Two types of wagons of approximately the same size were used for the deportations. Each cattle wagon (freight car) has a floor space of roughly 20 square meters.
The standard wagon used by the German Reichsbahn was a two-axle covered goods wagon, the most common type of which was the G10. The interior dimensions were roughly: length: 8 to 9 meters, and width: 2.7 to 3 meters. Type 1C boxcars with a little cabin outside (for escorting soldiers) were also used. The trains to Treblinka were escorted by the SS men or military policemen, and the guards were Ukrainians, Latvians, or Lithuanians. The guards fired at the escaping people.
The victims were forced into sealed freight or stock cars, not passenger carriages. These were the same types of cars typically used to transport livestock or goods. The cars were severely overcrowded, with around 100-150 people crammed into each one for the journey to the Treblinka death camp. Conditions: The conditions inside were horrific, with no sanitation, food, or water, and many people died during the transit.
Railway Tracks at Umschlagplatz. The entire area was originally a freight train station area connected by a siding to the Warszawa Gdańska station, adjacent to the ghetto's northern border on Stawki Street. Prior to deportations, the Germans fenced off a portion of the existing railway infrastructure for the deportations.
A single transport train typically comprised about 60 wagons. As the standard freight wagon (often the G10 model) used by the German Reichsbahn during the Holocaust was typically around 10 meters long, including the buffers, a train consisting of 60 cattle wagons was approximately 600 meters long, including the locomotive.
110 persons with parcels in one wagon means an area of 50x40 cm to stand on per person. My own measures are approx. 70 x 40. Sometimes more than 150 people were loaded onto each wagon.
Dimensions of the railway car of type 1C (with cabin outside), as seen in some of the photos:
Total length of the interior space for deportees is 8 meters.
Total height interior space for deportees (ceiling curves down from the middle): 2.2 meters at the center, and 2.1 meters at the sides.
Total width of interior space for deportees: 2.7 meters.
According to the factory writing on the boxcar, the area was 27 sq. meters.
Other cattle wagons were about 21 sq. meters (7 x 3 m).
Transports to the Treblinka station, 60 cattle cars.
Treblinka Railway Station since many years a non-existent railway station where trains stopped before entering the Treblinka death camp area. Transports of Jews from all over occupied Europe came to Treblinka both from the north, from Malkinia station, or from the South.
Treblinka railway station, approximately 4.5 km from the camp. The main railway track, number 34, passed the station. However, there were several railway sidings. Two of them were used for personal traffic. Other slidings were east of a main track and were more than 600 meters long, so they were long enough to accommodate the entire train. Transports that averaged 60 cattle cars were, upon arrival, divided into three sets of 20 wagons each. Thereafter, each set was rolled onto the ramp at the Treblinka death camp. The extermination at the Treblinka camp took place from dawn until dusk, so it was common for victims to wait overnight on railway sidings, locked in their wagons.
Rows of the waiting wagons at Treblinka station were under constant surveillance by SS Wachmannschaften, and sporadic escape attempts resulted in direct executions.
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| Actually, first on August 27, 1942, Germans issued an order prohibiting trains other than those carrying deported victims from stopping at Treblinka station. They wanted to keep the entire extermination process, as well as the existence of the death camps, secret. |
