Treblinka and Tykocin and Jedwabne Tour

Jedwabne monument. In July 1941 on accumulated on the Marketplace several hundred Jews – Polish neighbors drove to a barn standing on the sidelines. They poured flammable liquid and set on fire. After extinguishing the fire charred corpses buried in a nearby hole.
At this time, armed with axes and crowbars groups looked for, and then murdered Jews hiding in the town and in the fields.

Tomasz Gross, in his book “Neighbors” wrote:

“The burning of Jedwabne Jews have such an effect, as the use of today’s combat arsenal of neutron bomb – eliminated all owners, without infringing on this occasion their material goods.” 

Tykocin. Marketplace. From memories of a Jew from Tykocin: 

“On Monday, August 25 at six o’clock in the morning, all Jews, men, women, and children, came to the market. At the square stood a table and chairs, on which sat the German police and began to mark the names of incoming Jews. This procedure did not last long, however. As soon as the marketplace was filled with people, registration was suspended (…). Gestapo with help of the local Polish auxiliary police, armed with rubber whips, ordered closure of the marketplace. (…) 

Meanwhile, at seven o’clock, seven trucks came up with the Gestapo. At the last car noticed machine guns and several boxes of ammunition.  The whole marketplace was heavily guarded by the German murderers. (…) In the fast-paced, with forced singing, under blows of the guards hastened Jews (…) to the village Zawada, where they were locked in, prepared in advance, a building of the local primary school. (…) From the Zawada village led a simple and short way to the Lopuchowski forest, where were already prepared pits. (…) Every few minutes to the primary school building drove up the car filled with Jews, to which Germans explained that they are taking them to a ghetto in Czerwony Bor. 

However, they were carried into the pits, where they were thrown alive. Pit was deep to 5 meters and there was no way to escape from there. Cars drove back and forth all day, almost at dusk Germany ended their devilish work, filled the whole pit with people. Before night the peasants from the surrounding villages buried pits under the supervision of the German bandits.” 

Treblinka – extermination camp. Symbolic place of cremation.

Burning the corpses outside the furnaces began to be carried out in February 1943, as a more effective, since the crematorium didn’t cope with the removal of the gassed bodies. 

Under the railway placed brushwood, which poured petrol. In this way, burned not only the latest corpses, but also those taken from the tombs with an excavator. At the same time they could burn up to 12,000 corpses. 

The resulting clouds of smoke were visible from many miles away. 

Till the end of July 1943 burned at grates about 700 thousand corpses.