One of the lesser-known facts about the so-called ‘pure extermination camp’ of Treblinka – which is in many ways the ‘iconic’ Operation Reinhard camp in the popular imagination – is that like it’s much more established cousin camp Buchenwald: it had a zoo.
The fact that Treblinka had a zoo – albeit a short-lived one – is so obscure that Carlo Mattogno and Jurgen Graf’s pioneering eponymous study of the camp doesn’t even mention it. Although they do point out that – contrary to mainstream claims and interpretations of Treblinka; Treblinka had quite a lot of cultural activity and a lot more was planned. For example: it had an amateur band to play musical accompaniment to various entertainments – allegedly for the German, Polish and Ukrainian staff only but actually compromised of inmates – (1) as well as a choir – presumably a male one – as well as a theatre at which amateur dramatics was performed. (2)
However, a zoo the camp did have as we can see from mainstream ‘Holocaust’ authority Yitzhak Arad who identifies the zoo as being at Treblinka and even publishes a photo of it in his ‘Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka’: (3)
He also helpfully pinpoints its location within the Treblinka camp: (4)
This is the key to the above map provided by Arad: (5)
Now we can clearly see Treblinka indeed had a zoo and it is useless to deny that it did.
Indeed ‘DeathCamps.org’ which is run by some of the anti-revisionist bloggers and historians known as ‘Holocaust Controversies’ even has a useful small page dedicated to the zoo of Treblinka. (6)
They helpfully provide the known photographs of the zoo of Treblinka which are as follows (I reproduce them for posterity).
The Panoramic Photo of the Zoo:
A close up of the Zoo from the front:
The Zoo from the rear:
Barry – Deputy Commander (and then Commander) of Treblinka Kurt Franz’s St. Bernard – at the Zoo:
One of the local foxes that were caught and placed in the Zoo:
A collage of photographs of the foxes caught and placed in the Zoo:
Now the real question remaining is who was the zoo for?
This we can answer by looking at the plan of Treblinka provided by Arad:
Now in the above we can see that the road in front of the zoo in the photos is in fact the minor road to the south of the zoo and the cluster of buildings (the buildings labelled #14) behind the zoo are in fact the living quarters of the Ukrainians staff. Building #10 is the living quarters for the women who worked at the camp – largely Polish – which is to the West of the zoo and has a clear sight to it, while the SS barracks (the buildings labelled #3) do not have sight of it and even the SS facilities (Building #9) don’t have a clear view of it.
However, Building #13 which is where the ‘gold jews’ worked – i.e., those sorting and processing all the money, jewellery and valuables that were confiscated from the jews passing through Treblinka – had a clear and unobstructed view of the zoo, while the inmate ghetto – especially the living quarters for female jews (Building #17) and the prisoner’s kitchen (Building #18) had a relatively good view of the zoo albeit partly obstructed by Treblinka’s small pastoral farm and stables (Building #16).
This might seem extraneous but by noting that the female jewish inmates, the ‘gold jews’ while working, the non-SS women working at the camp and the Ukrainians all had a good view of the zoo of Treblinka from their respective buildings; we can quickly see that it was intended not only for the staff of Treblinka but rather also for the inmates.
We further know this is true because the ‘gold jews’ all but had access to it and we know that the inmate band of Treblinka as well as its inmate choir also went into the camp staff area – which would have almost certainly included going into the zoo area – in order to play and sing as part of the camp entertainments. (7)
This then means that just like the zoo in Buchenwald concentration camp – which was much more comprehensive and opened in 1938 – (8) the zoo in Treblinka ‘extermination camp’ – which was first opened in early 1943 – (9) was primarily meant for the relaxation of the camp staff as well as any visitors, but also meant as a reward to inmates for good work/cooperation in addition to a source of edification for them in the spirit of the famous National Socialist slogan:
‘Strength Through Joy!’
References
(1) Yitzhak Arad, 1987, ‘Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps’, 1st Edition, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, p. 202
(2) Carlo Mattogno, Jurgen Graf, 2016, ‘Treblinka: Extermination Camp or Transit Camp?’, 2nd Edition, Castle Hill: Uckfield, pp. 24-25
(3) Arad, Op. Cit., p. 93
(4) Ibid., p. 39
(5) Ibid., p. 38
(6) http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/zoo.html
(7) Arad, Op. Cit., p. 202; Mattogno, Graf, Op. Cit., pp. 24-25
(8) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-zoo-of-buchenwald-concentration
(9) http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/zoo.html