Nov 1942 Treblinka Report, Ringelblum (the "Steam Chamber" report)

[Wetzelrad]

"Death House" or "House of Death No. 2" strikes me as a very particular phrasing. You only see it in these old underground reports. Anything using that phrase probably stemmed from the same source, yeah? Possibly a clue to determine authorship.

Authorship or derivation/spread of the information. It would at least indicate the Polish Workers Party writer for Glos Warszawy read the Oyneg Shabes November report and used the term. Or they both utilzed an original source that contains the "house of death no. n" phrase.

Here is a list of instances of that phrase. Obviously the instances from 1943 were mere news reports of the Oyneg Shabes report, but the earlier instances may be worth exploring further.

1942 September 20 - Oif der Vach - "house of murder"
1942 September 27 - Abraham Lewin diary entry on Jakub Rabinowicz - "dom śmierci"
1942 November 15 - Oyneg Shabes report - "death-house No. 1"
1942 December - Głos Warszawy article - "dom śmierci nr 1"
1943 April 21 - Pravda - "dom smerti"
1943 August 8 - The New York Times - "Treblinka Death House"
1944 - Jankiel Wiernik - "house of death"
1945 - Vassili Grossmann - "house of death"

In one sense, the Oyneg Shabes report could be read as a sequel to the earlier Oif der Vach article. Both claimed an execution time of "fifteen minutes". Oif der Vach claimed the floor of the bathhouse opened up and "the people fell into a machine" which either gassed or electrified them. It described this as "a house of murder" and gave it a capacity of 200. Then two months later the Oyneg Shabes report acknowledged there was a "much smaller" "death house" but put more focus on "The new death-house" with its improved capacity of 8-10,000. This looks like narrative evolution, with the authors loosely condoning previous atrocity stories while simultaneously and immensely escalating the scale of the atrocity to put more pressure on the Germans. However, these two documents differ on some other details. It would be helpful if the original article could be found.

The Lewin diary entry also described the place as a "house of death", and its method as "steam". However, it lacks detail and differs on the time required for execution. One can easily imagine that Rabinowicz invented this turn of phrase and someone in the Oyneg Shabes club took it from him at this time.

That Wiernik also copied this phrase adds, however slightly, to the body of evidence that he plagiarized his story.

[Hektor]

"Death House" or "House of Death No. 2" strikes me as a very particular phrasing. You only see it in these old underground reports. Anything using that phrase probably stemmed from the same source, yeah? Possibly a clue to determine authorship.

Authorship or derivation/spread of the information. It would at least indicate the Polish Workers Party writer for Glos Warszawy read the Oyneg Shabes November report and used the term. Or they both utilzed an original source that contains the "house of death no. n" phrase.

Here is a list of instances of that phrase. Obviously the instances from 1943 were mere news reports of the Oyneg Shabes report, but the earlier instances may be worth exploring further.

1942 September 20 - Oif der Vach - "house of murder"
1942 September 27 - Abraham Lewin diary entry on Jakub Rabinowicz - "dom śmierci"
1942 November 15 - Oyneg Shabes report - "death-house No. 1"
1942 December - Głos Warszawy article - "dom śmierci nr 1"
1943 April 21 - Pravda - "dom smerti"
1943 August 8 - The New York Times - "Treblinka Death House"
1944 - Jankiel Wiernik - "house of death"
1945 - Vassili Grossmann - "house of death"

In one sense, the Oyneg Shabes report could be read as a sequel to the earlier Oif der Vach article. Both claimed an execution time of "fifteen minutes". Oif der Vach claimed the floor of the bathhouse opened up and "the people fell into a machine" which either gassed or electrified them. It described this as "a house of murder" and gave it a capacity of 200. Then two months later the Oyneg Shabes report acknowledged there was a "much smaller" "death house" but put more focus on "The new death-house" with its improved capacity of 8-10,000. This looks like narrative evolution, with the authors loosely condoning previous atrocity stories while simultaneously and immensely escalating the scale of the atrocity to put more pressure on the Germans. However, these two documents differ on some other details. It would be helpful if the original article could be found.

The Lewin diary entry also described the place as a "house of death", and its method as "steam". However, it lacks detail and differs on the time required for execution. One can easily imagine that Rabinowicz invented this turn of phrase and someone in the Oyneg Shabes club took it from him at this time.

That Wiernik also copied this phrase adds, however slightly, to the body of evidence that he plagiarized his story.

'Oif der Vach ' would translate to 'on guard'. It's similar to High German "Auf der Wache", which is more a reference to a police station.

