Treblinka was a Nazi labor camp and death camp, located about 62 miles northeast of Warsaw, Poland. Starting in July 1942, approximately 870,000 people were killed in Treblinka's three large carbon monoxide gas chambers and buried in its massive burial pits. These people came mostly from Poland, Austria, Slovakia, and Yugoslavian Macedonia. Paula's sisters were deported to Treblinka from the Ostrowiec Ghetto.
On August 2, 1943, Jewish prisoners carried out a rebellion at Treblinka. The prisoners shot an SS officer and some Ukrainian guards, and set much of the camp on fire before the authorities regained control. Most of the 750 prisoners who tried to escape during this revolt were killed or recaptured. The SS forced the surviving inmates at Treblinka to dismantle the camp and remove all traces of the killing operations that had occurred there. Ultimately, the SS murdered these prisoners, and settled a Ukrainian family on the site to farm the land.
