Anniversary of Uprising at Treblinka Extermination Camp Commemorated
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by Algemeiner Staff
The sign for the Treblinka extermination camp caught on archive footage. Photo: Screenshot.
Jewish organizations and Holocaust commemoration institutions marked on Friday the anniversary of the Aug. 2, 1943 uprising by Jewish inmates of the Nazi extermination camp of Treblinka.
The prisoners “had witnessed hundreds of thousands of Jews deported to the camp — and gassed upon arrival” before they rose up against their Nazi captors, a tweet from the World Jewish Congress explained.
“Almost 300 managed to escape, only 100 survived, others were tracked & killed by the SS,” a tweet from the American Jewish Committee observed. “We honor their courage and remember the 800,000 Jews murdered at Treblinka.”
On August 2nd, 1943, the underground Jewish resistance in Treblinka staged a revolt against the Nazi guards. They had witnessed hundreds of thousands of Jews deported to the camp – and gassed upon arrival. @HolocaustMuseum @AuschwitzMuseum pic.twitter.com/Dv3vWwSWi6
— World Jewish Congress (@WorldJewishCong) August 2, 2019
#OTD in 1943 a revolt broke out in #Treblinka. Jewish prisoners fought for their lives in the Nazi German death camp. Almost 300 managed to escape, only 100 survived, others were tracked & killed by the SS. We honor their courage and remember the 800k Jews murdered at Treblinka. pic.twitter.com/IGaOGclQYI
— AJC Central Europe (@AJC_CE) August 2, 2019
Opened as a concentration camp in 1941, Treblinka — located in Nazi-occupied Poland — became a gassing center the following year when more than 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were sent to their deaths at the camp. All prisoners arriving at Treblinka were automatically marked for death, save for the 1,000 inmates who were utilized by the Nazis as slave labor.
If you havent watched it already, you should. #treblinka was the single worst site of industrial mass murder, but it has not impregnated itself into public consciousness the way #auschwitz has – because 99% did not survive treblinka.https://t.co/cg0fuQlzlA
— Holocaust Documents (@HolocaustDocum1) August 1, 2019
Inspired by the news of the uprising by Jewish resistance forces in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943, a group of Treblinka prisoners organized their own revolt two months later. On Aug. 2, a group of Jewish prisoners successfully broke into the arsenal kept at the camp by the Nazis, seizing hand grenades, rifles and handguns. In the melee that followed, most of the conspirators were killed, as were approximately 40 Nazi prison guards.
One of the survivors of Treblinka, Samuel Willenberg, yelled out, “Hell has been burnt!” as the camp went up in flames. Willenberg later moved to Israel. At the time of his passing in Tel Aviv in 2016, Willenberg was the last living survivor of the Treblinka revolt.