As the article and texts are a product of a propaganda campaign that actually lacked primary or direct evidences I'd expect a lot of this plagiarized from each other, which was however further embellished by the authors.

[pilgrimofdark]

Here's the Lewin diary entry from September 27. He also mentions Treblinka and Rabinowicz on September 25.

Spoiler

These pages come from Volume 8 of the Ringelblum Archive in English, Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto. Used to be open access on the JHI's website before their data migration.

From the plain reading of the diary entry, Lewin didn't hear about "bath house -- death house" from Treblinka survivor Jakub Rabinowicz, but from his relative.

So "for hours on end," Lewin and the Wassers listened to atrocity rumors via hearsay. Wasser was one of the three who wrote the "Liquidation of Jewish Warsaw" November report.

---

This is the testimony from (maybe) Jakub Rabinowicz (?), from Volume 5 of the Ringelblum Archive in English.

Spoiler

Rabinowicz mentions no means of killing. During Soviet air raids, the Diesel engines powering the camp lights were turned off.

The English translation has "slaughter house," not "death house," but I'm not sure about the original Polish. It's undated, assumed to be "September 1942."

---

Emanuel Ringelblum reported hearing news about Treblinka gravediggers via Rabinowicz. This is in the paragraph where Ringeblum writes "The method of killing: gas, steam, electricity." It seems to be dated October 29 or later in Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto.

(A copy is easily findable online from the usual suspects.)

---

There's some back-and-forth between Mattogno and Terry in TECOAR regarding Rabinowicz that's mildly interesting. It looks like Terry believed Rabinowicz refers to "gas chambers" somewhere.

In Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues (hereafter referred to as BSTHDAORACOTFOMGAK), Terry expresses mild confusion that Wasser referenced steam chambers in the November report. I think we've solved that mystery: he got it from hearsay passed around by Rabinowicz's relative who regaled his audience "for hours on end" with tales of the steam chamber, and Wasser repeated it to Ringelblum and Gutkowski.

Being easily duped by third-hand hearsay because they lacked relevant training and expertise to differentiate an eyewitness from that eyewitness's relative, two doctors of history and an accountant decided it was reliable enough to print for international distribution in the November report.

Apparently, by no later than September 27, 1942, Treblinka bath-steam-death rumors were being spread via hearsay to the upper reaches of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Underground.

[Wetzelrad]

Being easily duped by third-hand hearsay because they lacked relevant training and expertise to differentiate an eyewitness from that eyewitness's relative, two doctors of history and an accountant decided it was reliable enough to print for international distribution in the November report.

Thank you for working out to my satisfaction how this narrative was fabricated.

[pilgrimofdark]

"The Jews feared the Germans more than they feared death." This could be a generic saying/sentiment.

However...

Abraham Lewin (Oyneg Shabes member): "For hours on end, he recounted the horrors of Tr. His central observation: it has nearly reached the point that the Jews are more afraid of a German than of death."

- September 25, 1943. Diary entry reporting hearsay about Treblinka from Jakub Rabinowicz's relative (likely cousin Shie Rabinowicz who was a member of Oyneg Shabes (page scan above). JHI translation, p. 200 (Volume 8).

November report (written by Oyneg Shabes members Ringelblum, Wasser, Gutkowski): "Throughout the whole second stage of the Aktion the Germans gave nobody any time to rest or think. The blows were dealt one after another. Consequently, the Jews' fear of the Germans grew greater than their fear of death."

- November 15, 1942. JHI translation, p. 382 (Volume 3).

Rachel Auerbach (Oyneg Shabes member) recording Jakub (Abraham) Krzepicki: "Someone said very correctly that the Jews were more afraid of the Germans than they were of death. They ran right into the arms of the Angel of Death just so they did not have to look into the faces of any more Germans."

- January-March 1943. Auerbach's Yiddish version of Krzepicki. JHI translation, p. 216 (Volume 5); Donat translation, p. 112.

Auerbach reports Krzepicki reports that "someone" said this. Could be someone at the camp, but it's just an interjection into the middle of the narrative -- so could have come from someone in Warsaw. It could also be something Auerbach just added based on conversations she'd had with other OS members.

[pilgrimofdark]

Hejnoch Brenner also mentions a "death house" (Дом смерти) in an August 17, 1944 Soviet interrogation.

The Germans took beautiful Jewish women and lived with them. In the camp was the sister of psychiatrist Professor Sigmund Freud, who was living in America. She showed the Germans documents proving she was the famous psychiatrist's sister. The Germans received her "hospitably." They offered her a bathhouse and some rest, no work. They showed her the way to the death house. She went and was killed. Afterward, the Germans laughed and boasted to us: "The sister of the famous Sigmund Freud has also been killed."

