Re: Franciszek Zabecki, Dispatcher of Treblinka Station
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2025 12:40 am
He didn't even take the one picture. His statement attributes it to Zygmunt Wierzbowski, who wasn't in any Home Army unit in the Treblinka region. And Zabecki could have taken photos -- he mentions creeping around T-II quite a bit, and complains about the large number of other Polish spies in the area also conducting recon.
Was going to post this in the T-II evidence thread, but that's already so derailed...
Zabecki, like Abram Goldfarb, is another person who grafts himself onto the Wiernik Writing Committee's A Year in Treblinka narrative, but who is never mentioned in the book.
In his memoirs, Zabecki claimed he had met Jankiel Wiernik, and he (Zabecki) inspired the Jews in the camp to organize. No one takes Zabecki seriously about this meeting, and Wiernik does not mention Zabecki in A Year in Treblinka.
In a typescript description of his experiences dated 1967 titled Plan of the Treblinka Extermination Camp, Zabecki wrote this:
He also reports helping numerous Jews escape from the trains, as well as creating a fake ID for one. Lots of retconning going on.I wanted to reach an understanding with the Jewish staff so that they, too, could organize themselves within the camp and, on a designated day and time, contribute to the collective destruction of the camp. Whether it was a result of conversations between them, or perhaps of arrangements, one day a Jew from a group of Jews, to whom I had told in confidence about the possibility of carrying out a robbery, surreptitiously approached me for cigarettes. He promised that together with other trusted people in the camp, they would organize something. The Jew even gave his surname as Wiernik – but was it real? – I don't know. I once knew a Jewish cartwright in Kosów Ruski named Wiernik – but he wasn't the one. ... At the next meeting, the renewed assurance of the possibility of external assistance was intended to give the Jews encouragement and an incentive to organize resistance among the people from the work group. As it turned out, during a short and quick conversation with Wiernik, a Jewish organization already existed, and they received the information with great hope.
- Treblinka Station Between Life and Death.
These are two of his early interrogations.
1944 interrogation protocols with the Soviet Red Army. This testimony was under oath. He counted the numbers written on the side of each train and totaled 3 million.
1945 interrogation with Judge Łukaszkiewicz. This testimony was unsworn (not under oath). It's pretty sparse compared to his 1944 interrogation.