Jankiel Wiernik

[Archie]

That said, if it is critiqued it falls under fair use, don't it?

Usually under "fair use," you can comment on and quote parts of a work, but you can't reproduce the entire text.

Books from the 30s and 40s may or may not be public domain. It depends on whether anyone renewed the copyright.

[Stubble]

Robert Henry Williams’ 1957 tract The Ultimate World Order goes line by line over 'jewish utopia' by Higger. If I recall correctly, the whole work is printed inside the critique.

Perhaps Williams could be sued today, because fair use continues to evolve, but, I think it would still fall under fair use.

https://archive.org/stream/13-robert-h. ... 7_djvu.txt

[pilgrimofdark]

For their copy of Rok w Treblince, the Polish National Library says "This publication is protected by copyright."

The digital copy from the Central Jewish Library says "The images, documents, film footage, audio materials, and texts displayed in any portion of this web site may be copyrighted. Permission to use this web site is given on condition that the user agrees to follow U.S. copyright laws."

The copy from the Arolsen Archives is the more interesting one, since it's part of a public court record, heavily marked up, and includes maps not in the original.

I'm surprised a full text transcription of the original Polish isn't available on the web somewhere yet.

I'll hold off for now until there's more clarity.

[pilgrimofdark]

On the handwritten draft, I wasn't sure if two or three people had contributed to it.

But after pulling it into an image editor, I'm inclined to think it's three people.



(This is a smaller version with all three pages, which are individually huge. If anyone requests to see all three in a larger size with the color edits, I can post them.)

The fainter handwriting on the third page shows significantly more color smudging than the handwriting samples on the first two pages.

That suggests to me that this part was more likely written by a left-handed person, who was lightly smudging the ink while composing the text. It could be someone who was more used to writing in Yiddish, which is written right-to-left.

The other two handwriting samples have sharper edges between the text and paper it was written on.

Maybe szlafrok can comment on the differences between grammar/syntax of each writer, which I'm not qualified to do.

Someone could almost write an article about "How Many Propagandists Does It Take to Write a Holocaust Eyewitness Account?" discussing the Wiernik/Krzepicki manuscripts.

If a third account shows up with multiple handwriting samples, the article will have to be written. "Two is coincidence, three is a pattern."

[Archie]

I added the Polish transcription that szlafrok did for the handwritten manuscript, as well as an AI translation to the Wiki.

Year In Treblinka Manuscript

I don't want them to get lost, and people can add transcriptions to other languages or correct the existing transcription/translation.

For the record, the word "chlorine" is in the text 5 times.

I added the scans of the pages as a slideshow, but there's also a link to the archive in the sources section. I'm not sure exactly how to approach projects like this yet. Kind of fun, though

You are cooking at least 3 articles and likely one hell of a book from what I can see, and I commend you!

I submitted a longer article on the differences in the Wiernik Polish/Donat versions a week ago. No response yet so we'll see.

Looks like it's posted. Nice work, pilgrim.
https://codoh.com/library/document/miss ... treblinka/

[pilgrimofdark]

Thank you. At the end of the article is the full AI-assisted translation of the book. It could probably be polished more.

A lot of those omitted passages are pretty goofy.

To my eternal shame, at this point I've probably read A Year in Treblinka more times than any other single book in my life.

However, at least the AI-assisted translation is not subject to the criticism of "incomplete and censored" like the Donat and first English edition.

And if people want to use the redacted versions, they're still available. To quote Wiernik, "the golden dream of freedom for the caged bird" isn't for everyone.

[Stubble]

Also near the end of the article Wernick says he was shot by 'a guard from Treblinka Penal Camp' that he 'recognized'.

This leads me to wonder if there was a prequel to 'A Year in Treblinka' called 'Six Months or Some Short Period of Time In Treblinka Prison Camp' or something...

[pilgrimofdark]

Also near the end of the article Wernick says he was shot by 'a guard from Treblinka Penal Camp' that he 'recognized'.

Maybe he didn't volunteer with the Organisation Todt to regulate the Bug River, and was instead engaged in black marketeering.

Spoiler

- 62/718/0/-/28

Or maybe the Germans found out he was charging batteries without special permission.

Spoiler

- 62/718/0/-/59

This leads me to wonder if there was a prequel to 'A Year in Treblinka' called 'Six Months or Some Short Period of Time In Treblinka Prison Camp' or something...

"It was mid-afternoon on September 26, at the battery charging station in Kosow Lacki. In the dark of night, German dogs can't smell your genitals to bite them. But then, out of nowhere, a German we referred to as 'Frankenstein' and a group of Latvians appeared. They were always drunk. The local Poles did nothing to save us on their way to morning mass, passing through the village streets lined with Christmas trees..."

[Wetzelrad]

Just read the article. Great work.

[pilgrimofdark]

Thanks!

The Zabecki one should be up soon, then I'm out of easy ideas.

Whipping scattered forum posts into shape for an article is surprisingly difficult. The Zabecki article was 99% done before I realized there was a second "T-II uprising" photo, which is far more important than the other stuff I wrote about

But jumping off from Archie's Lessons Leared post, I think it's valuable for a few reasons.

