Treblinka was constructed by Nazis during World War II as an extermination camp. Treblinka along with several other camps, were apart of Operation Reinhard. Operation Reinhard was a plan created to deport the Jews to these death camps like Treblinka; having arrived at the camp, the Jews were stripped of their belongings, and herded directly into the gas chambers. Very few prisoners were chosen from the transport trains to work in the labor camp attached to the other half of Treblinka. 

 

Those chosen to work in the labor camp, were chosen because they were relatively healthy and had “previously” been manual laborers. Yet, this is not always true, due to the fact that when asked their occupation as they entered the camp, many of the Jewish prisoners lied in order to survive. 

 

Those that did work in the camp were forced into various jobs, such as sorters (sorting through the clothing or belongings of those that went into the gas chambers), the barbers, the construction workers, physicians, the Sonderkommandos, etc. Despite working in the camp, these prisoners were no more safe because they were laborers than the prisoners who went straight to the chamber because the Nazis wanted no evidence left behind they often rotated out their prisoners, by keeping new ones from the transport and sending those that had been working into the chambers. 

 

Although Treblinka was operational for only a single year, from July 1942 to August 1943, between 850,000 and 870,000 (depending on the source) people were killed there.

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Despite the grave amount of people that were murdered at Treblinka, there has been no evidence of the camp, until 2012. When the Russians began closing in on the Nazis, they decided to liquidate the camp in an attempt to hide the evidence of their crimes and atrocities committed. Yet, in 2012 a forensic archaeologists uncovered previously hidden mass graves. 

(Jewish Virtual Library)