Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps - Tapa dura

"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 " ... some of the most gripping chapters I have ever read... the authentic, exhaustive, definitive account of the least known death camps of the Nazi era." Raul Hilberg

Between the years 1942 and 1943, under the code name Operation Reinhard, more than one and a half million Jews were gassed in the concentration camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Jewish survivors of the operation numbered fewer than 200. Yitzhak Arad reveals, here, the complete story of Operation Reinhard for the first time. Using sources previously overlooked, such as German and Polish official records and testimonies from Nazi war criminal trials, Arad records the history of the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka death camps from their construction in 1941 to their destruction in 1943. He describes the camps' physical layouts, the process of extermination used, and the actions of the SS men and Ukrainian guards who operated the camps. Arad tells the tale of the death camps' inmates - though many of their lives lasted but a few hours following their arrival - his underground organizations, the revolts and escapes, and the details concerning the day-to-day survival of those spared instant death in the gas chambers. Arad's work retrieves the experience of Operation Reinhard's victims and survivors from obscurity and bears eloquent witness to the tragedy, which was theirs. Yitzhak Arad, Chairman of Yad Vashem, Holocaust Remembrance Authority, is a lecturer in Jewish History at the University of Tel Aviv and author of "Ghetto in Flames: Story of the Vilna Ghetto."