- Link

Since the 1944 investigations are a "Wiernik book club" to a large degree, it's not surprising someone latched onto the phrase.

It would be interesting to see the Oif der Vach Yiddish original. Yad Vashem has a copy, but not digitized. They reference the Jewish Historical Institute, but that is also down for a data migration.

A Ringelblum Archive catalog states that the RA had two issues of Oif der Vach, #2 and #3, both from December 1942. So, presumably, #1 was printed in September.

[pilgrimofdark]

The USHMM has a PDF of the Oyf der Vakh article on this page, and their translation is "murder house."

פון דער „באַד“ קערט זיך קיינער נישט צוריק, און עס גייען אהין כסדר נייע טראנספארטן. די „באַד“ איז פאקטיש אַ מאָרד־הויז.

“No one returns from the ‘bath,’ and new transports constantly go there. The ‘bath’ is actually a murder-house.” - AI translation

Of the Treblinka witnesses in the Ringelblum Archive, the majority of them were involved in the Jewish Warsaw ghetto underground.

• David Nowodworski - commander of a Jewish Combat Organization unit in the ghetto uprising
• Jakub Krzepicki - died fighting in the ghetto uprising
• Jakub Rabinowicz - related to Shie Rabinowicz of the Oyneg Shabes group
• "unidentified Częstochowa resident" - unknown

[Wetzelrad]

"מאָרד־הויז" is read as "mord-hoyz". Pretty close to "Mörderhaus". To get from there to "Dom śmierci" you have to substitute "death" for "murder" and swap the order, so it becomes like "house-of death". I think translating it into Polish automatically entails this swap in word order.

Easy enough to do. Whether or not that is what actually happened is beyond me.

[pilgrimofdark]

In TORC (HH #28), Mattogno references Janina Bukolska's report "The Treblinka Death Camp," likely written in 1945.

Janina Bukolska (Buchholcowa / Bucholtz / Buchholc) worked in a notary public's office on the Aryan side of Warsaw. She dispensed forged documents and money for Zegota and the Bermans from this office. And we know Wiernik was in charge of a "cell" of people whom he distributed money to.

Bukolska was also assigned an assistant: Rachel Auerbach, author of Jakub Kzrepicki's first-person Treblinka eyewitness account and formerly working for Oyneg Shabes before leaving the Warsaw ghetto.

Bukolska (with the name of Janina Buchholc) is referred to dozens of times in Auerbach's memoirs Warsaw Testament. They were lifelong friends after the war, even after Auerbach emigrated to Israel (1950).

Bukolska's report in Polish is available online from the Polish state archives.

There's even a notation in the margin mentioning Jankiel Wiernik. I'm not sure of the text/translation, but it seems to say "Among the survivors living in Łódź was the carpenter Wiernik" ("Ocalel i mieszka v Lodzi ciesla Wiernik").

From the first paragraph of the report:

The most crucial evidentiary material consists of witness testimonies. Approximately fifty participants in the Treblinka uprising survived—including, to the best of our knowledge, a single solitary woman. All the data gathered here is based upon the testimonies of these witnesses, some twenty-odd of whom currently reside in Łódź.

Were Wiernik and a group of others hanging out in Lodz after the war ended, just sitting around sharing Treblinka stories, and writing... what? Lodz is where the Central Jewish Historical Commission was located. It began in Lublin, growing out of the Majdanek memorial/museum, then later moved to Lodz, then later to Warsaw, and still exists as the Jewish Historical Institute.

All these people connect to the Warsaw Jewish/Polish underground. This isn't exactly an explicit Auerbach-Krzepicki-Wiernik connection, but it's close.

Main source for background on Bukolska is the book Code name Zegota: rescuing Jews in occupied Poland, 1942-1945.

[Stubble]

^there is the cross pollination right there. It has a name and everything.

[pilgrimofdark]

Ringelblum's final letters are printed in the book Emanual Ringelblum: The Man and the Historian. I half-expected to run into a reference to "Kowalczyk," but no mention.

Ringelblum does refer to Janina Bucholz, though:

We are urgently requesting that you give us a possibility to make contact in emergency situations. Is Mrs. Miodowska a possibility (B)?

- p. 61

A footnote identifies this as "probably Janina Bucholz," whose office was used as a contact address for offering help to Jews hiding on the Aryan side of Warsaw.

More interesting in these letters is how difficult they are to decipher. They were written by Ringelblum (or his wife) to the Bermans, while the Ringelblums were living in an underground bunker in Warsaw. They're full of code names and euphemisms.

