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Treblinka
Nearly a million Jews were consumed by the ovens of Treblinka before August 2, 1943. On that day 600 prisoners armed with stolen guns and grenades attacked the Nazi guards, burned the camp, and fled into the nearby Polish forests. Of these, forty survived to bear witness to man's courage in the face of the greatest evil human history has produced.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Jean-François Steiner
10 books4 followersJean-François Steiner est né le 17 février 1938 dans la région parisienne. Son père, israélite, est mort en déportation. Sa mère, catholique soucieuse de donner à ses enfants l'éducation que leur aurait souhaitée leur père, s'est remariée avec un médecin israélite. Après des études classiques au lycée Louis-le-Grand, Jean-François Steiner passe un an et demi en Israël. Il a alors dix-sept ans, découvre la vie en kibboutz et prend conscience d'un monde qui lui inspire un intérêt passionné, première étape des recherches qui aboutiront à la rédac-ion de Treblinka. Revenu en France, il suit les cours de propédeutique à la Sorbonne.
En 1959, il part pour l'Algérie dans un régiment de parachutistes (le Xllle Dragon - régiment opérationnel de réserve générale). Son service militaire terminé, deux ans plus tard, il coupe des dépêches à Combat, écrit un texte qui sera publié par Les Temps modernes en février 1962 sous le titre "Fabrication d'un parachutiste". Il collabore à Réalités, L'Express (reportages en Algérie), Le Nouveau Candide.
Source: http://www.babelio.com/auteur/Jean-Fr...
His father was the writer Kadmi Cohen who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and deported to Gleiwitz, one of many subcamps of Auschwitz, where he died in June 1944.
En 1959, il part pour l'Algérie dans un régiment de parachutistes (le Xllle Dragon - régiment opérationnel de réserve générale). Son service militaire terminé, deux ans plus tard, il coupe des dépêches à Combat, écrit un texte qui sera publié par Les Temps modernes en février 1962 sous le titre "Fabrication d'un parachutiste". Il collabore à Réalités, L'Express (reportages en Algérie), Le Nouveau Candide.
Source: http://www.babelio.com/auteur/Jean-Fr...
His father was the writer Kadmi Cohen who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and deported to Gleiwitz, one of many subcamps of Auschwitz, where he died in June 1944.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
July 12, 2020
Up there with the best Holocaust books ever written, with the last 50 pages or so being quite simply unforgettable. Rather than detail the harrowing ordeal of Treblinka's nearly one million Jew victims (at one point capacity was up to 2600 deaths every half an hour), Steiner focuses more on the chilling technical and organizational side of Treblinka, and in honor of the brave prisoners involved in the revolt he writes with an affirmation of life over death. Ok, so it doesn't have the emotionally draining impact of something like Tadeusz Borowski's 'This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen', but you do get a feel for the true horrors of the camp; all under the watchful eye of Kurt Franz, the prince of hell.
April 27, 2016
It's hard to know what this book is. It reads like a novel, with internal thoughts and great swaths of dialogue. However, it is presented as a history, though it lacks bibliography and notes. Perhaps it's in the mold of Keneally's Schindler's List, which told a true story but was labeled a novel.
It doesn't really matter, in the end. For Treblinka is an incredibly powerful, harrowing book; whether it is true, or only based on the truth, it tells an overwhelming story. More than that, in its very style, it gives you the sense of uncertainty, surreality, and doom that was the intent of the death-camp system itself.
Jean-Francois Steiner creates a world unlike one we've ever known. It is fully realized, with its own unique landmarks. There are the Nazis, known here as Technicians. There is the "Factory," which is actually the gas chambers; the "hospital," which is actually a pit where Jews are executed; there are "convoys," which are actually trainloads of men, women, and children, who are put through an efficient process that takes them from life to a shallow grave in a short period of time.
This book is translated from French to English, and as often happens with translations, the immediacy is gone, replaced with a cold detachment. Here, that detachment works perfectly; this is a book that is empathetic without being warm. Indeed, it could've been written by a soft-hearted Technician.
The story starts in the ghettos, where the Jews are collected, then transported to the camps. Steiner tells how the Technicians tinkered with death, to make it more efficient. At first, they used guns, but this didn't work:
The first commandant of Treblinka is an evil man, who enjoys doing evil. He is not a good Nazi, though, because his heart is not pure; he is not executing the Jews for the right reasons. His second-in-command, Max Bielas, is a pederast, who has a harem of Jewish boys he keeps in a life-sized doll house. These two are eventually replaced with Kurt Franz, known as Lalka: "The Doll." He is a man who has found his calling as a death-camp commandant. He treats the camp as his fiefdom. He institutes a process whereby deportees are at first given hope, then have that hope gradually taken as they move closer to the Factory. In the end, Franz makes the Jews run, so they will be winded, and thus die faster in the chambers.
The story is told from the perspective of several Jews who form a Committee of Resistance. These are the men who will lead the "Revolt of the Doomed." The main character is Galewski, and older man who acts as head of the prisoners and a liaison to Franz. We also meet Adolf, who served in the Polish army; Berliner, who eventually goes mad; Choken, who escapes, only to be mortally wounded in the Warsaw ghetto fight; and Kleinmann, a cutthroat group-leader willing to do whatever it takes to keep the revolt alive. There are others who come and go, their lives made capricious.
Life in the camp is delineated. There is a hierarchy of Jews. Those who handle bodies, those who handle possessions, and those charged with maintaining the camp. Jews who do not work hard enough are beaten; if they get a mark on the face - a literal black eye - then they will be executed. In Treblinka, life and death both balanced on the same razor's edge.
Treblinka evokes images that are impossible to forget. A young Jewish woman offering her body to a kapo to stay out of the gas chamber; a man hung upside down after attempting to escape; prisoners trying to escape by lying under the bodies of men and women who have been executed; Franz's Treblinka orchestra and boxing matches; "camp marriages."
