Franciszek Zabecki, Dispatcher of Treblinka Station

[pilgrimofdark]

Some preliminary research on Franciszek Zabecki, branching off from the discusson on Jankiel Wiernik and the uprising/escape of Treblinka on August 2, 1943.

This is a look at some claims made about him and what documents exist that support or question the credibility of those claims.

Station Master of Treblinka?

Part of the hagiography of Zabecki is that he was the "Station Master" at Treblinka.

However, his ID card from October 1, 1943 states he was a "dispatcher" (fahrdienstlieter). Maybe he was made station master after the Soviet Union recaptured the area, as it's said he was station master until 1949.

From his ID, he was not "station master" during the war.

Ostbahn ID Card Inconsistencies

Zabecki's Ostbahn ID card is dissimilar to every other card.

Spoiler

1. The eagle on the stamp is missing its inner wreath. I can't find another stamp like this at all. Zabecki's is unique in this regard.

2. The stamp says something at the top, which I can't decipher. Almost all other cards say "Ostbahn" at the top. One that I found, issued in Warsaw, said "GeneralGouvernement." Zabecki's is unique in this regard that is has something completely different.

3. The card has an issued date of October 1, 1943, two months after newspapers reported the Treblinka uprising took place.

Dozens of Ostbahn IDs are available online and his is very different, even taking into account his is a scan in a 1977 book and most online are photographs.

Mouthpiece for Soviets

It seems that Zabecki was willing to say whatever the Soviets put into his mouth.

He supposedly counted the numbers of victims sent to Treblinka in each train car. In 1944, he counted "at least 3 million" under Soviet investigation.

In 1945, he counted 1.2 million for the Polish investigative committee.

In addition, he was possibly the origin of the This is Spinal Tap joke about a person dying by choking on someone else's vomit.

The Germans and guards who guarded the prisoners were always drunk. I know that they forced people to eat vomit, i.e., what they vomited on the ground while drunk, forcing the prisoners to lick the vomit off the ground with their tongues.

His entire testimony is full of bizarre stuff like this, along with some claims that support the conventional narrative and some material inconsistent.

He also echoes the claim that the trains to Treblinka each had 60 cars. The 120-axle Soviet trains had 60 cars, as a rule, but not the 90-axle German trains, which had fewer. This issue is a bit tangential but we seem to have more Soviet influence on his ability to count.

If he was a dispatcher at Treblinka during the war, it's likely the Soviets would have suspected him of being a collaborator. The stated NKVD policy was to imprison collaborators and gather atrocity accounts.

Treblinka Revolt Witness

This is all Zabecki had to say in 1944: "The mass influx of transports of people ceased after the prisoner uprising that took place at the death camp on August 2, 1943."

In 1945, he expanded: "On 2 August 1943, the death camp was on fire between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. During that time, two shifts of Ukrainians from the camp were bathing in the Bug. All Jews escaped from the camp, carrying weapons from the arsenal they had broken into."

Again, the only ID card associated with him was issued on October 1, 1943. He is mostly parroting what was already published a year earlier by Wiernik and "anonymous" versions of Wiernik.

Other accounts of the uprising claim fewer than "all Jews escaped" from the camp.

Treblinka on Fire Photo

This is a famous photo of the Treblinka camp on fire after the August 2, 1943 uprising.

Spoiler

The main problem with this photo is that it was not published until 1977 in Zabecki's book. It was not turned over to the Red Army interrogator in 1944, nor to Judge Łukaszkiewicz in 1945.

Sources Still to Find

Stalag II-A records. Zabecki's prisoner number is 22264.

Ostbahn employment record pre-dating October 1, 1943. Otherwise, it can't even be confirmed he was working at the Treblinka station before then.

Original verion of Obóz straceń w Treblince. This version should have copies of documents turned over by Zabecki. The version online in Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce doesn't have these documents.

Zabecki's memoir Wspomnienia dawne i nowe.

