Rachel Auerbach - "On the Fields of Treblinka" - Extermination Camp Report - 1947 - First Edition

Rachel Auerbach - "On the Fields of Treblinka" - Extermination Camp Report - 1947 - First Edition

אויף די פעלדער פון טרעבלינקע - On the Fields of Treblinka - by Rachel Auerbach, published by the Central Jewish Historical Committee in Poland. Warsaw - Lodz - Krakow, 1947 - First edition. Yiddish.

Rachel Auerbach's book, written in 1946 and published in 1947, follows her visit to Treblinka as a member of a delegation of the Jewish Historical Committee that included nine people, including 5 former Treblinka prisoners, three of whom survived the "Treblinka Revolt". Already in the fall of 1942 while in Warsaw, she collected rare testimonies of the few Jews who managed to escape from Treblinka and return to Warsaw. Auerbach documents horrific scenes from daily life in the camp, as well as the way the death industry in the camp operated, as she heard from the former prisoners' mouths. The committee discovered much data about the camp that was previously unknown. For example, it was known that death in the gas chambers took 20-25 minutes. Based on testimony the committee received from prisoner Yankl Wiernik, it became clear that in the camp's larger gas chambers, death sometimes took much longer, up to an hour due to the slow operation of the engines. She also provides previously unknown figures for the precise number those murdered in Treblinka, the months when the number of murdered was highest, how the "selections" in the camp took place, new details about what the Nazis did with Jewish property, and more. The book is accompanied by harsh photos taken in the camp, as well as photos of the committee members themselves and former Treblinka prisoners. A folded map at the end depicts a diagram of the camp.

Rachel Eiga Auerbach [1903-1976] was a Yiddish journalist, author, essayist, historian, and Jewish-Polish community activist. After the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Rachel Auerbach organized a public soup kitchen for three years at the House of Small Trade Unions in the Warsaw Ghetto at 40 Leszno Street. She managed to evade the Great Deportation in the summer of 1942 and stayed in the city. In the fall of 1942, she collected rare testimonies from the few Jews who managed to escape from Treblinka and return to Warsaw. On March 9, 1943, Rachel Auerbach managed to escape to the city's "Aryan" side and stay with Polish friends. With forged documents, her non-Jewish appearance, and good command of German, Auerbach could walk around freely as a courier for Jewish resistance movements. She was one of just three survivors of the "Oneg Shabbat" group who lived through the war. In 1944 Auerbach joined the Jewish Historical Committee in liberated Poland with the aim of gathering survivor testimonies, during this period she burst into public consciousness due to her efforts to collect and publish testimonies about the Holocaust and was one active as a member of Emanuel Ringelblum's "Oneg Shabbat" archive in the Warsaw ghetto. She immigrated to Israel in 1950, and was one of the few survivors who took part in the establishment of Yad Vashem, where she worked as director of the testimonies collection department, and throughout her life waged a determined struggle against distortions and inaccuracies in the description of Holocaust events.

[9], 109 [9] p. Front hardcover reinforced with adhesive paper. Minor tears to spine. Former library copy. Book body in Good condition.