Some of these events are so unbelievable, you are compelled to think they must be true. But that's a dangerous assumption. The only problem I have is with the lack of citation. If these things are true, than I'd like to know where it comes from. There is no need to embellish the horrors of the Holocaust. Whenever one does so, it gives Holocaust deniers a sliver of an opening that they can exploit: if one thing is a lie, maybe the whole thing is a lie. Thus, I would recommend this book, but would also recommend maintaining a critical eye.
It doesn't really matter, in the end. For Treblinka is an incredibly powerful, harrowing book; whether it is true, or only based on the truth, it tells an overwhelming story. More than that, in its very style, it gives you the sense of uncertainty, surreality, and doom that was the intent of the death-camp system itself.
Jean-Francois Steiner creates a world unlike one we've ever known. It is fully realized, with its own unique landmarks. There are the Nazis, known here as Technicians. There is the "Factory," which is actually the gas chambers; the "hospital," which is actually a pit where Jews are executed; there are "convoys," which are actually trainloads of men, women, and children, who are put through an efficient process that takes them from life to a shallow grave in a short period of time.
This book is translated from French to English, and as often happens with translations, the immediacy is gone, replaced with a cold detachment. Here, that detachment works perfectly; this is a book that is empathetic without being warm. Indeed, it could've been written by a soft-hearted Technician.
The story starts in the ghettos, where the Jews are collected, then transported to the camps. Steiner tells how the Technicians tinkered with death, to make it more efficient. At first, they used guns, but this didn't work:
Each executioner had his victims...[T:]his personalization of the act was accompanied by a physical proximity, since the executioner stood less than a yard away from his victim. Of course, he did not see him from the front, but it was discovered that necks, like faces, also individualize people. This accumulation of necks - suppliant, proud, fearful, broad, frail, hairy, or tanned - rapidly became intolerable to the executioners, who could not help feeling a certain sense of guilt.
The first commandant of Treblinka is an evil man, who enjoys doing evil. He is not a good Nazi, though, because his heart is not pure; he is not executing the Jews for the right reasons. His second-in-command, Max Bielas, is a pederast, who has a harem of Jewish boys he keeps in a life-sized doll house. These two are eventually replaced with Kurt Franz, known as Lalka: "The Doll." He is a man who has found his calling as a death-camp commandant. He treats the camp as his fiefdom. He institutes a process whereby deportees are at first given hope, then have that hope gradually taken as they move closer to the Factory. In the end, Franz makes the Jews run, so they will be winded, and thus die faster in the chambers.
The story is told from the perspective of several Jews who form a Committee of Resistance. These are the men who will lead the "Revolt of the Doomed." The main character is Galewski, and older man who acts as head of the prisoners and a liaison to Franz. We also meet Adolf, who served in the Polish army; Berliner, who eventually goes mad; Choken, who escapes, only to be mortally wounded in the Warsaw ghetto fight; and Kleinmann, a cutthroat group-leader willing to do whatever it takes to keep the revolt alive. There are others who come and go, their lives made capricious.
Life in the camp is delineated. There is a hierarchy of Jews. Those who handle bodies, those who handle possessions, and those charged with maintaining the camp. Jews who do not work hard enough are beaten; if they get a mark on the face - a literal black eye - then they will be executed. In Treblinka, life and death both balanced on the same razor's edge.
Treblinka evokes images that are impossible to forget. A young Jewish woman offering her body to a kapo to stay out of the gas chamber; a man hung upside down after attempting to escape; prisoners trying to escape by lying under the bodies of men and women who have been executed; Franz's Treblinka orchestra and boxing matches; "camp marriages."
Some of these events are so unbelievable, you are compelled to think they must be true. But that's a dangerous assumption. The only problem I have is with the lack of citation. If these things are true, than I'd like to know where it comes from. There is no need to embellish the horrors of the Holocaust. Whenever one does so, it gives Holocaust deniers a sliver of an opening that they can exploit: if one thing is a lie, maybe the whole thing is a lie. Thus, I would recommend this book, but would also recommend maintaining a critical eye.
October 24, 2018
Treblinka purports to be a non fiction book but actually reads like a novel. Half of it consists of dialogue which obviously is all invented. That said, Steiner is a very good writer and the novelistic form certainly serves to crank up the tension. I've since read that his book has been dismissed as fiction by at least one survivor of the events he describes. Therefore, it's a hard book to rate. In his favour he did interview an awful lot of people involved. And reading about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising I came to mistrust eye witness accounts. A recurring theme was how many Germans were being slaughtered which always seemed exaggerated and more the result of wishful thinking than fact. It also implied the Jews were well-armed. For me the uprising was such a heroic act of defiance largely because the Jews were very poorly armed and yet still managed to hold the Germans back for a month. It's irrelevant how many Germans they did or did not kill. So, Treblinka is a riveting read and without question provides innumerable insights into how both the Jews working there and their guards behaved. We'll probably never know how many liberties it takes with the truth because so few inmates survived and those who did were peripheral to the revolt itself. There's a preface by Simone de Beauvoir which attests to its quality - "The author has not attempted to do the work of a historian. Each detail is substantiated by the written or oral testimony he has collected and compared. But he has not denied himself a certain directorial freedom." Of course, there's a contradiction there. If not the work of an historian what is it? I confess I'm a little baffled.
March 14, 2018
I read this history of the successful revolt in 1943 by members Treblinka's sonderkommando (i.e. a work unit comprised of Jews) shortly after it was published in 1966. Based on interviews with 40 of the survivors amongst the Treblinka rebels, this book gives a remarkable portrait of the daily work schedule and life inside a Nazi death camp that killed up to 5,000 in a single day. Certainly well done by any standards, I have never been as moved by anything that I have since read on the holocaust. The reason may be that nothing that I read afterwards could possibly have contained so much that was new.
Members of the sonderkommando seldom lasted for more than a few months. They were selected for the their strength and ability to perform an enormous amount of work on a daily basis. The moment fatigue, disease or injury undermined their ability to work, they were sent with the other arrivals to be killed. A large number committed suicide unable to accept the diabolical compromise that they had in order to extend their lives for a very short time. For a fifteen year-old this was a terrifying thing to read about.
