Building the Treblinka Education Center

Building the Education Center is the Foundation's main goal. This place, doomed to be forgotten, as well as the people who were murdered here, need to speak louder to the world. Now it speaks through silence and the beauty of nature.

But those who come here should receive more help in understanding what happened here. The should see how the camp was designed, hear the storyies connected to every part of it.

We need a space where we can screen movies, conduct workshops, share the names and stories of the people who were murdered here. Detailed information regarding Treblinka should also be available online.

The Treblinka II death camp was shut down in November 1943. All the buildings were dismantled and transported away, the area was plowed and planted with lupine. Just as other places where atrocities were committed, it was covered in human ashes and doomed to be forgotten.

In 1964 the Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom in Treblinka (a branch of the Siedlce Museum) was opened in the area of the death camp and the nearby labor camp Treblinka I. Among the educational resources of the museum there is only one film about Treblinka. The Memory of Treblinka Foundation wishes to expand this offer by adding films, exhibitions, lessons and meeting dedicated to this cemetery, one of Poland’s largest. This is an extraordinary place of remembrance, which seems to have forgotten all the names besides that of Janusz Korczak. Only the names of the towns form which around a million people left for their final journey to Treblinka are listed.

The 1970s building in Gilo will be replaced by a new neighborhood of 1,032 apartments.

The Jerusalem Local Planning and Building Committee has approved for deposit a plan to demolish the Absorption Center in Gilo and replace it with 1,032 apartments in seven 25-30 floor high-rise residential towers and eight 8-12 floor buildings. The new development will also include public buildings, a kindergarten, synagogues and a commercial center.

The Absorption Center built in the 1970s and operated by by public housing company Amidar has 287 housing units spread over 25 acres. Over the years the new immigrant center with its four-floor terraced design, industrial concrete and prefabricated elements has been harshly criticized because of the poor quality of the housing and its maintenance. However, Jerusalem architectural historian David Kroyanker described the design by Aryeh and Eldar Sharon as "avant-garde" and Michael Yakobson as an "external casbah."

The new housing project has been designed by OKA Orit Willenberg Giladi and Keren Jedwab Architects and Town Planners.

Amidar chairman Kobi Amsalem said, "The land on which the old absorption center stands is crying out for urban renewal and I welcome the fact that after intensive efforts on both the planning and social level has today moved forward with this important step."