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Dossier : L’Aktion Reinhardt et l’Aktion Erntefest

Aktion Reinhardt – Sources, Research and Commemoration in the last 30 years

Stephan Lehnstaedt
p. 62-70

Résumé

The text of Stephan Lehnstaedt here presents the latest elements of the historiography of the subject of Aktion Reinhardt: the regionalized studies, on the scale of the five former districts; the study of the rare but significant pictures, in the form of “albums” as for Treblinka and Sobibór, which belonged to the SS, and which give a glimpse of the elements of the internal arrangements; the archaeological discoveries on the sites of the three former extermination centres, which over the last twenty years have clarified the locations of the installations, and first and foremost the gas chambers.

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Texte intégral

1Aktion Reinhardt is the German code name for the murder of at least 1.8 million Jews in the extermination camps Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka in 1942/43 – with less than 150 survivors. Three of them had been in Bełżec, the others about half in Sobibór and half in Treblinka. Almost all of them emigrated after the war, either to Israel or to the USA.

2This epicentre of the Holocaust, the largest crime complex of the German attempt to exterminate the European Jews, has been surprisingly little researched. In Germany and also worldwide, attention is largely focused on Auschwitz, the camp with more than 1.1 million victims – among them mainly Jews from Hungary and from Western European countries. This memorial site is visited by about 2 million people annually, while Treblinka does not even have 60,000 visitors per year. The lack of public attention is reflected by popular knowledge as well as by historiography.

  • 1 Arad, Yitzhak, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard death camps, Bloomington: Indiana (...)
  • 2 For a recent summary, also on the aspects mentioned in this article, see the contributions in Lehns (...)

3This text is dedicated to the historical research of Aktion Reinhardt and the underlying sources. The focus is on the last 30 years, thus starting, as it were, with Yitzak Arad’s first major monograph on Aktion Reinhardt published in English in 19871. Since then there have been many new findings2, but still way too little public attention is being paid to what was happening at that time. Accordingly, the second part of the essay is devoted to the remembrance of the extermination, in particular at the three memorials in Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka.

Aktion Reinhardt in historiography

  • 3 Besides Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, there are only two surveys: Libionka, Dariusz, Zagłada Ży (...)
  • 4 Bryant, Michael, Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966, Knoxv (...)

4One reason for the little attention dedicated to Aktion Reinhardt is certainly the lacking presence or even absence of traces. Where in Auschwitz a gigantic camp complex clearly demonstrates the importance of the murder site, literally nothing remains of the three extermination sites. In Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, there were no human experiments and no forced labor – except for those few Jews who were needed as slaves for the murder. This explains why so few people actually survived this hell on earth, despite uprisings in Sobibór and Treblinka. After 1945, there was simply no one who could remind us to remember and come to terms with the past. In the truest sense of the word, Aktion Reinhardt was out of sight and out of mind3. Even the German trials of some of the perpetrators still alive in the 1960s, changed little of this4.

General view of the Memorial at Bełżec as conceived in 2004, covering the former Nazi extermination centre

General view of the Memorial at Bełżec as conceived in 2004, covering the former Nazi extermination centre

© Stephan Lehnstaedt, 2017

  • 5 These figures according to Kuwałek, Robert, Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec. Berlin: Metropol, 2013, 2 (...)

5Unfortunately, the exact number of victims cannot be determined – and probably this will never be the case. The subordinates of the Lublin SS and police leader Odilo Globocnik, who was in charge of Aktion Reinhardt, put a lot of energy into covering their tracks. But especially the results of the investigation of the many deportation trains allow a relatively exact limitation of the minimum and maximum numbers: Bełżec: minimum 440,823, maximum 596,200; Sobibór: minimum 170,618, maximum 238,900; Treblinka: minimum 780,863, maximum 951,8005.

6In the camps of Aktion Reinhardt – and on the way to these – probably at least 1,520,000 people were murdered. The victims of the ‘actions’ in the many ghettos are even more difficult to determine. For the districts of Lublin and Krakow, the most concise investigations are available, which, in addition to the deportees, assume that at least 20 percent were shot on site – and this is again a conservative estimate. There is no reason to assume a less brutal approach by the perpetrators for the rest of Poland. The total number of victims of Aktion Reinhardt is therefore certainly at least 1.8 million people.

  • 6 See for a recent exhibition: Kuwałek, Robert, and Dariusz Libionka, Przybyli do getta … odeszli w n (...)

