chamber hidden in the woods. Globočnik told him that if the Jews "were not working hard enough" he was fully permitted to kill them and that Globočnik would send "new ones". Stangl studied the camp operations and management of Bełżec, which had commenced extermination activity. He then accelerated the completion of Sobibor. Around that time Stangl also had further dealings with Wirth, who was running extermination camps at Bełżec and Chelmno. Between 16 and 18 May 1942, Sobibor became fully operational. However, Stangl quickly realized that the extermination process was being encumbered by constant turnover among its prisoner labor force. He ended arbitrary culling of "work Jews" and established semi-permanent work teams, each overseen by a kapo. In the three months before Stangl was transferred to Treblinka, Yitzak Arad estimates that approximately 90,000 Jews were killed at Sobibor. Stangl avoided interacting with his victims, and he was rarely seen except when he greeted arriving prisoner transports. On these occasions, he stood out because of the all-white linen riding coat he would wear, an affectation which earned him the nickname "White Death". Prisoners who did interact with him regarded him as one of the "moderates" among the camp staff. He was only ever accused of a single act of hands-on violence, and on one occasion, he convened a meeting to address what he regarded as Kurt Bolender's "bullying" of the Sonderkommando prisoners working in the extermination area. Stangl took an interest in one prisoner, Shlomo Szmajzner, who was forced to make gold jewelry for the SS officers. After the war, Szmajzner recalled Stangl as an arrogant man who stood out for "his obvious pleasure in his work and his situation. None of the others – although they were, in different ways, so much worse than he – showed this to such an extent. He had this perpetual smile on his face." Around 100,000 Jews are believed to have been killed there while Stangl was the administrator until the furnaces broke down in October, by which time Stangl had left. Stangl was succeeded as Sobibor commandant by his Hartheim Euthanasia Center colleague, Franz Reichleitner. Treblinka, September 1942 – August 1943 On 28 August 1942, Odilo Globočnik ordered Stangl to become Kommandant at the newly opened but disorganized death camp, Treblinka, then under the incompetent command of Irmfried Eberl. Globočnik trusted that Stangl could restore order at Treblinka, since Stangl had a reputation