For someone new to the topic the book was filled with revelations on every page. I had not been aware of the existence of Sonderkommandos prior to reading the book nor was I aware that there had been revolts in the camps. I was appalled to discover that the Germans systemically recovered all the gold from the fillings of those they killed. Steiner convinced me of the fundamental evil and irrationality of the camps. The Germans were diverting important resources in terms of men, building materials and fuel in order to kill non-combattants while the Russians were rapidly advancing on them. The extermination of the Jews had become more important to them than their own survival.
I feel uncomfortable taking sides on the controversy that that this book has raised. Some have suggested that the book contains factual errors. In a book of that is based on survivor interviews not archival material, it is hard to imagine that there would not have been seem errors in detail The comments that I read on the Internet lead to me believe that whatever the errors made, Steiner still produced an essentially truthful account of the Treblinka uprising. The main criticism seems to be that Steiner has painted the Jews as being collaborators in their own genocide.
In fact, it was this belief that they were collaborating that pushed so many Sonderkommando members to commit suicide. I think that Steiner's defence is that he wrote a story of how a group of men in a Sonderkommando decided to take control of their destinies. Against all odds, the prisoners at Treblinka staged a successful revolt allowing 200 to escape of whom roughly half avoided recapture. Steiner in my view has told the story of a courageous triumph. His book still stands a s a great classic.
Lu en Francais / read in French.
Members of the sonderkommando seldom lasted for more than a few months. They were selected for the their strength and ability to perform an enormous amount of work on a daily basis. The moment fatigue, disease or injury undermined their ability to work, they were sent with the other arrivals to be killed. A large number committed suicide unable to accept the diabolical compromise that they had in order to extend their lives for a very short time. For a fifteen year-old this was a terrifying thing to read about.
For someone new to the topic the book was filled with revelations on every page. I had not been aware of the existence of Sonderkommandos prior to reading the book nor was I aware that there had been revolts in the camps. I was appalled to discover that the Germans systemically recovered all the gold from the fillings of those they killed. Steiner convinced me of the fundamental evil and irrationality of the camps. The Germans were diverting important resources in terms of men, building materials and fuel in order to kill non-combattants while the Russians were rapidly advancing on them. The extermination of the Jews had become more important to them than their own survival.
I feel uncomfortable taking sides on the controversy that that this book has raised. Some have suggested that the book contains factual errors. In a book of that is based on survivor interviews not archival material, it is hard to imagine that there would not have been seem errors in detail The comments that I read on the Internet lead to me believe that whatever the errors made, Steiner still produced an essentially truthful account of the Treblinka uprising. The main criticism seems to be that Steiner has painted the Jews as being collaborators in their own genocide.
In fact, it was this belief that they were collaborating that pushed so many Sonderkommando members to commit suicide. I think that Steiner's defence is that he wrote a story of how a group of men in a Sonderkommando decided to take control of their destinies. Against all odds, the prisoners at Treblinka staged a successful revolt allowing 200 to escape of whom roughly half avoided recapture. Steiner in my view has told the story of a courageous triumph. His book still stands a s a great classic.
Lu en Francais / read in French.
March 28, 2021
Me ha tomado mi tiempo leerlo entre el ajetreo diario pero ha merecido la pena y mucho.
Mira que he leído libros sobre el holocausto y los campos de exterminio pero este relato es de los más crudos que he tenido entre mis manos. Hay pasajes realmente escalofriantes... y llenos de gran sufrimiento.
El final es imposible no leerlo de un tirón pues es la culminación de todos los esfuerzos encaminados hacia la rebelión del campo.
Muy recomendable y un 5 estrellas para mi.
Mira que he leído libros sobre el holocausto y los campos de exterminio pero este relato es de los más crudos que he tenido entre mis manos. Hay pasajes realmente escalofriantes... y llenos de gran sufrimiento.
El final es imposible no leerlo de un tirón pues es la culminación de todos los esfuerzos encaminados hacia la rebelión del campo.
Muy recomendable y un 5 estrellas para mi.
October 30, 2007
If you want to take a look at what it might really be like in a place of living hell, this book paints a very vivid picture. You are able to see the hardships and dehumanizing things that happened in the Treblika concentration camp as well as seeing the day to day workings of the camp. This book is stretching, overwhelming and haunting. It is not to be read lightly; however, I do think that it is important to really begin to try to understand the Holocaust and the people that were in the Holocaust.
Though this book reaches into the core of you and shakes you, Treblika is a book that is not hopeless. It is a book that tells the story of 600 Jews who revolted against their captors/tormentors, burned the very camp that held them in hell and escaped. I think that this is a very important story of what the triumphs the human will can accomplish. This is a story that is not told enough.
Though this book reaches into the core of you and shakes you, Treblika is a book that is not hopeless. It is a book that tells the story of 600 Jews who revolted against their captors/tormentors, burned the very camp that held them in hell and escaped. I think that this is a very important story of what the triumphs the human will can accomplish. This is a story that is not told enough.
