Treblinka, Poland: Constructed with the express goal of mass murder, nearly one million Jews were murdered by the Nazis at Treblinka, the second largest extermination camp. In operation for just over a year, the Nazis disguised the camp as a train station in an attempt to lessen Jewish resistance. The gas chambers operated all night, with a capacity of roughly 1,000 bodies a day. Because Treblinka did not have a crematorium, bodies were piled on pyres and burnt outside. Ashes were then buried in a forest grove nearby. Upon retreat at the end of the war, the Nazi destroyed the camp in an attempt to cover up their mass project of death. Today, the forest grove where the camp once stood is open to visitors. Entering the memorial site, there are several large stone statues, designed to emulate the railroad that once passed through the camp, bringing thousands of victims to a certain death. Above the site of the gas chambers, a symbolic cemetery has been constructed, with 17,000 stones of all different sizes and colors erected in a circular fashion around the borders of the camp.
