Operation Reinhard (also known as Aktion Reinhard) authorities chose the site for the Treblinka killing center in a sparsely populated area near the villages of Treblinka and Malkinia. Malkinia was located on the main Warsaw-Bialystok rail line, about 50 miles northeast of Warsaw, in the Generalgouvernement (that part of German-occupied Poland not directly annexed to Germany, attached to German East Prussia, or incorporated into the German-occupied Soviet Union).In November 1941, under the auspices of the SS and Police Leader for District Warsaw in the Generalgouvernement, SS and police authorities established a forced-labor camp for Jews, known as Treblinka, later as Treblinka I. The camp also served the SS and police authorities as a so-called Labor Education Camp for non-Jewish Poles whom the Germans perceived to have violated labor discipline. Both Polish and Jewish inmates, imprisoned in separate compounds of the labor camp, were deployed at forced labor. The majority of the forced laborers worked in a nearby gravel pit.
In July 1942, the Operation Reinhard authorities completed the construction of a killing center, known as Treblinka II, approximately a mile from the labor camp. When Treblinka II commenced operations, two other Operation Reinhard camps, Belzec and Sobibor, were already in operation.
The Treblinka II killing center was located near the Polish village of Wolka Okraglik along the Malkinia-Siedlce railway line. The Germans built a rail spur that led from the labor camp, Treblinka I, to the killing center, Treblinka II, and that connected as well to the Malkinia station. The site of the killing center was heavily wooded and hidden from view. (Read more.)Share