April 1, 2018
This book was written by Jean-Francois Steiner, whose father died in a concentration camp in Poland during World War II. The book relates the history of a concentration camp, Treblinka (Poland), where around 800.000 Jews died between July 1942 and October 1943. It describes the daily life (and horror) of the concentration camp and the way the camp was very cynically, efficiently (however inappropriate this word may sound in this context) managed by the Nazis, who terrorised the prisoners in such a way that some selected Jews forcibly joined so-called sonderkommandos and helped the Nazis gaze and exterminate hundreds of thousands, thereby enabling the Germans to control all the process with just a handful of Nazi soldiers. In other words, the book suggests that the task of the few Nazis guarding the camp was to a large extent facilitated by the submission of mass prisoners who accepted their fate with resignation, and by the collaboration of a few who did the dirty work. For that reason, it triggered lots of controversies, especially in France, among survivors of the Holocaust. I personally believe that this book is extremely interesting for a number of reasons. First, the book glorifies all prisoners of Treblinka. The camp should be remembered in history for being one of the few extermination camps where prisoners revolted against their executioners and liberated the camp from the Nazis. Second, no one according to me should ever judge whatever may have happened in the extreme, horrific circumstances of an extermination camp like Treblinka. Anybody, confronted on a daily basis to the death of thousands, to the constant thread of their own death, to continuous moral and physical torture, would certainly soon realise that humans may push the limits of what they can endure to the extreme. Lastly, the book also explores in some way human psychology, which Nazis sadly exploited. Anyone facing extreme circumstances can survive only by thinking of a possible better tomorrow. The few surviving prisoners of Treblinka were able to survive, endure the extreme, not commit suicide or let themselves die, precisely because they found the extraordinary moral strength to be willing to survive and to believe in their own survival. For these reasons, Treblinka is a remarkable book written by a courageous author on a very sensitive subject and a very dark page of our history.
Review by Bruno Gremez
Review by Bruno Gremez
March 26, 2011
It never fails to amaze me that after all I've read on tis period in history I can still be shocked. This is shocked. I've read other Holocaust stories that mention the Treblinka revolt but none have come anywhere near the detail this has. That alone is a reason this is a must-read for anyone interested in the Holocaust.
I have a little trouble saying this because obviously I wasn't there and can hardly imagine any of the feelings, thoughts, etc. that would come with actually being there but I don't know that I agree with Steiner on some things. Actually, I can go so far as to say I think I disagree with him on a number of points.
I wish I had the time and inclination to detail those points but I don't so I'll have to be somewhar vague. I think Steiner *may* have looked too deeply into some things. I don't know if I believe that everything was so thought out. I'm not talking about things such as the building of the armory and the like, but the thinking that supposedly went into the breaking of the Jews. I'm more inclined to believe that the sadists of the bunch did what they wanted, saw what worked and didn't work and went from there.
Steiner goes very, very deep into some very "small" points and I think this is a great thing in certain respects. In others it's just the opposite IMO. With the "brain busters", the certificates and such, I doubt that so much thinking was behind it. IMO it was probably much more simple than that. "Hey, here's an idea, let's introduce this and scare the Jews while at the same time seperating them from each other." "Oh hey, that really worked, let's take it a few steps farther."
The "ostrich strategy", "face complex" and "forked sticks"? Same deal. I don't think the Germans, as organized and power hungry as they were, thought about it all in the manner Steiner implies. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, who knows. I can appreciate Steiner wanting to go into such detail and find a "reason" for every thing, no matter how "small" the detail. But sometimes this isn't possible and it felt like during those times Steiner refused to take that into account. So he mashed and molded until he got his "answer". Not being disrespectful in the least, I think Steiner was probably the master of "beating around the bush" and turning words around.
This is definitely a book that should be read by anyone interested in this period. I do think people should remember this is one mans "story" and one mans "words". Not everything can be taken as gospel and we were all given brains for a reason - use them.
There were about 1,000 prisoners in Treblinka at the time of the revolt. 600 managed to make it to the forest. All of the men who made up the Committee, and according to the book, most of the prisoners who actually played a role in the revolt, died before reaching "safety". Of the 600 who managed to make it to the forest, only 40 were alive one year later. Twenty-two of those men lived in Israel in 1966. Over half. The rest were spread between a number of countries, the next highest concentration being five in the U.S.
Any book that tells of the Holocaust is hard to read. None of them are easy IMO. This is the same. The book isn't page after page after page of horrifying actions on the part of the Germans. Much of it is details of the planned (and sometimes failed) schemes and revolts by the Jews. Much of it is relationships between the Jews themselves and the Jews and the Germans.
There is a part in the book that tells of a high-ranking SS members wife getting on the wrong train. She got on a train filled with Jews bound for Treblinka. Apparently she wasn't too anxious about this fact and calmly got off the train when the Jews did. At Treblinka.
When she realized what was happening she lost her mind and starting screaming, telling Lalka that she was an SS's wife, etc. She and her two children were killed. No witnesses. That's the kind of story that stays with you I think. No witnesses.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I wish I had my interest in the Holocaust before my grandparents died. I would have asked so many questions of them all, my grandfathers in particular.
I have a little trouble saying this because obviously I wasn't there and can hardly imagine any of the feelings, thoughts, etc. that would come with actually being there but I don't know that I agree with Steiner on some things. Actually, I can go so far as to say I think I disagree with him on a number of points.
I wish I had the time and inclination to detail those points but I don't so I'll have to be somewhar vague. I think Steiner *may* have looked too deeply into some things. I don't know if I believe that everything was so thought out. I'm not talking about things such as the building of the armory and the like, but the thinking that supposedly went into the breaking of the Jews. I'm more inclined to believe that the sadists of the bunch did what they wanted, saw what worked and didn't work and went from there.
Steiner goes very, very deep into some very "small" points and I think this is a great thing in certain respects. In others it's just the opposite IMO. With the "brain busters", the certificates and such, I doubt that so much thinking was behind it. IMO it was probably much more simple than that. "Hey, here's an idea, let's introduce this and scare the Jews while at the same time seperating them from each other." "Oh hey, that really worked, let's take it a few steps farther."
The "ostrich strategy", "face complex" and "forked sticks"? Same deal. I don't think the Germans, as organized and power hungry as they were, thought about it all in the manner Steiner implies. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, who knows. I can appreciate Steiner wanting to go into such detail and find a "reason" for every thing, no matter how "small" the detail. But sometimes this isn't possible and it felt like during those times Steiner refused to take that into account. So he mashed and molded until he got his "answer". Not being disrespectful in the least, I think Steiner was probably the master of "beating around the bush" and turning words around.
This is definitely a book that should be read by anyone interested in this period. I do think people should remember this is one mans "story" and one mans "words". Not everything can be taken as gospel and we were all given brains for a reason - use them.
