View source for Operation Reinhard

{{Short description|Code name for the creation of German extermination camps in Poland in World War II}}
{{Pp-protected|small=yes}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name          = Operation Reinhard
| image         = Deportation to Treblinka from ghetto in Siedlce 1942.jpg
| caption       = Jews from the [[Siedlce Ghetto]] forced onto a [[Holocaust train|train]] to [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]]<ref name="karty">{{cite journal | url=http://arch.ipn.gov.pl/ftp/zycie/zaglada_zydow_karty.pdf | title=From archives of the Jewish deportations to extermination camps | publisher=[[Institute of National Remembrance]], Warsaw | journal=Karty | date=1942 | access-date=26 January 2015 | author=IPN | page=32 | id=Document size 4.7 MB | archive-date=4 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304064014/http://arch.ipn.gov.pl/ftp/zycie/zaglada_zydow_karty.pdf }}</ref> 
| location      = [[General Government]] in [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]]
| date          = March 1942 – November 1943<ref name="Stone">{{cite journal |last1=Stone |first1=Lewi |title=Quantifying the Holocaust: Hyperintense kill rates during the Nazi genocide |journal=Science Advances |date=2019 |volume=5 |issue=1 |article-number=eaau7292 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aau7292 |pmid=30613773 |pmc=6314819 |bibcode=2019SciA....5.7292S }}</ref>
| incident_type = Mass deportations to [[extermination camp]]s
| perpetrators  = [[Odilo Globočnik]], [[Hermann Höfle]], [[Richard Thomalla]], [[Erwin Lambert]], [[Christian Wirth]], [[Heinrich Himmler]], [[Franz Stangl]] and others
| organizations = [[Schutzstaffel|SS]], [[Order Police battalions]], ''[[Sicherheitsdienst]]'', [[Trawnikis]]
| camp          = [[Bełżec extermination camp|Belzec]]<br />[[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibor]]<br />[[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]]<br />
'''Additional''':<br />
[[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]]<br />[[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]]<br /> [[Auschwitz II]]
| ghetto        = European and [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland]] including [[Białystok Ghetto|Białystok]], [[Częstochowa Ghetto|Częstochowa]], [[Kraków Ghetto|Kraków]], [[Lublin Ghetto|Lublin]], [[Łódź Ghetto|Łódź]], [[Warsaw Ghetto|Warsaw]] and others
| victims       = Around 2 million Jews
}}
[[File:Cumulative murders at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka from January 1942 to February 1943.jpg|thumb|Cumulative murders at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka from January 1942 to February 1943]]
'''Operation Reinhard''' or '''Operation Reinhardt''' ({{langx|de|Aktion Reinhard}} or {{lang|de|Aktion Reinhardt}}; also {{lang|de|Einsatz Reinhard}} or {{lang|de|Einsatz Reinhardt}}) was the codename of the secret [[Nazi Germany|German]] plan in [[World War II]] to exterminate [[History of the Jews in Poland|Polish Jews]] in the [[General Government]] district of German-[[occupied Poland]]. This deadliest phase of [[the Holocaust]] was marked by the introduction of [[extermination camp]]s.<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf" /> The operation proceeded from March 1942 to November 1943; about 1.47&nbsp;million or more Jews were murdered in just 100 days from late July to early November 1942, a rate which is approximately 83% higher than the commonly suggested figure for the kill rate in the [[Rwandan genocide]].<ref name="Stone"/> In the time frame of July to October 1942, the overall death toll, including all killings of Jews and not just Operation Reinhard, amounted to two&nbsp;million killed in those four months alone.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gerlach |first=Christian |url=https://archive.org/details/exterminationofe0000gerl/mode/1up |title=The Extermination of the European Jews |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-521-70689-6 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |pages=100 |language=en}}</ref> It was the single fastest rate of genocidal killing in history.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=The Holocaust: An Unfinished History |publisher=Pelican Books |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-241-38871-6 |edition=1st |page=191 |language=en}}</ref>

During the operation, as many as two&nbsp;million Jews were sent to [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] to be murdered in purpose-built [[gas chamber]]s.<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf" /><ref>{{cite web |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/operation-reinhard-einsatz-reinhard |title=Operation Reinhardt (Einsatz Reinhard) |publisher=USHMM  |access-date=15 March 2017 }}</ref> In addition, facilities for mass-murder using [[Zyklon B]] were developed at about the same time at the [[Majdanek concentration camp]]<ref name="YV-Reinhard-pdf">{{cite web |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205724.pdf |title=Aktion Reinhard |publisher=Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies |year=2013 |access-date=31 October 2013 |author=Yad Vashem |id=Document size 33.1 KB }}</ref> and at [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz II-Birkenau]], near the earlier-established [[Auschwitz I]] camp.<ref name="Grossman1946">{{cite book |last=Grossman |first=Vasily |author-link=Vasily Grossman |chapter=The Treblinka Hell |title=The Years of War (1941–1945) |chapter-url=http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |location=Moscow |publisher=Foreign Languages Publishing House |year=1946 |pages=371–408 |id=Document size 2.14 MB |via=Internet Archive |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006123821/http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf |archive-date=2014-10-06 |url=http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/grossmantreblinka46.pdf }}<br />{{cite book |last=Grossman |first=Vasily Semyonovich |author-mask=2 |chapter=The Hell of Treblinka |title=The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays |chapter-url=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47875651/TheHellOfTreblinka.html |others=V. Grossman, R. Chandler, E. Chandler, O. Mukovnikova (trans.) |access-date=1 August 2015 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}<br />{{cite web |last=Grossman |first=Vasily |author-mask=2 |script-title=ru:Треблинский ад |trans-title=Treblinka Hell |url=http://lib.ru/PROZA/GROSSMAN/trebl.txt |publisher=Воениздат |date=19 September 2002 |orig-date=1958 |language=ru }}</ref>

==Background==
After the [[Operation Barbarossa|German–Soviet war]] began, the Nazis undertook their European-wide "[[Final Solution to the Jewish Question]]". In January 1942, during a [[Wannsee Conference|secret meeting of German leaders]] chaired by [[Reinhard Heydrich]], Operation Reinhard was drafted; it was soon to become a significant step in the systematic murder of the Jews [[German-occupied Europe|in occupied Europe]], beginning in the [[General Government]] district of German-[[occupied Poland]]. Within months, three top-secret camps (at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]]) were built to efficiently murder tens of thousands of Jews every day.

