TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter III: Investigations, Camp Plans, Statistics 89
graves, at the same density, would have been able to hold at most 3,000 bodies.
On the other hand, �ukaszkiewicz carelessly wrote in his report of December
29, 1945, that 213
“in this camp [Treblinka I] approximately 50,000 Poles and Jews were
killed.”
One further question suggests itself: Who were the dead in Treblinka I? It
is known with certainty that a typhus epidemic was raging in that camp in the
fall of 1943. In fact, a list was kept with the names of 148 prisoners, most of
whom had succumbed to this illness from November 12 to December 20,
1943. 214 The epidemic had broken out some months before, and for this reason
a car with 11 tons of calcium hypochlorite was sent to Treblinka I on September
20 from the concentration camp at Lublin (Majdanek), which obviously
was to be scattered on the layers of bodies. 215
Since around 10,000 prisoners were interned in Treblinka I during the time
of its existence, 216 one can assume that the mass graves uncovered by the Soviets
and Poles contained the bodies of all – or nearly all – who died there.
That is, further graves or traces of mass cremations were not found.
3. Assessment of the Investigations
In her previously cited report, Rachel Auerbach spoke pompously of
“physical evidence” and “corpora delicti.” But in fact neither the Soviets nor
the Poles uncovered even the slightest scrap of proof that Treblinka II operated
as an extermination camp. The Soviets, in their report of August 24, 1944
– cited in section 1 of this chapter – were compelled to make the following
admission:
“At the present it is difficult to uncover the traces and secrets of this
oven for the cremation of people, but based upon the available data, one
can picture it.”
Even the investigations performed by �ukaszkiewicz proved to be a complete
failure in terms of this central question. He arranged excavation at a
definite spot in the camp where, according to the witness S. Rajzman, a mass
grave was located, but discovered nothing of the kind. He had trenches dug,
10 to 15 m long and 1.5 m deep, at the places where, according to witnesses,
the two alleged gassing buildings had stood, yet merely encountered “undisturbed
layers of earth.” To be sure, he did find skulls, but without gunshot
wounds. All the evidence he examined (coins, documents, rags, containers,
213
USSR-344. GARF, 7445-2-126.
214
Reproduction of the document in S. Wojtczak, op. cit. (note 61), pp. 159-164.
215
J. Gumkowski, A. Rutkowski, Treblinka, op. cit. (note 78), reproduction on unnumbered
page.
216
Informator encyclopedyczny, op. cit. (note 65), p. 528.