Nov 1942 Treblinka Report, Ringelblum (the "Steam Chamber" report)

[pilgrimofdark]

Looks like that "Treblinka" report from the Black Book of Polish Jewry (BBPJ) is the one generated by the Ringelblum archivists for "Liquidation of Warsaw Jewry." A copy was smuggled out of Warsaw, and one recovered from Pandora's Milk Cartons.

The original report references numbers for a map that the BBPJ doesn't include. They also don't include the corresponding numbers.

I wonder how accurate the translation is. The original version from the Ringelblum Archive is almost unreadable, but it was reprinted in 1951 in a readable fashion.

There's also the Unknown Black Book. It might be different than the Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry? Both are attributed to Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, but the Unknown Black Book from IU Press has a different table of contents.

[pilgrimofdark]

Are there any significant breaks in this chain?

> Rachel Auerbach from the Ringelblum Archive
> 1942 "Treblinka" report smuggled out of Warsaw with a copy left in RA
> "Wiernik" book changes "steam" to engine exhaust & is sent with map plagiarized from 1942 report
> 1944 Soviet investigation has copy of Wiernik's book
> 1945 Polish investigation where Wiernik & Auerbach are present

There are probably other links in the chain. But are there any breaks in this chain that's really a loop starting and ending with Auerbach/Ringelblum Archive?

So basically the second any official investigations of Treblinka begin, Auerbach/Ringelblum material has irretrievably contaminated the entirety of it and all witnesses?

[pilgrimofdark]

This could be the draft version of the map that was included with the "Treblinka" section of the "Liquidation of Warsaw Jewry" report that I linked above. All of the numbers match the "report map," but it's a bit cruder.

Here's the AI-translation of BBPJ/"Treblinka" that explains the map numbers.

Spoiler

In March 1942, the Germans began construction of a new camp, Treblinka B, near Treblinka A. This camp was designated as a place of execution for Jews from Poland and other European countries. Poles from the nearby camp, as well as Jews captured in nearby towns, were employed in preparatory work and ground leveling. This work continued until the end of April, when the camp's central point, Death House No. 1 (14), was constructed.

The new Treblinka B camp is situated on sandy hills among thickets. The camp area is relatively small, approximately 5,000 hectares. The entire site is surrounded by a hedge, densely interwoven with barbed wire (3). Part of the fence runs through a young forest on the northern side (25). Observation posts for the Lagerschutz are placed at the four corners of the site. The Lagerschutz are composed primarily of Ukrainians armed with light machine guns. To illuminate the entire square at night, powerful floodlights are placed at the observation points. Observation posts are also placed in the center of the square, on the hills next to the groves. The western boundary of Treblinka B is a cobblestone embankment, on which there is a siding connecting the camp with the main line (1). The siding (2) was built in recent months to directly deliver wagons with transports to the execution site. The northern boundary of the camp is a young forest; the eastern and southern boundaries run among sandy hills. The forest thickets within the camp area stretch in a long strip parallel to the railway track, starting from the northern boundary (25).

Adjacent to the railway siding is a ramp (4), where transport trains park. This ramp leads to a square that can accommodate two to three thousand people (6). This square has a separate barbed-wire fence. A large wooden barracks is located in the square near the northern boundary. In the southwest corner is a guardhouse, which serves as a 24-hour military post (7). On the south side of this square, outside the fence, is the so-called clothing sorting area (Lumpensortierungsplatz) (21), and further south is the execution square for the camp commander and the graves of the victims he murdered (22). The arrival square (6), which we discussed earlier, connects to the remaining area via a gate located in the northeast corner of the fence (8). From there, a forest road leads eastwards for about 200 m (9), then turns south at a right angle and runs alongside the woods parallel to the western border of the arrival square. The road ends at a large building (10) with a peculiar appearance: it is the hull of an unfinished, single-story brick building, about 40 m long and 15 m wide. (In the first half of September, when we received information about Treblinka B., this building was nearing completion.) The Germans began construction of this brick building already during the operation, probably in mid-August, with the help of Jewish craftsmen, selected from among the Jews brought to Treblinka to be killed. It is characteristic that the bricks for the construction were brought all the way from Warsaw, in wagons attached to each transport. The bricks were loaded by Jewish workers at the Warsaw Umschlagplatz. According to an eyewitness, the structure of the building is as follows: in the center runs a 3-meter-wide corridor, and on both sides there are five rooms or chambers; the height of each chamber is about 2 meters. The area of ​​each chamber is 35 square meters.

