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No. 1 (2005)

ISSN:
1895-247X
eISSN:
2657-3571

Publication date:
2005-12-01

Section: Studies

Texts Buried in Oblivion. Testimonies of Two Refugees from the Mass Grave at Poniatowa

Andrzej Żbikowski

redakcja@holocaustresearch.pl

historian, deputy director of the Jewish Historical Institute and employee of the Public Education Bureau of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. Member of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Author of numerous publications on the history of Polish Jews. Recent publications: U genezy Jedwabnego. Żydzi na Kresach Północno-Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej, wrzesień 1939– lipiec 1941 (2006).

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8081-6955

Jewish Historical Institute, Public Education Bureau of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw

Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, No. 1 (2005), pages: 73-95

Publication date: 2005-12-01

https://doi.org/10.32927/ZZSiM.150

Abstract

This article contains an analysis and extensive quotations from accounts of two Jewish women, the only survivors of prisoners' execution at the Poniatowa compulsory labour camp. This execution was part of a large-scale operation to physically liquidate Jewish prisoners, the so-called “Operation Harvest” (Erntefest), carried out in the first week of November 1943 at the camps in Trawniki, Poniatowa and Majdanek (in Lublin). Both women survivors,. Due to a number of coincidences, managed to get to Warsaw and, helped by the "Żegota” – Council to Aid the Jews, lived to see the liberation. In this article I also analyse the circumstances of both accounts, reasons for withholding their publication as early as war time, and the importance, for our knowledge, not only of the executions, but also for the nature of complicated Polish–Jewish relations during World War II, because it was the Poles' help that the fate of escaped prisoners hinged upon.

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Żbikowski, A. (2005). Texts Buried in Oblivion. Testimonies of Two Refugees from the Mass Grave at Poniatowa. Zagłada Żydów. Studia I Materiały, (1), 73-95. https://doi.org/10.32927/ZZSiM.150

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                            View No. 1 (2005)

No. 1 (2005)

ISSN:
1895-247X
eISSN:
2657-3571

Data publikacji:
2005-12-01

Dział: Studies