Wednesday, August 1, 2018

July 22 to August 6th - Umschlagplatz - Korczak - My Grandparents - Death in Treblinka


Cattle wagons at Umschlagplatz in the Warsaw Ghetto. The day of departure ment the day of death in Treblinkas gas chambers.

Not fully correct concerning the drawing itself as the railway tracks were running paralel to Dzika street (Zamenhofa or Wildstrasse) but the drawing is correct concerning the logistics of killing.


July 22 means the date of and first deportation in the Grossaktion  (Large Action) in Warsaw. Großaktion Warschau was a Nazi German operation of mass extermination of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto with the beginning on July 22, 1942. It was a part of Operation Reinhard. On July 22, 1942, the German SS headed by the "Resettlement Commissioner", Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle called a meeting of the Ghetto Jewish Council Judenrat and informed its leader Adam Czerniaków about the "resettlement to the East".  

6500 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!

July 23. Adam Czerniakow committed suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto after learning of the German Großaktion. Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went back to German to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office at 26/28 Grzybowska Street and took one of the cyanide capsules he had been keeping for just such an occasion. He left a suicide note to his wife, reading “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die..”.

7300 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!

July 26. The last time my mother and aunt saw their father Gabriel Rozental. He was about to pick up soup from a soup kitchen on Ogrodowa Street.Later that day, in the evening, when he did not return home, they understood that he was deported to the East, to the death camp, Treblinka. He was 50 years old.

6091 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!

August 3. My grandmother, Helena Rozental, survived the first weeks of Deportation Action and managed to find the work at the brushmakers at Swietojerska Street. On August 3rd, 1942 she was taken to the Umschlagplatz.
6357 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!

August 5Janusz Korczaks entire Orphanage (239 children) was taken to the Umschlagplatz on August 5th, 1942.
6783 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!


August 6.  Peak day. Over fifteen thousand Jews from the Ghetto were deported to Treblinka in a single day as a result of the German food give away action. People lined up for bread at Umschlagplats. When at Umschlag they were deported to East, to the death in Treblinka.

15 000 persons were send to Treblinka on that day!