These camps differed from [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] and [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]], which initially operated as [[Arbeitslager|forced-labour camps]] before facilities for mass death were installed (gas chambers, crematoria etc.) Even after becoming [[death camp]]s fitted with crematoria, ''konzentrationslager'' like Auschwitz remained largely dedicated to forced labor.<ref name ="Sereny">{{cite book |last=Sereny |first=Gitta |author-link=Gitta Sereny |title=The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections on Germany 1938–1941 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/healingwoundexpe00sere/page/135 135–46] |publisher=Norton |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-393-04428-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/healingwoundexpe00sere/page/135 }}</ref> Unlike "mixed" extermination camps, the extermination camps of Operation Reinhard kept no prisoners, except as needed to advance the camp's industrial-scale murder. Very few Jews escaped death (notably, only two at Bełżec).<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/survivors-of-the-nazi-extermination-camps |first=Ephraim |last=Kaye |title=Desecraters of Memory |year=1997 |pages=45–46 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20171115145702/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/survivors-of-the-nazi-extermination-camps |archive-date=2017-11-15 }}</ref> All other victims were murdered on arrival.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hilberg |first1=Raul |title=The Destruction of the European Jews |date=2003 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, CT |isbn=978-0-300-09557-9 |edition=3rd |pages=1033, 1036–1037 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HinIpmliz2MC&q=Brussels+Warsaw+Budapest |quote=Killing centers could be hidden, but the disappearance of major communities was noticed in Brussels and Vienna, Warsaw and Budapest.}}</ref>

The organizational apparatus behind the new extermination plan had been put to the test already during the "euthanasia" [[Action T4|''Aktion'' T4]] programme ending in August 1941, during which more than 70,000 Polish and German disabled men, women, and children were murdered.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939&nbsp;– March 1942 |publisher=Arrow |author=Browning, Christopher |author-link=Christopher Browning |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d9Wg4gjtP3cC&q=Poznan+Fort+VII |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8032-5979-9 |page=188 |quote=First 'provisional gas chamber' was constructed at [[Fort VII]] in [[Poznań]] ([[occupied Poland]]), where the bottled carbon monoxide was tested by Dr. [[August Becker]] already in October 1939.}}</ref> The ''SS'' officers responsible for the ''Aktion'' T4, including [[Christian Wirth]], [[Franz Stangl]], and [[Irmfried Eberl]], were all given key roles in the implementation of the "Final Solution" in 1942.<ref name="Sereny54">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IshTvCJsgZQC |title=Into That Darkness: From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder |publisher=Random House |orig-date=1974, 1995 |year=2013 |access-date=5 October 2014 |first=Gitta |last=Sereny |author-link=Gitta Sereny |pages=54– |isbn=978-1-4464-4967-7 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

==Operational name==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1969-054-16, Reinhard Heydrich.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Reinhard Heydrich]], {{Circa}} 1940/41]]

The origin of the operation's name is debated by Holocaust researchers. Various German documents spell the name differently, some with "t" after "d" (as in "Aktion Reinhardt"), others without it. Yet another spelling (''Einsatz Reinhart'') was used in the [[Höfle Telegram]].<ref name="comment">{{cite web |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/arccomment.html |title=The Origin of the Expression 'Aktion Reinhard' |publisher=Aktion Reinhard Camps | date=17 October 2005 | access-date=5 August 2015 | author=ARC}} ''Sources:'' Arad, Browning, Weiss.</ref> It is generally believed that ''Aktion Reinhardt'', outlined at the [[Wannsee Conference]] on 20 January 1942, was named after Reinhard Heydrich, the coordinator of the so-called [[Final Solution of the Jewish Question]], which entailed the extermination of the Jews living in the [[German-occupied Europe|European countries occupied]] by Nazi Germany. [[Operation Anthropoid|Heydrich was attacked]] by British-trained [[Czechoslovakia]]n agents on 27 May 1942 and died of his injuries eight days later.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf |title=Assassination&nbsp;— Operation Arthropoid, 1941–1942 |last=Burian |first=Michal |author2=Aleš |year=2002 |publisher=Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic |access-date=5 October 2014}} Document size 7.89 MB.</ref> The earliest memo spelling out ''Einsatz Reinhard'' was relayed two months later.<ref name="comment"/>

==Death camps==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0188, Odilo Globocnik.jpg|thumb|upright|left|SS and Police Leader [[Odilo Globočnik]] in charge of ''Operation Reinhard'']]

On 13 October 1941, [[SS and Police Leader]] [[Odilo Globočnik]] headquartered [[Lublin Reservation|in Lublin]] received an oral order from Himmler{{snd}}anticipating the [[Battle of Moscow|fall of Moscow]]{{snd}}to begin the construction of the first extermination camp at [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]] in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. The order preceded the Wannsee Conference by three months.<ref name="M/MPwB">{{citation |trans-title=Historia Niemieckiego Obozu Zagłady w Bełżcu |title=History of the Belzec extermination camp |publisher=Muzeum – Miejsce Pamięci w Bełżcu (National Bełżec Museum & Monument of Martyrdom) |language=pl |url=http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029003413/http://www.belzec.eu/articles.php?acid=77 |archive-date=2015-10-29 |via=Internet Archive |date=October 2015}}</ref> The new camp was operational from 17 March 1942, with leadership brought in from Germany under the guise of [[Organisation Todt]]&nbsp;(OT).<ref name="M/MPwB"/>

