Lunchbox Lecture: Unconditional Extermination: The Operation Reinhard SS Camps in Occupied Poland

Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, known as the Operation Reinhard camps, are much less familiar to American audiences than Auschwitz. Yet the SS murdered more than 1.5 million Jews in these camps during World War II. This presentation will offer a detailed history of these three killing centers in 1942-1943 and where they might fit in the larger history of the Holocaust.
Presented by Jason Dawsey, PhD, Research Historian at the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The National WWII Museum
This program is proudly sponsored by AARP Louisiana.

[@Keithhobanfood]

Thank you for this knowledgeable informative talk. It happened less than 100 years and in my opinion, the trauma still exists today.

[@BK-uf6qr]

This is a compelling presentation. Frightening to think what men can do, how they rationalize abhorrent behavior.

[@AmBotanischenGarten]

What looks like a "government" was an area of "no government" hence the Holocaust was possible--outside of Germany. Reference--Tim Snyder.

[@HabAnagarek]

Exactly

[@jasonwiley798]

How about the Final Solution?

[@iWyke2]

Where are the recovered photographs of Sobibor?

[@instinctivechannel6668]

online you must seek them oh you find the one with guards in field over looking camp study it you find a person way in corner right acting out something at wall to chamber it way in top in corner you see chamber vent stack it only pic on this its so minor in picture but most important find no picture of sobibor death camp this is only place it can be seen if you good at science photo study

[@HabAnagarek]

This is very impordent. These were not "camps", they were killing and cremation facilities.

[@nik3896]

Excelent emision. I been in Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz. My question how possible burning all that victims ,no crematoria like aushwitz only pits?How much time need per body to completly burn ? How many daily bodys can cremated in some of rhis camps. Thx

[@instinctivechannel6668]

interesting question they claim depend on heat in oven and how much body mass 30 minutes you got 15 oven per chamber times 1000 bodies load 3 bodies per over 90 per hour can be burned its insane math but true if children 5 per oven 150 an hour insane and it 24/7 now if you burning in open pit 2000 per hour 24/hrs 22000 per day I hate the science but it has to be done so we learn from this tragic event but the key to it is being numb to killing as they do it with no regard how it happen it was like a trend of the day the mindset in those times was blame jews for all this was trend that blew up into murder we should be very careful with trends they lead to these tragic events

[@jonahtwhale1779]

They burnt the majority of the bodies in pits - either in the Reinhardt camps or in Aktion 1005 hiding the evidence of the Einzatgruppen murders.

[@AnthonyTolhurst-dw1nc]

I have no idea. Refer to the Nazi archives.

[@Tramseskumbanan]

Starting already during late fall of 1942, Paul Blobel’s “Aktion 1005” was engaged by orders from Himmler, to dig up and burn hundreds of thousands of corpses from murdered jews in the three A.R camps on what was referred to as these big “roasters”.

[@AmBotanischenGarten]

I have heard this figure mentioned somewhere--it exists.

[@alexamerling79]

Pure horror

[@Tramseskumbanan]

Christian Wirth was killed in May of 1944, not in August. And the three camps underwent re-constructions supervised by Wirth in order to better cooperate with the increasing numbers of transports arriving. The peak of the mass killings occurred during the late summer and fall of 1942. In the spring of 1943 the extermination program in the two remaining camps slowed down to a lower level since most of the work was completed.

[@stellarwind1946]

Yes, the program was accelerated after Himmler’s directive of July 19, 1942 to the staff of Aktion Reinhard, ordering its completion by December 31st, 1942. Treblinka had just been completed only a few days earlier in mid-July.

[@myriaddsystems]

Those men looked terrifying

[@fatalconceit3362]

Not, men, but cowards, who murdered innocent men, women and children.

[@AnthonyTolhurst-dw1nc]

And what was Pol Pot in Cambodia? That Hutu vs Tutsi (?) thing in Rwanda? The Turks and Armenians? Mao in China? This will happen again.