Treblinka: From Hope to Despair

Final Paper

Embedded in the functions of running an extermination camp, the Nazis made concerted attempts at deceiving their victims, thereby minimizing their resistance to deportation. Victims were led to believe that conditions “in the East” would be better than those they left behind in the ghetto. Even Jews who had heard rumors of the camps had difficulty believing what the Germans were doing there. Every decision and action the Nazis took was calculated to ensure that their true intentions were not revealed while they reaped the benefits of their forced slave labor before systematically eliminating them. From where they set up their death camps, to burning the bodies of the victims, the Nazis took concerted steps to minimize both the evidence they left behind and who bore witness to their atrocities. Treblinka itself is highlighted by absence: an absence of infrastructure, an absence of testimonies, and an absence of interest. In my paper I analyzed how the construction of Treblinka’s operating system around hope and deception was used in order to maximize the efficiency in the liquidation of Jews.