Jankiel Wiernik

[Wetzelrad]

[...] it's most likely he was in Warsaw during the entire war living as a Roman Catholic and participating in underground subversive activities, like he was doing before the war as a Jew.

That would make the most sense. The one caveat to the above is that GFH contradictorily describes one of the documents as "forged" in a separate entry (Link). However that document is from April 1944, long after the period we're concerned with.

Got a picture of Gordon-Levy?

She is supposed to have made some public appearances under her married name of Yael Levy or Levi, but I can't find a photo. Here is a lo-res photo uploaded by a family member, put next to the photo of Wiktoria Kosicka.

yael.jpg (27.74 KiB) Viewed 138 times

I think they could be the same person, and it would make sense since these documents were submitted to GFH by Levy. Further confirmation could come from her birthdate, but I can't find that either.

Maybe this angle isn't worth pursuing since all I know about the adoption is the one line on GFH, and that line is not necessarily contradictory to her ID papers. Wiernik's papers are a more obvious contradiction. If you want to pursue this angle further someone would have to find a way to translate her memoirs (Link).

There was a map key in that pdf dump.

Yes, but I think it is just a more wordy version of the one in Friedman 1946 (Link). Because it is more wordy and perhaps more original it may be useful for comparisons in the future, but for today I just want to point to one thing.

1) Main Gate
[...] The entire gate in the Zakopane style.

2) Guardhouse
Small Zakopane-style building (2 side windows, door in the middle) with a 6-pitched roof covered with shingles.

This is notable because "Zakopane style" is the same description used in an anonymous "Jewish escapee" report on November 28, 1943. Just another confirmation that that report was written by Wiernik.

[Stubble]

Some more stuff on this Berman Adolf - Avraham fellow, he may well have been the source for the forged documents. It is also likely that he was able to submit Wiernik's handwritten deposition to the GFH along with A Year in Treblinka because he saw to it that it was printed after reading (and perhaps editing) it.

https://www.jhi.pl/en/articles/adolf-be ... istory,153

As a representative of the Jewish National Committee he became a member of the executive committee of the Council to Aid Jews „Żegota”. He and his wife helped the Jews living on the „Aryan side” by finding hideouts for them, being an intermediaries in arranging false documents and allocating grants. He was also in touch with the founder of the Underground Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto, Emanuel Ringelblum, who in February 1943 was hiding with his family in an underground bunker at Grójecka 84. On 7th March, 1944 due to denunciation, the shelter was discovered by the Gestapo and 30 Jews hiding there along with the Marczak’s who were taking care of them were shot to death. Before that, Ringelblum had given Berman part of his works written in the bunker, among which there was a lengthy essay on Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War. This text is stored in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute.

There would have been some overlap in circles with Wiernik and he, perhaps even pre war given the 1935 kerfuffle.

Yes, but I think it is just a more wordy version of the one in Friedman 1946 (Link). Because it is more wordy and perhaps more original it may be useful for comparisons in the future, but for today I just want to point to one thing.

1) Main Gate
[...] The entire gate in the Zakopane style.

2) Guardhouse
Small Zakopane-style building (2 side windows, door in the middle) with a 6-pitched roof covered with shingles.

This is notable because "Zakopane style" is the same description used in an anonymous "Jewish escapee" report on November 28, 1943. Just another confirmation that that report was written by Wiernik.

This would be the 'steam chambers' one?

Also, there is a handwritten copy in there as well, and it is identical to the typed copy. So, that descriptor is present.

[Wetzelrad]

As a representative of the Jewish National Committee he became a member of the executive committee of the Council to Aid Jews „Żegota”.

Speaking of Zegota, GFH has several documents listing off Zegota payment recipients. Wiernik's name is on top of some of these lists, with his daughter Gordon right below him. GFH calls him the "head of their cell".

