Treblinka: Memory Must Not Be Oversimplified
Albert Stankowski
In September 1947, the teacher Feliks Szturo came to the site of Treblinka I (the so-called Execution Site) with pupils in the fifth year at the primary school in Prostyń. Human bones lay exposed on the ground. The children collected them and placed them together in one spot. The bones were gathered into a grave, over which a wooden cross was erected. One of those who took part in these events, Barbara Kadaj, later described the remains she had gathered as a twelve-year-old girl together with her classmates. Today, it is easy to look at this cross primarily as a religious symbol, especially when we discuss how different groups of victims should be commemorated. In 1947, however, it was above all a clear sign that this was a grave – a burial place. It told people that human remains lay beneath the ground and that the earth should not be disturbed. This mattered because, in the first years after the war, the former camp sites were not properly protected and graves were dug up in the search for gold and valuables. The cross was not a physical barrier, but it gave the place the unambiguous character of a grave and appealed to a powerful social and religious prohibition against disturbing a burial site. We do not know whether Feliks Szturo erected it with precisely that intention. What we do know is what the children did: they gathered the scattered bones, placed them together and marked the grave with a cross. I return to this story because it illustrates very well a problem that also appears in today’s debate about Treblinka. We look at earlier forms of commemoration through the lens of our present-day knowledge and sensibilities. There is nothing wrong with that. We simply need to remember the circumstances in which those forms of commemoration came into being.
I read with close attention Professor Havi Dreifuss’s article, published in Haaretz on 30 September 2026. It is difficult to disagree with her conviction that the narrative of Treblinka must be based on sources. If new research shows that the earlier picture was incomplete, it must be corrected. If a particular group of victims has for years been insufficiently visible, that must change. What I do not find persuasive, however, is the presentation of this debate as though scholarship and sources stood on one side and a Polish historical narrative on the other. At Treblinka, matters are rarely so simple. The name itself requires explanation. Many readers are unaware that there were two separate German camps here, almost three kilometres apart, and that each now has its own memorial site. Treblinka I was not an extermination camp. Its history is connected with the pre-war gravel pit situated between Maliszewa, Poniatowo and Wólka Okrąglik. The Germans used the material extracted there, among other things, for road construction, and the need to obtain cheap labour was one of the reasons for establishing the camp. The camp was created in late summer 1941, and its operation was formally sanctioned by Ludwig Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw District, in an ordinance of 15 November 1941, made retroactive to 1 September. Treblinka I was not established as a camp intended exclusively for Poles, although in the initial period they constituted the majority of prisoners. The German occupation authorities used it primarily as an instrument of repression against the local population of the Warsaw District, initially especially the inhabitants of the Sokołów and Węgrów counties. Those sent there included farmers who failed to meet compulsory delivery quotas, people evading labour, those detained for breaking curfew, people suspected of helping Soviet prisoners of war, and those who resisted the occupation administration. Jews were present in Treblinka I from the beginning, initially mainly as craftsmen from nearby towns and villages, and their number increased considerably from the summer of 1942.
A few kilometres away, the Germans established Treblinka II – an extermination camp and one of the principal centres of Operation Reinhardt. Its purpose was the mass murder of Jews. At least 800,000 Jews were murdered there, primarily citizens of pre-war Poland, but also people deported from other European countries. Roma and Sinti were also among the victims. They too must be remembered, without losing sight of the fundamental character of Treblinka II as a site of the Holocaust, created for the mass murder of Jews. It is also necessary to state clearly who created and operated this system. It was created by the Nazi German authorities, above all the SS and the police. Austrians also served within its structures and took part in organising and operating the camp. Deportations, transports and mass murder were not the work of an impersonal ‘machine’. Behind this system stood specific individuals acting on behalf of the Third Reich and implementing its policies. They created the conditions in which the victims, witnesses and people living around both camps found themselves.
