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The concentration camps in Poland

Felix Dalberger has been traveling to six concentration camps in Poland. Including his return trip to The Netherlands it lasted seven days and he recorded 3.500 kilometers (about 2.200 miles). He made the round trip in Poland through Auschwitz (Birkenau), Majdanek, Sobibor en Treblinka. Thereafter he also visited two more, less renown, camps - Chelmo and Belzec -. His report follows here.

Treblinka

Treblinka is situated in North-East Poland. Nothing remains of the original camp. It is a place with many monuments in the woods. Many people from South East Europe were deported to this place and murdered here. 800.000 dead in a year! The picture shows the track running from West to East, just like it was in those days. On the photograph to the right you see a sign indicating that access is denied. The track through the woods is the original side track of the railway into the camp. The trail is still there, the rails have been removed.

Sobibor

Sobibor Sobibor is situated in the extreme East just about at the Ukrainian border. As you can see, nothing much is left of it. The platform is in the original situation. The yellow house is the original railway station and it is there where the people arriving were addressed by the camp commander. The camp was situated on the other side of of the railway station and the tracks. All that remains is an open space in the woods. 250.000 dead, amongst whom were many Dutch. In this camp a revolution broke out, against the German guards.

Majdanek

Majdanek is not so well known in The Netherlands as most of the Dutch victims were transported to Auschwitz and Sobibor. Majdanek is situated near the city of Lublin in Eastern Poland. The picture of the room with the shower heads is not the gas chamber. This is the room where the people were actually showered and disinfected. In the camp itself you will be able to see the gas chambers and the crematorium. It is difficult to describe what it looks like; it is too bizarre but the cruel truth.

Birkenau

Birkenau (Brezinska in Polish) or Auschwitz 2 is about three kilometers away from camp 1. In camp 2 there were in total 4 gas chambers and crematoriums. These were deliberately demolished by the end of the war. The remains are shown in the picture. There is also an impressive pond in which the ashes of the crematoriums 4 and 5 were dumped. This is where the ashes lay of the numerous victims of Auschwitz 2. The numbering of the gas chambers continued from camp 1 to camp 2. In Auschwitz 1 you will find Birkenau gas chamber and crematorium number 1 and in Auschwitz 2 are numbers 2,3,4 and 5.

Belzec

Belzec Belzec is situated in the extreme South east of Poland, not too far from the Ukrainian border. Belzec is a very small village, a hole in the wall. This was the small camp where especially Christian Wirth conducted his experiments on, mainly, Jewish prisoners. On the picture you will see on the right, the Polish monument with the text. The picture below has been taken in the original camp of which almost nothing remains. It is only “a spot in the woods.” The last picture shows the railway station of Belzec where the trains, packed with the deported persons, arrived.

Belzec #2 Belzec #3

Chelmno

Chelmno Kasteel Chelmno is situated on the River Ner at about 60 to 70 kilometers (30 - 40 miles) from Lodz in Poland. This is the camp where people were killed by means of carbon monoxide in trucks. The camp was in action in two different periods. The so called ‘Church period’ and the ‘Castle period’. People were gathered in respectively the local church and in the courtyard of the castle. The church is still there. The castle (on the right hand picture) is mainly gone.

Chelmno The church and the castle are close to each other in the village of Chelmno (Kulmhof in German). The people were loaded in front of the church and in the other period in front of the castle. The crematorium building (remains are to be seen on the picture right) was a few miles further on in the woods and could be obtained by a narrow road. The speed of the trucks was such that at the end of the trip all occupants were dead on arrival.

Chelmno The third picture in the left hand below shows the entrance of the crematorium building at present where the plaque has been placed. The picture on the right hand below shows the bridge across the River Ner where the Germans dumped the larger proportion of the ashes.

Chelmno Chelmno

Pictures: Felix Dalberger
Editors: Felix Dalberger & Jeroen Koppes

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