These lists could be used to link Wiernik to other important Jews, if they were on them. Unfortunately I didn't make any useful connections, besides a "Rubinstein" with an indeterminate first name, who could be but is unlikely to be Rebeka Rubinstein mentioned upthread. I'm sharing them here just in case anyone wants to investigate for themselves. The handwriting is challenging to read.

http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... item=14273
http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... item=59052

This would be the 'steam chambers' one?

No, I'm referring to an intermediary version between the chlorine hatch version and the final booklet. It seems to have gone unrecognized by Wiernik. It may not have much significance, but Mattogno points out some dates were changed (p.129). I also noticed that it describes a killing method where the elderly and ill were sat down to be killed "with a blow" where in A Year in Treblinka they were instead killed with a "shot [...] in the neck". The evolving narrative.

[Wetzelrad]

The Ghetto Fighters House Archive has a four-page typewritten affidavit in Hebrew from Yaakov Wernick, dated July 17, 1960. Part of Miriam Novitch's work.
http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... tem=114833

This affidavit looks to be unknown to revisionism. A few items from it are worth noting:

• Wiernik said he was sent to Treblinka on August 22 instead of 23.
• He claimed to have seen not just Himmler but also Adolf Eichmann "in the beginning of 1943".
• Wiernik used the word "diesel" explicitly.

That last item, translated:

As is already known, they used carbon monoxide in Treblinka that was brought to the gas chambers. And was powered by a diesel engine.

This is only significant because certain parties have taken it upon themselves to cast doubt on this. Sergey Romanov wrote of Wiernik, "Note that he did not say 'diesel engine'", and "Not even later during the Eichmann trial did Wiernik specify an engine type." (Link and Link.) But in this case he did, so there's no cause to deny it.

[Archie]

In the other thread, I floated the idea that Wiernik might not have written the text (or maybe not all of it). My main reason for half-suspecting this was that the booklet attributed to him does not read like the writings of an uneducated carpenter. A Year in Treblinka is fairly long (over 40 pages), and to me it sounds like it was written by an actual writer. Not a great writer, but perhaps a competent hack writer. Take a sentence like this for example (in translation):

"Off an on a child would whimper, but some killer's brutal fingers would grab its thin neck in a vise-like grip cutting off the last plaintive sobs."

This style most likely suggests some writing experience. Specifically, fiction or sensational journalism or something similarly descriptive in style.

Wiernik's Wikipedia article mentions his connections to Stefan Krzywoszewski who was a notable Polish writer.

If it's the case that Wiernik was writing communist propaganda during the 1930s (big if true!), well, that changes things entirely. If he was a writer, then he would be a very plausible author of the booklet, though not a very credible one.

[Archie]

I'm not sure what I'm seeing here.
[...]
It was issued by the Germans with a date of June 1, 1943 in Warsaw.

I noticed that too and have been mulling it over. The description for those papers is that they are "official documents", not forged ones. I don't see how that is compatible with an August revolt and escape.

The file also starts with papers for a Wiktoria Kosicka, a name which doesn't show up elsewhere. Not in GFH or the Arolsen Archives. Possibly that was Yael Gordon-Levy, but the date on that is also questionable for the same reason. Gordon-Levy is supposed to have been adopted by Wiernik in 1944.

It's a major contradiction if true.

Is this the logical sequence of events that we're supposed to believe?

1. Wiernik is in Warsaw.
2. The Nazis deport him to Treblinka.
3. Before June 1943, he escapes Treblinka
4. By June, he returns to Warsaw and assumes a false identity as a Roman Catholic unemployed clerk.
5. The Nazis figure out his false identity immediately and re-deport him to Treblinka.
6. He participates in the Treblinka uprising.
7. He re-escapes Treblinka in August 1943.
8. He re-returns to Warsaw and assumes a second false identity (Kowalczyk) by the Krzywoszewski family.
9. He writes his report about his year (minus some months back and forth to Warsaw?) in Treblinka.
10. He re-assumes his first false identity that the Nazis already know is false and is given a new job by the Nazis.
11. He participates in the Warsaw uprising.