Treblinka I has a different history. Recent research by Dr Michał Kowalski suggests that the Jewish presence in the labour camp was greater than earlier accounts indicated. In my view, this should also be made more visible at the Execution Site, because the commemoration of Jewish victims there was for many years insufficiently visible. There is, however, a boundary that we as historians should not cross. We know the estimated number of around 10,000 people buried or murdered at the Execution Site, but we do not have sources that would allow us to say reliably what proportion of these victims were Poles, what proportion were Jews, and what proportion were Roma and Sinti. The crosses located there must be viewed in the same way. The principal memorial, designed by Professor Franciszek Strynkiewicz, was unveiled on 10 May 1964. The mass graves were marked by 112 concrete crosses, with a further 12 placed beside individual graves. Additional memorial markers appeared later, and according to a Museum study there were 140 crosses at the Execution Site in 2015. On many of them, families placed plaques bearing the names of those murdered. Today, we know the names of 296 Poles and four people of Jewish origin buried at this site. These figures, however, tell us nothing certain about the proportions of all the victims and must not be used in that way. They do, however, tell us something about individual people. On 2 March 1942, the Germans shot around one hundred prisoners near Treblinka I who had been brought from Pawiak Prison and Szucha Avenue. They included political activists, military officers, teachers and members of the intelligentsia: the former MP Stanisław Ratajczyk, General Edward Szpakowski, Lieutenant-Colonel Wacław Boguszewski, the educational activist Jędrzej Cierniak, and the poet and literary critic Stefan Essmanowski. There is also a cross commemorating Hania Zaleska, a fourteen-year-old girl murdered during the liquidation of the camp. I see no contradiction between preserving the memory of these people and the need for a much more visible commemoration of the Jewish victims. Rather, we should find a way together to ensure that one does not come at the expense of the other.
The Black Road reveals a similar problem from another perspective. It was built from the summer of 1942 onwards and connected the two camps. It was constructed by prisoners of the Wegebau work detail – Polish paving workers and Jewish assistants. The German camp authorities used not only stones in its construction, but also fragments of matzevot taken from Jewish cemeteries. This was therefore not merely ordinary building material, but also a material trace of desecration carried out under the German occupation. When research revealed the extent to which gravestones had been used, the Museum took steps to protect the site. Along a stretch of approximately one and a half kilometres, around one hundred fragments of matzevot were identified. Motor traffic was halted, the fragments were secured, a temporary pedestrian route was designated for visitors, and work began at the same time on an alternative route between the two sites. Today, therefore, the Black Road is not only a road but also material evidence of the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. The problem is that it remains the only paved connection between Treblinka II and Treblinka I. A young person can walk several kilometres without much difficulty. For an eighty-year-old son or daughter of someone murdered at Treblinka I, the same distance may mean that they cannot reach the place where their father or mother died. Protecting the matzevot is essential, but older people and people with disabilities must not be forgotten either. There is no easy answer here. A solution must be found that takes both problems into account.
Responsibility for the creation of both camps, as well as for the system of repression, the deportations and the crimes committed there, rests with the Nazi German authorities and officials of the apparatus of the Third Reich, including Austrians. This is the point of departure and it should not be allowed to disappear from view. It does not, however, relieve us of the obligation to speak honestly about the behaviour of people who lived around Treblinka. Some exploited the tragedy of the deportees, demanded enormous sums of money for water, denounced people and handed escapees over to the authorities. There were also people who helped Jews, knowing what consequences this could have for themselves and their families. The point is not to set one kind of conduct against the other or to construct a balance sheet. What matters more to me is how a particular person behaved at a particular moment. This is why the story of Jan Maletka, a twenty-one-year-old Polish railway worker from Mińsk Mazowiecki, deserves attention. The German authorities assigned him to railway work in the Małkinia and Treblinka area. Together with his brother Stanisław and his colleague Remigiusz Pawłowicz, he worked, among other things, on the tracks and on trains carrying aggregate from the gravel pit. On 20 August 1942, he was shot by the Germans at Treblinka station. We do not know with complete certainty the circumstances of his death. His death certificate does not state why he was shot, and some accounts were recorded only many years later. There are, however, testimonies concerning a railway worker killed by the Germans for attempting to give water to Jews confined in railway wagons. Adam Helfand, a Jew deported from Kielce, described a man who approached a transport with water and was shot by a German. He did not know the man’s name. This is important testimony, but on its own it does not provide sufficient grounds for stating without qualification that the man was Maletka. And this is precisely how we should speak about it: we should not add what the sources do not establish, but neither should we dismiss a testimony simply because it does not provide a complete answer.
