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20.11.2020

COLLECTED CONTENT: "The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" educational project

In January 2020, the Institute of National Remembrance initiated an exhibition and educational project on the basis of sculptures by Samuel Willenberg, depicting people and situations he remembered particularly vividly during his imprisonment at Treblinka. These unique sculptures, constituting the world heritage of the Holocaust, were brought by the IPN from Israel for the purposes of the project.

A CONCERT, BRONZE 2002
The Insurrection 2 August 1943, Bronze
AN ARTIST- PAINTER INMATE PREPARING MISLEADING SIGNS, BRONZE 2001
2 AUGUST 1943 - THE INSURRECTION, BRONZE 2002-2003
THE HEAD OF THE ARTIST SAMUEL WILLENBERG, BRONZE 2002
A CRIPPLED JEW AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE "LAZARETT", BRONZE 2002
A CRIPPLED JEW AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE "LAZARETT", BRONZE 2002
UNDRESSED WOMEN ON THEIR WAY TO THE GAS CHAMBER, BRONZE 2000
WILLENBERG'S SIGNATURE IN BRONZE
HOMAGE TO RUTH DORFMAN, BRONZE 2001
HOMAGE TO RUTH DORFMAN, BRONZE 2001
HOMAGE TO RUTH DORFMAN, BRONZE 2001
HOMAGE TO RUTH DORFMAN, BRONZE 2001
HOMAGE TO RUTH DORFMAN, BRONZE 2001
AN INMATE COLLECTING BOTTLES , BRONZE 2000
AN INMATE COLLECTING BOTTLES , BRONZE 2000
AN INMATE COLLECTING BOTTLES , BRONZE 2000
AN IMATE IN CANTOR'S GARB, BRONZE 1999 -2000
DESCENDING FROM THE BOXCAR, BRONZE 2000
THE "BLUES", BRONZE 2001

 

The  exhibition, under the National Patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda to mark the Centenary of Regaining Independence, presents sculptures, drawings,  and excerpts  of  Willenberg's  testimony, describing figures and scenes which he remembered and wanted to commemorate. In spite of the perpetrators’ efforts to destroy all traces, the sculptures provide direct evidence of their deeds.
The exhibition of sculptures portraying the author's personal experiences as both a prisoner and a participant of the revolt in the Treblinka German death camp is accompanied by the screening of "Treblinka’s Last Witness", a documentary film produced and screened courtesy of WLRN Public Television for South Florida, which is a first-hand account of Samuel Willenberg’s life as a Jewish prisoner of the death camp.
The aim of the IPN’s  nationwide project is not only to educate about the tragedy of the Holocaust, but also to familiarize the younger generation with the author of the sculptures, a Jew from Częstochowa, a soldier of the September campaign, a prisoner of Treblinka, a participant in the camp rebellion, a Warsaw insurgent, and an advocate of reconciliation between Polish and Jewish nations.

After the ceremonial opening of the exhibition in Warsaw on 28 January 2020, with the participation of Ada Krystyna Willenberg, the widow of the artist, the sculptures were presented at the IPN branches in Lublin, Cracow and Kielce, as well as in Gdańsk (at the Museum of the Second World War) and Częstochowa (at the Częstochowa Museum). The Institute of National Remembrance has also prepared a virtual tour of the exhibition supplemented by a voice-over both in Polish and English, as well as touching artistic photographs by Sławomir Kasper (IPN). Quotes from Samuel Willenberg's book Surviving Treblinka in English and Polish were used as descriptions of the exhibits. This has allowed the author’s voice to reverberate fully. It is available at:

https://lastwitness.eu/

 

 

Samuel  Willenberg  was  born  in  1923  in Częstochowa,  Poland,  the  son  of  Maniefa, nee Popov, and Perec Willenberg; he had two sisters, his elder Itta and younger Tamara. In  October  1942  he  arrived  at  the  Treblinka camp in a transport of 6,000 Jews deported from  the  Opatów  ghetto.  Most  perished immediately;  he  was  the  only  one  who remained alive. Willenberg was in Treblinka until the outbreak of  the  rebellion  on  2  August  1943.  He  saw with his  own  eyes the  arrival  of  hundreds of  thousands  of  Jews  and  thousands  of  Roma  and  witnessed  them  being  sent  to death  in  the  gas  chambers;  his  own  sisters Itta and Tamara also perished there. Willenberg himself suffered humiliation, violence, cruelty and  extreme  viciousness  at  the  hands  of the  German  SS  staff  and  the  Ukrainian  “SS-Wachmänner” guards.


Samuel  Willenberg  was  among  200  inmates who on 2 August 1943 succeeded in escaping from the  German  extermination camp in Treblinka.  At  the  moment  of  his  death  in  2016,  he remained the last survivor of the rebellion in Treblinka. Samuel Willenberg became the spokesman for good Polish-Jewish relations, speaking openly about both the tragic and beautiful events, linking these two groups of Polish citizens during the criminal German occupation.
For his activities during and after the Second World  War Samuel  Willenberg  received  the highest national  honors  of  the  Republic  of Poland, including the Virtuti Militari, the Cross of Merit with Swords, the Cross of Valour, the Warsaw Uprising Cross, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Order of Polonia Restituta, and the Polish Army Medal.

 

“The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition displayed in the Polish Seym on the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The opening of “The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition, at the Nowy Dom Poselski in Warsaw -- 26 January 2023; photo: S. Kasper (IPN)

The opening of “The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition took place on 26 January 2023, at the Nowy Dom Poselski in Warsaw. The event was attended by the IPN Deputy President Prof. Karol Polejowski and it was held under the Honorary Patronage of the Speaker of the Sejm Elżbieta Witek.

The opening of “The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition in the Museum of the Silesian Piasts, Brzeg, 1 September 2022.