Sources Used

Spoiler

• DeathCamps.Org. “The Treblinka Station Master Franciszek Zabecki.” December 28, 2005. http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/zabecki.html.
• Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. “Franciszek Zabecki – The Station Master at Treblinka: Eyewitness to the Revolt – 2 August 1943.” Accessed September 30, 2025. http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org ... becki.html.
• Samuel, Monika. “Railwayman Franciszek Ząbecki. Memoirs of a Witness from Treblinka.” In Treblinka Warns and Reminds. Museum Treblinka, 2022. Originally published as Kolejarz Franciszek Ząbecki. Prace wspomnieniowe świadka z Treblinki. https://www.prchiz.pl/storage/app/media ... pomina.pdf.
• Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia. “Franciszek Ząbecki.” Accessed September 29, 2025. https://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... d=72696889.
• Zabecki, Franciszek. Memories old and new. PAX, 1977. Originally published as Wspomnienia dawne i nowe. Library of Congress. https://search.catalog.loc.gov/instance ... y=78352038.
• Zabecki, Franciszek. “Treblinka – Extermination Camp.” December 21, 1945. Chronicles of Terror. https://chroniclesofterror.pl/dlibra/pu ... dition/310.
• Zycie Siedleckie. “He Was a Humble Man.” December 12, 2013. Originally published as Był Skromnym Człowiekiem. https://web.archive.org/web/20131219001 ... zlowiekiem.
• ИнфоРост, Н. П. “Minutes of the interrogation of Franciszek Zabecki, the duty station Treblinka in 1941-1944. Treblinka Station, September 24, 1944.” September 24, 1944. Originally published as Протокол допроса Францишка Зомбецкого, дежурного станции Треблинка в 1941-1944 гг. Станция Треблинка, 24 сентября 1944 г. History Russia. https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/354481.

[edited to add better, fuller version of "The burning of the Treblinka II Death Camp" photo.]

[Stubble]

He was also a spy (or asset or whatever) for the Polish Government in Exile. I'll see if I can dig up the source on that. I have it linked in my 'The Only Extant Picture of Smoke From Treblinka' thread.

It wasn't there. Mr Wraith had mentioned he was part of Armia Krajowa, this led to a search which yielded this result which seems concise;

https://www.xn--meb.pisz.pl/Sejm_1712/1 ... C4%85becki

[pilgrimofdark]

He was also a spy (or asset or whatever) for the Polish Government in Exile. I'll see if I can dig up the source on that. I have it linked in my 'The Only Extant Picture of Smoke From Treblinka' thread.

Yes, another subversive.

During the September Campaign, he served in the 1st Signal Battalion. On September 17, 1939, he was captured by the Soviets. Two months later, along with other Polish prisoners of war, he was handed over to the Germans and sent to forced labor in the Third Reich. As prisoner number 22264, he was held at Stalag II-A in Neubrandenburg in southeastern Mecklenburg. He worked as a farmer in the village of Klinken for Otto Mulsof. In March 1941, he was released and returned to Sokołów Podlaski. Almost immediately after his return, on April 1, 1941, under the pseudonym "Dawny," he joined the underground movement within the Union of Armed Struggle, which was renamed the Home Army on February 4, 1942. The Home Army's Sokołów Podlaski "Sęp" and "Proso" Districts collaborated with the largest railway workers' organization in the area, formed as the 8th Company of the 6th "Podlasie" Railway District. The organization was established on January 6, 1940, in Siedlce. In the spring of that same year, organizational units began to be established at individual railway stations. A commander was appointed at each station, tasked with preparing the station for a general uprising and resuming normal operations after the Germans were removed.

The simplicity of Ząbecki's motivation for joining the underground is striking, as he explains it in his memoirs:

"I learned that there was an underground movement in Poland and that people were needed, so I joined the underground without reservations. If I didn't report, God would punish me, and I wouldn't have to incur God's wrath anymore. Although I was released from captivity, I didn't feel released from my soldier's oath of loyalty to my homeland. […] I still felt like a soldier, ready to fulfill any order. I didn't ask my colleagues what ideology they represented; I knew they were just soldiers."

