The CODOH Revisionist Forum

All the recent Wiernik talk reminded me of this Milgrom guy. We had a thread on him on the old forum, but it appears to be gone. No matter, as I can recreate it pretty easily.

Milgrom, according to his story, was deported to Treblinka and spent four days there before escaping. In his account, it says he reached Warsaw the morning after Sukkot (the Jewish holiday). In 1942, Sukkot was from Sep 24 to Oct 1, so he would have reached Warsaw on Oct 2, 1942 and thus would have been in Treblinka right at the end of September.

His main Treblinka account is dated Aug 30, 1943, and a version of his story was published anonymously in January 1944 in various periodicals.

"I Lived to Tell the Horrors of Treblinka," B'nai B'rith Messenger, 7 Jan 1944, pg. 1
https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/bb ... article/1/

Like Wiernik, Milgrom is notable for having published an early and detailed war-time account of Treblinka, though Milgrom for whatever reason is far less known and not been cited nearly much.

There are two major problems I see with Milgrom's story.

1) He indicates that after the gassing the bodies were thrown into a fire pit, 10 meters deep. This is at odds with the standard story that says the bodies were initially buried in mass graves and only later burned.

The doors were sealed for 15 minutes at a time, and when they were opened, all who had been locked in were dead.

Five hundred men were assigned to the task of removing the corpses and throwing them into the burning pit.

2) He describes the gas chamber building as having eight barracks. The standard story is that there was initially a smaller building with three chambers. Then later they built a newer, bigger gas chamber building. The testimonies vary somewhat in the number of chambers in the second gas chamber building. Wiernik claims 10 chambers in a 2x5 arrangement. Gerstein on some others claim 8 chambers. Milgrom's description would seem to correspond to the second larger building rather than the first. But according to the traditional timeline, that building would not have been completed yet when Milgrom was in the camp.

He does not claim to have seen this directly, but he says he spoke to two gravediggers who provided him with this information (this would be only one level removed).

I can't help but notice that he wrote the story almost a whole year after the time he was supposedly there, and it seems he anachronistically worked in some of the later 1943 Treblinka lore into his 1942 story.

--Additional--

Here's a version that is longer than the one published in the press
https://search.archives.jdc.org/multime ... _00858.pdf

See also here
https://memoryoftreblinka.org/david-pavel-milgrom/

And see here for an account in Hebrew
https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/documents/5408698

Yad Vashem also refers to him as "Neftali Milgraum." I found a source that says David was an alternate name. And later it seems he went by Pavel. These Jews and their name changes!

Webb and Chocholatý list David Milgrom as a survivor of Treblinka, though I believe “David” is actually just another name used by Naftali Milgraum/Milgroym who is already on the list.

Page 237
https://asset.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/ ... -832c6.pdf

With the various names and spellings I am reminded of the words of GLR and that which he said I could never forget...



Name changes were habitual...

According to Nessie, it doesn't matter how many gas chambers there were or whether they were cremated before or after burial; what matters is that everyone admits to being gassed. He doesn't even consider how much this was fueled by rumors that everyone began to replicate to feel important: "Look, I survived hell."