Globočnik was given control over the entire programme. All the secret orders he received came directly from Himmler and not from ''SS-Gruppenführer'' [[Richard Glücks]], head of the greater [[Nazi concentration camp]] system, which was run by the ''[[SS-Totenkopfverbände]]'' and engaged in [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|slave labour for the war effort]].<ref name="saul">{{cite book |last=Friedländer |first=Saul |author-link=Saul Friedländer |title=The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 |title-link=The Years of Extermination |pages=346–347 |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-06-019043-9}}</ref> Each death camp was managed by between 20 and 35 officers from the ''Totenkopfverbände'' ([[Totenkopf|Death's Head]] Units) sworn to absolute secrecy,<ref name="beevor584">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XS8xlDaZVJMC&pg=PT584 |title=The Second World War |publisher=Little, Brown |work=The Shoa by Gas 1942–1944 |date=2012 |access-date=10 October 2015 |author-link=Antony Beevor |first=Antony |last=Beevor |page=584 |isbn=978-0-316-08407-9}}</ref> and augmented by the ''Aktion'' T4 personnel selected by Globočnik. The extermination program was designed by them based on prior experience from the [[Involuntary euthanasia|forced euthanasia]] centres. The bulk of the actual labour at each "final solution" camp was performed by up to 100 mostly Ukrainian [[Trawniki men|Trawniki guards]], recruited by ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' [[Karl Streibel]] from among the Soviet prisoners of war,<ref name="browning">{{cite book |url=http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019043400/http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf |url-status=live |archive-date=2013-10-19 |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |orig-date=1992 |year=1998 |chapter=Arrival in Poland |publisher=Penguin Books |title=Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland |pages=52, 77, 79, 80 |id=Document size 7.91 MB complete |access-date=2014-10-05 }}''Also:''</ref> and by up to a thousand ''[[Sonderkommando]]'' prisoners whom the Trawniki guards used to terrorise.<ref name="Black">{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7KbsHLnbwgC&pg=PA331 |chapter=Police Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard |first=Peter R. |last=Black |publisher=Enigma Books |title=Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust |year=2006 |editor=David Bankier |pages=331–348 |isbn=1-929631-60-X |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Kudryashov |first=Sergei |title=Ordinary Collaborators: The Case of the Travniki Guards |journal=Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy Essays in Honour of John Erickson |publisher=London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=2004 |pages=226–239}}</ref> The ''SS'' called their volunteer guards "[[Hiwi (volunteer)|Hiwis]]", an abbreviation of ''Hilfswillige'' (lit. [[European non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II|"willing to help"]]). According to the testimony of ''SS-[[Oberführer]]'' [[Arpad Wigand]] during his 1981 war crimes trial in Hamburg, only 25 percent of recruited collaborators could speak German.<ref name="browning"/>

By mid-1942, two more death camps had been built on Polish lands: [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] (operational by May 1942) under the leadership of ''SS-Hauptsturmführer'' Franz Stangl, and [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] (operational by July 1942) under ''SS-Obersturmführer'' Irmfried Eberl.<ref name="JVL-Reinhard"/>

[[File:Treblinka II aerial photo (1944).jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|The 1944 aerial photo of ''Treblinka II''. The new farmhouse for a guard and a livestock building are visible to the lower left.<ref name="ARC 2005">{{Citation |author=National Archives |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/maps.html |title=Aerial Photos |publisher=Washington, D.C. |year=2014}} Made available at the Mapping Treblinka webpage by ARC.</ref> The photograph is overlaid with dismantled structures (marked in red/orange). On the left-hand side are the ''SS'' and the [[Trawnikis]] living quarters (1) with barracks defined by the surrounding walkways. At the bottom (2) are the railway ramp and unloading platform (centre), marked with the red arrow. The "road to heaven" is marked with a dashed line.{{sfn|Smith|2010|ps=: excerpt.}} The undressing barracks for men and women, surrounded by a solid fence with no view of the outside, are marked with two rectangles. The location of the new, big gas chambers (3) is marked with a cross. The burial pits, dug with a [[crawler excavator]], are in light yellow.]]
The ''SS'' pumped exhaust fumes from a large internal-combustion engines through long pipes into sealed rooms, murdering the people inside by [[carbon monoxide poisoning]]. Beginning in February–March 1943, the bodies of the dead were exhumed and cremated in pits. Treblinka, the last camp to become operational, used knowledge learned by the ''SS'' previously. With two powerful engines,{{efn|The Treblinka and Sobibor death camps were built in roughly the same timeframe. During the construction of the gas chambers at Sobibor ''SS-Scharführer'' [[Erich Fuchs]] installed a 200-horsepower, water-cooled V-8 gasoline engine as the killing mechanism there, according to his own postwar testimony at the [[Sobibor trial]].<ref name="Arad">{{Cite book |last=Arad |first=Yitzhak |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |year=1987 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indianapolis |isbn=0-253-21305-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpAgHYTPRz0C |via=Google Books |page=31 |quote=Testimony of ''SS Scharführer'' Erich Fuchs in the Sobibór-Bolender trial, Düsseldorf ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070914051232/http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/ftp.py?camps//aktion.reinhard/sobibor/fuchs.t01 (quote)].'' 2.4.1963, BAL162/208 AR-Z 251/59, Bd. 9, 1784.}}</ref> Fuchs installed a similar engine at Treblinka as well. There's an ongoing debate with regard to the type of fuel at Treblinka used as the lethal agent.<ref name="HMMRT">{{cite book |first1=Jonathan |last1=Harrison |first2=Roberto |last2=Muehlenkamp |first3=Jason |last3=Myers |first4=Sergey |last4=Romanov |first5=Nicholas |last5=Terry |quote=Protokol doprosa, Nikolay Shalayev, 18.12.1950, in the Soviet criminal case against Fedorenko, vol. 15, p. 164. Exhibit GX-125 in US v. Reimer. |pages=316–320 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/BelzecSobiborTreblinka.HolocaustDenialAndOperationReinhard.ACritique  |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique... |publisher=Holocaust Controversies, White Paper, First Edition |date=December 2011 |chapter=The Gassing Engine: Diesel or Gasoline?}}</ref> The chief argument for its identification as petrol (i.e., gasoline, or gas) comes directly from the eyewitness testimonies of insurgents who survived the Treblinka uprising. On 2 August 1943, they set ablaze a petrol tank causing it to explode. No second tank containing a different type of fuel (i.e., diesel) was ever mentioned in any known literature on the subject. All diesel motors require diesel fuel; the engine and the fuel work together as a system. An effort in the late '30s to extend the diesel engine's use to passenger cars was interrupted by World War II.<ref>{{cite web |title=Diesel Fuels Technical Review |website=Chevron |year=2007 |pages=1–6 |url=https://www.chevronwithtechron.ca/products/documents/Diesel_Fuel_Tech_Review.pdf |access-date=2017-11-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170712161211/http://www.chevronwithtechron.ca/products/documents/Diesel_Fuel_Tech_Review.pdf |archive-date=2017-07-12}}</ref> Therefore, the cars driven by the ''SS'' at Trebinka ''(see Rajzman 1945 at U.S. Congress, and Ząbecki's court testimonies at Düsseldorf)'' could not have been fueled by diesel, and neither was the killing apparatus without a second fuel tank on premises.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=110}}<ref name="HEART2007">{{cite web |title=The Perpetrators Speak  |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arperpsspeak.html |publisher=Holocaust Research Project.org |work=Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka Death Camps |date=2007 |access-date=26 May 2015 |author=Chris Webb & C.L.}}</ref>}} run by ''SS-Scharführer'' [[Erich Fuchs]],<ref name="JVL-Reinhard">{{cite web |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html#5 |title=The Construction of the Treblinka Extermination Camp |publisher=Jewish Virtual Library.org |work=Yad Vashem Studies, XVI |year=1984 |access-date=3 November 2013 |author=McVay, Kenneth}}</ref> and the gas chambers soon rebuilt of bricks and mortar, this death factory had murdered between 800,000 and 1,200,000 people within 15 months, disposed of their bodies, and sorted their belongings for shipment to Germany.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruckerl |first= Adalbert |title=NS-Prozesse |publisher=C. F. Muller|year= 1972|pages=35–42}}</ref><ref name="Piotr">{{cite web |url=http://zyciesiedleckie.pl/zyciowe-sprawy/7509-byl-skromnym-czlowiekiem# |title=Był skromnym człowiekiem |trans-title=He was a humble man |date=12 December 2013 |publisher=Życie Siedleckie |page=21 |author1=Piotr Ząbecki |author2=Franciszek Ząbecki |author-link2=Franciszek Ząbecki |id=[[Treblinka trials]], Düsseldorf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219001325/http://zyciesiedleckie.pl/zyciowe-sprawy/7509-byl-skromnym-czlowiekiem |archive-date=19 December 2013 }}</ref>