There were about 1,000 prisoners in Treblinka at the time of the revolt. 600 managed to make it to the forest. All of the men who made up the Committee, and according to the book, most of the prisoners who actually played a role in the revolt, died before reaching "safety". Of the 600 who managed to make it to the forest, only 40 were alive one year later. Twenty-two of those men lived in Israel in 1966. Over half. The rest were spread between a number of countries, the next highest concentration being five in the U.S.
Any book that tells of the Holocaust is hard to read. None of them are easy IMO. This is the same. The book isn't page after page after page of horrifying actions on the part of the Germans. Much of it is details of the planned (and sometimes failed) schemes and revolts by the Jews. Much of it is relationships between the Jews themselves and the Jews and the Germans.
There is a part in the book that tells of a high-ranking SS members wife getting on the wrong train. She got on a train filled with Jews bound for Treblinka. Apparently she wasn't too anxious about this fact and calmly got off the train when the Jews did. At Treblinka.
When she realized what was happening she lost her mind and starting screaming, telling Lalka that she was an SS's wife, etc. She and her two children were killed. No witnesses. That's the kind of story that stays with you I think. No witnesses.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I wish I had my interest in the Holocaust before my grandparents died. I would have asked so many questions of them all, my grandfathers in particular.
October 26, 2012
This is a slim little paperback, less than 300 pages. Normally I could finish something like that in a matter of days, but this took me three weeks. I had to take each page a bit at a time, absorb it and reflect on it before taking on the next page. My world has been rocked by this book, my foundation shaken. I've read literally dozens of books on World War II, with special emphasis (I thought) on the Holocaust, but I have never come across this tory. That is a shame, a crime against the survivors to ignore this story. I am blown away by what these men and women endured, how they stayed alive, and how and why they fought.
I had to re-read some sections more than once when they became hard to understand, which I think was due to translation issues more than anything else. But rough spots aside, this deserves to be mulled over, chewed on, and discussed. What's more shocking: that the answer to "Why didn't the Jews resist?" is "Some of them did," or that somehow the idea of them fighting disrupts our historical narrative? That might say more about us than it does about them.
I had to re-read some sections more than once when they became hard to understand, which I think was due to translation issues more than anything else. But rough spots aside, this deserves to be mulled over, chewed on, and discussed. What's more shocking: that the answer to "Why didn't the Jews resist?" is "Some of them did," or that somehow the idea of them fighting disrupts our historical narrative? That might say more about us than it does about them.
August 1, 2015
"Se você acha que sabe o que aconteceu num campo de concentração, confronte-se lendo Treblinka. Se você tem alguma vaga ideia, mas é curioso sobre o assunto este é o seu livro. Se você quer vislumbrar em algumas páginas até onde vai a loucura e maldade humanas este também é o seu livro. Acabei há poucas horas e ainda estou digerindo o que eu li. Não, na verdade estou incrédula com o que eu descobri; nunca poderei digerir e/ou aceitar o que foi atentado contra os judeus. Treblinka é a materialização de que quando quisermos ser maus podemos fazê-lo muito bem. Independente da nacionalidade dos algozes, você se confronta com a ignorância, a prepotência e a crueldade humanas.
"Timbrou em agradecer aos alemães pela maneira como tratavam os judeus : " É verdade que alguns se queixam um pouco", disse, "mas estes esquecem-se de que cada povo deve pensar inicialmente em si. O que os alemães fazem é no interesse da Alemanha. Quem poderá afirmar que outro povo, quiçá o nosso povo mesmo, colocado nas mesmas circunstâncias, não teria agido da mesma maneira?....""
"Timbrou em agradecer aos alemães pela maneira como tratavam os judeus : " É verdade que alguns se queixam um pouco", disse, "mas estes esquecem-se de que cada povo deve pensar inicialmente em si. O que os alemães fazem é no interesse da Alemanha. Quem poderá afirmar que outro povo, quiçá o nosso povo mesmo, colocado nas mesmas circunstâncias, não teria agido da mesma maneira?....""
February 19, 2022
Incredible, powerful book, one of the best I've read of the Holocaust. This book is not for the faint of heart- it takes a deep dive into the horrors of one of the camps, as well as the psychological will to stay alive despite the inhumane atrocities inflicted on those whom were imprisoned there.
This book is an important part of history: it is based on the testimonies of the few who survived, from a camp that has very little written about it despite having killed more than one million Jewish people. You will likely go through a range of overwhelming emotions reading this- disgust, sadness, anxiety, despair, triumph, anger, and the last 50 pages or so will have your heart racing.
I would recommend this book. Even if you have read a ton of books on the times: add one more.
This book is an important part of history: it is based on the testimonies of the few who survived, from a camp that has very little written about it despite having killed more than one million Jewish people. You will likely go through a range of overwhelming emotions reading this- disgust, sadness, anxiety, despair, triumph, anger, and the last 50 pages or so will have your heart racing.
I would recommend this book. Even if you have read a ton of books on the times: add one more.
April 9, 2023
How do you rate a book like this? It was horrible; I wanted to vomit. But we have to read books about this. “The Holocaust stands as proof of the human potential for radical evil and therefore also as a prophecy of our possible future.”
February 19, 2008
and then i figured out why i hadn't read it before - a certain amount of historical fiction is involved. however, it does tell a story that should be heard. the riot in treblinka was incredible.
the thing that struck me most about the book, however, which was written in the early 60s, was how many times he set out to basically answer the question of why the jews went like lambs to the slaughter. when we are taught the holocaust now, we don't assume that they went complacently, we learn of all the ways they were tricked and manipulated and fooled into doing things on the basis of that instinct for survival. it makes me want to read more on the conception of the agency of the jews in the holocaust immediately post-war versus now.
one of my favorite parts of the book was the very beginning, where he revealed the tactics that the nazis used on vilinus, lithuania, to get all the jews first into a ghetto, and then deported. absolutely fascinating study of classical conditioning and behavior therapy used for the most atrocious of reasons, and therefore kind of mind-bendingly stunning.
