Re: Franciszek Zabecki, Dispatcher of Treblinka Station
Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2026 2:05 am
I haven't taken the time to look into Pronicki much yet, but he's a bit of a ghost outside of Zabecki's memoirs.PrudentRegret wrote: ↑Mon Jan 12, 2026 1:05 am “The Witnesses Testified as Follows…” Records of Interrogations of Polish Railways Employees who Worked at the Stations near the Operation Reinhardt Camps
Only contains a single reference to Pronicki noting him as station master: https://zagladazydow.pl/index.php/zz/ar ... 67/393/739
Chris Webb makes the bold claim that a stationmaster who was also a Home Army partisan would be "the only trained observer on the spot throughout the entire existence of the Treblinka extermination camp."
So Pronicki may have observed nothing worth writing down? He was so important that no one tracked him down after the war to record what the "only trained" eye observed during the most important period of the T-II camp's operation? Or we're just missing some sort of account thus far.
No one with the name Pronicki shows up in the Polish Central Military Archive database, but it's certainly not complete. Nothing in the Polish state archives search.
No one under his name shows up in the 1942 Warsaw District telephone directory, but that might be expected. Nothing in 1940 or 1950, either.
Wojcik's Treblinka '43 book contains that story. He cites Zabecki's memoirs and nothing else. Calls him "Artur Pronicki," but there is no one named "Artur" in Zabecki's memoirs at all. Treblinka '43 is a stereotypical example of the "Death Camp Hagiography" genre I'm starting to get a sense for.
I'll summarize in this thread everything Zabecki says about Pronicki as a jumping-off point if we find anything additional.
If you want the Polish or AI-translated English version of his memoirs, let me know and I'll send a PDF link.