- from the Monika Samuel chapter in https://www.prchiz.pl/storage/app/media ... pomina.pdf

[Stubble]

After being sent to Germany to work, he was released for 'medical reasons' and sent back to Poland, right? I think that point is important, although I admit it might not be.

He fought in september campaign in 1st telegraph battalion. was captured by the Soviets on 17 September. After two months, together with other Polish soldiers, he was handed over to the German authorities and sent to Germany for work. Due to poor health, in March 1941 he managed to obtain a work exemption and return to Sokołów Podlaski.

From the article I previously linked.

[pilgrimofdark]

Wait, he said he didn't take the photo?

I, the undersigned, Franciszek Zabeki, born on 8 October 1907, residing in Plastów (Warsaw), ul. 22 LIPCA 16/1, confirm that the photograph which I handed to Ms. Miriam Novitch on 19 January 1965 in Düsseldorf, in the court building, where I was questioned as a witness, comes from Mr. Zygmunt Wierzbowski and was taken by him on 2 August 1943: I present: The burning of the Treblinka II Death Camp.

This is original. I confirm that in the years 1941-1945, I was a prisoner at the Treblinka Station.

Donates Photographs to the Ghetto Uprising Museum in Israel.

- Testimony about the Treblinka extermination camp

Polish original:

Spoiler

Ja, nizejpodpisany, Franciszek Zabeki, ur. 8.10.1907 zamieszekaly w Plastowie (Warszawa), ul 22 LIPCA 16/1 potwiedzam ze fotografie ktora wreczylem P. Miriam Novitch w dnia 19.1.1965 w Dusseldorfie, w budynicu Sadu, gdzie jako swiadek zostalem przeslucheny pochodzi od P. Wierzbowskiego Zygmunta i zrobiona przez niego 2.8.1943: Przedstawie: Palanie sie Lagru Smierci Treblinka II.

Jest to original. Potwiorzam ze w latach 1941-1945, bylem dezurnym no Stacji Treblinka.

Przekazuje Fotografie Do Museum Powstancow Ghett W Israelu.

So this is a hearsay photo that showed up for the first time in 1965?

[Stubble]

I can't. This is beyond comical. This man, to my knowledge, has always been credited with the picture, and here it is, he didn't snap it...

The irony goes beyond the only picture of smoke from Treblinka being from the revolt, it is also snapped by some random dude.

Like I said months ago, cameras indeed existed in the 1940's, and people in fact had them.

What an interesting 'development', pardon the pun...

[pilgrimofdark]

The irony goes beyond the only picture of smoke from Treblinka being from the revolt, it is also snapped by some random dude.

Wierzbowski was also in the Polish resistance, fought against Germany in 1939, was captured and escaped back to Warsaw. But was "Konary"/"Nenufar" (his noms de guerre) anywhere near Treblinka on the date in question to take the photo? Not sure about that now.

He's in the Warsaw phone directories (same ones as Wiernik) listed as an electrical engineer from the 1930s to 1940s, and even well after. Has his own Polish Wikipedia page.

He overlaps with everything else related here (Zabecki, Wiernik, Warsaw, Polish resistance movement).

It could be argued that Zabecki was somehow wrong about the photo, but the document includes a hand-written letter written and signed by him, and a typed version he also signed, and his signature is consistent with the one on the Ostbahn card.

https://www.1944.pl/powstancze-biogramy ... 48421.html
https://www.16wdh.pl/panteon/426-zygmunt-wierzbowski
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_W ... 80%932002)

[Stubble]

Can we take just 2 steps in this without tripping over a Polish jew Propagandist?

[pilgrimofdark]

Zabecki claims to have met with Wiernik in his attempt to inspire a resistance movement within the camp. Turns out the carpenter was already on top of things.