it was almost a four, but i like my books that claim to be history to actually be history, and while i appreciate the preface and acknowledge that recreating conversations that are historically accurate is impossible, i do feel a bit of false advertising. but it's excellent for what it is, which is a story of hope in the face of despair.
the thing that struck me most about the book, however, which was written in the early 60s, was how many times he set out to basically answer the question of why the jews went like lambs to the slaughter. when we are taught the holocaust now, we don't assume that they went complacently, we learn of all the ways they were tricked and manipulated and fooled into doing things on the basis of that instinct for survival. it makes me want to read more on the conception of the agency of the jews in the holocaust immediately post-war versus now.
one of my favorite parts of the book was the very beginning, where he revealed the tactics that the nazis used on vilinus, lithuania, to get all the jews first into a ghetto, and then deported. absolutely fascinating study of classical conditioning and behavior therapy used for the most atrocious of reasons, and therefore kind of mind-bendingly stunning.
it was almost a four, but i like my books that claim to be history to actually be history, and while i appreciate the preface and acknowledge that recreating conversations that are historically accurate is impossible, i do feel a bit of false advertising. but it's excellent for what it is, which is a story of hope in the face of despair.
October 29, 2018
One of the most damaging books I read in my early teenage years. What little I had from my childhood inocence was taken away as I read through the pages, silentely, at night. And I think I understood a little of the need to tell the story. It is hard to lose your inocence. To realize that humans are able to plan, carefully, the extinction of other humans. But you do have to know, and become an adult. Everyone has to know. We cannot afford to be ignorant. Because ignorance is the food of dictators.
March 1, 2025
A devastatingly tough, uncomfortable and heartbreaking but necessary read
November 30, 2023
Ya había leído suficientes libros sobre el holocausto, la solución final y la vida y muerte en los campos de concentración nazis de la IIGM. Así que poco me ha sorprendido, a pesar de la crudeza y horror sin límites que se describen aquí.
Pero lo que sí me ha parecido novedoso y de mucha reflexión son varias cosas, que el autor intenta descifrar:
- la supuesta inacción de los judíos ante su exterminio.
- el juego psicológico de los "técnicos" nazis para conseguir un equilibro entre sumisión, esperanza y capacidad de trabajo para poder procesar vagones y vagones de judíos polacos.
Impresiona muchísimo reflexionar estas cuestiones mientras se lee el libro. Y más, cuando este campo de exterminio fue un poco el prototipo de otros más "famosos".
La última parte de libro es realmente asfixiante y de máxima tensión. Se lee con avidez para descubrir si el levantamiento se produce y tiene éxito o por el contrario son atrapados antes o se llega al momento en el que el campo se "cierra". Como digo, se lee intentando no pronunciar palabra, sin una mirada delatora, sin un movimiento brusco que ponga en aviso a los guardias.
Otra cosa que me ha llamado la atención, y en la que indagaré más adelante (no aquí, en esta reseña), es que consultando rápidamente la wikipedia veo bastantes disonancias con lo contado en el libro. Se supone que éste se ha escrito en base a los relatos en primera persona de los supervivientes. Pero ya digo, ha sido una primera impresión al leer rápidamente y un poco en diagonal.
También es terrible comprobar como algunos de los máximos responsables nazis de este campo se fueron de rositas durante bastantes años e incluso tuvieron un final de su vida fuera de prisión. No estamos hablando de ser un oficial de un ejército y arrasar una ciudad por órdenes superiores. Se trata del asesinato de casi un millón de personas (algunas fuentes hablan de más) que bajaban de un tren tras otro. Como dirigir un parque de atracciones, pero con un tren de la bruja con una única entrada.
Desde luego, un libro imprescindible, para estómagos fuertes, para todo aquel que piense que el ser humano es bueno por naturaleza.
Para finalizar no quiero hacer comentarios simplistas respecto a la actualidad del estado de Israel a día de hoy y su última guerra contra los Palestinos. Pero me paro a pensar lo qué podrían sentir los supervivientes de Treblinka ante lo que está sucediendo en Gaza. Y llego a la conclusión de que realmente no me gustaría saberlo.
Por hoy no tengo más que decir, no vayan a darme un "paseo".
Pero lo que sí me ha parecido novedoso y de mucha reflexión son varias cosas, que el autor intenta descifrar:
- la supuesta inacción de los judíos ante su exterminio.
- el juego psicológico de los "técnicos" nazis para conseguir un equilibro entre sumisión, esperanza y capacidad de trabajo para poder procesar vagones y vagones de judíos polacos.
Impresiona muchísimo reflexionar estas cuestiones mientras se lee el libro. Y más, cuando este campo de exterminio fue un poco el prototipo de otros más "famosos".
La última parte de libro es realmente asfixiante y de máxima tensión. Se lee con avidez para descubrir si el levantamiento se produce y tiene éxito o por el contrario son atrapados antes o se llega al momento en el que el campo se "cierra". Como digo, se lee intentando no pronunciar palabra, sin una mirada delatora, sin un movimiento brusco que ponga en aviso a los guardias.
Otra cosa que me ha llamado la atención, y en la que indagaré más adelante (no aquí, en esta reseña), es que consultando rápidamente la wikipedia veo bastantes disonancias con lo contado en el libro. Se supone que éste se ha escrito en base a los relatos en primera persona de los supervivientes. Pero ya digo, ha sido una primera impresión al leer rápidamente y un poco en diagonal.
También es terrible comprobar como algunos de los máximos responsables nazis de este campo se fueron de rositas durante bastantes años e incluso tuvieron un final de su vida fuera de prisión. No estamos hablando de ser un oficial de un ejército y arrasar una ciudad por órdenes superiores. Se trata del asesinato de casi un millón de personas (algunas fuentes hablan de más) que bajaban de un tren tras otro. Como dirigir un parque de atracciones, pero con un tren de la bruja con una única entrada.
Desde luego, un libro imprescindible, para estómagos fuertes, para todo aquel que piense que el ser humano es bueno por naturaleza.
