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- Xref: sparky alt.revisionism:622 soc.history:6684
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- Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
- Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Change in Command (Treblinka)
- Message-ID: <1992Jul26.120102.16052@oneb.almanac.bc.ca>
- From: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay)
- Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 12:01:02 GMT
- Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
- Followup-To: alt.revisionism
- Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
- Keywords: Eberl,Franz,Globocnic,Oberhauser,Stangl,Wirth
- Lines: 79
-
- 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
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
- --
- " It may have been the Propaganda Ministry that ... thought up the idea of
- forcing all Jews to wear a yellow star ... The marking was intended to hinder
- ... assistance to Jews who were being harassed. We wanted Germans to feel
- embarrassed, ... afraid of having any contact with Jews." [Adolf Eichmann]
-