In July 1942 the most successful killing center, Treblinka, opened its business. It was originally selected for the site of extermination of the Warsaw ghetto Jews. The SS began the construction project on June 1,1942, using Jews from nearby area. They killed the workers after the camp was finished in the middle of July. Treblinka existed for the shortest time among all camps: from July 1942 to the fall of 1943. However, its extermination record was also outstanding: from 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews of central Poland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Belgium, and Greece.

Treblinka proved to be a success for the Nazis. Seven to eight hundred guards supervised the one thousand Jewish workers. Thirteen gas chambers using carbon monoxide gas produced as high as 30,000 dead bodies a day. The efficiency of this infamous death factory was due to the systematic methods that the technicians invented.

Consisted of an area of 16 to 20 hectacres, Treblinka was divided into two parts. Camp I had a railroad siding, a fake train station, a fake hospital, undressing barracks, warehouses, and all other facilities. Camp II was the thrilling area containing two buildings with thirteen gas chambers, living quarters for Jewish workers, a laboratory, and the graves for the bodies. There was a "tube" that led from the undressing barrack in Camp I to the gas chambers in Camp II.

The technicians divided the extermination process into four tasks: handling the live prisoners, handling their possessions, handling the dead bodies, and taking care of camp upkeep. For the first task, they removed Jews from the train, collect the baggage, and clean the cars. Then the victims would be undressed and shaved. An assembly-line process made the second task, handling the possessions, quite easily. To dispose of the corpses, Jews in Camp II removed the bodies from the chambers, extracted the teeth for gold purpose, threw them into the ditches, and covered them with dirt. The aristocrats among the Jews were responsible for the camp upkeep.

Even with this nearly perfect system, the Nazis were still not satisfied with the pace. They decided to create a more assuring atmosphere so that the Jews would quiet down and cooperate. The planners designed a false railroad station, decorated with flowers. There were signs to different doors, such as toilet and infirmary. Timetable hanged on the walls to put the Jews at ease. After the Jews cooperatively clear off the trains, sick and old victims among them would be sent to the "hospital," where the Nazis shot them in the back. For the others, a clothing production line was set up so that each prisoner would drop a piece of his clothing at each station until he was naked. The "Treblinka cut" took care of the shaving of women's heads. It was only five well-placed slashes on the whole head. After the prisoners' possessions had been taking care of, the Nazis forced them to run to the chamber. They knew well that winded and frightened victims inhale more gas and die faster. The improved system made it possible to finish the whole procedure in forty-five minutes, including disembarking from the cattle car to gassing in the chambers.

In March 1943 Himmler ordered the completely destruction and burning of the corpses. After failing to cremate a large number of corpses in the first two experiments, the Nazis developed a new method to burn the bodies. They had the prisoners erect four cement pillars, forming a rectangle 19 meters long and 1 meter wide. On top they laid railroad rails, and on the rails they piled hundreds of bodies. The bodies were literarily grilled on the two huge iron pyres "Roasts." There was supposedly a trick to arrange the burning of the bodies. "The old bodies burned better than the new ones, the fat ones better than the thin ones, the women better than the men, and the children not as well as the women but better than the men. It was evident that the ideal body was the old body of a fat women." With this successful cremation, 10,000 to 12,000 corpses could be cremated at one time.

On August 2,1943, the 850 to 1,200 resident worker Jews of Treblinka staged an uprising. The resistance organization began once the working Jews realized that they would eventually end up exterminated. They created a Committee of Resistance and executed plans to procure escape weapons. A Jewish locksmith made duplicate keys to armory, where a work squad stole guns and grenades. Everything was planned perfectly, except timing went wrong. The revolt began two hours earlier than planned. The several prisoners outside the camp did not hear the gun shot, which was the signal of the beginning. Thus they did not kill the guards in the watchtower. The revolt was not truly a successful one, for less than sixty escapees survived.

After the revolt, Germans blew up the camp in November and built a farmhouse on the site. They cleared the area, leveled the mass graves, and planted it with pines.