Para finalizar no quiero hacer comentarios simplistas respecto a la actualidad del estado de Israel a día de hoy y su última guerra contra los Palestinos. Pero me paro a pensar lo qué podrían sentir los supervivientes de Treblinka ante lo que está sucediendo en Gaza. Y llego a la conclusión de que realmente no me gustaría saberlo.
Por hoy no tengo más que decir, no vayan a darme un "paseo".
August 6, 2017
Ce n'est certainement pas le livre le plus joyeux que j'ai lu cet été.
Livre au sujet difficile qui raconte comment les prisonniers d'un camp d'extermination ont pu se révolter contre leurs bourreaux.
A lire pour le devoir de mémoire.
Livre au sujet difficile qui raconte comment les prisonniers d'un camp d'extermination ont pu se révolter contre leurs bourreaux.
A lire pour le devoir de mémoire.
December 17, 2018
This is one of the most stunning most powerful books about the Holocaust that I've ever read. The book details the birth and death of the Treblinka death camp. Fascinating. Horrifying. There truly simply are no words.
May 15, 2024
Mycket text, som dessutom är tung att läsa, men ack så viktig text. Jag har ofta undrat varför judarna inte reagerade mer under andra världskriget, varför de inte gjorde uppror. I boken fick jag svar på att judar visst gjorde uppror, och lite om hur.
Författaren hänvisar mycket till att judarna reagerade som de gjorde för att de var just judar, medan jag vill hävda att responsen är mänsklig - de flesta skulle reagera på samma sätt.
Författaren hänvisar mycket till att judarna reagerade som de gjorde för att de var just judar, medan jag vill hävda att responsen är mänsklig - de flesta skulle reagera på samma sätt.
February 28, 2017
Well. I'm tempted to let that be the totality of my review. Just "Well". Well, as in "Well, that was insanity"! Well, as in "I need to sit with that a moment". Well, as in "Now what"?
This reads like a novel. It is full of "supposed conversations" that threatened the credibility of the entire story, but somehow you never lose sight of the fact that it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
Written in an "of the time" manner, it uses phrases like "took her as mistress", or "they were kept for their entertainment", but the horror, degradation and shame behind those sterile words is palpable.
What I think this telling did well was to use an unapologetic approach to taking you through the thought process of those who committed the unthinkable and those who endured the unbearable. It also provides a quietly stinging commentary on the culpability of the Catholic Church, the nations who looked away, and the ones who looked on.
An exhausting read, but not a wasted one.
This reads like a novel. It is full of "supposed conversations" that threatened the credibility of the entire story, but somehow you never lose sight of the fact that it was the reality for hundreds of thousands of Jews.
Written in an "of the time" manner, it uses phrases like "took her as mistress", or "they were kept for their entertainment", but the horror, degradation and shame behind those sterile words is palpable.
What I think this telling did well was to use an unapologetic approach to taking you through the thought process of those who committed the unthinkable and those who endured the unbearable. It also provides a quietly stinging commentary on the culpability of the Catholic Church, the nations who looked away, and the ones who looked on.
An exhausting read, but not a wasted one.
January 16, 2014
This is the most disturbing book I have ever read. I have read through Game of Thrones and the Sword of Truth series with eager anticipation. I have watched CSI, Dexter, and the like. This book I couldn't read more than 5 pages without having to put it down. I suppose the difference is that THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. It is beyond words. When we think of the Holocaust, we think of all those poor people that died, but this book focuses on the people who LIVED in the concentration camps. There are not many who survived. They had EVERY type of cruelty forced upon them, by people whose evil goes beyond even the works of fiction I mentioned.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing sentences follows: p. 253: "...three excavators...plunged their long jointed arms to the bottom of the pestilential pit and lifted them more slowly, loaded with dismembered bodies. ... Each long steel arm ended in a monstrous set of jaws which closed gradually as they rose, inexorably eliminating anything that was too long, severing heads, torsos, and limbs, which fell heavily into the ditch."
The Jews in the camps were responsible for carrying the bodies (hundreds of thousands of them) to bonfires, arranging them in careful rows, and lighting them on fire. The Germans in charge made them organize the bodies according to how well they burned...
I am shocked to my core reading about the sick mind games, rituals, and disgraces these monsters made these people go through. It is disgusting, horrific, and TRUE, which is perhaps the worst of all.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing sentences follows: p. 253: "...three excavators...plunged their long jointed arms to the bottom of the pestilential pit and lifted them more slowly, loaded with dismembered bodies. ... Each long steel arm ended in a monstrous set of jaws which closed gradually as they rose, inexorably eliminating anything that was too long, severing heads, torsos, and limbs, which fell heavily into the ditch."
The Jews in the camps were responsible for carrying the bodies (hundreds of thousands of them) to bonfires, arranging them in careful rows, and lighting them on fire. The Germans in charge made them organize the bodies according to how well they burned...
I am shocked to my core reading about the sick mind games, rituals, and disgraces these monsters made these people go through. It is disgusting, horrific, and TRUE, which is perhaps the worst of all.
December 2, 2012
There are no words for books like these. I remember when i first picked it out thinking it would just be a restatement of the facts of Treblinka.
No. This book was more than just a memoir. IT was a reflection on how the concentration camp was more than just the continuous destruction of life, it was a cataclysm in the never-ending cycle of jewish belief. That their people group never gave up on life even faced with assured destruction and constant debasment and humiliation is so bewildering.
Treblinka is fascinating. I love it just as much as i hated it.
I thank the author for his effort on cultivating all the information and transforming it into a story that enables us to understand the destruction and cruelty present in one of the extermination camps of World War 2.
Thank you for writing this. I hope that this novel will warn us all of the consequences of our actions.
No. This book was more than just a memoir. IT was a reflection on how the concentration camp was more than just the continuous destruction of life, it was a cataclysm in the never-ending cycle of jewish belief. That their people group never gave up on life even faced with assured destruction and constant debasment and humiliation is so bewildering.
Treblinka is fascinating. I love it just as much as i hated it.
