Jankiel Wiernik

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Jankiel Wiernik , also Yankel Wiernik or Jacob Wiernik (* 1889 in Biała Podlaska , Russian Empire , † 1972 in Rishon Lezion , Israel ) was a Polish carpenter who survived the Holocaust . He was a carpenter in the Treblinka extermination camp and one of the co-organizers of the camp uprising of August 1943. After his escape, he wrote down his experiences in the report Rok w Treblince (German: "One year in Treblinka").

Life

Before the deportation

Wiernik lived as a carpenter in Warsaw and was a member of the carpenter's examination board there before the war. In addition, he was caretaker in the house of the Krzywoszewski family. He later had to move to the Warsaw Ghetto , where he lived on his savings. On August 23, 1942, he and several thousand other Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka.

A year in Treblinka

On arrival he managed to mingle with the inmates working on the camp site and thus escape the gassing. He had to cut wood and pull the bodies out of the gas chambers and carry them to the mass graves. Since there were few carpenters who could be used among those arriving, his services were mainly used. So he had to construct gas chambers and various functional buildings and thus became a camp carpenter, which saved his life. To do this, he was able to move from extermination camp No. 2 with the gas chambers to labor camp No. 1, which the other inmates were not allowed to do. This made him an important liaison, without whom it would not have been possible to include Camp No. 2 in the uprising. After most of the up to a million corpses had been burned and liquidation of the camp was foreseeable, an uprising broke out on August 2, 1943, in which Wiernik managed to escape from the camp and as far as Warsaw.

After escaping from the camp

After his escape from the extermination camp, he found refuge with the Krzywoszewski family in Warsaw, who provided him with false papers and later placed with Mrs. Bukowski. The Jewish-Polish underground organizations asked Jankiel Wiernik to write down his experiences in the camp. His records under the title "Rok w Treblince" were printed by the Polish underground press as a brochure with an edition of approx. 2000 copies with the help of Ferdynand Arczyński and distributed via the federal government , Żegota and other secret organizations and confidants and to London , the headquarters the Polish government in exile . There they were translated into English and published in 1944. The report covers the period between August 23, 1942, when Wiernik was deported from the Warsaw ghetto, and August 2, 1943, when his escape took place.

Wiernik survived the war underground and became a member of the Polish People's Army , with which he also took part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 . Wiernik later emigrated to Sweden and then to Israel .

Statements in war crimes trials

Wiernik testified in 1947 at the hearing against the former governor of the Warsaw district in the General Government of Ludwig Fischer and in 1961 in the Eichmann trial . To this end, he built a wooden model of the extermination camp, which was also used as evidence in the Eichmann trial and is exhibited in the house of the ghetto fighters in Israel.

publication

  • Jankiel Wiernik: Rok w Treblince. Rada Ochrony Pamie̜ci Walk i Me̜czeństwa, Warszawa 2003, reprinted by Nakł. Komisji Koordynacyjnej, Warszawa 1944 (other language versions: English, Hebrew)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jankiel Wiernik in "Rok w Treblince"
  2. ↑ Władysław Bartoszewski on Jankiel Wiernik , accessed on March 11, 2014
  3. ↑ Wiernik's statement during the Eichmann trial , accessed on March 11, 2014
  4. ↑ Wiernik's statement during the Eichmann trial , accessed on March 11, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Wiernik, Jankiel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wiernik, Yankel; Wiernik, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish carpenter, Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Biała Podlaska , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 1972
Place of death Rishon Lezion , Israel