Irmfried Eberl – velitel Treblinky s lékařským titulem
Irmfried Eberl – Head of Treblinka With a Medical Degree

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims to capture relevant milestones of the „extermination career“ in the life of Austrian physician Irmfried Eberl, a first commandant of extermination camp Treblinka. It primarily focuses on his activities directly connected with his work in Treblinka. In this extermination camp, Eberl created the conditions that helped him to become a record holder in the number of murdered persons, achieved in only five weeks. A part of the paper presents Eberl’s biography which shows his ideological radicalization that led him very directly to the threshold of Treblinka. The preparations of the camp for homicidal operation were accompanied by Eberl’s extraordinary agility to fulfil his tasks. The duties he performed at Treblinka had clouded his judgement. The Nazi ideology gave him a fertile ground to defile the main principles of his medical profession. Despite having lost his rational opinion, he continued to be a part of an environment where planned death as well as torture of the prisoners of Nazi camps were a daily occurrence. Like many of his colleagues, he prescribed only one medication,that of death in various forms.

• Details
• Contents