...57
Quote:
Testimony of SS-Unterscharführer Willi Mentz, stationed at Treblinka from July 1942 to November 1943 and assigned by Christian Wirth to supervise the Lazarett:

When I came to Treblinka the camp commandant was a doctor named Dr. Eberl. He was very ambitious. It was said that he ordered more transports than could be "processed" in the camp. That meant that trains had to wait outside the camp because the occupants of the previous transport had not yet all been killed. At the time it was very hot and as a result of the long wait inside the transport trains in the intense heat many people died. At the time whole mountains of bodies lay on the platform. The Hauptsturmführer Christian Wirth came to Treblinka and kicked up a terrific row. And then one day Dr. Eberl was no longer there...
For about two months I worked in the upper section of the camp and then after Eberl had gone everything in the camp was reorganized. The two parts of the camp were separated by barbed wire fences. Pine branches were used so that you could not see through the fences. The same thing was done along the route from the "transfer" area to the gas chambers...

Finally, new and larger gas chambers were built. I think that there were now five or six larger gas chambers. I cannot say exactly how many people these large gas chambers held. If the small gas chambers could hold 80-100 people, the large ones could probably hold twice that number...

Following the arrival of a transport, six to eight cars would be shunted into the camp, coming to a halt at the platform there. The commandant, his deputy Franz, Kuettner and Stadie or Maetzig would be here waiting as the transport came in. Further SS members were also present to supervise the unloading: for example, Genz and Belitz had to make absolutely sure that there was no one left in the car after the occupants had been ordered to get out.

When the Jews had got off, Stadie or Maetzig would have a short word with them. They were told something to the effect that they were a resettlement transport, that they would be given a bath and that they would receive new clothes. They were also instructed to maintain quiet and discipline. They would continue their journey the following day.

Then the transports were taken off to the so-called "transfer" area. The women had to undress in huts and the men out in the open. The women were than led through a passageway, known as the "tube", to the gas chambers. On the way they had to pass a hut where they had to hand in their jewellery and valuables..58
Quote:
Testimony of SS Oberscharführer Heinrich Matthes, chief officer commanding T-II and of the gas chambers:

During the entire time I was in Treblinka, I served in the upper camp. The upper camp was that part of Treblinka with the gas chambers, where the Jews were killed and their corpses laid in large pits and later burned.
About fourteen Germans carried out services in the upper camp. There were two Ukrainians permanently in the upper camp. One of them was called Nikolai, the other was a short man, I don't remember his name... These two Ukrainians who lived in the upper camp served in the gas chambers. They also took care of the engine room when Fritz Schmidt was absent. Usually this Schmidt was in charge of the engine room. In my opinion, as a civilian he was either a mechanic or a driver...

All together, six gas chambers were active. According to my estimate, about 300 people could enter each gas chamber. The people went into the gas chamber without resistance. Those who were at the end, the Ukrainian guards had to push inside. I personally saw how the Ukrainians pushed the people with their rifle butts...

The gas chambers were closed for about thirty minutes. Then Schmidt stopped the gassing, and the two Ukrainians who were in the engine room opened the gas chambers from the other side.59
Category A2: Documentary evidence

I have quoted, quoted from or referred to the documents contained, quoted or referred to in or by the following sources:

A2.1 Report about the Treblinka Extermination Camp by the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, online under http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpoltreb1.htm

A.2.2 Expert Report "Evidence for the Implementation of the Final Solution", by Prof. Christopher Browning, online under http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.co...ense/browning/

A.2.3 Article "Final Destination Treblinka", by Stephen Potyondi, online under
http://www.holocaust-history.org/ope...tion-treblinka

A.2.4 Article "Aktion Reinhard PRO Decodes" under http://www.death-camps.org/reinhard/prodecodes.html

A.2.5 Collection of documents related to the plunder of the victims’ belongings, under http://www.death-camps.org/reinhard/areconomics.html

I have quoted the following documents after Stephen Potyondi’s article and with his comments:

Quote:
A diary entry by Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels on 27 March 1942 illustrates all the implications of the Aktion.