7In recent years, a young generation of historians – in Germany actually only female historians – has discovered the topic and presented impressive new studies, some of which have considerably expanded knowledge. Research is also being conducted in Poland, where employees of the Majdanek Memorial, which is also responsible for Bełżec, have come up with important publications6. It is particularly important that, after decades of German perpetrator research, the perspective of Jews has once again become visible. This also means a revaluation of the victims, whose statements conservative historians have often dismissed as too subjective and not very reliable.

  • 7 Silberklang, David, Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 20 (...)
  • 8 Hänschen, Steffen, Das Transitghetto Izbica. Die Deportationen in den Distrikt Lublin im Frühsommer (...)

8David Silberklang’s book about the Holocaust in the Lublin district, for example, is largely a study of Aktion Reinhardt7. The long-time editor of Yad Vashem Studies has produced a masterful – and also masterfully told – work focusing entirely on Jewish fates. The benefit of such regional and local studies8 lies not least in the fact that they refute the idea of passive victims. On the contrary, it must be said that the Jews of Eastern Europe naturally had an agenda – even if that did not ensure their survival in the face of the Germans’ overwhelming means of power.

  • 9 Bruder, Franziska, Das eigene Schicksal selbst bestimmen: Fluchten von Juden aus den Deportationszü (...)
  • 10 Even in small towns there was considerable knowledge: Ferenc Piotrowska, Maria, ‚‘Czarna, ogromna c (...)

9That this was indeed possible, however, is shown by a new study on the escapes from the deportation trains to the extermination camps9. It is largely documentary and presents in chronological order the successful escapes from deportation trains. At first glance, it is surprising that the majority of those who escaped actually went back to the ghettos – too great was the fear of being denounced by Poles and falling into German hands again, which then meant immediate death. Especially in view of the widespread knowledge about the murder policy on the one hand10 and the conditions in the countryside on the other hand, this phenomenon may not really surprise, but it does show the multiple dilemmas of the persecuted. These were reflected not least in discussions about escape, which were often conducted with great passion still in the wagons - not infrequently, suicides occurred afterwards because on the one hand the destination was known and on the other hand escape was impossible.

Memorial at Treblinka. At the foreground, the representation of the firepits where the bodies of the assassinated were burned

Memorial at Treblinka. At the foreground, the representation of the firepits where the bodies of the assassinated were burned

© Frédéric Crahay/Auschwitz Foundation, 2013

  • 11 For examples from Poland cf. Libionka, Dariusz, Obóz zagłady w Bełżcu w relacjach ocalonych i zezna (...)

10With all this, it should not be forgotten that the study is based on statements by survivors who actually experienced the liberation. Because the witnesses spoke on various occasions, such as courts or investigative commissions, historians can analyze differences and emphases in the discourse on survival elsewhere. This is also a contribution to legal history, since the expected nuances over time were defamed as contradictions by the perpetrators in German trials, thus calling into question the overall credibility of the survivors – albeit largely without success. Beyond the witnesses, the post-war investigations and proceedings11, which also consist of other material, are often the most important basis for historians dealing with Aktion Reinhardt.

  • 12 Wienert, Annika, Das Lager vorstellen: Die Architektur der nationalsozialistischen Vernichtungslage (...)
  • 13 This can be seen in Cüppers, Martin, Annett Gerhardt, and Karin Graf, Fotos aus Sobibor: Die Nieman (...)

11Annika Wienert, for example, demonstrates what can actually be extracted from the trial records in a study of the architecture of the camps12. Her analysis clearly shows the improvised character of the extermination camps. They were not based on the ‘ideal’ plan of existing concentration camps, because the intention of Aktion Reinhardt was quite different: it was about mass murder, not about imprisonment. Reality and perception are, of course, often contradictory. However, the symbolic charging of architecture, such as the ramp at the train station in particular, only occurred in the postwar period, often through the memorials themselves. In this sense, the structural design of the extermination camps did not serve to deceive victims and the outside world, but rather to functionalize and normalize the everyday life of the perpetrators, which was intended to simulate ‘ordinary’ working conditions13.

12But of course, the differences between photos of perpetrators, sketches of survivors and excavation results are sometimes considerable. Yet, the iconography is dominated by the perpetrators, as contemporary pictures were only taken by them, because the victims simply could not pass on anything. These peaceful, sometimes idyllic photographs, for example of the ‘camp zoo’ in Treblinka or the dog of the German SS, form an irritating contrast to the mass murder taking place at the same time.