I don't know what's real here, but there are multiple photos and documents showing he was in Warsaw before, during, and after the war. And during the time he was supposedly in Treblinka.

Everything between #3-#10 invalidate #2, and it's most likely he was in Warsaw during the entire war living as a Roman Catholic and participating in underground subversive activities, like he was doing before the war as a Jew.

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.

[Stubble]

I shared this thread with Germar the other day. He responded thus;

Highly intriguing. Could you please ask pilgrimofdark whether he'd write a short piece about this for Inconvenient History? If not, I could ghostwrite it, and if not that either, I'll write it myself and credit him.

Best regards
Germar Rudolf
[...]

Pilgrimofdark, you have uncovered something here. If I can help you in this endeavor in any way, let me know. I think you have a responsibility to share it.

[Stubble]

As a representative of the Jewish National Committee he became a member of the executive committee of the Council to Aid Jews „Żegota”.

Speaking of Zegota, GFH has several documents listing off Zegota payment recipients. Wiernik's name is on top of some of these lists, with his daughter Gordon right below him. GFH calls him the "head of their cell".

These lists could be used to link Wiernik to other important Jews, if they were on them. Unfortunately I didn't make any useful connections, besides a "Rubinstein" with an indeterminate first name, who could be but is unlikely to be Rebeka Rubinstein mentioned upthread. I'm sharing them here just in case anyone wants to investigate for themselves. The handwriting is challenging to read.

http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... item=14273
http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebo ... item=59052

This would be the 'steam chambers' one?

No, I'm referring to an intermediary version between the chlorine hatch version and the final booklet. It seems to have gone unrecognized by Wiernik. It may not have much significance, but Mattogno points out some dates were changed (p.129). I also noticed that it describes a killing method where the elderly and ill were sat down to be killed "with a blow" where in A Year in Treblinka they were instead killed with a "shot [...] in the neck". The evolving narrative.

In your second link, Berman Adolf - Avraham appears again. It looks like he may have been Wiernik's 'handler', which again, explains his handwritten copy of the early report.

With the forged documents, I wouldn't read much into the date printed on them. One of the biggest things Wiernik would have had to fear, would have been a radio [his documents being fake], but, those were rare.

[pilgrimofdark]

I shared this thread with Germar the other day. He responded thus;

Highly intriguing. Could you please ask pilgrimofdark whether he'd write a short piece about this for Inconvenient History? If not, I could ghostwrite it, and if not that either, I'll write it myself and credit him.

Best regards
Germar Rudolf
[...]

Pilgrimofdark, you have uncovered something here. If I can help you in this endeavor in any way, let me know. I think you have a responsibility to share it.

Yes, I can write something up about the "pre-history" of Wiernik. There was one other newspaper article on the raid that I left out because I discovered it later. And maybe his bizarre timeline of bouncing back and forth between Warsaw and Treblinka under at least 3 names.

If anyone is willing to peer review a draft, that would be helpful.

Also, I can't find a "submission guidelines" for Inconvenient History - citation style (APA, Chicago?), file format (.docx, .odt, anything?), spacing (double?). I'm sure he can whip anything into shape, but if I can save some time that would be great.

Other than looking through the Polish newspapers, I think this is more of a collaborative effort. So we can collectively decide on a pseudonym later

[Stubble]

I shared this thread with Germar the other day. He responded thus;

Highly intriguing. Could you please ask pilgrimofdark whether he'd write a short piece about this for Inconvenient History? If not, I could ghostwrite it, and if not that either, I'll write it myself and credit him.

Best regards
Germar Rudolf
[...]

Pilgrimofdark, you have uncovered something here. If I can help you in this endeavor in any way, let me know. I think you have a responsibility to share it.

Yes, I can write something up about the "pre-history" of Wiernik. There was one other newspaper article on the raid that I left out because I discovered it later. And maybe his bizarre timeline of bouncing back and forth between Warsaw and Treblinka under at least 3 names.

