The CODOH Revisionist Forum

Wetzelrad wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 11:18 pm (Separately, I didn't realize names could take so many different forms in Polish. Having to search for "Wiernik" "Wiernika" "Wierniku" and other variations is a lot of trouble.)

Polish has noun declension. There are endings for grammatical case (accusative, dative, genitive, etc).

Wiernik ends in k so I think it would be declension group III.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_mo ... line_nouns

This is what GPT says the singular forms would be. There are a bunch of plural ones as well.

Nominative: Wiernik
Genitive: Wiernika
Dative: Wiernikowi
Accusative: Wiernika
Instrumental: Wiernikiem
Locative: Wierniku
Vocative: Wierniku

Wetzelrad wrote: ↑Fri Sep 19, 2025 3:13 am

pilgrimofdark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 11:31 pm Someone named Aron Z. Rotenberg of Lodz/New York submitted a testimony page of "Jankiel Wiernik" born in Lodz in 1873. He also submitted 69 total records. And what are the odds he has the same last name as the shoemaker? Rosenberg/Rotenberg/Rottenberga was used in the 1935-1936 papers.

"What are the odds" is a question that occurs to me repeatedly, because there are so many instances of Wierniks and Rozenbergs and Bermans and others who show up in the same documents. It has to be said that many of these are common Jewish names. It would actually be surprising if there isn't a second Jankiel Wiernik.

You would not believe the number of Mordka Rosenbergs there are in the Arolsen Archives. One fits the age of the shoemaker. Listed with 2 unnamed children, no info on who they were or if anyone survived the war.

Aron Rotenberg also submitted a testimony that Aron Wiernik born 1880 was dead.

This 1937/39 Lodz address book has a Aron Rotenberg, Jankiel Wiernik, Aron Wiernik, among others, including a Jakób Wiernik at Jankiel Wiernik's old street address. Probably just another relative.
https://archive.org/details/bc.wbp.lodz ... 41/page/72

Based on the date of this I think we can reasonably infer that Lodz's Jankiel Wiernik was a separate person from the one in Warsaw.

This problem comes up a lot in genealogy. I don't do genealogy, but I've known people who are really into it. Coincidental name matches seem to be more common than people think. Looking at dates and locations is essential. Even there sometimes you can get people who coincidently have the same info, especially in large cities.

I've been wondering why we don't hear from Wiernik before 1935 in Warsaw. He just kind of pops up, both in the address directory and in the newspapers.

Where was he before? I think Wetzelrad is right: he wasn't in Lodz making an honest living selling hats. That's out of character for the Wiernik we know.

But we may have a clue here. He was in Siberia and the Tsarist army.

Yankel Wiernik /Jankiel Wiernik, is the author of a Yiddish manuscript titled “A Year in Treblinka.” Wiernik was born in 1890 in Biala Podlaski, Poland. He belonged to the Bund Socialist Jewish Organization in Eastern Europe, was arrested and sent to Siberia. After completing a term of service in the Tsarist Army he settled in Warsaw, where he became a building contractor. On August 23, 1942, he was deported to Treblinka. Almost a year after his deportation, he escaped from Treblinka during the uprising of August 2, 1943. In 1944/45, he wrote his memoir in order to let the world know what went on in Treblinka. Wiernik was also a witness at several trials against the German Nazi commanders who were captured. Wiernik's manuscript was translated from Yiddish to English, and it can be found at: http://www.zchor.org/treblink/wiernik.htm

- "Dr. Laykher." Wyszków Memorial Book.

Subversive communist gets caught, sent to jail in Siberia, forced army service, then settles outside of Russia in independent Poland and engages in subversive communist activities.

pilgrimofdark wrote: ↑Wed Sep 17, 2025 12:29 am Gazeta Polska has more info on the investigation from August 8, 1935.

The communist authorities in the capital uncovered a perfectly secret communist printing house [...]