Beginning with Lublin, the Jews in the General Government are now being evacuated eastward. The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only about 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.
The former Gauleiter of Vienna, who is to carry this measure through, is doing it with considerable circumspection and according to a method that does not attract too much attention. A judgment is being visited upon the Jews that, while barbaric, is fully deserved by them. The prophesy which the Führer made about them for having brought on a new world war is beginning to come true in a most terrible manner. One must not be sentimental in these matters. If we did not fight the Jews, they would destroy us. It's a life-and-death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government and no other regime would have the strength for such a global solution of this question. Here, too, the Führer is the undismayed champion of a radical solution necessitated by conditions and therefore inexorable. Fortunately a whole series of possibilities presents itself for us in wartime that would be denied us in peacetime. We shall have to profit by this.
Quote:
In apprehension of Treblinka's completion, Victor Brack - who had supplied the T4 labour for the earlier Aktion Reinhard(t) projects, including Belzec and Chelmno - wrote to Himmler regarding additional personnel being prepared for accelerated operations due to to begin in late July on account of the anticipated purging of the Warsaw ghetto.

Viktor Brack
SS-Oberführer Berlin, IV 8, Voss-Strasse 4, 23 June 1942
[Initial] HH Top Secret To the Reich Leader SS and
Chief of the German Police
Heinrich Himmler,
Berlin SW 11, Prinz Albrecht Str. 8

Dear Reich Leader,

On the instructions of Reich Leader [Reichsleiter] Bouhler I placed some of my men - already some time ago - at the disposal of Brigadeführer Globocnik to execute his special mission. On his renewed request I have now transferred additional personnel. On this occasion Brigadeführer Globocnik stated his opinion that the whole Jewish action should be completed as quickly as possible so that one would not get caught in the middle of it one day if some difficulties should make a stoppage of the action necessary. You, yourself, Reich Leader, have already expressed your view, that work should progress quickly for reasons of camouflage alone. Both points which in principle arrive at the same result are more than justified as far as my own experience goes;

Among 10 millions of Jews in Europe there are, I figure, at least 2-3 millions of men and women who are fit enough to work. Considering the extraordinary difficulties the labour problem presents us with, I hold the view that those 3 millions should be specially selected and preserved.[...]
Quote:
A letter sent on 28 July from State Secretary of the Reich Transport Ministry Ganzenmüller to the then chief of Himmler's staff, SS-Obergruppenführer Wolff tells us where the transports were really going.

Secret
Dear Party Comrade Wolff!

With reference to our phone conversation on 16.7.1942 I hereby transcribe the following report of our Gerneral Direction of Eastern Railways (Gedob) in Cracow for your information:

"Since 22.7. a train with 5 000 Jews goes daily from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka. Furthermore there is a train with 5 000 Jews going from Przemysl to Belzec twice a week. Gedob is constantly in touch with the security service in Cracow, who agrees that the transports from Warsaw via Lublin to Sobibor (near Lublin) rest as long as the conversion works on this line make transports impossible (until October 1942)" The trains are agreed with the commander of the Security Police in the General Government. The Head of SS and Police for the Lublin district, SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik, has been informed.

Heil Hitler!
Your truly
signed Ganzenmüller36

This document tells us the following:

i) People were being taken to Treblinka at a rate of 5,000 per day beginning 22 July 1942;

ii) Treblinka was the final destination of these transports
Quote:
A glimpse of their fates can be gleaned from a posterior document, the Stroop Report of 1943. It is relevant insofar as its references to "T-II" (Treblinka death camp) tell us that Jews were sent there to be "destroyed," i.e. killed.

