Photos from Treblinka

	This is the site map of the Treblinka Camp. Treblinka is not actually in the town of Treblinka, but Poniatowo, a few kilometers away. Each camp got its name from the last stop on the rail line. In the case of Treblinka, "Treblinka" was the last stop. This was also the hardest camp to find, even though it is only a dozen or so kilometers outside of Lublin.
	This sign indicates the distances one has to walk to get to the sites in Treblinka. Walking from one end of the camp to the end and back is a little over 2.5 kilometers. Treblinka is a long, narrow site today.
	Most of the walk in Treblinka is along a wide, cobblestone path like this on through the woods, which leads to eventual clearings. The stones are very uneven, making for a painful walk.
	This wall symbolizes the original entrance to the Treblinka camp. Behind the concrete wall is the first clearing of the Treblinka camp. "Oboz Zaglady" means Extermination Camp in Polish.
	These are the recreations of the rail ties that used to run from the Treblinka stop through the camp. They are large, solid slabs of concrete.
	Like Sobibor and Belzec, Treblinka was completely dismantled and covered-up by the Nazis when they left. But unlike the other two camps, there are places in the woods where the basements of the buildings have become exposed (which makes walking the woods quite treacherous). Here, you can see the woods that formed the boundary of the camp.
	This is the monument at Treblinka. The monument itself covers many acres, and consists of randomized fields of stones, each symbolizing a community of Jews who were deported here. This gives the monument the feeling of a symbolic cemetery where there was none, as the bodies lay in so many mass graves in the woods. Some stones are very large, with the names of their communities on them, while others are very small--only hand-sized, with no marking whatsoever. In the center of these fields is the central monument. I enjoyed how this monument did not fix your experience of it, the way, say, the monument at Belzec did. The fields are large enough to allow you to wander them freely and at your own pace. This allows for a more personalized, reflective experience.
	This is the monument dedicated to Janusz Korczak, the leader of the Warsaw ghetto orphanage who was deported here in 1942 with all of his children. He had the option of staying behind in the Ghetto while his children went to Treblinka alone, but he stayed with them, so they would not be frightened. In the end, he went to the gas with all of his children.
	This is the slab with the most famous of holocaust catch-phrases: "Never Again" in Hebrew, Russian, English, French, German, and Polish.
	This is a shot of some of the stones from the shadow of the main monument.
	This is a close-up of the main monument at Treblinka.
	This is a place where the bodies were burned in the open on rail ties. It is memorialized today as this slab of igneous rock.
	This is a close-up of part of the monument.
	This is a good shot, showing both the large stones with names, and the little ones with nothing on them.
	Some of the stones are arranged on large slabs of concrete, while others simply lie on the grass. Here, between one of the seams, is a new wildflower. In many of the camps, there were images of this new life springing up from the ashes of death. In this way, nature proves that the Nazis could not utterly destroy her either.
	A better shot of the seams and the new life that grows between them.
	This is an old bomb shelter built by the Nazis.
	Rather than take the path that led back to the second part of the Treblinka camp, Wladek and I took the embankment to the left and made our way into the quarry where the Treblinka prisoners worked. When we made our way through the woods, we reached this clearing, looking out on the quarry itself.

	The stories of bone fragments and ashes still littering these camps is not a myth. As we made our way down the steep embankment to the quarry floor, I noticed this human bone, which was chewed at one end.
	This is the remains of the guard station overlooking the quarry floor.
	Most of the quarry floor has been covered by years of weather, but some parts of the granite floor still remain uncovered by foliage. In this quarry, prisoners were forced to work form dawn until dusk with no protection from the weather (hot or cold), and on less than one thousand calories a day (a body at rest expends 1500 calories in an eight hour period).
	Here was the remains of a guard tower.
	A close-up of the guard tower's walls.
	This was the well in the center of the quarry floor.
	This is a view of the quarry as it looks today from the observation point at the far end.
	After we rejoined the path, we saw some clearings, where the remains of some of the storage buildings could be seen.
	As the floors gave way, under the weight of earth, the basements became visible from the surface. This is a shot into the darkness below the surface of the ground.
	This shows why it is dangerous to walk the woods of Treblinka, as the highly stressed floors can give way under one's feet.
	These are some exposed steps leading down into a still-buried basement.
	This foundation has been cordoned off, so that visitors know to stay off the fragile floor.
	When the Nazis left Treblinka, they planted many trees, so as to try and refill the empty places they created in the heart of the forest. After sixty years, these trees have grown. But what is ironic is that the Nazis, always orderly and systematic, planted the trees in perfect rows. Here is a shot of the Nazis trees all in perfect rows. These patches of perfect rows exist at the edges of the otherwise randomized forest.
	At the far end of Treblinka, there are many symbolic grave markers, like this one. What is shocking to me is that every one of the markers was in the shape of a cross. Almost 100% of the victims murdered in the death camps at Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec were Jews.
	Here is a view of the end of Treblinka, showing a row of symbolic crosses.
	This wall marks the end of the Treblinka camp, where visitors and mourners place their stones of remembrance
	Beyond the Wall and the rows of crosses, lie the mass grave sites. They are indicated in the forest by the wooden railings that outline their boundaries. These mass graves litter the woods at the end of the camp, and as you can see, every one of the mass graves is topped with a cross.
	This is a shot to show how many mass graves were located in a relatively small area.
	A map of the site.
	A sign at the site.

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