Treblinka was the second-deadliest extermination camp to be built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, 4 km (2.5 mi) south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered in its gas chambers, along with 2,000 Romani people. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt was the codename of the secret German plan in World War II to exterminate Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied Poland. This deadliest phase of the Holocaust was marked by the introduction of extermination camps. The operation proceeded from March 1942 to November 1943; about 1.47 million or more Jews were murdered in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942, a rate which is approximately 83% higher than the commonly suggested figure for the kill rate in the Rwandan genocide. In the time frame of July to October 1942, the overall death toll, including all killings of Jews and not just Operation Reinhard, amounted to two million killed in those four months alone. It was the single fastest rate of genocidal killing in history.
Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka in World War II.
Josef Kaspar Oberhauser was a low-ranking German SS commander during the Nazi era. He participated in Action T4 and Operation Reinhard. Oberhauser was the only person to be successfully convicted of crimes committed at the Belzec extermination camp. He was charged with 450,000 counts of accessory to murder and sentenced to 4.5 years imprisonment during the Belzec Trial of 1964.
Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel was an SS noncommissioned officer in Sobibor extermination camp.
Treblinka is a village located in eastern Poland, situated in the present-day district of Gmina Małkinia Górna, within Ostrów Mazowiecka County in Masovian Voivodeship, some 80 kilometres north-east of Warsaw. The village lies close to the Bug River. It has 350 inhabitants.
Kurt Hubert Franz was an SS officer and one of the commanders of the Treblinka extermination camp. Because of this, Franz was one of the major perpetrators of genocide during the Holocaust. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Treblinka Trials in 1965, he was eventually released in 1993.
Erwin Hermann Lambert was a German perpetrator of the Holocaust. In profession, he was a master mason, building trades foreman, Nazi Party member and member of the Schutzstaffel with the rank of SS-Unterscharführer (corporal). He supervised construction of the gas chambers for the Action T4 euthanasia program at Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Hadamar, and then at Sobibór and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard. He specialized in building larger gas chambers that killed more people than previous efforts in the extermination program.
Erich Fuchs was an SS functionary who worked for the Action T4 mass-murder program, and for the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust.
The two Treblinka trials concerning the Treblinka extermination camp personnel began in 1964. Held at Düsseldorf in West Germany, they were the two judicial trials in a series of similar war crime trials held during the early 1960s, such as the Jerusalem Adolf Eichmann trial (1961) and the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963–65), as a result of which the general public came to realize the extent of the crimes that some two decades earlier had been perpetrated in occupied Poland by German bureaucrats and their willing executioners. In the subsequent years, separate trials dealt with personnel of the Bełżec (1963–65), Sobibor (1966), and Majdanek (1975–81) extermination camps.
Johann Niemann was a German SS officer and Holocaust perpetrator who was deputy commandant of Sobibor extermination camp during Operation Reinhard. He also served as a Leichenverbrenner at Grafeneck, Brandenburg, and Bernburg during the Aktion T4, the SS "euthanasia" program. Niemann was killed during the Sobibor prisoner uprising in 1943.
Franz Suchomel was a Sudeten German Nazi war criminal. He participated in the Action T4 euthanasia program, in Operation Reinhard, and the Einsatzgruppen actions in the Adriatic operational zone. He was convicted at the Treblinka trials in September 1965 and spent four years in prison.
SS-SturmbannführerKarl Steubl, Steubel, or Steibel was a Nazi, perpetrator of euthanasia programme dubbed Action T4, and commander of transportation at the Sobibór extermination camp during Operation Reinhard, the most deadly phase of the Holocaust. Arrested after the war in Europe ended, Steubl committed suicide in Linz, Austria.
Paul Bredow was a German SS sergeant and Holocaust perpetrator. He served at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland.
Josef Hirtreiter was an SS functionary of Nazi Germany and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland. In July 1946, Hirtreiter was arrested by U.S. military occupation authorities and confessed to working at Treblinka. In 1951, Hirtreiter was convicted of killing 10 people, mostly children aged one or two, and sentenced to life in prison. He was released from prison in 1977 and died several months later in a home for the elderly in Frankfurt.
SS-UnterscharführerWilli Bruno Mentz was a member of the German SS in World War II and a Holocaust perpetrator who worked at Treblinka extermination camp during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust in Poland. Mentz was known as "Frankenstein" at the camp.
Theodor van Eupen was a member of the SS of Nazi Germany. A Holocaust perpetrator, he served as the commandant of the Treblinka I forced-labour camp (Arbeitslager) in occupied Poland during its entire course of operation. Unlike the parallel Treblinka extermination camp subordinate to the Operation Reinhard authorities in Berlin, Treblinka I was controlled by the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw. The labour camp was liquidated on 23 July 1944, ahead of the Soviet advance. By then, more than half of its cumulative number of some 20,000 inmates had died from summary executions, hunger, disease, and mistreatment. The regular workforce consisted of 1,000–2,000 prisoners, terrorized by staff of about a dozen SS-men and 100 Wachmänner guards.
Edward Kopówka is a Polish writer and historian, graduate of the Faculty of History at the Podlasie Academy in Siedlce, political and social activist known for his active participation in the democratic process beginning with the so-called Second circulation publishing of delegalized books under the Communist rule. Following the imposition of Martial law in 1981 Kopówka became member of the Independent Students' Union branch of Solidarity, the first non–communist workers union in Warsaw Pact history. In 1985–88 he served as founder, editor-in-chief and production manager for the unofficial Grzegorz Przemyk Publishing named after the young Polish poet murdered by the Communist Milicja Obywatelska. Kopówka supported himself financially by working as history teacher at elementary schools in Siedlce and its vicinity, and after the fall of communism, as clerk at the Office for Financial Control in 1993–96. Kopówka received his Ph.D degree in 2009. He is the Senior Curator of the Treblinka extermination camp museum in Treblinka with certification from the Ministry of Culture. In 2011 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest honours.
Fritz Erich Schmidt was a low-ranking commander in the Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany and Holocaust perpetrator during World War II. He served as a guard and driver at the Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre and at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1940–41 with the rank of Unterscharführer. Schmidt was transferred to Treblinka extermination camp along with other gassing specialists in 1942. At Treblinka, he was in charge of the engine room feeding exhaust to the gas chambers.
SS-OberscharführerKarl Pötzinger (1908–1944) born in Leipzig, Germany, was a Holocaust perpetrator who began his World War II career as the Action T4 “burner” at the Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre and at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre with the rank of Staff Sergeant in the SA. Pötzinger was a career policeman at the outbreak of war. He was transferred to Treblinka extermination camp at the onset of Operation Reinhard of 1942 along with other gassing specialists. Pötzinger became Deputy Commandant of Treblinka II under SS-Scharführer Heinrich Matthes, supervising the gas chambers and later, serving as head of the cremation command in the Totenlager as soon as the covering up Nazi crimes became paramount to the Nazi leadership notably to Heinrich Himmler himself during his visit to Treblinka in 1943.
Nazi Germany 
Schutzstaffel