I thank the author for his effort on cultivating all the information and transforming it into a story that enables us to understand the destruction and cruelty present in one of the extermination camps of World War 2.
Thank you for writing this. I hope that this novel will warn us all of the consequences of our actions.
February 3, 2020
Non-fiction written to read as fiction...though the parts you hope are fiction are very much not.
This really was hell on earth.
What I found very interesting (in that cant look away b/c of the horror kind of 'interesting') was that Steiner explained how 'The Technicians' used psychology to trick the Jews into thinking there were choices, that there were options. When in actuality, all options led to the gas chambers.
Reading about Treblinka is some of the hardest Holocaust reading there is...but that is why it is so vitally important that we do.
Forty people survived out of 800,000 sent to Treblinka. That is a survival rate of 0.005%. Use that figure when someone tries to tell you that the genocide of the Jewish people was not the number one goal of the Nazis, or that 'they were going to kill others too'. Even when Hitler desperately needed oil, trains, and men to defend the eastern front, those resources were not diverted...instead, they were used to decimate the Jewish population of Hungary.
This really was hell on earth.
What I found very interesting (in that cant look away b/c of the horror kind of 'interesting') was that Steiner explained how 'The Technicians' used psychology to trick the Jews into thinking there were choices, that there were options. When in actuality, all options led to the gas chambers.
Reading about Treblinka is some of the hardest Holocaust reading there is...but that is why it is so vitally important that we do.
Forty people survived out of 800,000 sent to Treblinka. That is a survival rate of 0.005%. Use that figure when someone tries to tell you that the genocide of the Jewish people was not the number one goal of the Nazis, or that 'they were going to kill others too'. Even when Hitler desperately needed oil, trains, and men to defend the eastern front, those resources were not diverted...instead, they were used to decimate the Jewish population of Hungary.
December 4, 2024
En skildring av vardagen och uppbyggnaden av utrotningslägret Treblinka. Lägret existerade enbart i ett drygt år, men ändå beräknas att nästan 1 miljon judar mötte döden där. Drömmen hos lägercheferna var att utrotningarna i förlängningen skulle verkställas av med hjälp av lägrets fångar (i roller som ”arbetare” och ”förmän”) - en dödsmaskin som skötte sig själv.
Men parallellt med denna hopplöshet börjar en tanke om revolt uppstå hos några av fångarna. Tankarna sprider sig, fler ansluts till planerna och till slut blir man tvungen att göra verklighet av dem.
Boken bygger på intervjuer av de få överlevande från lägret, vissa gjorda kring krigsslutet och en del ett tiotal år senare. Treblinka jämnades med marken av nazisterna och dokumentationen om lägret förstördes i samma veva.
Boken kom ut första gången 1966. Innehållet är fortfarande starkt och ger upphov till en massa tankar som är svåra att sortera i skrivande stund.
Men parallellt med denna hopplöshet börjar en tanke om revolt uppstå hos några av fångarna. Tankarna sprider sig, fler ansluts till planerna och till slut blir man tvungen att göra verklighet av dem.
Boken bygger på intervjuer av de få överlevande från lägret, vissa gjorda kring krigsslutet och en del ett tiotal år senare. Treblinka jämnades med marken av nazisterna och dokumentationen om lägret förstördes i samma veva.
Boken kom ut första gången 1966. Innehållet är fortfarande starkt och ger upphov till en massa tankar som är svåra att sortera i skrivande stund.
February 7, 2018
While the subject matter was extremely difficult to get through I am glad I read this book. It was beyond intense as the description were detailed. Half the time I wanted cry and never read another word yet the rest of the time I was fascinated by the people who kept going through all of it. They all had different methods but in the end the goal to stay alive won out. This book definately left me understand the tragedy of disvaluing human life. Every person is alive for a reason and it is such a precious gift to have and to realise your potential.
June 19, 2020
I found this book on my grandma’s bookshelf as I was walking out the door one day. Even though I teach history and WWII, I found this book and the story of Treblinka almost unbelievable. The author explains how the Jewish People where led like “sheep” to the slaughter and describes the depth of psychological warfare and the lengths the Germans went to in instilling a little hope to keep the prisoners subdued. Treblinka even had a fake train station built! If you’re a history nerd, this is a must read.
March 15, 2024
This book gives a detailed account of the brutal daily work schedule and horrible life inside the death camp, Treblinka. Based on survivor interviews, a group of men planned to stage a revolt knowing most would die, but hoping some would escape to tell the world the truth. Plans had to be changed and delayed many times but grenades and firearms were secretly obtained and distributed. The signal to start the revolt would be the discharge of a grenade. Pandemonium and confusion occurred, but in the end, 600 were able to flee to the forest. Of these, 40 survived to tell their story.
January 28, 2025
I have read perhaps 50 novels on the holocaustMost of these were centered around the events surrounding the concentration camp at Auschwitz.I didn't believe it was possible to describe the absolute horror of what the Germans did than what I had already read.When I finished Treblinka,I changed my mind.The sole purpose of Treblinka was to kill people.They became so efficient at it that they reached a point where they could kill 24,000 people in one day.This book is harrowing,unforgettable and should be read by anyone who is interested in this period of history.
June 29, 2018
A very different way of writing a biographical account of the holocaust, sometimes reading more like a novel than a historical account. Lots of prose which makes it very readable but, as a result, it is much harder to connect to the individuals therein.
It is very enjoyable - if that is a word that can be used about such a subject - but it isn't essential reading and not the book I would suggest to someone that wants a vivid account of hell on earth.
It is very enjoyable - if that is a word that can be used about such a subject - but it isn't essential reading and not the book I would suggest to someone that wants a vivid account of hell on earth.
April 16, 2021
I read this years ago so I won't be giving details here. It just came up in a FB readers group and reminded me of how much this book touched me. I can still see some of the images in my mind and it still makes my stomach knot and twist. This book gave me nightmares and a much deeper understanding of suffering...and of human perseverance and triumph. It won't be a book I re-read, but I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about those world events.
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