  • 14 Berger, Experten der Vernichtung.
  • 15 Friedlander, Henry, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid: Von der Euthanasie zur Endlösung, Berlin: Berlin-Verl., (...)

13We have learned many new things about these perpetrators in recent years. A study by Sara Berger was particularly groundbreaking in this respect14. It analyses the biographies and actions of those 121 men who ran Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka. Already for some years the continuities from the so-called euthanasia action T 4 over the murders in Chełmno (the German death camp Kulmhof) up to Aktion Reinhardt are known in basic features15. Berger is now able to show in detail how a core of about 500 men came together to organize the Holocaust in the East, first regionally and then throughout the Generalgouvernement for Odilo Globocnik.

14In the fall of 1943, about 80 of the perpetrators moved on with Globocnik from the Generalgouvernement to the ‘Adriatic Coastal Country’ (Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland), the region between Italy and present-day Slovenia, where they also committed mass murder in the final years of the war. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the organizers of genocide managed to evade prosecution after the war: They stylized themselves as small cogs without influence and so successfully concealed the fact that they had been (self-)conscious executors of the Holocaust.

  • 16 Benz, Angelika, Handlanger der SS: Die Rolle der Trawniki-Männer im Holocaust, Berlin: Metropol, 20 (...)

15This is in stark contrast to the so-called ‘Trawnikis’, the foreign volunteers who provided the mass of the security personnel in Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka. For every 15 to 20 Germans, there were usually about 100 of these men, also called ‘Askaris’ in reference to the colonial auxiliary troops of the Empire16. Globocnik had his auxiliary troops recruited among the Red Army prisoners of war since late summer 1941. Ukrainians and Russians of German descent were chosen with preference because they were considered potentially less indoctrinated by Soviet ideology. By the end of the war, the SS had thus gained almost 5,000 men, although their ‘voluntary reporting’ was often only a matter of survival in view of the catastrophic conditions in the POW camps. About half of these men came from the Ukraine, 15 percent were considered ethnic Germans, the others originated from other ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. Most of them were young men around 20 years of age, from rural areas and with only primary school education.

  • 17 Benz, Angelika, Der Henkersknecht: Der Prozess gegen John (Iwan) Demjanuk in München, Berlin: Metro (...)

16It is quite significant that in recent times John (Ivan) Demjanjuk, one of these Trawnikis, was probably the most famous perpetrator of the Holocaust convicted by a German court. He was put on trial in Munich from 2009 to 201117. The Trawniki from Ukraine had emigrated to the United States after the war, but in his naturalization process he had concealed his membership in the guards of the SS and Police Leader Lublin. His immigration had therefore been revoked. This could only be reconsidered if it could be proven that Demjanjuk was not a Trawniki man and therefore had not lied. And this is exactly what his defense attorney, Ulrich Busch, wanted to prove. But the maximalist approach did not catch on. After 92 trial days, a court in Munich sentenced Demjanjuk for the aiding and abetting murder of 28,060 humans to five years imprisonment. Ten months later he died in a nursing home in Bad Feilnbach.

Commemoration and memorial sites

  • 18 See Haimi, Yoram, and Wojciech Mazurek, ‘Uncovering the Remains of a Nazi Death Camp: Archeological (...)

17In addition to classical historiography, forensic archaeology has recently provided the most important contributions to the history of Aktion Reinhardt. In Treblinka and above all in Sobibór, new excavation campaigns have recently taken place every year, involving Polish, Israeli and English scientists18. For Sobibór alone, over 20,000 artifacts were found. Among them were name plates, especially of Dutch Jews, bullets and dentures, but also the foundations of earlier buildings – including the gas chambers. These archaeological finds are impressive traces of the victims.

18From the historian’s perspective, this is an enormously important documentary activity, which also and especially offers arguments against Holocaust deniers who deny the existence of these extermination camps according to the motto ‘what you cannot see cannot have existed’. And even if one doesn’t want to go that far, the details discovered can still be used to fulfill the visitors’ needs for visualizing the horror and, for example, to create precise maps. Particularly noteworthy are probably the finds of foundation walls of the gas chambers in Treblinka and Sobibór, as well as traces of an escape tunnel in the latter camp, with which Dutch Jews attempted an unsuccessful escape.

