In order to facilitate the smooth processing of special resettlement trains (Umsiedlersonderzüge), the Treblinka station will be closed to public passenger traffic from September 1, 1942, until further notice.

 General Directorate of the Eastern Railway (Generaldirektion der  Ostbahn)

Krakow, August 27, 1942

Timetable Order No. 245 (Fahrplananordnung Nr 245)

In order to facilitate the smooth processing of special resettlement trains (Umsiedlersonderzüge), the Treblinka station will be closed to public passenger traffic from September 1, 1942, until further notice.

From this point forward, passenger trains P 1570, 1573, 1574, and 1577 will pass through Treblinka without stopping. For trains P 1570, 1574, and 1577, the previous departure times will now apply as pass-through times.

Historical Commentary: This German railway document from August 27, 1942, was issued in the very midst of the Great Deportation Action in the Warsaw Ghetto. Beneath the bureaucratic euphemism of "special resettlement trains" (Umsiedlersonderzüge) lay transports carrying hundreds of thousands of human beings—including Janusz Korczak, Stefania Wilczyńska, and the children from Krochmalna Street, as well as my grandparents Helena and Gabriel Rozental—to their immediate death in the gas chambers.

The occupation authorities' decision to completely close the Treblinka station to public passenger traffic and order all other trains to pass through without stopping was driven by two factors. First, the Germans sought to cut off accidental witnesses from the horrific sight and agonizing screams of the people trapped inside the boxcars. Second, it was meant to abruptly halt the illicit trade of water, for which certain locals demanded that the Jews, dying of thirst, pay in gold, jewelry, and foreign currency. This railway instruction stands as a cold, administrative record of isolating a site of mass extermination.

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