A Yahr in Treblinka – first account testimony written by a survivor of the Treblinka death camp – Yaakov (Yankel) Wiernik . First Yiddish edition, published in New York by the “Brit HaPoalim HaYehudim HaKlalit Shel Polin.”
Yankel Wiernik was born in 1889 in Biala Podlaska in Russian Poland and was a carpenter by profession.
In 1942, he was transferred from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. At first he was tasked with dragging bodies out of the gas chambers to mass graves. When the Nazis discovered he was a carpenter, he was charged with constructing buildings, including additional gas chambers.
Wiernik joined the revolt in the Treblinka death camp in 1943, during which he managed to escape during the prisoner revolt after killing one of the guards. He hid in a freight train to reach Warsaw, where he lived under forged documents. He contacted the Jewish underground who operated in the Aryan part of the city. He was soon recognized by the underground as a valuable first-hand witness to the decimation in Treblinka. In late 1943, he decided to write his work ” A Year in Treblinka,” with a detailed description of the horrors being perpetrated against almost 1 1/2 million innocent people. Since Wiernik was not an experienced author, his book was written uninhibitedly and transmits his raw emotions, providing a vivid description of the horrors of the camp. The work was first published as a booklet, printed clandestinely with the funding of the Vaad HaYehudi HaOlami, the Bund and Joint. It was printed at an underground press arranged by Ferdynand Arczyński and operated by the Polish underground at the press of the Polish newspaper Nowy Kurier Warszawski . About 2000 copies of the booklet were printed. In May 1944, copies were sent through the Polish underground to London where they were then transferred to other places and translated into a number of languages.
After the Second World War, Wiernik stayed in Poland, where he was awarded a certificate of combat against the Nazis by the Polish Army High Command. He moved to Israel in the mass immigration wave after the establishment of the State.
He passed away in 1972 in Israel, at 83 years of age.
Sketch of the Treblinka death camp in the center page of the book.
61 pages. 22 cm. Jacket title page. Other than stains on the binding – fine condition.