Treblinka - gebunden oder broschiert

When it was first published in France in 1966, "Treblinka" immediately aroused both world-wide praise and controversy. Its author, Jean-Francoise Steiner, was only 28. Like many young Jews of his generation, he had lost much of his family, including his father, to the Nazi death camps. And also like them, he was obsessed with the question many have asked: why didn't the Jews in the camps revolt? Why did they go to their deaths obediently, quietly? Today the answer seems clear: the Nazis' thoroughness, organization and ruthlessness made resistance virtually impossible. But in the mid-60's the search for answers brought Steiner to the history of Trelinka, the first camp built by the Nazis that was not converted from labor camp to death camp but built explicity for murder. He examined testimony from the Polish Court of Inquiry in 1945 and the Yad Vashem Institute in Israel, then personnally interviewed as many of the 40 survivors of Treblinka as he could. What he learned was that in August 1943, after more than 700,000 men, women and children had been slaugtered in Treblinka, the 1,000 remaining prisoners did revolt. Many were killed in the fighting, but 600 escaped to the woods surrounding the camp. Though all but 40 were killed during the following year, the Nazis considered the revolt an inexplical defeat.