The Reconstruction of Treblinka

The studies which have resulted in this report were begun several years ago. Having worked extensively as a professional in the use of aerial reconnaissance imagery, Alex Bay had long been interested in the questions concerning the Holocaust. Beginning in 1998, he began researching the available facts about the death camps. During this period, he came across the CIA study of Auschwitz by Brugioni, and upon reading this he decided that a thorough and modern analysis of all the death camps was called for. This was to include Auschwitz, Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. He soon came to realize that, despite the limited aerial photographic coverage, the task entailed much more time than he had anticipated. In part this was due to the difficulty of reconstructing events and physical plant, now 60 years in the past, using just a very few frames of aerial photography, secondary published sources, verbal testaments by victims and perpetrators, and a few scattered snapshots taken within the camp grounds. He  spent many hours trying to verify just a single fact. Much effort was spent on obtaining high quality copies of the photographs. To do this, he used the latest professional digital camera. Due to the increasing complexity of the project and personal time pressures, he  had to concentrate my efforts. Treblinka became the sole object of my research. Treblinka was chosen because it was the first camp he began to study, and the most familiar when he had to restrict the study to one camp at a time.

The Reconstruction of Belzec

Of the tragedies that played out at the three Action Reinhard camps, Belzec is the most mute. There are only two known survivors of Belzec to describe what they saw and experienced. One of the men, R. Reder, wrote a book published in Crakow in 1946. the second, named Chaim Herszman, was a witness before a Polish commission set up to investigate German war crimes. Herszmen had escaped from a train transporting him and last Jewish workers to Sobibor for execution Thet were being carried from from Belzec after the demolition of that camp. Hirszman lived to see the end of Nazism and had completed part of his deposition beore the Polish commission when it adjourned. He was to return the next day to complete his testimony. He never made it; he was murdered by Polish anti-Semites. Other first hand testimony exists from Polish and German Sources. The former were very restricted in the time and place they had to observe. The latter suffer from the obvious interest they had had in limiting their culpability.

February 2008

February 25, 2008. Added Crematorium capacity to Quick Facts on the Holocaust page

February 12, 2008. Added The Reconstruction of Belzec , an aerial photographic reconstruction of the Belzec Death Camp by Alex Bay.

June 2003

June 10, 2003. Added The Reconstruction of Treblinka , an aerial photographic reconstruction of the Treblinka Death Camp by Alex Bay.