[Zabecki] joined a group of peasant traders who were approaching Ukrainians escorting Jews through the forest. This is how he met one of the guards, Pietrykov.

"One day, at the request of a cigarette from the Jews, a Ukrainian agreed to sell them cigarettes. When asked about the details of the camp's interior, the Jew was terrified and left immediately, refusing to hear anything more. He was perhaps afraid of a trick. Each of them, the living, hoped for survival, for some lucky break. This one probably wasn't thinking about winning freedom for the time being. Re-approaching the group of Jews after a few days proved fruitless. Despite everything, I wanted to establish some kind of contact with them, so that they too could organize themselves inside the camp, and on a designated day and time, with their actions, help in the joint destruction of their place of torture."

Until one day, it worked. One of the Jewish workers approached Ząbecki surreptitiously. He gave his name: Wiernik. We know him well; he's the camp carpenter. The railway worker claims that Wiernik gave him a note with some details about the topography of the area, and he himself learned that the Polish underground was planning an operation.

As Ząbecki recalled, Wiernik's information was very valuable. He was the only Jewish prisoner with whom they managed to establish contact. During their next meeting, when Wiernik gained confidence in the Home Army officer, he allegedly admitted to him that a resistance movement was already operating in the camp.

"The message was received with great hope," wrote "Dawny." "I also gave the direction of a possible escape – through the forests beyond the Bug River."

Unfortunately, Wiernik's memoirs don't mention these meetings at all. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that they didn't happen. Everyone remembers what they wanted to remember and what they considered important.

- Wojcik, Michal. Treblinka 43: Revolt at the Death Factory. ePub. Znak litera nova, 2018. Originally published as Treblinka 43: Bunt w fabryce smierci.

This might be a retcon of Zabecki's to fit the Polish underground's activities more tightly with the Jewish underground.

No one, either Poles or Jews, believe this meeting actually happened. So it might be a total fabrication, but then we're establishing a decades-long trend of Zabecki fabricating aspects of his experience at Treblinka station to fit the official narrative of the revolt and flesh out its details, putting himself and the Polish resistance closer to the center of the story.

[PrudentRegret]

The Ostbahn workers themselves had contradicting early testimony:

Another early witness who accused Franz of breathtaking atrocities atTreblinka was a Warsaw-born Jew turned Israeli citizen, Kalman Tajgmann. Tajgmann lived with his family in the Warsaw Ghetto after its erection. As a trained mechanic, he was employed at the Okecie airport in the repair service of Daimler Benz’s airplane motor division. Along with 150 other Jews from the Ghetto, he was driven in a Luftwaffe truck each day to his workplace. In early September 1942, the SS encircled the factory grounds and the workers were brought under guard to the assembly area (Umschlagplatz), where a large crowd had already gathered. Sixty boxcars stood empty on a nearby rail spur. Everyone in the assembly area was loaded into a boxcar, and the train traveled to Malkinia, where the transport (comprising, according to Tajgmann, around six thousand people, one hundred per boxcar) was divided into groups of three, each of which was sent on to the Treblinka camp at staggered intervals. On arrival at the ramp, Tajgmann and the other Jews in his boxcar were hectored by the Ukrainian and German guards to an area where the women with children were strong-armed into a barracks on the left while the men remained behind. From this latter group, four hundred healthy, younger men (including Tajgmann) were ordered to stand aside.

...

