Treblinka

Treblinka II was an extermination camp operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from July 1942 until its destruction by the Nazis themselves in October 1943. Designed explicitly for mass murder rather than forced labor, it processed transports from the Warsaw Ghetto and other points across occupied Europe, killing victims in gas chambers within hours of arrival. An estimated 900,000 Jews and approximately 2,000 Romani people were murdered there — the second-highest victim count of any Nazi extermination site after Auschwitz-Birkenau. Korczak, Stefania Wilczyńska, the Dom Sierot staff, and approximately 192 children from the orphanage were among those murdered on arrival, on or about August 6, 1942. The camp was dismantled after a prisoner uprising in August 1943; the Nazis attempted to erase the site, planting trees and building a farmhouse over the gas chamber foundations. Post-war investigations located and documented the site despite these efforts.