This story was also published in Expres Zagłębia, August 5th:
https://archive.org/details/jbc.bj.uj.e ... _78879399/

Since these four (Rozenberg + others) were arrested and tried separately from Wiernik, they're really a separate story from him, so I think we can let them go as a dead end.

pilgrimofdark wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 8:48 pm 1913 - banned from Russia?
On the ban on living in four provinces of the country for Adam Bardziński and Jankiel Wiernik, who were found to be members of political organizations in the Petrograd Governorate.
- Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych

"ban on living in four provinces"

I searched this phrase to get some context. Every occurrence of it is from 1909-1914. The reasons given are for participating in either the Polish Socialist Party, the Bund, the Zionist Socialist Party, a similar organization, or for illegal boycotts and unions, or simply for "disloyal conduct". None of these files are scanned in or transcribed so it doesn't get more specific than that.

There are 35 results for "four provinces", and 0 for any other number. This suggests there was some kind of law specifically designed to protect four provinces of Congress Poland from socialist revolutionaries. Identifying this law could be useful. Presumably the targets were the most industrial provinces. This includes Lodz and Warsaw, since most of the offenders lived in those two cities.

Lodz at that time was inside the "Pietrokowskoj gubiernii" (written as "Petrograd" above but probably more accurately "Petrokov"). See the yellow section on this map. Therefore the Jankiel Wiernik referred to by this order was residing in Lodz or maybe somewhere like Częstochowa, as of 1913.

As for Adam Bardzinski, the Internet Archive has a number of newspapers that mention him from 1935-1938. He was politically active in the Polish People's Party, and later became a local head of the newly formed OZN party.
https://archive.org/details/bc.wbp.lodz ... 4/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/jbc.bj.uj.e ... 2/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/jbc.bj.uj.e ... 2/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/wies-polska ... 2/mode/1up
https://archive.org/details/jbc.bj.uj.e ... 4/mode/1up

This paper gives a lengthy and quite favorable biography of Adam Bardzinski:
https://archive.org/details/jbc.bj.uj.e ... 5/mode/1up

In 1912, he contributed to the founding of an amateur orchestra. That same year, betrayed by his neighbors for his independence work, he was arrested. After six months in prison, he received two years of administrative exile, which was shortened by the war. He was a member of the "Zaraniarzy" (Społem), POW (Polish Military District), and Strzelec (Rifleman) associations.

In 1916, he co-founded the "Społem" District Cooperative in Opatów near Częstochowa [...]

This corroborates that he was banned around 1913, and it tells us the ban lasted for only two years or fewer.

I'm not aware what "independence work" used throughout the text refers to.

Nothing tells me how affiliated this person was with Jankiel Wiernik, or if that Wiernik was the famous Holocaust survivor.

Stubble wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 2:50 am Anybody know how this fella [Berman Adolf - Avraham] came about the copy of A Year in Treblinka with Wiernik's notes in it?

You have a point there. As the leader (or whatever position) of Zegota, it makes sense that Berman had Zegota distribution lists. It doesn't make sense that he had a handwritten draft of Rok w Treblince. Plus what appears to be a typewritten draft. From that, one could imagine some ghostwriting took place.

Stubble wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 2:50 am Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that he had printed the Polish copies of 'A Year in Treblinka' and had had that written copy submitted to him.

Or perhaps Wiernik wrote and submitted the first draft in his handwriting, then someone else tidied it up by removing the chlorine, adding flowery and emotional language, and adding many additional pages of text.

I think it would pay to examine that file more closely. Does the handwriting match other handwriting samples, do we have a full transcription of it, does the word choice match the final booklet, etc.? The typewritten draft (pp.14-35) may also be worth checking both for how it differs from the final text and for what was crossed out and typed over.
http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... item=41584

Archie wrote: ↑Thu Sep 18, 2025 5:36 am One possible scenario would be that he simply returned to Warsaw before June 1943 and then lied about being there in August because he wanted to include the dramatic Treblinka uprising in his story. That's pure conjecture on my part. But I could see a storyteller wanting to include that.

Did you come up with this on your own? Because it connects neatly with an earlier version of Wiernik's story in which the revolt was May 28, 1943. (This version was credited to an anonymous Jewish escapee, but the details show 100% it was written by or in connection with Wiernik. See Mattogno p.126.)