24 May 1943
Of the overall total of 56,065 captured Jews, about 7,000 have been destroyed in the course of the large-scale action in the former Jewish living quarter. 6,929 Jews were destroyed by transport to T. II, so that overall, 13,929 Jews were destroyed. It is estimated that, in addition to the number of 56,065, 5 - 6,000 Jews were destroyed by explosions and fire.37

By the end of a two and a half month-long period, Stroop placed the number of Jews sent to Treblinka for extermination at over 310,000.

It soon became clear that not all dangers had been banished by confining the Jews to one district. Security considerations necessitated that Jews be completely removed from the city of Warsaw. The first large removal occurred during the period from 22 July to 3 October 1942, when 310,322 Jews were removed. In January 1943, another resettlement operation was carried out, which encompassed a total of 6,500 Jews.38
Quote:
An ancillary document intercepted by the British decoding service at Bletchley Park, the so-called Höfle memorandum, corroborates the increased death tolls.

13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250
State Secret!

To the Senior Commander of the Security Police [and the Security Service], for the attention of SS Obersturmbannfuhrer HEIM, CRACOW.

Subject: fortnightly report Einsatz REINHART.

Reference: radio telegram therefrom.

recorded arrivals until December 31, 42,

L [Lublin] 12,761,
B [Belzec] 0,
S [Sobibor] 515,
T [Treblinka] 10 335 [,]
together 23 611

sum total…[as per] December 31, 42,

L 24 733,
B 434 508,
S 101 370,
T 71 355, read: 713 555]
together 1 274 166

SS and Police Leader Lublin, HOFLE, Sturmbannführer45

This document tells us that 713,555 Jews from the Polish General Government arrived at "T" (Treblinka) until 31 December 1942, Himmler's deadline for the "total cleansing" of the Generalgouvernement. It also tells us where one of the key figures in the report of Himmler's statistician Richard Korherr came from. The Korherr report, prepared at Himmler's request, were actually two, a "long" one for Himmler and a "short" one for Hitler himself, meant to give a comprehensive account of the Holocaust to its directors.46 A translation yields the following passage:

"4. Transportation of Jews from the
eastern provinces to the Russian
East:......... 1 449 692 "
The following numbers were sifted
through the camps in the General
government .......... 1 274 166 Jews

through the camps in the Warthegau..... 145 301 Jews"47

The "camps in the Warthegau" was Chelmno and the "camps in the General Government" were the aforementioned Aktion Reinhard(t) camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka and the Lublin-Majdanek camp, the latter obviously because it was considered more practical to send Jews from Lublin to Majdanek as soon as that camp had extermination facilities instead of sending them to far-away Belzec or Sobibor. The figure of 1,274,166 Jews mentioned in that report is evidently the figure from the above quoted Höfle memorandum, which means that Korherr's figure is broken down as follows:

Lublin-Majdanek 24,733
Belzec 434,508
Sobibor 101,370
Treblinka 713,555
Total 1,274,166
Quote:
A final document, though it gives no exact indications of numbers, is illustrative when it comes to giving an idea of just how many Jews were being killed. It is the remark of the Wehrmacht commander of Ostrow recorded in the first war diary of the General Quartermaster of the Military Commander in the Generalgouvernement on 24 October 1942.

It reads: "OK Ostrow reports that the Jews in Treblinka are not sufficiently buried and therefore an unbearable smell of corpses befouls the air."51

Ostrow, it is significant to point out, was 20 kilometres from Treblinka.
Category A3: Physical evidence

A3.1 Described in site investigation reports by criminal investigators and by other persons visiting or inspecting the site

I have quoted descriptions of the physical evidence contained in the following reports:

A.3.1.1 Vassili Grossman's article about Treblinka, as quoted under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/955...ml#reply-95592 . Relevant excerpt:

Quote:
The earth is throwing out crushed bones, teeth, clothes, papers. It does not want to keep secrets.
A.3.1.2 Soviet Investigation Report of August 1944, as quoted by Mattogno & Graf in their Treblinka book. Relevant excerpts:

