Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Change in Command (Treblinka) Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Eberl,Franz,Globocnic,Oberhauser,Stangl,Wirth Archive/File: camps/aktion.reinhard/treblinka treblinka.gas3 Last-Modified: 1994/02/11 As you will recall from yesterday's article, things at Treblinka had gotten out of hand. After Himmler ordered that all Jews in the Central Government area were to be exterminated by the end of December 1942 (I need documentation for this order - if you can provide it, please contact kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca.), drastic steps had to be taken to regain control. At the same time, SS officials saw clearly that the present method of gassing the victims was inefficient, and began seeking alternatives to the diesel exhaust they had been using to suffocate the Jews. The first step was the appointment of Christian Wirth (ironic, isn't it?) as Inspector of the camps at Belzec and Sobibor, as well as Treblinka. He had just completed rebuilding the gas chambers at Belzec... "The first problem Wirth had to deal with ...was the chaotic situation at Treblinka. In the last week of August, 1942, Globocnik and Christian Wirth visited Treblinka. Josef Oberhauser, Wirth's assistant, who accompanied him to Treblinka, testified: In Treblinka everything was in a state of collapse. The camp was overstocked. Outside the camp, a train with deportees was unable to be unloaded as there was simply no more room. Many corpses of Jews were lying inside the camp. These corpses were already bloated. Particularly I can remember seeing many corpses in the vicinity of the fence. These people were shot from the guard towers. I heard then in Treblinka how Globocnik and Wirth summed up the following: Wirth would remain in Treblinka for the time being. Dr. Eberl would be dismissed immediately. In his place, Stangl would come to Treblinka from Sobibor as commander. Globocnik said in this conversation that if Dr. Eberl were not his fellow countryman, he would arrest him and bring him before an SS and police court." <1> I find it noteworthy that Globocnik, a mass murderer of epic proportions, would make this comment regarding the inept Dr. Eberl not because he was murdering Jews, but because he was murdering them inefficiently and leaving the evidence lying around in the sun for the world to see. The Nazis, however, were a particularly disgusting lot, and quite accustomed to the grisly scenes before them. SS Oberscharfuhrer Kurt Franz, Stangl's assistant, described his arrival at Treblinka and then casually adds that he reported to his superiors in the dining room: "It was late summer or the beginning of autumn 1942, when I came from Belzec to Treblinka. ...when I arrived it was already dark. Everywhere in the camp there were corpses. I remember that these corpses were already bloated. The corpses were dragged through the camp by working Jews ... These working Jews were driven by the guardsmen [Ukrainians] and also by Germans... I reported to Wirth in the dining room. As I remember, Wirth, Stangl, and Oberhauser were there..." <2> It is not difficult to understand how things got out of hand for the unfortunate Dr. Eberl, who had managed to murder a quarter of a million people in the first six weeks of his command. After a brief period, during which Stangl and Wirth managed to clean up the untidy mess left behind by Eberl, transports to Treblinka, which had been halted, resumed on September 3, 1942. The liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto could be postponed no longer.... <1> Yad Vashem Archives, TR-10/1069, Band 10, p. 1040 <2> (As Above), Band 8, p. 1493 Quotes Excerpted from....--------------------------------------- BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7 ----------------------------------------------------------------
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