Institute of National Remembrance

Institute of National Remembrance https://ipn.gov.pl/en/brief-history-of-poland/collected-content/6820,COLLECTED-CONTENT-quotThe-Im age-of-Treblinka-in-the-Eyes-of-Samuel-Willenbergquo.html 2021-10-11, 07:16 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 a year-long 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.

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.

A Fighter in Hell and His Unusual Sculptures.html

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. For more information on the travelling exhibition:

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

Workshops for students - Art from the Holocaust

"The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" exhibition – Lublin, 16 June – 10 July 2020

”The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg” exhibition – Gdańsk, 15 July – 13 August 2020

The exhibition of Samuel Willenberg’s 15 bronze sculptures depicting life in the German death camp in Treblinka, can be seen at the IPN’s "Przystanek Historia" Educational Center in Cracow until 13 September 2020.

"The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" exhibition prepared by the Institute of National Remembrance is now on display in Częstochowa, the sculptor's home town.

https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/4912,A-square-in-Cze stochowa-to-be-named-after-Samuel- Willenberg.html

Samuel Willenberg - Everybody’s hero https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/3561,Treblinka-II-Extermination-Camp-J uly-1942-November-1943.html

Samuel Willenberg's legacy in Poland In early 2021, the exhibition of the Institute of National Remembrance appeared in the Cultural Center in Opatów, which, after Częstochowa and Treblinka, remains the most signiﬁcant place in the artist's life. It was here that before the war, his father Perec Willenberg created paintings on the synagogue walls. It also housed the ghetto established by the Germans during the war, from which, in October 1942, young Samuel was sent to the Treblinka extermination camp.

"The Image of Treblinka in the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg" exhibition now to be seen in Chmielnik’s old synagogue

After two months in Opatów, the legacy of Samuel Willenberg, an outstanding artist from Israel, found its place round the only glass bimah in the world at the Education Museum Centre "Świętokrzyski Sztetl" (the former synagogue in Chmielnik). Samuel Willenberg’s sculptures are now being displayed at the State Museum at Majdanek

The exhibition was oﬃcially opened by the Director of the State Museum at Majdanek, Tomasz Kranz, Ph.D., on 3 July 2021. Ada Krystyna Willenberg, who took part in the event online from Israel, told the gathered guests about her late husband, his experiences at the German death camp in Treblinka and his later artistic work.

Art historian, Prof. Lechosław Lameński, who also took part in the opening of the exhibition, emphasized the artistic value of Samuel Willenberg’s sculptures as well as the powerful emotions they evoke.

The exhibition is on display at Majdanek until 29 August 2021, from Tuesday to Sunday from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. It will later be presented in the branches of the State Museum at Majdanek - from 1 September at the Museum and Memorial in Bełżec, and from 14 October at the Museum and Memorial in Sobibór.

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”.

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