The techniques used to deceive victims and the camps' overall layout were based on a pilot project of mobile killing conducted at the [[Chełmno extermination camp]] (''Kulmhof''), which entered operation in late 1941 and used [[Nazi gas van|gas vans]]. Chełmno was not a part of Reinhard.<ref name="Yad Vashem-Chelmno">{{cite web |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205915.pdf |title=Chelmno |publisher=Shoah Resource Center |work=Holocaust |year=2013 |access-date=21 August 2013 |author=Yad Vashem |id=Document size 23.9 KB|author-link=Yad Vashem }}</ref> It came under the direct control of ''SS-[[Standartenführer]]'' [[Ernst Damzog]], commander of the [[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]] in ''[[Reichsgau Wartheland]]''. It was set up around a manor house similar to [[Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre|Sonnenstein]]. The use of gas vans had been previously tried and tested in the mass murder of Polish prisoners at [[Soldau concentration camp|Soldau]],<ref name="Browning2011">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4YJnsqPiP7QC&q=Soldau |author-link=Christopher Browning |title=Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |first=Christopher R. |last=Browning |year=2011 |pages=53–54 |isbn=978-0-393-33887-4}}</ref> and in the extermination of Jews on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Russian Front]] by the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]''. Between early December 1941 and mid-April 1943,<ref name="chelmno-muzeum">{{citation|url=http://www.chelmno-muzeum.eu/en/kulmhof-1941-1946 |publisher=Chełmno Muzeum of Martyrdom, Poland |title=The German Kulmhof Death Camp in Chełmno on the Ner, 1941–1945 |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140309201014/http://www.chelmno-muzeum.eu/en/kulmhof-1941-1946 |archive-date=March 9, 2014 }}</ref> 160,000 Jews were sent to Chełmno from the General Government via the [[Łódź Ghetto|Ghetto]] in [[Łódź]].<ref name="ushmm.org">[https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos Ghettos], [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]</ref> Chełmno did not have crematoria; only the mass graves in the woods. It was a testing ground for the establishment of faster methods of murdering and [[Cremation#World War II|incinerating]] people, marked by the construction of stationary facilities for the mass murder a few months later. The Reinhard death camps adapted progressively as each new site was built.<ref name="Golden2003">{{cite journal |last=Golden |first=Juliet |date=January–February 2003 |title=Remembering Chelmno |url=http://archive.archaeology.org/0301/abstracts/chelmno.html |journal=[[Archaeology (magazine)|Archaeology]] |publisher=Archaeological Institute of America  |volume=56 |issue=1 |page=50}}</ref>

Taken as a whole, Globočnik's camps at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka had almost identical design, including staff members transferring between locations. The camps were situated within wooded areas well away from population centres. All were constructed near [[branch line]]s that linked to the ''[[Ostbahn (General Government)|Ostbahn]]''.<ref>Arad 1999, p. 37.</ref> Each camp had an unloading ramp at a fake railway station, as well as a reception area that contained undressing barracks, barber shops, and money depositories. Beyond the receiving zone, at each camp was a narrow, camouflaged path known as the ''Road to Heaven'' (called ''Himmelfahrtsstraße'' or ''der Schlauch'' by the ''SS''),<ref>{{cite book |first=Steffen |last=Radlmaier |title=Der Nürnberger Lernprozess: von Kriegsverbrechern und Starreportern |publisher=Eichborn |year= 2001 |page=278 |isbn= 978-3-8218-4725-2}}</ref> which led to the extermination zone consisting of gas chambers, and the burial pits, up to {{convert|10|m}} deep, later replaced by cremation [[pyre]]s with rails laid across the pits on concrete blocks; refuelled continuously by the ''[[Sonderkommando|Totenjuden]]''. Both Treblinka and Bełżec were equipped with powerful [[crawler excavator]]s from Polish construction sites in the vicinity, capable of most digging tasks without disrupting surfaces.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=44, 74}}<ref name="ushmm-belzec">{{cite web|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/belzec |author=The Holocaust Encyclopedia |title=Belzec |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |via=Internet Archive |access-date=4 August 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107184303/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191 |archive-date=January 7, 2012 }}</ref>  At each camp, the ''SS'' guards and Ukrainian [[Trawnikis]] lived in a separate area from the Jewish work units. Wooden watchtowers and barbed-wire fences camouflaged with pine branches surrounded all camps.{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|pp=78–79}}