  • 19 Rusiniak, Martyna, Obóz zagłady Treblinka II w pamięci społecznej (1943-1989), Warszawa: Neriton, 2 (...)
  • 20 Kobylarz, Renata, Walka o pamiéc: Polityczne aspekty obchodów rocznicy powstania w getcie warszawsk (...)

19As natural as it seems today to hint at these traces in memorial sites, it is surprising that no one has ever looked for them. The explanation for this can be found in the analysis of those sites, which also includes the local handling of the mass murder. In fact, there are already first studies on the immediate post-war history of the camps and on the first monuments19. Already at that time the forgetting of Aktion Reinhardt begins. The Jewish organizations in Poland did a lot of lobbying for Treblinka as the central Holocaust memorial in Poland directly after 1945. However, their commitment was unsuccessful because the government preferred in 1948 to have a monument built to the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto20. The latter could be propagated as international resistance and solidarity – even if there had also been an uprising in Treblinka.

  • 21 Kuwałek, Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec, 307.

20After that, however, Polish commemorative policy focused almost exclusively on Auschwitz. Memorials at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka were only established by the People’s Republic of Poland in the 1960s, and one can view them as a reaction to the first trials of the perpetrators in Germany at the same time. A permanent exhibition in museums has only existed since the 2000s. In Treblinka there are three rooms, Bełżec is larger because the memorial was completely redesigned in 2004. This was largely due to the initiative of Miles Lerman, who as a Polish Jew had lost his family in Bełżec and later lived in the USA. Among others, he was able to win the American Jewish Committee as a supporter. Together with the Polish government, the money needed for the construction was collected. Against this background, Robert Kuwałek, the first director of the memorial in Bełżec, who died far too early in 2014, once wrote of a ‘half century of forgetting’21.

21And yet, a lot is happening. In Treblinka, for example, there are regular German-Polish encounters, especially among students and young adults. This is impressive proof of a living landscape of remembrance – admittedly, mainly on a civil society basis thanks to the commitment of individual teachers, and with all the restrictions that a small museum in a remote location has to face.

  • 22 Lehnstaedt, Stephan, ‘Sobibór: Eine neue Gedenkstätte für ein Lager der ‚Aktion Reinhardt‘’, Gedenk (...)

22The most significant developments can currently be observed in Sobibór, where the completely redesigned memorial opened in 2020 – even if the actual museum is not yet finished, partly because of the current Corona pandemic22. The previous memorial, based on a concept by Romuald Dylewski, was erected on June 27, 1965 and consisted of a sculpture of a mother and child in front of a tower. Among the objects was a conical concrete slab as a kind of burial mound, where the SS had burned the bodies. The inscription on a memorial plaque at the entrance to the memorial emphasized the internationality of the Sobibór victims and did not mention that they were almost exclusively persecuted as Jews. Furthermore, the former camp had been almost three times as large as the area established as a memorial; other parts had been partially levelled, asphalted, or planted with trees after 1945 – thus destroying further evidence.

Virtual image of the new Memorial and Museum at Sobibór. The inauguration of the new exhibition occurred in October 2020

Virtual image of the new Memorial and Museum at Sobibór. The inauguration of the new exhibition occurred in October 2020

© Muzeum I Miejsce Pamięci w Sobiborze

23A small museum on the grounds was not built until 1993, after the end of communism. Since that time, civil society organizations have also been involved, such as the Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz from Kassel, the Dutch Stichting Sobibór, and the Polish Stowarzyszenie Upamiętniania Sobiboru (Association for the Remembrance of Sobibór), all of whom often work together to realize educational trips or exhibition projects. Together they also created in 2005 an avenue with the names of (some) victims engraved on stones. This tree-lined avenue was intended to correspond to the ‘hose’ to the gas chambers that the Jews had to walk at the time, but it is now clear that the location is not correct.

  • 23 Muhle, Klara, ‘Der historische Ort der ehemaligen Tötungsstätte Sobibór’, in Jörg Ganzenmüller and (...)