A few words from Henryk, about a certain improvement in your health, we have been somewhat relieved. We agonized over what kind of illness you might have come down with, and whether the pause in your work would continue.

"Henryk" is Hersh Wasser. The letter is to Adolf Berman. The illness is Berman being identified as a Jew on the Aryan side of Warsaw and blackmailed.

I am asking Jelenski and his friends to make some comments and additions, which I will gladly take into account when I go over the characters in an appropriate manner. I have forgotten a lot, because as I've already written to you, my memory betrays me since the surgery in T.

"Jelenski" is Hiersch Berlinski, a leader of the Warsaw ghetto Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB). His friends are other ghetto fighters. "T" is a reference to Ringeblum's deportation to Trawniki for several months in 1943 before he escaped.

The underground Jewish partisan ghetto fighters were engaged in a mass conspiracy to hoax uninformed readers of their documents through the use of euphemisms and code words.

Elsewhere in the book, which also contains articles on Ringelblum's like and work, a couple historians write suggest the milk cans were buried in February 1943. So none push the timeline into March, when Auerbach says she was still writing Krzepicki's account, let alone April/May.

[pilgrimofdark]

Only a few months before the witnesses, Łukaszkiewicz, Auerbach, and a few others investigated the camps. Then those witnesses gave interviews to judge Łukaszkiewicz for the Fischer trial soon after. I wonder if this was the 1945 meeting in Łódź mentioned by Janina Bukolska, where she got information to write her report on Treblinka.

Former prisoners of the Treblinka camps met on July 15, 1945 at Oskar Strawczyński’s house. The meeting was attended by 15 prisoners from the extermination camp, they were: Jankiel Wiernik, Szymon Goldberg, Sabina (Sonia) Grabińska, Henryk Rajchman, Aharon Czechowicz, Henoch Brener, Arie Gidlik, Samuel Rajzman, Abe Kohn, Chaim Ciechanowski, Samuel Willenberg, Lejzer Ciechanowski, Henryk Pozwolski, Oskar Strawczyński and Wolf Sznajdman, and three prisoners from the labour camp: Mieczysław Chodźko, Zygmunt Rothendler, Stanisław Kohn. The Central Jewish Historical Commission was represented by Leon Szeftl, Rachela Auerbach and Janina Bucholc.

- Treblinka Warns and Reminds!, p. 113. Treblinka Museum publication.

T-II. Jankiel Wiernik - (Z) (P)
T-II. Szymon Goldberg
T-II. Sabina (Sonia) Grabińska
T-II. Henryk Rajchman - (P)
T-II. Aharon Czechowicz - (P)
T-II. Henoch Brener - (S) (P)
T-II. Arie Gidlik* - (S) (P)
T-II. Samuel Rajzman - (S) (P)
T-II. Abe Kohn - (S) (P)
T-II. Chaim Ciechanowski - (S)
T-II. Samuel Willenberg
T-II. Lejzer Ciechanowski
T-II. Henryk Pozwolski (P)
T-II. Oskar Strawczyński - (S) (P)
T-II. Wolf Sznajdman

T-I. Mieczysław Chodźko
T-I. Zygmunt Rothendler
T-I. Stanisław Kohn - (S) (P)

CZKH. Leon Szeftl
CZKH. Rachela Auerbach - (Z)
CZKH. Janina Bucholc - (Z)

Z - Zegota member
S - interrogated during 1944 Soviet investigation
P - interviewed during 1945 Polish investigation (Fischer trial)

* Arie Gidlik is almost certainly "Arie Kudlik" / "Alexander Kudlik."

Some of these people gave statements to the Central Jewish Historical Commission in 1945, but the JHI is on month 7 of "temporary loss of access," so it's not possible to look for more overlap.

Without more information on this meeting, we're also not sure which of the 18 witnesses were deemed of lesser intelligence, so had to be read aloud the testimony of another witness in order to jog their memory and remind them of well-known events, as was standard methodology at the time.

[pilgrimofdark]

If I'd known my account of surviving the Santafuhrer death camp could win me 25,000 PLN, I'd have put a lot more effort into it.

The Main Board of the Association of Jewish Participants in the Armed Struggle Against Fascism announces a competition for the best account of Jewish participation in the armed struggle against Hitlerism. The primary requirement is the authenticity of the facts and situations described, as well as a faithful portrayal of the Jewish figures involved. The maximum length for a competition entry is 10 typewritten pages. Participation is open to anyone who took part in the armed struggle (in ghettos, death camps, partisan units, or the regular army) or who possesses detailed information regarding the actions and events described. The first prize is 25,000 PLN; the second prize is 15,000 PLN; the third prize is 10,000 PLN. [...] The deadline for submitting manuscripts is February 1, 1948. The jury consists of Rachela Auerbach, Dr. [Józef] Kermisz, and Hersz Smolar [...]