The killing centres had no electric fences, as the size of the prisoner ''[[Sonderkommandos]]'' (work units) remained comparatively easy to control{{snd}}unlike in camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz. To assist with the arriving transports only specialised squads were kept alive, removing and disposing of bodies, and sorting property and valuables from the dead victims. The ''Totenjuden'' forced to work inside death zones were deliberately isolated from those who worked in the reception and sorting area. Periodically, those who worked in the death zones would be killed and replaced with new arrivals to remove any potential witnesses to the scale of the mass murder.<ref name="Leleko">{{Citation |author=United States Department of Justice |year=1994 |title=From the Record of Interrogation of the Defendant Pavel Vladimirovich Leleko |publisher=Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit |at=Appendix 3: 144/179 |url=http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/10/10.F3d.338.85-3435.html |access-date=5 August 2016 |via=Internet Archive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100516184820/http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/10/10.F3d.338.85-3435.html |archive-date=16 May 2010 |author-link=United States Department of Justice }} ''Original:'' the Fourth Department of the [[SMERSH]] Directorate of Counterintelligence of the [[2nd Belorussian Front]], USSR (1978). Acquired by OSI in 1994</ref>

During ''Operation Reinhard'', Globočnik oversaw the systematic murder of more than 2,000,000 Jews from Poland, [[Czechoslovakia]], [[France]], the [[Nazi Germany|Reich]] (Germany and Austria), the [[Netherlands]], [[Greece]], [[Hungary]], [[Italy]] and the [[Soviet Union]]. An undetermined number of [[Romani people|Roma]] were also [[Porajmos|murdered]] in these death camps, many of them children.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpAgHYTPRz0C |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps|pages=152–153|author-link=Yitzhak Arad|first=Yitzhak|last= Arad|publisher=Indiana University Press|year= 1999|isbn=978-0-253-21305-1}}</ref>

===Extermination process===
[[File:Biala Podlaska - likwidacja getta - 1942.jpg|thumb|right|Deportation of Jews to Treblinka during liquidation of the [[Biała Podlaska]] ghetto, carried out by [[Reserve Police Battalion 101]] in October 1942]]

To achieve their intended purpose, all death camps used subterfuge and misdirection to conceal the truth and trick their victims into cooperation. This element had been developed in ''Aktion'' T4, when disabled and handicapped people were taken away for "special treatment" [[Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH|by the ''SS'' from "Gekrat"]] wearing white laboratory coats, thus giving the process an air of medical authenticity. After supposedly being assessed, the unsuspecting T4 patients were transported to killing centres. The same euphemism "special treatment" (''[[Sonderbehandlung]]'') was used in [[the Holocaust]].<ref name="Browning/Matthäus">{{cite book |first1=Christopher R. |last1=Browning |first2=Jürgen |last2=Mattäus |author-link2=Jürgen Matthäus |year=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jHQdRHNdK44C&pg=PA191 |title=The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |pages=191–192 |isbn=978-0-8032-5979-9 |access-date=5 October 2014 }}</ref>

The ''SS'' used a variety of ruses to move thousands of new arrivals travelling in [[Holocaust trains]] to the disguised killing sites without panic. Mass deportations were called "[[World War II evacuation and expulsion|resettlement actions]]"; they were organised by special Commissioners and conducted by [[Order Police battalions|uniformed police battalions]] from [[Ordnungspolizei|Orpo]] and [[Schutzpolizei (Nazi Germany)|Schupo]] in an atmosphere of terror.<ref name="Gutman-2">{{cite book |author=Israel Gutman | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4P_kP4yKqy8C&pg=PA200  | title=Resistance |year = 1994| publisher=Houghton Mifflin | page=200|isbn = 0-395-90130-8|author-link = Israel Gutman}}</ref><ref name=Williamson>{{cite book |title=The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror |author=Gordon Williamson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7gv7yPIdQdsC&pg=PA101 |page=101 |publisher=Zenith Imprint |year=2004 |isbn=0-7603-1933-2 }}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Usually, the deception was absolute; in August 1942, people of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] lined up for several days to be "deported" to obtain bread allocated for travel.<ref name="Edelman">{{cite web | url=http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/warsaw-uprising.html | title=The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising | publisher=Interpress Publishers (undated) | access-date=28 January 2015 |first=Marek |last=Edelman | pages=17–39| author-link=Marek Edelman }}</ref> Jews unable to move or attempting to flee were shot on the spot.<ref>Browning 1998, p. 116.</ref> Even though death in the cattle cars from suffocation and thirst was rampant, affecting up to 20 percent of trainloads, most victims were willing to believe that the German intentions were different.<ref name="Gerstein">{{cite web | url=http://www.deathcamps.org/belzec/gerstein.html | title=Gerstein Report, in English translation | publisher=DeathCamps.org | date=4 May 1945 | access-date=28 January 2015 | author=Kurt Gerstein | quote=On 18 August 1942, [[Waffen-SS]] officer Kurt Gerstein had witnessed at Belzec the arrival of 45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival. The train came with the Jews of the [[Lwów Ghetto]], less than a hundred kilometres away | author-link=Kurt Gerstein }}</ref> Once alighted, the prisoners were ordered to leave their luggage behind and march directly to the "cleaning area" where they were asked to hand over their valuables for "safekeeping". Common tricks included the presence of a railway station with awaiting "medical personnel" and signs directing people to disinfection facilities. Treblinka also had a booking office with boards naming the connections for other camps further east.<ref>Arad 1999, p.76.</ref>

