The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Revised and Expanded Edition: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka

Under the code name Operation Reinhard, more than one and a half million Jews were murdered between 1942 and 1943 in the concentration camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Unlike more well-known camps, which were used both for slave labor and extermination, these camps existed purely to murder Jews. Few victims survived to tell their stories, and the camps were largely forgotten after they were dismantled in 1943. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps bears eloquent witness to this horrific tragedy. This newly revised and expanded edition includes new material on the history of the Jews under German occupation in Poland; the execution and timing of Operation Reinhard; information about the ghettos in Lublin, Warsaw, Krakow, Radom, and Galicia; and updated numbers of the victims who were murdered during deportations. In addition to documenting the horror of the camps, Yitzhak Arad recounts the stories of those courageous enough to struggle against the Nazis and their "final solution." Arad's work retrieves the experiences of Operation Reinhard's victims and survivors from obscurity and exposes a terrible chapter in humanity's history.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Part One: The Extermination Machine 1. The Jews of the General Government, September 1939–June 1941: Deportations and Ghettoization 2. The Road to Operation Reinhard 3. Operation Reinhard: Organization and Manpower 4. Belzec: Construction and Establishing the Method of Annihilation 5. Construction of Sobibor 6. Construction of Treblinka 7. Preparing for the Deportations 8. Expulsion from the Ghettos 9. The Trains of Death 10. Belzec: March 17 to June, 1942 11. Sobibor: May to July, 1942 12. Treblinka: July 23 to August 28, 1942 13. Reorganization in Treblinka 14. The Mission of Gerstein and Pfannenstiel 15. Jewish Working Prisoners 16. Women Prisoners 17. Improving Extermination Techniques and Installations 18. The Annihilation of the Jews in the General Government 19. Deportations from Bialystok General District (Bezirk Bialystok) and Reichskommissariat Ostland 20. Transports from Other European Countries 21. The Extermination of Gypsies 22. The Economic Plunder 23. Himmler's Visit to Sobibor and Treblinka 24. The Erasure of the Crimes Part Two: Life in the Shadow of Death 25. Portraits of the Perpetrators 26. The Prisoners' Daily Life 27. The Prisoners and the Deportees 28. Faith and Religion 29. Diseases, Epidemics, and Suicide 30. Social Life Part Three: Escape and Resistance 31. The Cognizance and Reaction of the Victims in Occupied Poland 32. Escapes from the Trains and Spontaneous Acts of Resistance 33. Escapes from the Camps 34. The Underground in Treblinka 35. The Plan for the Uprising in Treblinka 36. August 2, 1943: The Uprising in Treblinka 37. Pursuit and Escape from Treblinka 38. Ideas and Organization for Resistance in Sobibor 39. The Underground in Sobibor 40. The Plan for the Uprising in Sobibor 41. October 14, 1943: The Uprising in Sobibor 42. Pursuit and Escape from Sobibor 43. Survival among the Local Population 44. Operation Reinhard and Reports about the Death Camps in Polish Wartime Publications 45. An Evaluation of the Uprisings and Their Results Part Four: The Final Stage of Operation Reinhard 46. Operation Erntefest 47. The Liquidation of the Camps and the Termination of Operation Reinhard 48. Assessing the Number of Victims of Operation Reinhard Epilogue Appendix A. The Deportation of the Jews from the General Government, Bialystok General District, and Ostland Appendix B. The Fate of the Perpetrators of Operation Reinhard Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Yitzhak Arad has written many books, including In the Shadow of the Red Banner, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust, and Pictorial History of the Holocaust. He served as Director (Chairman of the Directorate) of the International Council of Yad Vashem, Holocaust Remembrance Authority, for 21 years.

Review :
This is the authentic, exhaustive, definitive account of the least known death camps of the Nazi era. - Raul Hilberg, author of The Destruction of the European Jews 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. . . . This comprehensive, judicious, and moving history is a remarkable contribution to Holocaust studies and is strongly recommended (Library Journal) Drawing on a wealth of evidence . . . Arad lets the terrible record speak for itself... Mr. Arad reports as a controlled and effective witness for the prosecution . . . Mr. Arad's book, with its abundance of horrifying detail, reminds us of how far we have to go. (New York Times Book Review)