Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

Between the years 1942 and 1943, under the code name Operation Reinhard, more than one-and-a-half million Jews were gassed in the concentration camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Fewer than 200 Jews survived the operation. Using sources previously overlooked, such as German and Polish official records and testimonies from Nazi war crimes trials, Yitzhak Arad records the complete history of the death camps from their construction in 1941 to their destruction in 1943.

He tells the tale of the death camps' inmates — though many lived only a few hours after their arrival — the underground organizations, the revolts and escapes, and the details concerning the day-to-day survival of those spared instant death in the gas chambers. Arad's work retrieves the experience of Operation Reinhard's victims and survivors from obscurity and bears eloquent witness to their tragedy.




ISBN-13 : 9780253213051
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Publication date : 01/03/1999
Author : Yitzhak Arad

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

With meticulous scholarship and precise exposition Tel Aviv historian and Yad Vashem director Arad recounts all facets of Operation Reinhard, the destruction of 1.5 million Jews in occupied Poland from 1941 to 1943. Arad describes the founding, organization, personnel, prisoners, and victims of the three death camps and provides detailed chapters on the uprisings and escapes from Treblinka and Sobibor. He effectively employs extensive excerpts from Jewish, Polish, and German contemporary documents and later testimony by witnesses and participants. Arad is scrupulously careful to point out the limits of the available evidence. This comprehensive, judicious, and moving history is a remarkable contribution to Holocaust studies and is strongly recommended for academic and public libraries. James B. Street, Santa Cruz P.L., Cal.