Quote:
"A huge area of the camp was covered with cinders and ashes. The road, which connected the two camps and is three kilometers long, was covered with cinders and ashes to a height of 7 - 10 cm. One could recognize the presence of lime in large pieces of cinder with the naked eye. It is well known that lime is a product of burning bones.[…] Oats, rye, and lupines were now planted on the grounds of the former ‘death camp.’[…]Remaining as marks of the existence of the camp are: an abatis of barbed wire, ashes, cinders, and a great number of pits, where household objects of the cremated Jews have been buried."
A.3.1.3 Rachel Auerbach’s In the Fields of Treblinka. Relevant excerpts:

Quote:
The Sandy Soil Yields Up Its Secret. Our car came to a stop. We got out: this was where the camp area began. According to our measurements, it is 15 hectares. A well-paved road runs parallel to the railroad tracks for about 1½ kilometers and then comes to a dead end. Another road branches out from it and comes to an end even sooner. The surface of both roads contains a weird mixture of coals and ashes from the pyres where the corpses of the inmates were cremated. The second road leads in the same direction as the "Road to Heaven," of which no trace is now left. Just a bit of the concrete foundations of a horses' stable - this is all that is left today of the camp buildings, the barbed wire fences, the barracks, the watchtowers, the gas chambers. Some of the buildings were burned down during the uprising, and the rest were carried off by human scavengers from neighboring villages after the arrival of the Red Army.
While the Germans were still here, the whole area had been plowed up and sown with lupine grass. And the lupine grass really grew and covered the whole surface with a green mask. It looked as if all the traces of crime had been wiped away. But since then, during the past year, the human jackals and hyenas have been coming to the burial ground and here is the picture that we saw: Here and there, like patches of grass near the seashore, half* covered by the shifting sands, there were still little clumps of with*ered lupine. Not one level place in the whole area. Everything had been torn up and dug up, little hills and holes. And upon them, beneath them, and among them, all sorts of objects. Aluminum kettles and pans, enameled tin pots-blackened, dented, full of holes. Combs with teeth broken off, half-rotted soles from ladies' summer sandals, broken mirrors, leather billfolds. All this is near the station platform where the camp's first barbed wire fences had been.
We began our tour at the place where the transports had been unloaded, and we continued on the road which the Jews who were brought here had followed. What we saw here was the remnants of the Treblinka "Werterfassung." -Remnants of the huge piles of Jewish property which had been packed up and sent away, inciner*ated, cleared off, and yet still could not be completely cleared away. It was not possible to clear away every trace of what the hundreds


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of thousands of people who had passed through there had experienced. Here was the physical evidence; here were the corpora delicti.
Perhaps someone might wonder what sort of people they were who left such plentiful evidence of their truncated lives, to what nation they belonged. Well, look about you and you will see it for yourself:
Twisted Sabbath candlesticks-enough for whole collections. A scrap from a prayer shawl. just dug out of the ground, lying white and fresh, complete with a blue Star of David, is an elegant Warsaw armband (from the corner of Karmelicka and Leszno-the latest fashion in the ghetto). A whole pile of ladies' marriage wigs.
These must be unburned, stray remnants from some store.
The hair shorn off the living women had been turned into indus*trial raw materials, but it seems that the ritual wigs of the old, pious Jewish women had been set aside for better uses. Perhaps they could be sold, by way of a friendly "neutral" country, to Jews in America, for a good price, along with the Torah scrolls and Tal*mudic folios which had been carefully accumulated for this pur*pose, packed in cases and hidden away?
But the physical evidence was not limited to objects. As we moved further into the grounds, we walked over a field which was sown with human bones.
The bombs had uncovered the contents of the desecrated soil. Leg bones, ribs, pieces of spine, skulls big and small, short, and long, round and flat.
Skulls! ...
If only we could get an ethnologist to come here!
He could have made the most accurate anthropological meas*urements relating to the racial features of the Jewish people.
Or perhaps what was needed here would be a philosopher; a thinker, a Prince Hamlet of Denmark to stand up and deliver a gravedigger's speech, to look upon those skulls and speak directly to them.
"Anybody have a bag? Is there a bag around here? Let's take a bagful of bones with us!"
In a minute, a pile of bones had been scraped together. But there was no bag around and so we couldn't take any of the bones.
But then how much could one bag have held? What with all the cremations, we could have taken out whole carloads from there. If bones can be classed as relics, then Treblinka held relics sufficient to supply the entire Jewish people.


