Reflections from a bus trip June 11

At each gravestone in Hebrew they read: Here lies.... May she live among the eternal.

Adolf Eichmann was tasked with detailing the number of Jews in Europe in 1939. He determined there were 11 million. In January 1942 the Wannsee conference, led by Reinhard Heydrich, ensured full high level administrative support for the Reich Sicherheits Hauptamt’s planned execution of the Final Solution. By the of June 1942, the first transport to Treblinka was underway. Treblinka was the thrd Reinhard Operation Camp. By the termination of Operation Reinhard in November 1943, 925,000 people had been murdered at Treblinka, 434,000 at Belcek, and 167,000 at Sobidor.
The trip from Berlin to the deportation point, then to Warsaw and Treblinka, demonstrate the calculated isolation and destruction of Jews and other targets of the Nazi State. Treblinka had a staff of 30-40 Germans and 130 Ukrainians. During its optimal operation, 4,000 prisoners came in each day; all but approximately 60, used as workers, were murdered upon arrival . Our relative Norbert Homberg, brother of my great grandfather died in Treblinka after having been moved from Riga in Latvia.
The Warsaw Ghetto held nearly 500,000 Jews, most of whom either died there or were transported to Treblinka. After the Ghetto uprising in April 1943, the Ghetto was destroyed and all but a few of its resident’s left in hiding killed or sent to death camps. Prior to that up to 4,000 Ghetto residents worked dalily outside the Ghetto. Seeing the mass grave site in the Ghetto and at the Jewish cemetary reminded us of the brutality of the murders. Ben MacPherson read a passage at one mass murder site that told of Jews being burried alive. The mass grave in the Ghetto is located at Mila St., the source of the name used by Leon Uris for his book Mila 18.
The 2 graveyards outside the city posed far different qualities. The Gesia cemetary has been restored since 1980. All he gravestone had been removed and burried during the war and dug up since then. The Praga Cemetary had a vast pre-WW2 gravesites in tact of Jewish gravesites in addition to the mass buriall site.
German occupation of Warsaw took its toll on the entire City and country. Most of the destruction of Warsaw during the war came at the hands of the Germans who systematically bombed every building. At dinner we saw the before and after of the sole remaining building in an area near our hotel. Attachd is a photo of the building at the end of German occupation.

From Michelle Sigiel: The willow tree is a symbol of mourning in many cultures. In Treblinka, I saw two willow trees amongst the stones. A little smash of green against so much grey. I will forever carry the memory of those two willow trees in Treblinka with me.
Loren Fienberg noticed the road underlayment was from Jewish gravestones.

The monument is at the site of the gas chambers and the burnt stones at the site of the body burning pit. Treblinka itself was destroyed byt he Nazis to destroy any evidence.