At times, the new arrivals who had suitable skills were selected to join the ''Sonderkommando''. Once in the changing area, the men and boys were separated from the women and children and everyone was ordered to disrobe for a communal bath: "quickly{{snd}}they were told{{snd}}or the water will get cold".<ref name="H.E.A.R.T">{{cite web | url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/argaschambers.html | title=The Gas Chambers at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka | publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team | work=Descriptions and Eyewitness Testimony | date=2009 | access-date=26 January 2015 | author=Chris Webb & Carmelo Lisciotto }}</ref> The old and sick, or slow, prisoners were taken to a fake infirmary named the ''Lazarett'', that had a large mass grave behind it. They were killed by a bullet in the neck, while the rest were being forced into the gas chambers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arperpsspeak.html |title=Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka Death Camps. The Perpetrators Speak |last=Webb |first=Chris |author2=C.L. |via=[[Internet Archive]] |year=2007 |publisher=HEART |access-date=14 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906021944/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arperpsspeak.html |archive-date=September 6, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/argaschambers.html |title=The Gas Chambers at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. Descriptions and Eyewitness Testimony |last=Webb |first=Chris |author2=Carmelo Lisciotto |via=Internet Archive |year=2009 |publisher=H.E.A.R.T |access-date=14 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100222081006/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/argaschambers.html |archive-date=February 22, 2010 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sperling.html |title=Hershl Sperling. Personal Testimony |last=Adams |first=David |via=Internet Archive |year=2012 |publisher=H.E.A.R.T |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121220142429/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sperling.html |archive-date=December 20, 2012 }} The Lazarett was surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence, camouflaged with brushwood to screen it from view. Behind the fence was a big ditch which served as a mass grave, with a constantly burning fire.</ref>

[[File:Hoefletelegram.jpg|thumb|285px|The [[Höfle Telegram]], which was an intercepted [[SS]] [[Enigma machine|Enigma message]], records the total number of people sent to [[Majdanek concentration camp|KL Lublin/Majdanek]], [[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibór]] and [[Treblinka]] as 1,274,166 in 1942.]]
To drive the naked people into the execution barracks housing the gas chambers, the guards used whips, clubs, and rifle butts. Panic was instrumental in filling the gas chambers because the need to evade blows on their naked bodies forced the victims rapidly forward. Once packed tightly inside (to minimize available air), the steel air-tight doors with portholes were closed. The doors, according to [[Treblinka, Masovian Voivodeship#Treblinka extermination camp museum|Treblinka Museum]] research, originated from the Soviet military bunkers around [[Białystok]].{{sfn|Kopówka|Rytel-Andrianik|2011|p=84}} Although other methods of extermination, such as the cyanic poison [[Zyklon B]], were already in use at other Nazi killing centres such as Auschwitz, the ''Aktion Reinhard'' camps used [[carbon monoxide poisoning|lethal exhaust gases]] from captured Soviet tank engines.<ref>{{cite book |first=K. |last=Carol Rittner, Roth |title=Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t2AjlkSlMa8C&q=captured-soviet+tank+engines+holocaust&pg=PA2 |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |year=2004 |page=2 |isbn=978-0-8264-7566-4}}</ref> Fumes would be discharged directly into the gas chambers for a given period, then the engines would be switched off. ''SS'' guards would determine when to reopen the gas doors based on how long it took for the screaming to stop from within (usually 25 to 30 minutes). Special teams of camp inmates (''Sonderkommando'') would then remove the corpses on flatbed carts. Before the corpses were thrown into grave pits, gold teeth were removed from mouths, and orifices were searched for jewellery, currency, and other valuables. All acquired goods were managed by the ''[[SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt]]'' (Main ''SS'' Economic and Administrative Department).

During the early phases of ''Operation Reinhard'', bodies were simply thrown into mass graves and covered with [[slaked lime|lime]]. From 1943, to hide the evidence of the crime, the victims' remains were burned in open air pits. Special ''Leichenkommando'' (corpse units) had to exhume bodies from the mass graves around these death camps for incineration. ''Reinhard'' still left a paper trail; in January 1943, [[Bletchley Park]] intercepted an [[Höfle Telegram|SS telegram]] by ''SS-[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Hermann Höfle]], Globočnik's deputy in Lublin, to ''SS-[[Obersturmbannführer]]'' [[Adolf Eichmann]] in [[Berlin]]. The decoded [[Enigma machine|Enigma message]] contained statistics showing a total of 1,274,166 arrivals at the four ''Aktion Reinhard'' camps until the end of 1942 but the British code-breakers did not understand the meaning of the message, which amounted to material evidence of how many people the Germans had murdered.<ref>Public Record Office, Kew, England, HW 16/23, decode GPDD 355a distributed on January 15, 1943, radio telegrams nos 12 and 13/15, transmitted on January 11, 1943.</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Hanyok|first=Robert J.|title=Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust, 1939–1945|year=2004|publisher=Center for Cryptographic History, National Security Agency|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nsarep.pdf|page=124}}</ref>

