03/09/2023

We arrived at the Treblinka parking at 0830 before the museum opened. I just hoped staff didn’t think we’d overnighted here. The map showed that it was about 3km to the site of the labour camp. J fed Corrie and then I took her with me for the walk. J stayed behind to have his breakfast. Poor Corrie probably wished she’d stayed behind. She is the laziest dog. Once she’s done her business, she hopes to turn back. Every time I read an information board, she hung back in the hope that this was my final destination and that finally I’ll turn! We clocked up over 7km. The sheer size and scale is overwhelming.

Our route took me along the Black Road. Cobbled in the way it it had been. Although the headstones removed from Jewish cemeteries to be used as paving are now in the museum.

The museum was small, with little to add to the information boards at each location. However, there was a very moving film where a survivor talked of his experiences. He’d survived as he’d turned his hand to whatever was needed … brick layer, cutting off womens hair before entering the gas chamber, piling up dead bodies for more efficient burning. He’d escaped in August ’43 and fought with the resistance.

I don’t really know why I wanted to visit another extermination camp. Perhaps it’s something to do with the scale of former Jewish populations in each of the cities we’ve visited. To pay my respects. Treblinka is very different from Auschwitz / Birkenau, where the camps and extermination areas were left intact. But nonetheless, just as moving.