TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter IV: The Alleged Extermination Facilities in Treblinka 113
scope of the work of the SS Administrator was subdivided into five groups, of
which Group C – Construction bore the responsibility for construction.
Finally, four SS and Police Chiefs, one for each district: Warsaw (Arpad
Wigand), Lublin (Odilo Globocnik), Radom (Carl-Albrecht Oberg), and Lemberg
(Fritz Katzmann) were under the Senior SS and Police Chief in the General
Gouvernement.
In November 1941, Amt II “Bauten” (Bureau II “Buildings”) of the Hauptamt
Haushalt und Bauten (HHB, Main Office Budget and Buildings) encompassed
seven construction inspection units of the Waffen-SS and Police with
the Senior SS and Police Chiefs. The jurisdiction over the General Gouvernement,
upon whose territory the camps of Be��ec, Sobibór, and Treblinka were
situated, was exercised by the Bauinspektion der Waffen-SS und Polizei Reich
Generalgouvernement (Construction Inspection of the Waffen-SS and Police
Reich General Gouvernement), which was composed of five Zentralbauleitungen
(Central Construction Offices) with nine Construction Offices of the
Waffen-SS and Police. The Construction Inspection Office had its seat in
Krakow, while the Central Construction Offices were located in Krakow,
Warsaw, Lublin, D�bica, and Lemberg (the last belonged administratively to
the General Gouvernement). 282 The Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS
and Police at Warsaw was thus subject to both the Construction Inspection
Office of the Waffen-SS and Police Reich General Gouvernement
and also to the SS Administrator at the Senior SS and Police Chief in the General
Gouvernement.
All construction work carried out in the General Gouvernement in the year
1942 followed normal bureaucratic practice, which appears to be as follows:
instructions from the Department Group C “Constructions” of the SS WVHA,
in correspondence with the directives of Reichsminister Speer, went through
the SS Administrator to the Central Construction Offices and Construction
Units, which were in charge with accomplishing the actual constructions.
Insofar as Treblinka was concerned, this practice is fully confirmed by the
single known document dealing with the construction of the camp. It is a work
certificate for June 1, 1942, about which the Polish judge Z. �ukaszkiewicz
reports the following: 283
“The witness Lucjan Pucha�a, railway technician, has produced a very
interesting document: a certification to begin work from the Central Construction
Office of the Waffen-SS and Police, issued on June 1, 1942. According
to the information in it, on this day the construction of a spur line,
which was supposed to lead from the branch line to the camp, was delegated
to him. This certificate is valid until the 15th of June 1942, [284] and
282 WAPL, 3, pp. 12, 24.
283 USSR-344. GARF, 7445-2-126, p. 320 (p. 3 of the report).
284 In the text “1945” appears by error.