===Camp commandants===
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width: 98%;"
|-
!Extermination camp 
!Commandant 
!Period
!Estimated deaths
|-
|rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|[[Bełżec extermination camp|Bełżec]]
|SS-''[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Christian Wirth]] 
|December 1941 – 31 July 1942
|rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|600,000<ref>Between March and December 1942, the Germans deported some 434,500 Jews, and an indeterminate number of Poles and Roma (Gypsies) to Belzec, to be killed. [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/belzec Bełżec extermination camp]</ref>
|-
|SS-''[[Hauptsturmführer]]'' [[Gottlieb Hering]]
|1 August 1942 – December 1942
|-
! colspan=4|
|-
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|[[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]]
|SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' [[Richard Thomalla]]
| colspan="2" style="text-align:right;"|March 1942 – April 1942{{space|12}}''Camp construction''{{space|3}}
|-
|SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' [[Franz Stangl]]
|May 1942 – September 1942
| rowspan="2" style="text-align:center;"|250,000 <ref>In all, the Germans and their auxiliaries killed at least 167,000 people at Sobibór. [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/sobibor Sobibor extermination camp]</ref>
|-
|SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' [[Franz Reichleitner]]
|September 1942 – October 1943
|-
! colspan=4|
|-
| rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|[[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]]
|SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' [[Richard Thomalla]]
| colspan="2" style="text-align:right;"|May 1942 – June 1942{{space|14}}''Camp construction''{{space|3}}
|-
|SS-''[[Obersturmführer]]'' [[Irmfried Eberl]]
|July 1942 – September 1942
| rowspan="3" style="text-align:center;"|800,000–900,000 <ref>The [[Höfle Telegram]] indicates some 700,000 killed by 31 December 1942, yet the camp functioned until 1943; hence, the true death toll likely is greater. [http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/reinhard-faq-13.html Reinhard: Treblinka Deportations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923030356/http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/reinhard-faq-13.html |date=2013-09-23 }}</ref>
|-
|SS-''Hauptsturmführer'' [[Franz Stangl]]
|September 1942 – August 1943
|-
|SS-''[[Untersturmführer]]'' [[Kurt Franz]]
|August 1943 – November 1943
|-
! colspan=4|
|-
|rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|[[Majdanek concentration camp|Lublin/Majdanek]]<ref name="wittyas">Abstract: Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas, [https://web.archive.org/web/20020212003049/http://www3.oup.co.uk/holgen/current/150468.sgm.abs.html  "A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during 'Einsatz Reinhardt' 1942."] (Internet Archive) Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15:3 (2001) pp. 468–486.</ref>
|''[[SS-Standartenführer]]'' [[Karl-Otto Koch]]
|October 1941 – August 1942
|rowspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|130,000 <ref name="majdanek.eu-Kalendarium">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=186 |title=KL Majdanek: Kalendarium |publisher=Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku |access-date=2015-05-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110213052322/http://www.majdanek.eu/articles.php?acid=186 |archive-date=2011-02-13 }}</ref><br />(78,000 confirmed)&nbsp;<ref name="Reszka-GW">{{cite web |work=Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum |title= Majdanek Victims Enumerated. Changes in the history textbooks? |first=Paweł P. |last=Reszka |quote= Two figures of the number of Majdanek victims have usually been in use—360,000 or 235,000. Kranz, director of the Research Department of the State Museum at Majdanek, asserts that approximately 59,000 Jews and 19,000 people of other ethnic backgrounds, mostly Poles and Byelorussians, died there. Kranz published his estimate in the latest edition of the journal Zeszyty Majdanka. ... However, we do not know the definitive number of prisoners who passed through the camp or the number of those whose deaths the camp administration did not register. It cannot be ruled out that new documents will come to light that alter Kranz's findings. |date=23 December 2005 |url=https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/majdanek-victims-enumerated-changes-in-the-history-textbooks,44.html |author-link=Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum }}</ref>
|-
|SS-''Sturmbannführer'' [[Max Koegel]]
|August 1942 – November 1942
|-
|SS-''Obersturmführer'' [[Hermann Florstedt]]
|November 1942 – October 1943
|-
|SS-''[[Obersturmbannführer]]'' [[Martin Gottfried Weiss]]
|November 1, 1943 – May 5, 1944
|-
|SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' [[Arthur Liebehenschel]]
|May 5, 1944 – July 22, 1944
|}

==Temporary substitution policy==
In the winter of 1941, before the Wannsee Conference but after the commencement of [[Operation Barbarossa]], the Nazis' need for forced labor greatly intensified. Himmler and Heydrich approved a Jewish substitution policy in Upper Silesia and in Galicia under the "[[extermination through labour]]" doctrine.<ref name="Friedländer">{{cite book |url=http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/28107437-Nazi-Germany-and-the-Jews-1933-1945-Abridged-Edition-2009-Malestrom.pdf |title=Nazi Germany And The Jews, 1933–1945 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |date=February 2009 |access-date=8 October 2014 |author=Saul Friedländer |pages=293–294 / 507 |isbn=978-0-06-177730-1 |id=Complete |author-link=Saul Friedländer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180918142723/http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/dmeier/28107437-Nazi-Germany-and-the-Jews-1933-1945-Abridged-Edition-2009-Malestrom.pdf |archive-date=18 September 2018 }}</ref> Many Poles had already been sent to the Reich, creating a labour shortage in the General Government.<ref name="substitution"/> Around March 1942, while the first [[Bełżec extermination camp|extermination camp (Bełżec)]] began gassing, the deportation trains arriving in the [[Lublin reservation]] from Germany and Slovakia were searched for the Jewish skilled workers. After selection, they were delivered to Majdan Tatarski instead of for "special treatment" at Bełżec. For a short time, these Jewish laborers were temporarily spared death, while their families and all others were murdered.<ref name="substitution"/> Some were relegated to work at a nearby airplane factory or as forced labor in the ''SS''-controlled ''[[Strafkompanie]]s'' and other work camps. [[Hermann Höfle]] was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy.<ref name=saul/> There were problems with food supplies and the ensuing logistical challenges. Globočnik and [[Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger]] complained and the mass transfer was stopped even before the three extermination camps were operational.<ref name="substitution">{{cite book |last=Browning |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Browning |title=Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |page=71 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ewncj-TwLycC&q=substitution |isbn=0-521-77490-X}}</ref>

==Disposition of the property of the victims==
{{See also|August Frank memorandum}}
Approximately 178&nbsp;million [[Reichsmark|German Reichsmarks']] worth of Jewish property (equivalent to {{Inflation|DE|178|1943}}&nbsp;million {{Inflation-year|DE}} [[euro]]s) was taken from the victims, with vast transfers of gold and valuables to the [[Reichsbank]]'s "Melmer" account, Gold Pool, and monetary reserve.<ref name="Reichsbank">{{cite web | url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/economics/reichsbank.html |title=The Reichsbank |publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team | work=H.E.A.R.T | date=2007 | access-date=27 January 2015 |first=Carmelo |last=Lisciotto }}</ref> Not only the German authorities were in receipt of Jewish property, because corruption was rife within the death camps. Many of the individual ''SS'' members and policemen involved in the murders took cash, property, and valuables for themselves. The higher-ranking ''SS'' men stole on an enormous scale. It was a common practice among the top echelon.{{Cn|date=July 2022}} Two Majdanek commandants, [[Karl-Otto Koch]] and [[Hermann Florstedt]], were tried by the ''SS'' for it in April 1945.<ref name="majdanek-2 Wykaz">{{cite web |url=http://www.majdanek.com.pl/obozy/majdanek/wykaz_sadzonych.html |title=Trials of war criminals 1946–1948 |trans-title=Procesy zbrodniarzy |author=KL Lublin Museum |work=Wykaz sądzonych członków załogi KL Lublin/Majdanek (Majdanek SS staff put on trial) |date=13 September 2013 |location=Lublin |access-date=23 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014093403/http://www.majdanek.com.pl/obozy/majdanek/wykaz_sadzonych.html |archive-date=14 October 2013 }}</ref> ''SS-[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Georg Konrad Morgen]], an ''SS'' judge from the [[Hauptamt SS-Gericht|''SS'' Courts Office]], prosecuted so many Nazi officers for individual violations that Himmler personally ordered him to restrain his cases by April 1944.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/A592931|title= SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Konrad Morgen – the Bloodhound Judge|date= 9 August 2001|access-date=24 August 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Louis Leo |last=Snyder|author-link=Louis Leo Snyder|title=Encyclopedia of the Third Reich|publisher=Wordsworth Editions|year= 1998|isbn=978-1-85326-684-3}}</ref>