This brings us to something that is particularly important to me in this debate. As a historian, I want first and foremost to know what we can genuinely confirm from the sources and what we cannot. But working in a museum, I also see another side to the matter. Young people should understand, above all, who created the system of extermination, who organised the deportations and who carried out the murders. They should know how the Nazi German apparatus of power and terror functioned. Only against that background can we speak honestly about the conduct of people who found themselves around that system – those who exploited the suffering of others, remained indifferent, or tried to help. A young person coming to Treblinka is not, after all, looking only for dates, numbers or names. They are also trying to understand people and their choices. This is why stories of help are worth presenting. Not in order to counterbalance evil with good examples or to soften the image of the Holocaust, but to show that even in an extreme situation a human being still faced a choice. For me, this is precisely where historical knowledge meets education. A museum is not merely a place for transmitting facts. It should also encourage a young person to reflect on their own responsibility in the face of another person’s suffering. I do not want to give them a ready-made answer. I would, however, like a visit to Treblinka to prompt them to ask themselves that question.
There is also the dispute over Jedwabne and Radziłów. Most of the Jews from these towns were not murdered in Treblinka. In 1941, crimes were committed there in which Polish neighbours also took part. There is no reason to soften this fact. It should, however, be remembered that these crimes took place under German occupation and within a reality created by the Nazi state; this does not alter the responsibility of the individuals who took part, but it does preserve the proper historical context. The history of the stones bearing the names of these towns is also a fact, and it is worth knowing. In 1993, Benjamin Majerczak, Secretary-General of the Association of Polish Jews in Israel, requested that additional names be added. The following year, the creators of the memorial, Adam Haupt and Franciszek Duszeńko, agreed. Majerczak’s later correspondence shows that the supplementary list was prepared on the basis of works by Yitzhak Arad and Martin Gilbert and was verified at the Jewish Historical Institute. Arad was a Holocaust survivor, a Jewish partisan, an Israeli historian and long-serving chairman of Yad Vashem, as well as one of the most important scholars of Operation Reinhardt. Sir Martin Gilbert was one of the best-known British historians of the twentieth century, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and the author of numerous works on the Holocaust, Jewish history and the Second World War. I mention these names not to suggest that findings from thirty years ago are untouchable. Of course they are not. What matters, however, is why these stones appeared in the first place. Majerczak intended them to commemorate destroyed Jewish communities, and it was precisely for that reason that in the 1990s he sought the addition of further towns. The stones were therefore not intended solely as a list of places from which transports went directly to Treblinka. They also had a symbolic meaning. Some Jews who fled Jedwabne and Radziłów for other ghettos were later deported to Treblinka and murdered there. This does not change the fact that most of the Jewish inhabitants of these towns were not murdered in Treblinka. It does, however, show that the fate of these communities is more complex than the question of whether a direct transport left a particular town for the camp. For that reason, I am not convinced that the best solution today is to remove further place names from the stones.
On one fundamental point, I agree with Professor Dreifuss: Treblinka should not belong to any national narrative. Treblinka II must be presented first and foremost as a site of the Holocaust and as a killing centre created for the mass murder of Jews, while also remembering the Roma and Sinti murdered there. Treblinka I requires all groups of prisoners and victims to be represented. In both cases, however, we must speak just as clearly about the perpetrators. These camps did not come into being by themselves. They were created by the Nazi German state and its apparatus of terror, in which Austrians and members of other formations subordinate to it also served. It was this apparatus that created the system of violence, forced labour, deportation and mass murder. Only against this background can we properly tell the stories of victims and witnesses, and speak about help, indifference and denunciation.
Working at the Treblinka Memorial, I have learnt that history does not always provide unequivocal answers. Sometimes we simply have to say: we do not know. The same is true of memory. Before we remove or change something, it is worth first understanding why it was placed in that particular location and what it meant to those who placed it there. At Treblinka, it is especially important not to replace a complex history with simple answers.