Reconstruction of the Death Camp (Continued) Mass Production of Death Figure 39 shows a graphic summary of what has been related so far about the findings. This image, we now know, is of a death factory, organized and equipped to kill and bury thousands of people a day. Nothing more sophisticated than internal combustion engines and earth moving machinery was used. The latter was originally made for construction and mining purposes. The materials for building the camp were mostly of local origin. In Treblinka as a whole, most of the buildings were made of wood and had no foundations or footings. In the entire camp, five buildings were of masonry construction: the two gas chambers in the 'Totenlager', and a guard tower, a bakery, and a workshop in the living camp. The latter two were not destroyed when Treblinka was razed (they are discussed on page 12 in the section of the Living Camp). ). In Figure 39, the death camp's barracks, housing the work force of 200 Jews, is not shown. No sign of its former existence could be found on the photography. Its site reportedly was along the fence line to the south. A striking aspect of the aspect of the 'Totenlager' was its barrenness. This is only marginally appreciable in the aerial photography. However, in the 1942-43 snapshots taken by Kurt Franz, its resemblance to some sort of Dantesque wasteland is acute. In actuality, it must have been much worse: the smell of decay and burning flesh permeating the air, and great heaps of sandy soil piled up in a bleak wasteland of barren ground. After March of 1943, the burial pits were methodically reopened and the corpses were extracted by the excavating machines and heaped on the ground for the waiting 'Sonderkommando'. The dead were lugged on stretchers to the grills and burned - the images of two 'Sonderkommandos' carrying a stretcher is can be seen in Figure 37 Fires burned constantly. The ashes were removed by the ash commando from under the grates, sieved, and any remaining large bones pulverized by hand or returned to the fires. These descriptive facts come from survivor accounts, and most aspects of them are verified by the pictures in the so-called Kurt Franz Album. Half dozen or so exposures from this document exist which capture the essence of the operations. These, after study and analysis, constitute a most powerful and direct view of the process developed for disposing of the results of mass murder. First, they show the presence of at least two excavating machines; a huge earth embankment screening the eastern side of the compound; and a couple of glimpses of the opened burial pits. One can see numerous arrays of colored material piled up, which upon reflection, must be the ashes of the dead. The most basic fact that can be determined from the ground photos is that there were two, and probably three excavators in use at Treblinka. (see Figure 40). These machines were manufactured by the Menck company in Hamburg. One was model Ma-1 and the other model Mb-2. Two types of excavating buckets were available: the conventional clam shell, used for digging and moving earth, and a grabber. The latter is used for picking up articulated objects, such as tree logs -or for lifting human corpses out of the burial pits. In the previous Figure 40, the Menck Ma-1 has a grabber attached. The logo painted on its side was still in use by the Menck company after WW II and is shown here. The more usual clam shell bucket was attached to the Mb-2 model and to what appears to be another version of the Ma. Thus it appears that there were three of these machines: two variants of the Ma-1 and one Mb-1. In Figure 40, on Ma-1, No.1, Annotation A points to device through which a drag line runs. This feature is absent on the Ma-1, No.2. The difference is the basis for concluding the presence of two models of this type excavator, and a total of three Menck machines all together. One source substantiates this conclusion. A post WW II Polish Commission's report ( Reference 9, p99) states: "Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of the corpses. In the waybills for the wagons sent from Treblinka at the time of the final 'liquidation' of the camp three excavators are mentioned. One of them was dispatched from Treblinka on June 29, 1943, to the firm of Adam Lamczak, Berlin-Neukwlln, Willy Waltherstrasse 30-3 Tr." Previous Next
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