The execution chambers are windowless, but they do have doors leading to a corridor and trapdoors of sorts in the exterior walls. Next to these trapdoors are ramps with slightly concave surfaces, resembling large tents. Workers were installing pipes through which steam would escape. This is to be Death House No. 2.

The forest road (9) bypasses this house and runs along the western wall among the trees, finally ending at the next building (12), near Death House No. 1 (14). This building is perpendicular to Death House No. 2. It is a much smaller brick structure than the previous one. It consists of only three chambers and a boiler room. A corridor runs along the northern wall of this house, from which doors lead to the chambers. The outer wall of the chambers has a trapdoor (until recently, a door that was replaced with a trapdoor for utilitarian reasons). Here, too, a dove-shaped ramp (15) runs at the level of the trapdoors. The boiler room (150 [typo for "15a"?]) is directly adjacent to the building. Inside the boiler room is a large boiler for generating steam, and through pipes that run through the death chambers and are equipped with a sufficient number of openings, superheated steam escapes into the chambers. During the operation of this death machine, the doors and trapdoors are hermetically sealed. The chamber floor is covered with terracotta, which becomes very slippery when water is poured on it. Next to the boiler room is a well—the only well in the entire area of ​​Treblinka B [not indicated in text, but should be 16]. Near the death house, on the south side, behind a barbed-wire fence and a picket fence, is a gravediggers' camp. They are housed in a barrack (19). Kitchen buildings are located next to the barrack. Two guardhouses (17, 20) are located on either side of this camp. The remaining area of ​​Treblinka B is designated for the graves of murdered victims. Part of the area already constitutes a large cemetery (22, 23, 24). Initially, the graves were prepared by Poles employed at the camp. Later, as the murder operations intensified and the demand for milk increased, special digging machines were brought in to dig the graves day and night. A diesel engine provides power, and its clatter is the characteristic sound of the Treblinka B death camp.

Diesel engine powered the camp. Steam building in the middle. Faint scent of chlorine, according to the early report from the two authors we call "Krzepicki."

[Archie]

Hi, pilgrim. I hope you don't mind, but I've split your posts off since I think this report deserves its own thread. Imo, this is an extremely important and very damning account.

The report is from Nov 1942 and made its way from Warsaw to London. An abbreviated version appeared in the NYT (8 Aug 1943, pg 11). And then the text (of the Treblinka section) was published in the Black Book of Polish Jewry at the end of 1943. In HH#8, Mattogno and Graf have reproduce the BBPJ text in full (around 8 pages).

See here for an alternate English translation.
https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/1186880/486/

Arad says of it: “This report is the first in which there is a comprehensive description of the Treblinka extermination camp. The facts are, for the most part, correct.” (2018 edition, pg. 406)

In my experience, the primary anti-revisionist excuses you will get about this report are
-the mistakes are due to "hearsay"
-steam is a gas and so mistaking exhaust gas for steam is an understandable error

But this just doesn't wash when you read what this report actually says.

Diesel engine powered the camp. Steam building in the middle. Faint scent of chlorine, according to the early report from the two authors we call "Krzepicki."

I think the bit about the diesel engine being used as a generator at the camp really gives the game away. I almost fell out of my chair when I read that the first time. Major "light bulb" moment.

I will repost some comments on this from RODOH.

There is no way to salvage something that is both this detailed and incorrect. It's BS.