Page 72
This Is My Child's Foot! The further we went, the heavier the air became with the smell of death. We had already passed through the famous "grove," the sparse pine trees through which the "Road to Heaven" had run. We were now standing where the gas cham*bers had been, the huge mass graves and the pyres. In some places, the smell of death was still mingled with the odor of fire. Indeed, here and there we could see little piles of white ashes along with blackened bones, heaps of soot. All this had been buried several meters deep in the soil, mixed with sand and covered with more sand, but the explosions had brought it to the surface again. In one place the simultaneous explosion of several bombs had created a huge crater. Deep down in the hole, some outlines could be dimly seen through the fog.
"Those aren't just bones," says the district attorney. "There are still pieces of half-rotted corpses lying there, bunches of intestines."
By now the district attorney and the judge knew every nook and cranny here. They had been conducting their investigation for some time. They had examined both Jewish and non-Jewish wit*nesses, taken measurements and carried out minor excavations.
The Treblinka veterans were running back and forth, pointing things out, arguing with one another. They made mistakes and then began to remember the places again. They wanted to do something, to make some extravagant gestures, that would at least reflect their emotions, bound up as they were with this place. They wanted to gather bones. They leaped into ditches, reached their bare hands into rotted masses of corpses to show they were not repelled.
They did the right thing. Now we were just like the Muslim sectarians who carried their dead along in their caravans to Mecca, considering it their sacred duty to bear the smell of death with patience and love as they went along the road. That was how we felt in these fields, where there lay the last remains of our martyrs.
A.3.1.4 Polish site investigation reports of 13 November and 29 December 1945, as quoted in my article under http://holocaustcontroversies.blogsp...treblinka.html . Relevant excerpts:

Quote:
The largest of the craters produced by explosions (numerous fragments attest to the fact that these explosions were set off by bombs), which is at maximum 6 meters deep and has a diameter of about 25 meters – its walls give recognizable evidence of the presence of a large quantity of ashes as well as human remains – was further excavated in order to discover the depth of the pit in this part of the camp. Numerous human remains were found by these excavations, partially still in a state of decomposition.[208] The soil consists of ashes interspersed with sand, is of a dark gray color and granulous in form. During the excavations, the soil gave off an intense odor of burning and decay. At a depth of 7.5 meters the bottom was reached, which consisted of layers of unmixed sand. At this point the digging was stopped here.
Quote:
In the northwestern section of the area, the surface is covered for about 2 hectares by a mixture of ashes and sand. In this mixture, one finds countless human bones, often still covered with tissue remains, which are in a condition of decomposition. During the inspection, which I made with the assistance of an expert in forensic medicine, it was determined that the ashes are without any doubt of human origin (remains of cremated human bones). The examination of human skulls could discover no trace of« wounding. At a distance of some 100 m, there is now an unpleasant odor of burning and decay.
A.1.3.5 Site description by Karol Ogrodowczyk, member of an inspection delegation from Warsaw in 1947, quoted in a Polish newspaper article about the "Gold Rush in Treblinka", the translation of which is under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/925...ml#reply-92506 :

Quote:
"The fields are dug up and rummaged through, the pits are about 10 meters deep, bones are lying around and objects of all kinds, shoes, spoons, forks, chandeliers, hair of wigs worn by Jewesses. In the air hangs the stench of decomposing corpses. … The foul smell so numbed me and my colleagues that we vomited and felt an unusual rasping in the throat. (...) Under every tree seekers of gold and gems have dug holes (...) Between the trees cavort local peasants, eager to find treasures. When we ask them 'What are you doing here?' they give no answer."
A.1.3.6 Excerpt from a Polish militia report about an action against robbery diggers on the Treblinka site, quoted in the same article:

