Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

Yitzhak Arad provides a great deal of information relative to the extermination of Jews (and also Gypsies), but nothing on the genocide of Poles. He elaborates on such things as German plans for the Final Solution, the construction and function of the death camps, camp "life" for those not immediately gassed, Jewish revolts and escapes, the German cover-up, postwar trials of camp functionaries (well into the 1960's), etc. The remainder of this review focuses on matters not addressed by the other reviewers. David Engel has accused the Polish-Government-in-Exile of deliberately understating the extent of, and delaying the publicizing of, Jewish deaths at the hands of the Germans. Arad rejects this insinuation: "The Polish Underground transmitted to London the reports on the death camps and the extermination of the Jews of Poland via its messengers and radio stations. It did not hide these facts nor delay their relay, and the reports reached London and the British Government. But they were received with disbelief, doubt, and distrust. They did not receive the proper sort of publicity..." (p. 359). Of course, the Polish-Government-in-Exile had to be very careful about the credibility and accuracy of the reports it had available. Ironically, the first reports had inflated the actual then-current Treblinka death toll by 3-fold to 4-fold (p. 355). Also, early reports on the rebellion at Treblinka had grossly exaggerated the number of Jewish escapees and the number of Germans killed (p. 358). Unfortunately, Arad sometimes lapses into standard Polonophobic formulations, of which only a few can be discussed owing to space limitations. He makes the frankly laughable accusation that the Polish Underground failed to warn the Jews about their fate (p. 359), before refuting himself: "The information about Belzec came mainly from Poles who lived close to the camp, and from Polish railway workers, and it reached the Polish Underground. From their Underground publication, it reached the Jewish Underground." (p. 243). As for Jewish reactions to Polish warnings, Arad quotes Yitzhak Lichtman: "On the train to Sobibor, we were told by some Poles that we were being taken to be burned. We didn't believe them. We thought that the Poles, who were anti-Semites, wanted to scare us." (p. 242). Jewish rejection of Polish warnings was the rule, as Arad comments: "Even when rumors or some information about Belzec and Treblinka, and, to a much lesser extent, about Sobibor, reached the Jews still left in the ghettos of the General Government, the people were reluctant to believe them." (p. 377). Predictably, Arad faults the Polish Underground for not blowing up the tracks leading to the death camps. This ignores reality. Sabotaged tracks can be repaired in a few hours, and the Germans would have savagely retaliated against nearby Polish villages. Arad mentions the fact that the Communist AL guerillas had "...a relatively large number of Jews..." (p. 346). This made them

Among the first books I purchased to study the Holocost.The scholorship of this book is superb. Gives the reader a feeling for these awful places. You get to meet the human monsters who put these horrible places together and operated them. Just as you get to meet the innocent human beings who were slaughtered there.It is a cold expression of human evil in its coldest unemotional form.The cold facts are depressing. And an appetite killer for the unnitiated. Like all material on the Holocost, there is only depression from what is here. I only wish the death camp of Chlemno had been included in this work, for scholarly reasons. I know that Chelmno, the first of the death camps, used gas vans, and there are a fed other differences. But it would save the reader one less visit to hell to study.

These three camps were put into full operation shortly after the assassination of Heydrich, the "brains" behind the Final Solution. Unlike concentration camps, these were extermination centers. Most were killed shortly after arrival. The man in charge seemed to be Christian Wirth, who can only be described as a beast in human form. Initially devoted to mass executions of Soviet POWs, the camps soon focused on liquidation of Jews once the Final Solution was put into full swing. Very little is known about the camps simply because there were so few survivors. These were truly some of the most dreadful camps, even though they operated for only a brief period.

Yitzhak Arad has achieved an extraordinary feat with the publication of this book, detailing in full the features and practices of places the Nazis did their best to erase. He juxtaposes horrifying descriptions of life and death in the camps with the clinical statistics (themselves horrible for their sheer magnitude) surrounding this aspect of Hitler's war against the Jews. This book is made all the more poignant by the fact that Arad's parents died in Treblinka. It is books like this that illustrate the dire necessity for tolerance and compassion in our world.

i have read all of her books and i was in a holocaust class so i know all most everything that happed to them.