"They just described the exhaust as steam, which is also a gas!" No. Read the report. What it describes is very clearly a steaming, not a gassing with engine exhaust. It describes the large vat that was used to generate the stream. It describes how the steam made everything wet and slippery inside the chamber. It describes how the steam made all the bodies stick together. And the real clincher is that the report even mentions a diesel engine which it says was famously noisy was merely used as a generator. We are to believe the unnamed witnesses,

-Were able to "correctly" determine the layout of the chambers
-Knew what sort of tiles the interior of the chambers had
-Saw babies being thrown into the chambers over the heads of the women

But simultaneously they
-Mistook a diesel engine for a "large vat" to generate steam
-DID notice a second loud and rattly diesel engine that was used for power
-Somehow "saw" all the bodies stuck together from the steaming
-Used cold water to get the bodies to separate

Like Bradley explained [context here is that we were discussing the Rolling Stone UVA gang rape hoax and were comparing it to Holocaust accounts. The quote is from journalist Richard Bradley who was responding to apologetic arguments attempting to salvage the Rolling Stone story which was in the process of unraveling.]

For me the challenge has always been: How do you get from something that seems plausible—a rape at a fraternity—to forced oral sex around a circle of five or gang rape by seven men? The leap from the former to the latter does not require simply getting a few details wrong; it involves the invention of dramatic and specific scenarios.

And that doesn’t suggest “discrepancies”—again, Rolling Stone’s term to explain things just not adding up—but “fabrications.” You can’t exaggerate or misremember your way to gang rape. It either happened or it didn’t.

You can't exaggerate or misremember your way to a detailed description of 2,000,000 Jews being steamed to death like lobsters.

https://rodoh.info/post/17302/thread

The report is just too detailed and has an impossible mix of "correct" (according to current H lore) and incorrect claims.

[pilgrimofdark]

I think Stubble was also speculating on where to find records on the boiler/diesel engine. That would be a way to clear up what was actually built and the purpose of individual buildings mentioned in the 1942 Ringelblum Archive report that was layered with the typical schlock.

These are the two construction firms that are said (by Arad/Webb) to have built the Treblinka II camp:

• Robert Schönbrunn
• Hans Schmidt and Heinrich Münsterman

Both are in the 1942 Warsaw District telephone book.

Wonder if any records survive from these firms. I think their main headquarters were in Germany or Austria, with offices in Warsaw.

A few other files are online relating to budget/financing for the labor camp. Some might have been discussed before?

Budget Plan I: Governor-General, Government of the General Government and District Offices, Chapter 2: Higher SS and Police Leader and SS and Police Leaders in the Districts. Budgetary matters of the Higher SS and Police Commander and the Police Commander in the Districts. Budget estimate for the Treblinka camp.
1943
2/111/0/3.3/726

Finance Department. Cash matters of the Treblinka labor camp - Warsaw District.
1942
2/111/0/3.1/611

[Stubble]

IIRC prudent regret has pulled construction files for TII. I am not sure I remember where he got them, but, I haven't looked for a 'Steam Generator' (just to produce the steam for delousing, not electricity, they were not uncommon during ww2, the Churchill tank had one for making tea in the tank, the luftwaffe used them, the armies used them for showers etc) in them or really dug in to the extant documents from source.

Let me look for the thread and cross link it.

viewtopic.php?t=26

[pilgrimofdark]

IIRC prudent regret has pulled construction files for TII. I am not sure I remember where he got them, but, I haven't looked for a 'Steam Generator' (just to produce the steam for delousing, not electricity, they were not uncommon during ww2, the Churchill tank had one for making tea in the tank, the luftwaffe used them, the armies used them for showers etc) in them or really dug in to the extant documents from source.

Let me look for the thread and cross link it.

viewtopic.php?t=26

That 23-page thread is a great argument for writing up forum posts as articles before they fill up with dozens of posts of passive-aggressive cry-bullying spam

There's also the Treblinka Work Camp Delousing Chamber thread. Looks like PR pulled a couple pages out of that first 1943 report I linked from the Polish archives.

