"We pay tribute to camp prisoners who, in early August 1943, stood up to an unequal fight against their Nazi executioners," Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote in a letter that was read during the anniversary event northeast of Warsaw on Friday.
He said the Treblinka uprising was "a cry of despair but also an act of great courage and respect for one's own humanity."
Duda added: "Hundreds of prisoners went into battle at that time. Almost 400 managed to escape, but fewer than 70 survived the war. Over the years, they have testified to the hell on earth that the German Nazis prepared for Jews from Poland and other European countries."
The Treblinka death camp operated between July 1942 and October 1943. During this time, between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered there by the Germans, along with 2,000 Roma people.
On July 22, 1942, Germans began deporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the camp. Over the next two months, from 5,000 to 7,000 Jews were transported daily by train to Treblinka, where they were exterminated.
Exactly 81 years ago, on August 2, 1943, around 700 Jews staged an armed revolt in the camp.
Treblinka was the second-largest extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland after Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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Source: IAR, prezydent.pl