==Aftermath and cover up==
{{see also|Sonderaktion 1005}}
Operation Reinhard ended in November 1943. Most of the staff and guards were then sent to northern Italy for further ''Aktion'' against Jews and [[Italian resistance movement|local partisans]]. Globočnik went to the [[Risiera di San Sabba|San Sabba]] concentration camp, where he supervised the detention, torture and murder of [[political prisoner]]s. To cover up the mass murder of more than two&nbsp;million people in Poland during Operation Reinhard, the Nazis implemented the secret ''[[Sonderaktion 1005]]'', also called ''Aktion 1005'' or '' Enterdungsaktion'' ("[[exhumation]] action"). The operation, which began in 1942 and continued until the end of 1943, was designed to remove all traces that mass murder had occurred. ''[[Sonderkommando|Leichenkommando]]'' ("corpse units") comprising camp prisoners were created to exhume mass graves and cremate the buried bodies, using giant grills made from wood and railway tracks. Afterwards, bone fragments were ground up in special milling machines, and all remains were then re-buried in new pits. The ''Aktion'' was overseen by squads of [[Trawniki guards]].<ref name="Arad1984">{{Citation |first=Yitzhak |last=Arad |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |contribution=Operation Reinhard: Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka |contribution-url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |title=Yad Vashem Studies&nbsp;XVI |year=1984 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318073143/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203576.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-18 |at=205–239 (26/30 of current document) |via=Internet Archive |quote=The Attempt to Remove Traces.}}</ref><ref name="Wiernik">{{Citation |last=Wiernik |first=Jankiel |author-link=Jankiel Wiernik |url=http://www.zchor.org/treblink/wiernik.htm |title=A year in Treblinka |publisher=American Representation of the General Jewish Workers' Union of Poland |work=Verbatim translation from Yiddish |year=1945 |access-date=30 August 2015 |quote=The first ever published [[eye-witness]] report by an escaped prisoner of the camp. |via=Zchor.org, digitized into fourteen chapters}}</ref> After the war, some of the ''SS'' officers and guards were tried and sentenced at the [[Nuremberg trials]] for their role in ''Operation Reinhard'' and ''Sonderaktion 1005''. Many others escaped conviction, such as [[Ernst Lerch]], Globočnik's deputy and chief of his Main Office, whose case was dropped for lack of witness testimony.<ref name="HEART-Lerch">{{cite web | url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/lerch.html | title=Ernst Lerch | publisher=Holocaust Research Project.org | date=2007 | access-date=30 August 2015 | author=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Action 14f13]] (1941–44), a Nazi extermination operation that killed prisoners who were sick, elderly, or deemed no longer fit for work
* ''[[Aktion Erntefest]]'' (November 1943), an operation to murder all the remaining Jews in the Lublin Ghetto
* [[August Frank memorandum]] theft of victim's property
* [[Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)|Operation Reinhard in Warsaw (''Grossaktion Warsaw'', July 1942)]], a similar operation to move Jews to the death camps
* [[Katzmann Report]] (1943), a document detailing the outcome of Operation Reinhard in southern Poland.
* [[Korherr Report]], a report from the ''SS'' statistical bureau detailing how many Jews remained alive in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe in 1943
* [[Operation Reinhard in Kraków]] (June 1942), the clearance of the Jewish ghetto

==Footnotes==
{{notelist}}

==Citations==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpAgHYTPRz0C&q=Belzec |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |first=Yitzhak |last=Arad |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |publisher=Indiana University Press | orig-date=1987 |year=1999 |isbn=0-253-21305-3 |id= {{ASIN|0253213053|country=uk}} | via=Google Books}}
* {{Citation |last1=Kopówka |first1=Edward |author-link1=Edward Kopówka |last2=Rytel-Andrianik |first2=Paweł |title=Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady |trans-title=Treblinka II – Death Camp monograph |language=pl |url=http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |publisher=Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The [[Drohiczyn]] Scientific Society] |work=Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] |year=2011 |access-date=4 August 2015 |isbn=978-83-7257-496-1 |via=Internet Archive |page=110 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010231757/http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2014 }}document size 20.2 MB. Monograph, chapt. 3: with list of Catholic [[Polish Righteous among the Nations|rescuers of Jews]] who escaped from Treblinka; selected testimonies, bibliography, alphabetical indexes, photographs, English language summaries, and forewords by Holocaust scholars.
* {{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Mark S. |title=Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sQcyygAACAAJ&q=Treblinka+Survivor:+The+Life+and+Death+of+Hershl+Sperling |publisher=The History Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-7524-5618-8 |via=Google Books |access-date=12 November 2013}} ''See Smith's book excerpts at:'' [http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sperling.html  Hershl Sperling: Personal Testimony] by David Adams.

{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{The Holocaust}}
{{Heinrich Himmler}}
{{Authority control}}
{{coord missing|Poland}}

[[Category:Operation Reinhard| ]]
[[Category:Code names|Reinhard]]
[[Category:Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Poland]]
[[Category:Reinhard Heydrich]]
[[Category:Reserve Police Battalion 101]]