• John Wear & excerpts from Mattogno's books can't carry Inconvenient History forever
• We've found some narrowly-tailored research areas that haven't been explored fully; not everything needs to be groundbreaking
• Trying to organize forum posts into an article exposes gaps that could be filled in
• The IH articles are eventually compiled into print books anyone can buy, giving them a more concrete "real world" existence

The Wiki is also nice for dumping raw research in a larger, more organized format.

[pilgrimofdark]

Spoiler

- 62/718/0/-/28

I'm off topic from Wiernik, I think. Oh well.

The above is an announcement posted in Sokołów (Poland), seeking workers for "regulation of the Bug River" and threatening Treblinka as punishment for black marketeers.

The Todt Organization is seeking laborers for the regulation of the Bug River, who will receive military rations and normal hourly wages as skilled workers.
...
In connection with this announcement, I hereby inform you that black marketeers will be ruthlessly punished by me in the future (Treblinka).

Zabecki also said that one of the rumors about Treblinka was that it would be a labor camp:

Rumors also spread that the Bug River would be deepened and regulated, with Jews performing the work.

- Zabecki's memoirs, p. 39.

Sokołów Podlaski (about 30km south of Treblinka camps), right in the middle of the Malkinia-Siedlce line, had a military hospital, according to Zabecki. It's not on the 1944 military map, but one directly west of Sokołów is indicated in Węgrów. Military medical trains from the east would come across the border at either Siedlce or Malkinia and would head through this corridor. Malkinia-Siedlce was the exact opposite of isolated during the war.

Jozef Gorski, Poland's #1 Holocaust Enjoyer, also mentioned Bug River regulation in his memoirs:

In 1942, there was a project to regulate the Bug river, connect it via a canal with the Vistula river, build a hydroelectirc plant on the Bug and provide electricity to the local area. A team from the Todt Organisation had already arrived in Ceranow and they were assigned to do the jobs, but the defeats on the eastern front stopped this large-scale investment..."

- Source linked here

Is much known about this OT project?

[Stubble]

Sometimes I second guess abandoning my OT research and my TN research to turn to 'T' series.

Here is 'Handbook Organization Todt':

https://odysee.com/@Stubble:4/Handbook- ... -UK-1945:f

I don't recall if it had the Bug River project in it or not (it seems spotty).

TN also did a lot of work in the GG, Ostland and Ukraine.

There were also jews employed in a logistical and communication support role on the eastern front. They wore 'a black uniform with a green armband'.

I of course can't get super specific with numbers or deployments because records seem to be sparse.

[pilgrimofdark]

Nothing in the OT handbook specifically on the Bug River regulation.

This is somewhat interesting. Correspondence from January 19, 1942. Włodawa is the town on the Polish side of the border directly north of Sobibor camp/train station.

Attached you will find, in duplicate, a copy of an operational order from the Inspector General for German Road Construction, Organization Todt - Headquarters, dated January 8, 1942, for your information.

Please continue the preparation of the designs for the Bug River canalization and the Włodawa reservoir to the same extent as before, so that they will be complete when construction work resumes.

That January 8 order is also in the same link, temporarily stopping the Bug River development projects and redeploying the construction teams to Minsk to work on railroads.

In the course of the "Front Support" operation and the emergency railway program in the area of Army Group Center, work on the expansion of the Bug River fortifications will be curtailed with immediate effect. The German construction personnel will be assigned to the Minsk command post under the leadership of their respective construction staffs for further deployment. Reporting is to be made to Standartenführer Schneider. The trucks belonging to the Bug South and Bug North construction commands are to be placed under the command of Oberstaffelführer Lagrange in Minsk immediately.

The aim is to deploy the existing Bug North and Bug South construction commands as complete units for a specific task.

The two construction managers will leave a rear detachment at the location of their former construction command to manage the facilities already established.

Source: Construction activities of the Todt Organization. The issue of personnel changes and the reduction of work on the regulation of the Bug River. Correspondence. 2/111/0/11/1503/9)

Seems like everyone in the area from Treblinka to Sobibor was aware of large-scale Bug River development projects.

[Stubble]

Sorry about that pilgrimofdark, perhaps you will get some use out of it anyhow then. I couldn't recall the project being in it, but, I did recall that a lot of useful information was provided. If I recall correctly, I was using it to compile a list of names to search out in documents to resolve an image of operations in RKO and RKU mostly. Really picking my brain, it seems I found it lacking on anything in RKO. Perhaps I should revisit it.

My bumping around in the dark method of archival research twists my mind in knots, and having a target set of documents (memos from/to between x and y) might help.

I digress.

My apologies for engaging in thread drift. Advice on conducting research and or sharing work load would be welcome via either a new thread or PM.

My Best,

Stubble

[pilgrimofdark]

Sorry about that pilgrimofdark, perhaps you will get some use out of it anyhow then. I couldn't recall the project being in it, but, I did recall that a lot of useful information was provided. If I recall correctly, I was using it to compile a list of names to search out in documents to resolve an image of operations in RKO and RKU mostly. Really picking my brain, it seems I found it lacking on anything in RKO. Perhaps I should revisit it.

No problem, thanks for the reminder on the OT handbook. Every idea/lead should be checked.

Nothing specific in it mentions the Bug River, but there might be other info that ties back to that project. It was probably broken up under various names into different camps anyway, like this Włodawa reservoir.