Quote:
"With the grave robbers we found golden rings, crowns and porcelain teeth with gold and silver inlays."
A.3.2 Photographs

Fractions of the physical evidence described in the reports mentioned under A.3.1 are shown on the following photographic documents that are at my disposal:

A.3.2.1 Air photography

Luftwaffe air photo of September 1944
http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bmap8.jpg

The same photo with my highlighting of what I think are shapes of mass graves: http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...r1944_edit.jpg

A.3.2.2 Ground photographs taken during the camp’s operation

A.3.2.2.1 Excavator photos taken by Treblinka commandant Kurt Franz:
http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/excavators2.html

A.3.2.2.2 Photo of a mass grave in Treblinka, Bundesarchiv No. 183-F0918-0201-011:
http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/photos.html
http://holocaust-info.dk/treblinka/i...mass_grave.htm

The same photo with my highlighting of what I think are shapes of dead bodies:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...grave_edit.jpg

A.3.2.2.3 Photo of unknown provenance captioned "Jews loading bodies onto a wagon, apparently in the Treblinka camp" by its source, the Ghetto Fighters House:
http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5811_1_web.jpg

A.3.2.3 Ground photographs taken after the camp’s dismantlement, by

A.3.2.3.1 Soviet investigation commissions

This photo pertains to a Soviet investigation, presumably the one in August 1944:
http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp44.jpg

A.3.2.3.2 Polish investigation commissions or inspection delegations

These photos were taken by Jacob Byk/Byck, a member of the investigation commission headed by examining judge Lukaszkiewicz, between 6 and 13 November 1945:

a) http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5808_1_web.jpg

b) http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5809_1_web.jpg

These photos look like they were taken with the same camera as the two above, hence by the same photographer:

c) http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5807_1_web.jpg

d) http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5810_1_web.jpg

e) http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh_mul...5814_1_web.jpg

f) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp41.jpg

g) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp43.jpg

h) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp42.jpg

These photos look like they have not been taken with the same camera, but as they are captioned as having been taken in 1945 (the Soviet investigation was in 1944) it is possible that they are low-quality copies of photos from the aforementioned site Polish investigation, a further indication in this sense being the presence of civilians and not Red Army soldiers on the last photo of this list:

i) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp46.jpg

j) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp47.jpg

k) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp48.jpg

l) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp49.jpg

m) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp50.jpg

n) http://www.death-camps.org/treblinka/pic/bigp51.jpg

This photo is from the Polish newspaper article translated under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/925...ml#reply-92506 , the context suggesting that it belongs to the site inspection in 1947 in which Karol Ogrodowczyk took part:
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...a/GzwT_4_2.jpg

A.3.2.3.3 Others

This photo is from the Polish newspaper article translated under http://rodohforum.yuku.com/reply/925...ml#reply-92506 . It was obviously part of the Polish militia report mentioned above A.1.3.6 and shows Polish militiamen with robbery-diggers they rounded up and a line of bones and skulls in front of some of the latter:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...a/GzwT_3_1.jpg

+++

These are the exhibits of eyewitness, documentary and eyewitness evidence I have shown. None of them is by itself proof that Treblinka was an extermination camp, and some contain observation errors, overestimates and other inaccuracies. But all of them converge towards the conclusion that Treblinka was an extermination camp where hundreds of thousands were murdered, and none points to another conclusion.

Hypothesis A is the hypothesis that best explains all this evidence, the only one that takes all this evidence into account and requires few or no additional assumptions. Therefore, testing of Hypothesis A against the evidence shows that Hypothesis A is a reasonable and sound hypothesis.

I would like to see my opponents do the same testing for Hypothesis B, the one that Treblinka II was a transit camp. Test it against all available evidence and demonstrate that it explains all the evidence at least as well as Hypothesis A.