Umschlagplatz (Warsaw) - Deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka

**BullandHaynes** · 03-19-2014, 11:44 AM

The Umschlagplatz in Warsaw was the collection point and deportation point for Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Operation Reinhard Death Camp Treblinka.

It was situated on part of an exisiting freight train station which sat directly next to the ghetto. The area was fenced off and a wall was also built around it and some of the nearby buildings were used as a place for selection.

The Umschlagplatz square was split into two parts, one for gathering together the Jews for deportation and one for loading the Jews onto the trains destined for Treblinka.

It is estimated that over 300.000 Jews were deported from this place to Treblinka, a small village north east of Warsaw where the Treblinka Death camp had been constructed for the sole purpose of murdering the Jews.

It is estimated that over 800,000 men, woman and children, mainly Jews, were murdered at the Treblinka camp during its operation between July 1942 - October 1943.

Warsaw is a very different looking place now than it was during this period. It was more or less completely flattened during the war and re-built in a typically communistic fashion. The old town, however, was re-built to its original state and is a beautiful place to visit.

Among the grey Communist style flats and buidings of Warsaw a small amount of evidence can be found of the ghetto including fragments of ghetto wall and some memorials. There is no evidence of the original Umschlagplatz square or even railway lines but there is a memorial at the location which was erected on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the ghetto uprising of April 19th 1943.

Its a place worth visiting to reflect on the atrocities that happened in its place but to truly pay respect and to reflect on the Holocaust in general i would highly recommend the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw of which i will also create a post for.

Please feel free to ask any questions regarding these places.

**douglas2496** · 03-19-2014, 12:21 PM

I have been there aswell and its a very moving place to visit.

**CARL** · 03-19-2014, 02:43 PM

Additional view

(credit-wiki.pl)

**BullandHaynes** · 03-19-2014, 03:03 PM

by CARL88

Additional view

(credit-wiki.pl)

I believe it's suppose to represent a train with the door open.

**StefanM** · 03-19-2014, 03:27 PM

It should be noted that predominantly only the main façades of the buildings on Stare Miasto (Old Town) of Warszawa were rebuilt and restored after the war. Many of the apartment blocks did not have the courtyard wings rebuilt behind the façades. I believe also many of the rooflines of the buildings in Stare Miasto were rebuilt with a more consistent height than the pre-war buildings had originally. Archikatedra św. Jana w Warszawie was rebuilt in 14th century Masovian Gothic style rather than its 19th century English Gothic Revival style of pre-WWII.

It is also worth remembering that the Roma and Sinti gypsies of the Warsaw ghetto also walked the road to the umschlagplatz although there is no memorial to them.

**SteveR** · 03-19-2014, 04:24 PM

The misery, fear and death these places represent is mind numbing . Yet today their are irritating, ignorant, brain dead a$$holes that maintain these things never happened despite the overwhelming evidence. They blame Jews for the ills of the world. They say all of the wars are the responsibility of the Jews. They claim Jews are responsible for aids. The idiot racist $hit that they claim is the same bullcrap that the Nazis spread adding on other ridiculous idiotic crap.

As military historians it is our responsibility to disprove their foul, evil, lying $hit by educating ourselves and others with the facts. Know about the units of einsatzgruppen, the work and death camps, the numbers of lost souls murdered in the death camps. The units of the einsatzgruppen kept meticulous records educate yourselves with these facts. The neo-Nazis today will argue that historical fact is just Jewish propaganda. We know different.
Stand tall and stand firm when confronted with these morons and prove them to be the mindless idiots that they are.
Rant over
I feel better now.

**StefanM** · 03-19-2014, 04:48 PM

Below is a section of a 1915 German map of "Warschau" which shows the "Juden Viertel" or "Jewish Quarter" of the city with the rail tracks that would 26 years later lead to the "Umschlagplatz" on Stawki ul. and the Jewish Ghetto set up by the German's in occupied Warsaw.

This densely populated area of Warszawa was always known to Varsovians as the "Jewish Quarter". However there were no restrictions of where Jews could live in the city. The "Jewish Quarter" was very much a working class area and full of artisan workshops and traders. Wealthier Varsovian Jews and those from the professional classes lived on Sienna ul. and similar more "upmarket" addresses.

Umschlagplatz (Warsaw) - Deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka

Below is a section of a 1941 German map of "Warschau" which shows the Jewish Ghetto or "Jüdischer Wohnbezirk (Jewish residential district)" as the ghetto was officially called by the Germans. The rail tracks that would lead to the "Umschlagplatz" on Stawki ul. are also in the top left of the map section. The rail links would be expanded to meet the demands of the mass deportations.

Apologies for the iPad quality photos of the maps!

**StefanM** · 03-19-2014, 05:51 PM

by SteveR

The misery, fear and death these places represent is mind numbing . Yet today their are irritating, ignorant, brain dead a$$holes that maintain these things never happened despite the overwhelming evidence. They blame Jews for the ills of the world. They say all of the wars are the responsibility of the Jews. They claim Jews are responsible for aids. The idiot racist $hit that they claim is the same bullcrap that the Nazis spread adding on other ridiculous idiotic crap.

As military historians it is our responsibility to disprove their foul, evil, lying $hit by educating ourselves and others with the facts. Know about the units of einsatzgruppen, the work and death camps, the numbers of lost souls murdered in the death camps. The units of the einsatzgruppen kept meticulous records educate yourselves with these facts. The neo-Nazis today will argue that historical fact is just Jewish propaganda. We know different.
Stand tall and stand firm when confronted with these morons and prove them to be the mindless idiots that they are.
Rant over
I feel better now.

Of course what you say is 100% correct.

But part of the problem is actually getting to all of the facts. There was so much "make believe" propaganda and heavily reconstructed images produced by the Soviets surrounding the former Nazi camps—which were mainly to be found in post-war Soviet occupied territories—that this has muddied the waters for historians ever since. For example, every memoir or report published in Poland (where the death camps ended up being located post-war) was either censored by the communist regime or self-censored by the authors to get a work published in the first place and/orhad to have a socialist bias for it to be accepted as "official history". Even today many Russian archives are not open to "outside" researchers and will probably never be open...and how much material has already been "weeded" by the former communist regime no one will ever know. Testimonies toed the party line and the facts had to fit what the party propagandists wanted to convey.

The US liberators of KL Dachau initially reported gas chambers at the camp were used for mass extermination of prisoners, but this was false. The gas chambers at KL Dachau were never used for this purpose. Every such erroneous report is seized on by those that wish to deny the rest of the overwhelming evidence and truth. However it is often very difficult to test the accepted facts in light of the post-war propaganda without being cast into the pit with those that deny everything.

In our recent book about Pilecki's report from KL Auschwitz, he mentions crematorium furnaces powered by electricity but there is no post-war evidence of this. Does this mean everything he wrote is discredited because there is no evidence of electric powered furnaces to be found today? How do we know if such an electric powered furnace was not tested or used at Auschwitz at some point? We do not with any certainty. There are many early-post war accounts of people being murdered in "the camps" by electrocution on metal conveyor belts for which there is no hard evidence. Were these just rumours, propaganda stories, lies? Whatever and wherever the questions take us, the answers should not stop us keeping an objective and open mind. Every victim and every survivor deserves that we do.

...my rant over... too much work avoidance today