24For the new memorial, a design proposal by the artist Łukasz Mieszkowski and the architects Marcin Urbanek and Piotr Michalewicz was realized. It aims at making Sobibór today first and foremost a cemetery. Against this background, possible mortal remains in the ground are to be protected. After consultation with the Polish Rabbinical Commission, the archaeologists have refrained from intervening in the ground in all places where they suspect mass graves. These large areas have been covered with a water-permeable protective tarpaulin and later with a layer of white marble stones (this also applies to the grave cone concreted in the 1960s). The tarpaulin serves to ensure that the graves are not touched during the work - which was all done by hand. The marble is not in the form of slabs, because the ash pits are not to be entered anyway; instead, they are pieces of rock of various sizes, up to a diameter of about 20cm. The visual impression is intense: the dimension of the covered surface as well as the purity of the material make conversations fall silent and bring to mind the extent of the mass murder23.

25The concept reflects the promise of authenticity that inevitably goes hand in hand with a historical site: visitors expect to see traces that can only be seen to a very limited extent; rather, they encounter an aura of the past. The approach, however, also differs significantly from that of contemporary Polish history museums. The permanent exhibition serves the site and is limited – in a classical sense – to information and education.

Perspectives

26The new Sobibór Memorial promises to provide a dignified and appropriate memorial to the victims as well as a convincing information and educational work. The most important question is then how to attract attention, i.e. visitors, to the memorial. The same applies to Bełżec and Treblinka. There is a lack of money, not least from Germany, to provide adequate education locally and also in the countries of the perpetrators and victims. But it is even more important to preserve the memory of the dead, and not least of all this requires considerable research effort. Archaeologists and historians would have to work together to identify the mass graves that were already created during the deportations from the shtetls and cities of Eastern Europe.

27This aims at decentralized information that serves to anchor knowledge on a broad social and geographical level, not least to enable a personal connection to the murdered neighbors. It is therefore important to have as many names of the dead as possible. And it is also important not to limit oneself exclusively to the Jews, but to finally tackle this chapter of German extermination policy together with e.g. the murdered Roma from Poland. The interdependencies of the crime complexes are one side of this coin, the other is to gather and impart knowledge about them.

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Notes

1 Arad, Yitzhak, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard death camps, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987; a revised version is from 2018.

2 For a recent summary, also on the aspects mentioned in this article, see the contributions in Lehnstaedt, Stephan, and Robert Traba, Die ‘Aktion Reinhardt’: Geschichte und Gedenken, Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, 2018.

3 Besides Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, there are only two surveys: Libionka, Dariusz, Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, Majdanek: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 2017, and Lehnstaedt, Stephan, Der Kern des Holocaust: Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka und die Aktion Reinhardt, München: C.H. Beck, 2017 (also in Polish, French and Dutch).

4 Bryant, Michael, Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014.

5 These figures according to Kuwałek, Robert, Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec. Berlin: Metropol, 2013, 237-246 and 251-254; idem, ‘Nowe ustalenia dotyczące licby ofiar niemieckiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze’, Zeszyty Majdanka 26 (2014), 17–60, here 60; Młynarczyk, Jacek A., ‘Niemiecki obóz zagłady dla ludności Żydowskiej w Treblince’, in Edward Kopówka (ed.), Co wiemy o Treblince?: Stan badań, Siedlce: Muzeum Regionalne w Siedlcach, 2013, 63–97, here 97; Berger, Sara, Experten der Vernichtung: Das T4-Reinhardt-Netzwerk in den Lagern Belzec, Sobibor und Treblinka, Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2014, 252-254 and 416-431. See also Witte, Peter, and Stephen Tyas, ’A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‘Einsatz Reinhardt’ 1942′, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15, 2001, 468–86, here 469.

6 See for a recent exhibition: Kuwałek, Robert, and Dariusz Libionka, Przybyli do getta … odeszli w nieznane: Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie katalog wystawy (They arrived at the ghetto … and went into the unknown … the extermination of Jews in the General Government exhibition catalogue), Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 2013.

7 Silberklang, David, Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2013.

8 Hänschen, Steffen, Das Transitghetto Izbica. Die Deportationen in den Distrikt Lublin im Frühsommer 1942, Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, 2018.

9 Bruder, Franziska, Das eigene Schicksal selbst bestimmen: Fluchten von Juden aus den Deportationszügen in die Vernichtungslager der ‘Aktion Reinhardt’ in Polen, Münster: Unrast, 2019. Bruder has presented another small but innovative study on the Sobibór uprising: Hunderte solcher Helden. Der Aufstand jüdischer Gefangener im NS-Vernichtungslager Sobibór. Berichte, Recherchen und Analysen, Hamburg: Unrast, 2013.