On the Ringelblum conspiracists, I wonder what is even left of the earliest Treblinka narratives if you remove all of their group-writing projects, plagiarism, and schlock.

[Stubble]

If you strip the story of its narrative, in my opinion, literally nothing remains.

I'm going to say the camp wasn't plumbed with a pump house and running water though, which is odd, given the 'bath and disinfection' facilities where people stripped on arrival before a shower and bread. Maybe they got a pump and running water at some point, but, initially, they had to cart the water, I don't know.

When you listen to the testimonies of those transited west, they do talk about a shower in those buildings though IIRC. I'll look for a clip from 'The Treblinka Archeology Hoax' that just has the pertinent testimony.
---------------------------
Either I'm misremembering or the talk of showers and disinfestation is in the jump cuts.



The reason I consider this in any way important is because I think the only grain of truth may have been that people were thirsty.

[PrudentRegret]

IIRC prudent regret has pulled construction files for TII. I am not sure I remember where he got them, but, I haven't looked for a 'Steam Generator' (just to produce the steam for delousing, not electricity, they were not uncommon during ww2, the Churchill tank had one for making tea in the tank, the luftwaffe used them, the armies used them for showers etc) in them or really dug in to the extant documents from source.

Let me look for the thread and cross link it.

viewtopic.php?t=26

That 23-page thread is a great argument for writing up forum posts as articles before they fill up with dozens of posts of passive-aggressive cry-bullying spam

There's also the Treblinka Work Camp Delousing Chamber thread. Looks like PR pulled a couple pages out of that first 1943 report I linked from the Polish archives.

On the Ringelblum conspiracists, I wonder what is even left of the earliest Treblinka narratives if you remove all of their group-writing projects, plagiarism, and schlock.

Titel E 4:
Neu-u. Erweiterungsbauten im Arbeitslager Treblinka

Zu Titel E 4:
Zur Erweiterung des Lagers Treblinka ist der Bau von 4 Häftlingsbaracken, 1 Kuchenbaracke für die Häftlinge, 1 Revier- und Wäschereibaracke f.d. Häftlinge, Sanitäre- und Wäschereianlagen zur Revier- und Wäschereibaracke, eines Lagerschuppens, Umbau der alten Häftlingsbaracke zur Werkstatt, Wasserversorgung, Stromversorgung, Entwässerung, Entlausungskammer und Feuerlöscheinrichtung erforderlich. (Siehe anl. Kostenvoranschlag der Zentral bauleitung der Waffen-SS und Polizei Warschau vom 10.11.42.)

1.480.000 Zl

New and Extension Buildings in Treblinka Labor Camp

The expansion of the Treblinka camp requires the construction of 4 prisoner barracks, 1 kitchen barrack for the prisoners, 1 infirmary and laundry barracks for prisoners, sanitary and laundry facilities for the infirmary and laundry barracks, a storage shed, conversion of the old prisoner barracks into a workshop, water supply, power supply, drainage, delousing chamber and fire extinguishing equipment. (See Appendix. Cost estimate of the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police Warsaw dated 10.11.42.)

1.480.000 Zl

I suggest in that thread that "T-II" as such was simply regarded, by both Eberl and construction budgeting/planning, as an expansion of Arbeitslager Treblinka rather than a completely separate camp. So these budget documents pertaining to the "expansion of Arbeitslager Treblinka" likely pertain to the construction of what we call "T-II', including the Entlausungskammer which most likely denotes a Steam Chamber. There is no claim of a steam chamber or any other gas chamber being constructed in "T-I".

Note that Eberl himself directly referred to his construction project as "expansion of Arbeitslager Treblinka" so these budget records likely refer to facilities constructed in what we call "T-II". But both T-I and T-II were "Arbeitslager Treblinka", with T-II being alluded to in these documents referring to the expansion of the camp.

