Treblinka – Between Memory and Responsibility
Albert Stankowski
Historian, Deputy Director of the Treblinka Museum
Working at Treblinka, one quickly comes to understand that there are no purely technical decisions here. Even matters such as a road, a commemorative plaque, the route of a pathway, or the wording of an exhibition panel concern the memory of those who were murdered. For this reason, every change requires caution, verification of sources, and dialogue with those for whom this place holds deep personal significance.
In public debate, Treblinka often appears in the context of controversies. This is common for sites of memory. They confront some of the most difficult issues: death, responsibility, guilt, mourning, and the ways in which the past should be commemorated. Yet in such discussions, it is easy to overlook the Museum’s everyday work: conducting research, preserving relics, guiding visitors, preparing exhibitions, organising documentation, and seeking solutions that will help protect this place.
The starting point remains Treblinka II. Approximately 900,000 Jews deported from occupied Poland and many other European countries were murdered in the German Nazi extermination camp. It was one of the principal centres of the Holocaust within the framework of Operation Reinhardt. This history forms the core of the Museum’s mission and must never be overshadowed by any other narrative.
At the same time, the Treblinka Museum also encompasses the area of the former Treblinka I Labour Camp, the Execution Site, the Gravel Pit, the Black Road, and the forests that still bear traces of German terror. Thousands of people were imprisoned and subjected to slave labour in Treblinka I. Jews, Poles, Roma, Sinti, and members of other groups persecuted by the Germans lost their lives there. Post-war investigations indicated that approximately 10,000 victims may be buried within areas associated with the labour camp. This chapter of history must not be neglected either.
One of the most important initiatives currently underway is the Wall of Names, whose scholarly and historical content is overseen by the Treblinka Memory Foundation. The project is based on many years of research conducted in Polish, Israeli, German, and American archives. As a result, tens of thousands of names of victims connected with Treblinka have been identified. The list is not complete and will probably never be so; nevertheless, every name that can be established matters. Each one restores an individual identity where the perpetrators sought to leave only an anonymous number.
The Wall of Names forms part of a long tradition of commemorating Treblinka by survivors, victims’ families, and Jewish organisations. It is worth recalling the efforts of Benjamin Majerczak, Secretary General of the Association of Polish Jews in Israel, who in the 1990s advocated for the symbolic cemetery at Treblinka II to be supplemented with additional town and city names. He emphasised that, for many Jewish communities annihilated during the war, a stone at Treblinka might be the only material trace of their existence. This serves as an important reminder that the commemorative landscape of Treblinka was shaped over decades and was co-created by Jewish communities and organisations.
A separate challenge concerns the Execution Site adjacent to the former Treblinka I Labour Camp. For many years, individual memorial markers placed there by relatives of the murdered have remained part of the landscape. For many families, these were the first—and sometimes the only—places where they could symbolically commemorate their loved ones. At the same time, the Museum maintains that an appropriate form of commemoration must also be found for the Jewish victims buried at this site. Discussions on this matter have continued for years, and it now appears that the time has come for concrete solutions.
Considerable attention is also devoted to the Black Road. The Museum covers more than 136 hectares, of which approximately 104 hectares are forest. The Black Road is the only hardened route connecting Treblinka II with the former Treblinka I Labour Camp, located about 2.5 kilometres away. Along a stretch of approximately 1,500 metres, around one hundred fragments of Jewish matzevot (gravestones) have been identified, fundamentally changing the way this road is understood. It is no longer merely a communication route but also testimony to the destruction of Jewish cemeteries and the use of gravestones by the Germans as construction material. In 2024, following a recommendation by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, the Black Road was closed to motor vehicle traffic. The matzevah fragments were secured, and a temporary pedestrian route was designated for visitors. At the same time, work began on an alternative access route that would reconcile the protection of relics, fire safety requirements, and visitor access.
At the same time, the largest investment project in the history of the Treblinka Museum is being carried out. In 2021, with the support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland and the Mazovian Voivodeship Self-Government, an architectural competition was announced for a new exhibition and educational building. Out of 31 submitted designs, the winning concept was that of the Warsaw-based architectural practice Bujnowski Architekci.
The building, which is now nearing completion, will provide more than 2,100 square metres of usable space, including over 720 square metres of exhibition galleries and more than 300 square metres dedicated to education and public events. It will be capable of accommodating approximately 200 participants simultaneously.
Currently, in cooperation with the Jewish Historical Institute, intensive work is underway on the permanent exhibition. The opening of the new building is planned for 2027. The exhibition is intended to present the history of Treblinka in a broader and more accessible way. We aim to tell the story of pre-war Jewish communities, deportations, the machinery of the Holocaust, the history of the Treblinka I Labour Camp, post-war commemoration, and contemporary research. The objective is not merely to describe a place of death. It is equally important to remember the lives of the people and communities that were destroyed.
For a historian, it is also important to speak about the limits of knowledge. Not every name can be established, not all human remains can be attributed to a specific nationality or faith, and not every trace can be interpreted with certainty. Honesty towards the past also means clearly acknowledging what we know, what we do not know, and what must not be assumed without evidence.
This is why research, the protection of relics, the new exhibition, the Wall of Names, the work concerning the Black Road, and the discussions surrounding the Execution Site are all so important today. They are not separate projects but different aspects of the same undertaking: preserving the fullest possible truth about the people murdered at Treblinka. The task is not simply to protect the grounds of the former camps. It is to preserve names, traces, documents, and the memory of individual human beings.