- Żydowski ruch kombatancki w Polsce w latach 1944-1949, p. 113. Free PDF

Interesting that it was not only open to people who had direct experience, but also people who "possess detailed information" that they got from elsewhere.

It's a competition to conspire to hoax.

I wonder who won. Was it Strawczynski? His memoir was a little too long.

"Although the Association’s archives contain many memoirs by veterans, there is unfortunately no information regarding the results of the competition."

Did they solicit all sorts of third-hand memoirs and then not choose a winner, just to avoid paying out?

[pilgrimofdark]

I know this has been "known" since at least 1979 with Donat's Treblinka book, but there was a "Circle of Former Treblinka Inmates" in 1945.

Donat dated this photo to 1944, but it could be 1945. If it's 1944, then it's at least a second group reunion of these people showing a relationship that lasted more than half a year at least.



Standing from left to right: Rosenthal, Brothandel, Shimon Goldberg, Chaim Ciechanowski, Wolf Schneiderman.
Sitting from left to right: Jacob Domb, Gustav Boraks, Oscar Strawczynski, Samuel Rajsman, Arie Kudlik, Shmuel Goldberg, Lejzer Ciechanowski.

Many of these people were interrogated by the Soviets in August-October 1944 as part of several investigations.

More mentions of this circle and its activities:

21 January 1945: the Central Jewish Historical Commission (CZKH) organized a meeting in Lublin of Treblinka survivors. Survivors Samuel Razjman and Stanislaw Kohn were part of the committee, along with Philip Friedman (not a Treblinka survivor but founder of the CZKH and important elsewhere).

April 1945: a group of 35 Treblinka survivors contacted the Lodz branch of the Association of Jewish Partisans in Poland. They wanted to be recognized as partisan veterans, but the Association wouldn't accept them as an entire group since it was against their rules. Stanisław Kohn and Kalman Potasz represented the group of Treblinka survivors.

Summer 1945: the "Circle of Former Treblinka Inmates" gathered in Lodz and assisted CZKH in researching and collecting testimony about Treblinka.

15 July 1945: over a dozen Treblinka II survivors met at Oskar Strawczynski's home with Rachel Auerbach (Oyneg Shabes) and Janina Bukolska/Bucholc (Zegota) to record their testimony as a group. They practiced a "collective testimony" methodology where they were read existing testimonies in order to corroborate each other's narratives (i.e., "convergence of evidence" and "independent testimony"). Attendees below:

• Jankiel Wiernik
• Szymon Goldberg
• Sabina (Sonia) Grabińska
• Henryk Rajchman
• Aharon Czechowicz
• Henoch Brener
• Arie Kudlik
• Samuel Rajzman
• Abe Kohn
• Chaim Ciechanowski
• Samuel Willenberg
• Lejzer Ciechanowski
• Henryk Pozwolski
• Oskar Strawczyński
• Wolf Sznajdman

Here's what Philip Friedman (who also moved to New York and worked with YIVO and was a mentor to Raul Hilberg) had to say about this type of group collective memory:

In order to avoid the defects of excessive subjectivity in the testimonies, the various historical commissions attempted to organize collective testimony. Where several people from the same town or who had survived the same concentration camp lived together, they were brought together. The existing testimonies or chronicles of their town were read to them, and they were asked for additional information, corrections, etc. During such collective treatment of certain topics, a higher level of objectivity was very often (not always) achieved than that attained during individual interviews. Certain intimate experiences that cannot be touched on during a collective interview can be completed in individual discussions.

- Document 11 in Khurbn-Forshung. PDF

Fall 1945: many of them then gave testimony to the Polish Judge Łukaszkiewicz.

Several also published books, gave statements that are in archives in Poland/Israel/USA, participated in later trials, etc.

I don't think the names of all 35 are known or collected in one place, along with when/where they left their mark. Many of the relevant early documents are in the JHI archives. Those have had a "temporary loss of access" for 7-8 months now, so we'll see how long "temporary" turns out to be.

If I can find more on this Circle and what they did, I might create a Wiki page.

[Stubble]

PoD, that is gunpowder man. Absolutely explosive information. It isn't because it is new, it is because it has been neglected that makes it so explosive. This deals handily with 'but how could they all share the same story'.

You illustrate clearly something that was never truly hidden. The fact that there was an effort to synthesize a coherent narrative and to put the witnesses together. From a 'justice' oriented perspective it is absolutely abhorrent. From a propaganda perspective? Absolutely invaluable.