[pilgrimofdark]

Sara Berger suggests historians have potentially conflated T-I and T-II when discussing these supposed T-II construction firms.

Historians are still constructing the chronology of the death camps as of 2013. No clear answers yet.

We're not sure who built what where. The only thing that's been confirmed is that "there were approximately 3.5 million corpses."

There is broad consensus in the research literature that the German construction companies Schönbrunn from Liegnitz and Schmidt & Münstermann from Warsaw were involved in the construction of Treblinka. However, it is possible that there is a confusion with the labor camp.

- Experten der Vernichtung: Das T4-Reinhardt Netzwerk in den Lagern Blezec, Sobibor und Treblinka. ("Experts of Extermination: The T4-Reinhardt Network in the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka Camps.") section "Treblinka: Construction of the third camp."

"There is a confusion with the labor camp" is a common theme.

One day, maybe we'll figure out what, if anything, these companies had to do with constructing T-I or T-II.

(Berger also believes in the veracity of the overnight chlorine poisonings, and that the gassings were carried out with a Russian diesel tank engine.)

[Stubble]

Do we know if T1 had running water and when it got running water?

I think it has been established that there was no delousing facility at T1 (although, they did have a swimming pool, which seems to have been a staple of German concentration and labor camps), so, it should be easy to establish that the delousing facility refers to T2.

It is truly remarkable that one of the only points of agreement by historians about the camps is a vanishing pile of corpses at T2.

As Herr Hill has pointed out previously, when the 13 apostles went to the holy site with the judge (Herr Pilgrimofdark has pointed this out as well) 'no mass graves were found'.

[pilgrimofdark]

Sara Berger's book is by far the best one I've read on the AR camps from the mainstream perspective. She never quotes any "eyewitnesses," which makes the whole narrative less schlocky and goofy and much more coherent.

It's in German, but Calibre can auto-translate entire epubs into English at once (for free), with a very high degree of accuracy and readability, with some caveats.

Anyway, I guess this is the temporary thread for "logistics and operations" questions like the diesel electricity generator, plumbing, etc. No clear answer on plumbing yet.

More on Małkinia-Treblinka, T-I/T-II relations, etc.

However, relations deteriorated when the commander of the labor camp, Theodor van Eupen, was appointed senior officer of Małkinia, including Treblinka, and demanded that Stangl be placed under his command, a demand Stangl refused to accept. In 1943, the T4 Reinhardt men in Treblinka temporarily took over the administration of the gravel pits, which were subordinate to the Deutschen Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH Auschwitz (German Earth and Stone Works GmbH Auschwitz) and where many prisoners from Treblinka I worked.

- same as quoted above, section "External networks I: Integration into the German occupation apparatus"

[PrudentRegret]

I wonder what "refused to accept" actually means. To me that passage implies that there is documentation implying Van Eupen was the nominal senior officer in charge of Treblinka-II as well as Treblinka-I. What does "Stangl refused to accept" actually mean in that regard.

Is there a citation given for "Theodor van Eupen, was appointed senior officer of Małkinia, including Treblinka"?

[PrudentRegret]

The notion at all of any sort of power struggle between van Eupen and Stangl at T-II makes no sense with the mainstream narrative in the first place.

[PrudentRegret]

Note Hilberg writes:

A labor camp (Treblinka I) was already in existence not tar trom the site. Jewish labor from the Warsaw Ghetto was sent to Treblinka I, and its inmates, Poles as well as Jews, could be utilized for construction. Treblinka I, under Hauptsturmführer van Eupen, was not administratively joined to the death camp.

Don't think that's true. We have budget documents and witnesses from the Construction office claiming "T-II" was actually an expansion project of Arbeitslager Treblinka. And Berger saying van Eupen insisted on Stangl as a subordinate. And Berger admitting the SS Sonderkommando Treblinka took over administration of gravel operations in T-I. The notion they were not administratively joined is falling apart. They were.