10 Even in small towns there was considerable knowledge: Ferenc Piotrowska, Maria, ‚‘Czarna, ogromna chmura wisi nad nami i na pewno spadnie…‘ Żydzi w miastach i miasteczkach Generalnego Gubernatorstwa wobec wiadomości o akcji ‘Reinhardt’’, Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały 13, 2017, 295–324.

11 For examples from Poland cf. Libionka, Dariusz, Obóz zagłady w Bełżcu w relacjach ocalonych i zeznaniach polskich świadków, Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 2013.

12 Wienert, Annika, Das Lager vorstellen: Die Architektur der nationalsozialistischen Vernichtungslager, Berlin: Neofelis Verlag, 2015.

13 This can be seen in Cüppers, Martin, Annett Gerhardt, and Karin Graf, Fotos aus Sobibor: Die Niemann-Sammlung zu Holocaust und Nationalsozialismus, Berlin: Metropol, 2020.

14 Berger, Experten der Vernichtung.

15 Friedlander, Henry, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid: Von der Euthanasie zur Endlösung, Berlin: Berlin-Verl., 1997.

16 Benz, Angelika, Handlanger der SS: Die Rolle der Trawniki-Männer im Holocaust, Berlin: Metropol, 2015. See also Black, Peter, ‘Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Training Camp and Operation Reinhard’, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 25, 2011, 1–99.

17 Benz, Angelika, Der Henkersknecht: Der Prozess gegen John (Iwan) Demjanuk in München, Berlin: Metropol-Verlag, 2011.

18 See Haimi, Yoram, and Wojciech Mazurek, ‘Uncovering the Remains of a Nazi Death Camp: Archeological Research in Sobibor’, Yad Vashem Studies 41(2), 2013, 55–94; Sturdy Colls, Caroline, ‘O tym, co minęło, lecz nie zostało zapomniane: Badania archeologiczne na terenie byłego obozu zagłady w Treblince’, Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały 8, 2012, 77–112; Vojta, Tomas, ‘Rethinking the Elimination of Traces of Mass Murder at the Treblinka Extermination Camp’, in Victoria Khiterer, Ryan Barrick and David Misal (eds.), The Holocaust. Memories and history, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2014, 43–61.

19 Rusiniak, Martyna, Obóz zagłady Treblinka II w pamięci społecznej (1943-1989), Warszawa: Neriton, 2008; Wóycicka, Zofia, Arrested Mourning: Memory of the Nazi camps in Poland, 1944-1950, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013.

20 Kobylarz, Renata, Walka o pamiéc: Polityczne aspekty obchodów rocznicy powstania w getcie warszawskim 1944 - 1989, Warszawa: IPN, 2009.

21 Kuwałek, Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec, 307.

22 Lehnstaedt, Stephan, ‘Sobibór: Eine neue Gedenkstätte für ein Lager der ‚Aktion Reinhardt‘’, Gedenkstättenrundbrief, 188, 2017, 15–24.

23 Muhle, Klara, ‘Der historische Ort der ehemaligen Tötungsstätte Sobibór’, in Jörg Ganzenmüller and Raphael Utz (eds.), Orte der Shoah in Polen: Gedenkstätten zwischen Mahnmal und Museum, Köln, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2016, pp. 147–66.

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Table des illustrations

Titre General view of the Memorial at Bełżec as conceived in 2004, covering the former Nazi extermination centre
Crédits © Stephan Lehnstaedt, 2017
URL http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/docannexe/image/9886/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 371k
Titre Memorial at Treblinka. At the foreground, the representation of the firepits where the bodies of the assassinated were burned
Crédits © Frédéric Crahay/Auschwitz Foundation, 2013
URL http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/docannexe/image/9886/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 248k
Titre Virtual image of the new Memorial and Museum at Sobibór. The inauguration of the new exhibition occurred in October 2020
Crédits © Muzeum I Miejsce Pamięci w Sobiborze
URL http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/docannexe/image/9886/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 470k
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Stephan Lehnstaedt, « Aktion Reinhardt – Sources, Research and Commemoration in the last 30 years »Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire, 132 | 2021, 62-70.

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Stephan Lehnstaedt, « Aktion Reinhardt – Sources, Research and Commemoration in the last 30 years »Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire [En ligne], 132 | 2021, mis en ligne le 26 janvier 2023, consulté le 18 avril 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/temoigner/9886 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/temoigner.9886

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Auteur

Stephan Lehnstaedt

Professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Studies at Touro College Berlin

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