TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter I: The Description of Treblinka in Historiography 25
great plans for the advancement of culture and art, which had been concocted
for Treblinka. [p. 44…]
It is said that when Himmler visited Treblinka late in February, 1943 a
special ‘attraction’ should be prepared for him: a party of young women,
who had been specially selected for this purpose so that the supreme SS
and police chief of the Reich could take aesthetic pleasure in looking at
their nude bodies as they demonstrated the workings of the camp, being
driven into the ‘bathhouse’ and then dumped out as corpses…
As the Italian saying goes: ‘Se non è vero, è ben trovato.’” (p. 48)
The last sentence means: “Even if it’s not true, it’s well invented.” This applies
in full compass to Rachel Auerbach’s ‘factual report’ about Treblinka.
c. Zdzis�aw �ukaszkiewicz
Likewise in the year 1946, there appeared in the bulletin of the Main
Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland 31 a thirty-page
article by Judge Zdzis�aw �ukaszkiewicz under the title “Obóz zag�ady Treblinka”
32 (The Extermination Camp Treblinka). In the introduction to this work,
in which the “preliminary investigations” are described, the author states:
“The basis of the evidentiary material, upon which the preliminary investigations
rest as represented in the following, is above all the witness
statements of thirteen Jews, former prisoners of the camp Treblinka, who
managed to escape death by the fact that during the armed revolt of August
2, 1943, they fled the camp. The following are the witnesses: Jankiel
Wiernik, Henryk Poswolski, Aron Czechowicz, Abe Kon, Oskar Strawczy�ski,
Samuel Reisman [33] , Aleksander Kudlik, Hejnoch Brenner, Stanis�aw
Kon, Eugeniusz Turowski, Henryk Reichman [34] , Szyja Warszawski and
Leon Finkelsztejn.”
As supplementary evidence, �ukaszkiewicz mentions the statements of
eleven Polish railway workers as well as railroad records, from which the
number of prisoners brought to Treblinka supposedly derive, and coins and
documents excavated from the grounds of the camp as well as the results of
forensic investigations and land surveys. 35 But the declarations of the thirteen
31 Out of consideration for the allied Communist East German state later renamed ‘Main
Commission for the Investigation of Hitler Crimes in Poland’ and, after the collapse of the
Communist regime, ‘Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish
People.’
32 Zdzis�aw �ukaszkiewicz, “Obóz zag�ady Treblinka,” in Biuletyn G�ównej Komisji Badania
Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce, no. 1, Posen 1946, pp. 133-144.
33 More often spelled as Rajman.
34 This witness later called himself Yehiel Reichman(n). He appeared as a prosecution witness
against John Demjanjuk at the Jerusalem trial. Cf. Chapter V.
35 Z. �ukaszkiewicz, op. cit. (note 32), p. 133.