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.

Treasures of memory from Treblinka

The official opening of the “Treblinka in the eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition – Warsaw – 28 January 2020

Samuel Willenberg's sculptures are now on display at the Museum and Memorial Site in Bełżec

The opening of "The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" exhibition at the Museum and Memorial Site in Bełżec took place on 6 September 2021.  The participants of the meeting were, among others, students and teachers of the Bernard Morando State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Zamość. Apart from viewing the exhibition, the students also took part in the workshops entitled  "Holocaust Testimonies – artifacts discovered during archaeological works on the site of the former death camp in Bełżec" and "The story of a certain ghetto. The Przemyśl ghetto as an example of a closed Jewish district during the German occupation”.

The legacy of Samuel Willenberg in Warsaw and Opole

On this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Institute of National Remembrance encourages you to visit the exhibition "The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" commemorating those murdered in the Treblinka extermination camp. Twelve exhibits can be seen at the “History Point” Janusz Kurtyka Educational Center at 21/25 Marszałkowska street in Warsaw, and three  ̶  at the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War in Opole, where the ceremonial opening is taking place on 27 January.

"The exhibit demonstrates what kind of things inhumanity and intolerance can lead to. Samuel was not like any other man: he feared no danger, and, when necessary, was the first to fight. This is best evidenced by his volunteering for the army in 1939, even though at 16 he was too young for military service; he was a great Polish patriot. Following the revolt in Treblinka, of which he was a very active participant, he contacted the Polish underground, and at first, got involved in diversion and sabotage in the streets of Warsaw. The moment the Warsaw Uprising broke out, he went in combat as a Home Army soldier, and then transferred to PAL Polish People’s Army. When the Uprising fell, he joined a partisan unit and fought in the Kampinos forest.  After the war, Samuel once said that he’d made through it all and was happy. What he meant, I think, was that you should never give up: overcome whatever setbacks life throws at you. In the first place, I want to give my sincere thanks to the exhibitor and all of you in the audience, people who in such a difficult time and cold weather left their warm homes and came to see Samuel’s art."

Ada Krystyna Willenberg

The Offical opening of “The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition in Wrocław, 27 July 2022

The opening took place on Wednesday, 27 July  2022 at 5.00 p.m. The exhibition of Samuel Willenberg's sculptures was officially inaugurated by Karol Nawrocki, President of the IPN, and Marek Mutor, Ph.D., Director of the Zajezdnia History Center. Ada Krystyna Willenberg, the widow of the late Artist, acquainted the audience with the 15 exhibits.

Ada Krystyna Willenberg

Enveloped by the opening of "The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" exhibition in January 2020 and its Polish display in Wrocław this week has been a 30-month enterprise to which Ada Krystyna Willenberg is central.

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.

According to the agreement between the Institute of National Remembrance and the Museum of Silesian Piasts, the "Image of Treblinka" exhibition was opened in the city of Brzeg. The IPN was represented by Iwona Demczyszak, Ph.D., Deputy Director of the IPN Sub-Branch in Opole, and Marcin Marczak, Deputy Director of the IPN Branch in Wroclaw. The exhibition is open for visitors from 1 September until 15 October 2022.

“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 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.

A Fighter in Hell and His Unusual Sculptures

As a prisoner at Treblinka, Samuel witnessed the death in the gas chambers of his two beloved sisters, Itta and Tamara, among countless others. In his sculptures, the most poignant of these individual tragedies are brought back vividly to life.  Like Polansky’s “The Pianist”, the film focuses on one man’s personal odyssey to reflect the enormity of the genocide inflicted upon Poland’s 3.5 million Jews, at the time the world’s largest Jewish community, seven times greater than the Jewish population of pre-war Germany.
Samuel’s story is one of survival against staggering odds and, though heart-rending and horrifying, it is ultimately one of triumph. WLRN

As an expression of respect for St. John Paul II, after the Pope's death, Willenberg made his sculpture. The Institute of National Remembrance, in cooperation with the “Dobry Grunt” Foundation, added the work devoted to the Holy Father to the exhibition during its presentation in Poland.

Samuel Willenberg - Everybody’s hero

The official unveiling of a commemorative plaque devoted to Perec and Samuel Willenberg took place at 60 Marszałkowska Street in Warsaw, on 1 August 2023, the 79th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising.

The plaque, in Polish, English and Hebrew, presenting the figures of both Perec Willenberg, an artist, painter and art educator, and his son, Samuel, a prisoner and survivor of the Treblinka II German extermination camp and a fighter in the Warsaw Uprising links three important dates in 2023. They are the 80^th anniversary of both the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the prisoners’ revolt at Treblinka, and the 79^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August.

The 80th anniversary of the Treblinka II death camp prisoner revolt and the presentation of Samuel Willenberg's sculptures - Treblinka, 2 August 2023