It occurs to me now that a May 28 escape dovetails neatly with his June 1 papers. Something like what you say must be true, because he literally changed the date for it.

Keep in mind, Wiernik was submitting his 'books' to him for paying his 'cell'.

I think that was his handler.

I'll be honest, my Polish is rather shit, but, you're not wrong. It should be looked at.

I missed that the first typed draft was in there the first time I looked at it, but, I'll be damned, there it is.

[I'd use AI to translate the Polish, I've done that before, it has me very limited though, even after I clear my cookies. I can only ask for translation of 2 pages a day]

Good point about the incentive.

I believe that 22-page doc was a draft as opposed to a copy, but I won't know until I check. If you don't get to it first, I will transcribe it myself, maybe with the help of some OCR software. Bear in mind, this could be fruitless for us since Mattogno has already looked at these.

One other project would be this 1960 handwritten letter from Wiernik.
https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/documents/3697378

I think you may have misunderstood my frist line,

The books I referred to were his 'money books' and listed are the names of persons in his 'cell' to whom he was remitting payments.

The 'political leader' 'psychologist' 'guy who got fake papers for people' and also the guy who gave the handwritten copy of a year in treblinka to the GFM also happed to have said books from Wiernik listing whom he was paying and how much.

I think he was his handler.

Wetzelrad wrote: ↑Sat Sep 20, 2025 5:39 am Because it connects neatly with an earlier version of Wiernik's story in which the revolt was May 28, 1943. (This version was credited to an anonymous Jewish escapee, but the details show 100% it was written by or in connection with Wiernik. See Mattogno p.126.)

It occurs to me now that a May 28 escape dovetails neatly with his June 1 papers. Something like what you say must be true, because he literally changed the date for it.

This is also quoted in a German book:

Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 (Band 9) Polen - Generalgouvernement. August 1941–1945. DOK. 271. "Ein Flüchtling aus Treblinka schildert vor dem 28. September 1943 die Zustände im Lager und seine Flucht während des Häftlingsaufstands." Page 734.

Footnote 2 reads "Presumably Jankiel Wiernik (1889–1972), carpenter and building contractor; he joined the Bund in 1904, was exiled to Siberia, served in the Russian Army, and then in Warsaw. He was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp at the end of August 1942 and participated in the uprising. He survived in 1943/44 in hiding in the countryside thanks to the help of the writer Stefan Krzywoszewski (1866–1950)."

At the end of May, we were ready, but the date was canceled. The groups of five had been assigned various tasks (attacking the guardhouse, eliminating the guards after luring them away from the tower, setting fires, tearing down the barbed wire fence). On the 28th at 5:30 a.m., our “uprising” began.

This fits more neatly with the June 1, 1943 date stamp on his ID card under a false identity, but retcons are sometimes difficult to keep consistent with reality.

By comparison, A Year in Treblinka first had the revolt planned to happen "by spring", then "June 15", then "new dates were set", before they decided on "August 2". So this change in the timeline can only be a retcon, unless someone wants to argue it was a very serious lapse in memory.

I wonder what the impetus was. Did someone think it made a better story if he was in the camp for "a year" in stead of the original "about ten months"? Or did they want to match the story to intel they received about a August 2nd revolt?

The first footnote is also important.

1 AAN, 1325/202/II-29, p. 72. This document was translated from Polish. Reprinted in: Kraj, No. 9/10, September 28, 1943, pp. 30–31. Świadkowie zbrodni. Kraj. Agencja Informacyjna (The Country. News Agency) was the press service of the Government Delegation, which appeared once or twice a week from July 1943 onwards with a circulation of 750 copies under the editorship of Kirył Sosnowski (1910–1966).

Mattogno's source was Kraj November 28, but actually September 28 is correct. IX versus XI. Here is a scan of that paper:
https://polona.pl/item-view/76c5560b-80 ... d8?page=29

Anyway, September brings us much closer to the date of the revolt.

Also Verfolgung und Ermordung quotes its version from a standalone source with numerous handwritten corrections, which tells us this was another draft. If we had a scan of that we could compare the typewriting and handwriting with other documents.