1. Kurt Hubert Franz was an SS officer and one of the commanders of the Treblinka extermination camp.
35 Facts About Kurt Franz
1. 2.
Kurt Franz attended public school in Dusseldorf from 1920 to 1928, and then worked as a messenger and as a cook.
3.
Kurt Franz joined several right-wing national groups and served in the voluntary labor corps.
4.
Kurt Franz trained with a master butcher for one year.
5.
Kurt Franz joined the Nazi Party in 1932, and was conscripted in the German Army in 1935.
6.
In late 1939 Kurt Franz was summoned to Hitler's Chancellery and detailed to take part in the Action T4 euthanasia program.
7.
Kurt Franz worked as a cook at Hartheim, Brandenburg, Grafeneck and Sonnenstein.
8.
On 20 April 1942, Kurt Franz was promoted to Oberscharfuhrer.
9.
Kurt Franz quickly became the camp's deputy commandant on the orders of Christian Wirth.
10.
Kurt Franz was promoted to serve as the last camp commandant from mid August until November 1943 to conclude the Holocaust in Poland.
11.
At first, Kurt Franz supervised work commandos, the unloading of transports, and the transfer of Jews from the undressing rooms to the gas chambers.
12.
Kurt Franz had a baby-like face, and for this he was nicknamed "Lalke" by the prisoners.
13.
Kurt Franz was the dominant overseer in day-to-day interactions with prisoners in Treblinka, and he became the most feared man at Treblinka for the cruelty which he visited upon them.
14.
Kurt Franz often made his rounds of the camp riding a horse, and would take his St Bernard dog, Barry, along with him.
15.
When Kurt Franz was not around, Barry was a different dog.
16.
Kurt Franz reviewed the prisoner roll call and participated in meting out punishments.
17.
For instance, when seven prisoners attempted to escape the camp, Kurt Franz had them taken to the Lazarett and shot.
18.
Kurt Franz ordered a roll call and announced that if there were further attempted escapes, and especially if they were successful, ten prisoners would be shot for every escapee.
19.
Kurt Franz enjoyed shooting at prisoners or those still in the rail cars with his pistol or a hunting rifle.
20.
Kurt Franz frequently selected bearded men from the newly arriving transports and asked them whether they believed in God.
21.
Undoubtedly, [Kurt Franz] was the most terrifying of all the German personnel in the camp.
22.
Kurt Franz had experience as a boxer before arriving at Treblinka.
23.
Kurt Franz put this training to sadistic use by victimizing Jews as punching bags.
24.
Kurt Franz rode through the camp with great pleasure and self-confidence.
25.
Kurt Franz was an expert at whipping, twenty-five or fifty lashes.
26.
Kurt Franz had his own technique for raising the whip and striking it down.
27.
Kurt Franz would grab his victim's lapel and strike with the other hand.
28.
Kurt Franz discovered a Jew in front of him, a neighbour of mine from Czestochowa, by the name of Steiner.
29.
Kurt Franz approached him, commanded him to get up, pull down his pants, and then glanced at the wound.
30.
Kurt Franz's buttocks were oozing blood from the gashes caused by the lead bullets.
31.
Kurt Franz was promoted to Untersturmfuhrer and became an appointed official on 21 June 1943 on the orders of Heinrich Himmler.
32.
Kurt Franz served as his replacement, and he was instructed to dismantle the camp and to eliminate every trace of evidence that it had ever existed.
33.
Kurt Franz had at his disposal some SS men, a group of Ukrainian guards and about 100 Jewish prisoners who had remained after the uprising.
34.
Kurt Franz was wounded in late 1944 and, after recovery, employed as security officer on the Gorz-Trieste railway line.
35.
At the Treblinka Trials in 1965, Kurt Franz denied having ever killed a person, having ever set his dog on a Jew, and claimed to have only beaten a prisoner once.