These and other Jewish survivors of Treblinka would be essential to con-victing and punishing the former camp staff. Less helpful were former railroad employees of the German Reichsbahn who had operated the trains shipping Jews to their doom at Treblinka. In the preliminary investigation, former (and in some cases current) railroad officials informed the examining magistrates that they had accompanied the Jewish transports to the camp. Now, when confronted by their earlier testimony, the witnesses claimed that they did not travel the full distance to the death camp but accompanied the transports only to the train station in Malkinia, the closest station to Treblinka. (A one-track line connected Malkinia to the station square in Treblinka I.)89 The witnesses blamed their memory lapses on the passage of time since the event but also argued that the examining magistrate had misunderstood them. The court president Gottlebe exclaimed impatiently to the former Reichsbahn men, “Have you coordinated your story?” They denied doing so. One of them, Hans Pitsch, a retired Bundesbahn chief inspector, presented a medical report certifying his disability.90

So the testimony marks Malkinia as the final destination of the transports, with the wagons being shunted on a line from there. The workers seemed to say originally they brought the transports all the way to the camp. But neither versions of the story here are consistent with Zabecki's account of the transport being brought to Treblinka train station.

[pilgrimofdark]

Trying to check if Wierzbowski was present near Treblinka II in August 1943.

Much of this material comes from Monika Samuel's article I linked in the Jankiel Wiernik thread and the book Trwalismy Przy Tobie, Warszawo.

These were the Polish Home Army formations operational in the Treblinka region in 1943:

• Directorate of Diversion of the Home Army High Command
• Ostrow Mazowieka Home Army district
• Sokolow Podlaski Home Army district
• Wegrow Home Army district
• Mixed company no. 8 from Sokolow Podlaski, forming part of the 6th Railway Area "Podlasie"

The three districts belonged to Area I of the Home Army Warsaw. They make up the Eastern Subregion.

Zygmunt Wierzbowski was an electrical engineer, working at the OW Power Plant (Elektrowni OW aka Elektrownia Powisle aka EOW). Wierzbowski spearheaded the sabotage of the plant, including in March 1943 that brought the plant to a halt entirely.

He was not a member of any of the above-listed formations operational in the area of Treblinka. So far, I haven't uncovered anything that would put him as far east as Malkinia/Treblinka in August 1943. Nothing that even places him outside of Warsaw.

If Wierzbowski took the photo that Zabecki says he did, then it's not of the revolt at Treblinka.

Maybe we'll uncover some documents that can place Wierzbowski in the region with a camera, since Zabecki signed two separate documents saying he didn't take it.

[Stubble]

It's the only picture of smoke from Treblinka II, if it isn't the revolt, then it has to be the closing of the facility when they torched the barracks as they pulled operations.

Can you put him in time and place for getting a picture of that?

[pilgrimofdark]

It's the only picture of smoke from Treblinka II, if it isn't the revolt, then it has to be the closing of the facility when they torched the barracks as they pulled operations.

Can you put him in time and place for getting a picture of that?

Because the photo showed up for the first time in 1965, it could have been taken anytime at any place.

I can't put Wierzbowski outside of Warsaw at all during the war. It seems like he was leading the effort to sabotage the power plant, and then participated in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

The Pruszków Power Plant (EOW) was no less important. Every interruption in power supply to the arms industry meant a delay in production for the occupier's wartime needs. The sabotage at the power plant was spearheaded by its technical director, engineer Zygmunt Wierzbowski "Konar."

A serious act of sabotage was the damage to the coaling feeder's drive screw, which shut down the entire power plant for days on March 15, 1943.

Transformers and transmission lines were shut down, often unnecessarily, ostensibly for repairs, causing interruptions in power supply to industry and railway lines. A valid reason was always found to justify the supposedly necessary shutdown.

Pretexts were invented to force the release of copper wires from warehouses beyond actual needs, as copper was a rationed strategic raw material.

- Trwalismy Przy Tobie, Warszawo. p. 490.

He wasn't a part of the formations that were active near Treblinka.

It's possible someone who knows more about the Polish Home Army formations could put him there, or there's a document from an archive we're missing that would show him on a field trip near T-II on August 2, 1943. But the Polish reports say the revolt happened on August 8, so they've got some issues.

He might have also written a paper called "Classification of explosion-hazard areas and the implementation of electrical systems in them" for a science conference in 1976

[Stubble]

Fair.