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Shadows of Treblinka

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Compared with other books on Treblinka escapees, this one, serially written by Miriam and Saul Kuperhand (hereafter MK and SK), is a disappointment. Written decades after the events (p. vii), it contains obvious misstatements and non-objectivity. Thus, the AK was disbanded in 1945, not 1939 (p. xiii). The Polish Army held out for five weeks in 1939, not two (p. 15). MK frivolously accuses some assailants of belonging to the AK (p. 76). Indeed, editor Alan Adelson admits as much (p. xiii).

The accounts of Treblinka itself contain whoppers. SK describes the deportation of Siemiatycze's Jews (including himself), in November 1942 (pp. 104-105), to Treblinka, where the dead were promptly cremated (p. 105; which SK claims to have seen with his own eyes: p. 137). Pointedly, the cremations at Treblinka (both previously-buried and newly-killed) didn't begin until early 1943, some 2-3 months later! Elsewhere, SK speaks of Treblinka's crematories (p. 109, 140) and crematoria chimneys (p. 110, 137). In actuality, there never were any crematories or chimneys at Treblinka! (Bodies were burned in massive open-air pyres).

Do the foregoing inaccuracies imply the fictionalization of much of this book? Let the reader decide.

MK denies widespread Jewish-Communist collaboration, yet makes the following revealing statement: "I had no compunctions about cooperating with our Russian occupiers." (p. 16), despite the fact that: "I did not understand the precariousness of our situation with the Nazis just a few kilometers away." (p. 16). MK expresses dismay over the Poles' 1941 cheering of the invading Nazis into Soviet-occupied Poland (p. 21), without mentioning that this was their (temporary) deliverance from the Gulags.

It would be a mistake to think that fugitive Jews resorted to thievery and armed robbery of Poles only when they had no other means of getting provisions. Indeed, a band of Treblinka escapees immediately threatened a farmer at gunpoint (p. 130), and waylaid individual farmers who were transporting goods (pp. 132-133). On another occasion, the Jewish band held a farmer hostage (p. 153). Given such events, and as word got around, is it surprising that some Polish peasants came to see fugitive Jews as adversaries rather than victims? And to believe German propaganda that portrayed fugitive Jews as bandits who should be denounced or liquidated?

MK repeats the familiar Polonophobic accusation of Polish Jew-hunters being much more common then Polish benefactors (p. 51). This has been disproved by careful studies (e. g., Paulsson, Chodakiewicz).

The accounts of Poles denouncing and killing fugitive Jews, reported by both Kuperhands (e. g., p. 46, 50-51,156), are unmistakably secondary. Hearsay! Their only eyewitness experience of such a comparable incident was at the hands of common criminals (smugglers) of unidentified nationality (pp. 65-67).

Let's focus on two anti-Polish accounts. SK, who was housed by peasant Anthony Shlewanowsky, reports that Shlewanowsky had warned him about a nearby peasant, Maximiuk, who allegedly took some Jews in, fed them and built a shelter for them, and, that very night, suffocated them in their shelter (pp. 140-141). Did Shlewanowsky know this for a fact? Why go to the trouble of feeding some Jews, and especially constructing a shelter for them, only to turn around and kill them? And is it probable that a near-surface rustic shelter was so airtight that it could be used to asphyxiate its inhabitants? Peasants are good storytellers. What if Maximiuk (who, BTW, sounds Ukrainian), just made up this lurid tale in order to scare Jews away from his property? Ditto for the story, told by one Polish farmer, of another Polish farmer who was said to have turned-in his Jewish-butcher friend (p. 50).

Now consider the tale of a Jewish mother and children in the forest, being denounced by a Pole, begging for life and then pleading to be allowed to cover her children with a blanket before they were all shot by a German (pp. 149-150). One of her sons, a ten year-old, away from the hideout at the time, spotted the Germans and ran away. How could he have seen and heard such details (including the Polish ethnicity of the denouncer) if he was already at a safe distance and running further away? Assuming he simply heard Polish being spoken, how could he know that the denouncer was not a Polish-speaking Ukrainian or German (Volksdeutsche)?

This book is a double account of escaping death during the Holocaust in Poland by a couple that is now married. Before these two met, they each had their own horrifying adventures of survival in the Polish countryside as well as in Treblinka. It is well written and a great source of information about what happened in the cities and towns after the Jews were evacuated, how escaped Jews survived in the woods and how the local Poles signed the Jews death warrants by violence and informing. A touching account of desperation and survival during the worst of times. This book leaves you feeling the sting of hunger, hate and abandonment as well as love, redemption and personal triumph.