If anyone is willing to peer review a draft, that would be helpful.

Also, I can't find a "submission guidelines" for Inconvenient History - citation style (APA, Chicago?), file format (.docx, .odt, anything?), spacing (double?). I'm sure he can whip anything into shape, but if I can save some time that would be great.

Other than looking through the Polish newspapers, I think this is more of a collaborative effort. So we can collectively decide on a pseudonym later

Probably best to contact Mr Rudolf directly for clarification Sir.

If you would like, I could try to help you with streamlining. I'm not sure there is much else I can offer.

Check your inbox.

[pilgrimofdark]

The dramatic conclusion to (part) of the raid.

Gazeta Robotnicza, 1936, R. 40, nr 165

On June 3, the District Court in Warsaw heard the case of Mordka Rottenberg, 87, Aron Cukier, 28 (both have no criminal record, no police records), and Mendel Flanek, 29 (sentenced to 6 months in prison for participating in an illegal street demonstration), accused of arranging a small handwritten letter in the basement of Rottenberg's apartment. Communist proclamations were pressed there. Rottenberg and Cukier were illiterate, barely able to sign their names. Rottenberg's role consisted of allowing the printing of printed matter in his basement, for which he received remuneration. Cukier was responsible for the technical stamping of proclamations, and Flank, as a locksmith, repaired the broken machine. Lejbuś Erdepel, 81, who collaborated with Cukier, was also accused. Erdepel showed remorse at the trial and made a statement renouncing all communist activities and communist beliefs. The District Court sentenced Flanek to 9 years in prison, Cukier and Rottenberg to 7 years each, and Erdepel, due to his demonstrated remorse and renunciation of communist ideology, to 1 year in prison.

Some of them had likely died by 1939-1941. Others had been sentenced to prison terms that extended to or past 1939. No idea what Warsaw's policies were for early release, "good time," parole, etc., so it's speculative whether they were actually still imprisoned. And then there are ~60 others arrested not accounted for here.

Interestingly, some of the conspirators are claimed to be illiterate.

Who was the literate one? Could it have been Jankiel Wiernik, who was writing communist proclamations from two typewriters at the Dom Chleba Jewish charity institution?

[Stubble]

The dramatic conclusion to (part) of the raid.

Gazeta Robotnicza, 1936, R. 40, nr 165

On June 3, the District Court in Warsaw heard the case of Mordka Rottenberg, 87, Aron Cukier, 28 (both have no criminal record, no police records), and Mendel Flanek, 29 (sentenced to 6 months in prison for participating in an illegal street demonstration), accused of arranging a small handwritten letter in the basement of Rottenberg's apartment. Communist proclamations were pressed there. Rottenberg and Cukier were illiterate, barely able to sign their names. Rottenberg's role consisted of allowing the printing of printed matter in his basement, for which he received remuneration. Cukier was responsible for the technical stamping of proclamations, and Flank, as a locksmith, repaired the broken machine. Lejbuś Erdepel, 81, who collaborated with Cukier, was also accused. Erdepel showed remorse at the trial and made a statement renouncing all communist activities and communist beliefs. The District Court sentenced Flanek to 9 years in prison, Cukier and Rottenberg to 7 years each, and Erdepel, due to his demonstrated remorse and renunciation of communist ideology, to 1 year in prison.

Some of them had likely died by 1939-1941. Others had been sentenced to prison terms that extended to or past 1939. No idea what Warsaw's policies were for early release, "good time," parole, etc., so it's speculative whether they were actually still imprisoned. And then there are ~60 others arrested not accounted for here.

Interestingly, some of the conspirators are claimed to be illiterate.

Who was the literate one? Could it have been Jankiel Wiernik, who was writing communist proclamations from two typewriters at the Dom Chleba Jewish charity institution?

I think the 'case jacket' or 'file' for Wiernik from this investigation is the missing piece here, and I have no idea how to get it.