- Grojanowski Report
Grojanowski Report was written by Szlamek Bajler, under the pseudonym of Jacob Grojanowski, who escaped from the Chelmno
extermination camp and described in details the atrocities that he witnessed there. [http://www.deathcampsx.org/occupation/bajler.html Szlamek Bajler, www.deathcampsx.org] Note: remove 'x' from URL to access]Bajler, who managed to make his way from Chelmno to the
Warsaw Ghetto , gave detailed information about the his death camp experience to the ghetto's Oneg Shabbat group, headed byEmanuel Ringelblum . He described the entire extermination procedure at the camp: how people were murdered in gas vans, how their corpses were removed, how the inside of the vans was cleaned, and how the bodies were buried in large pits [Alan Heath Chelmno Waldlager http://youtube.com/watch?v=zNHxkOF5u4A] . Bajler also described his escape from the camp, the bleak conditions of the prisoners forced to deal with the dead, and the brutality of the murderers [Chelmno Witnesses Speak, Koło] . Oneg Shabbat and Bajler then wrote up the report in both Polish and German; they sent the Polish version to the Delegatura, the underground representatives of the Polish government-in-exile, while the German copy was meant for the German people, in the assumption it would evoke their compassion for the Jews. [ [http://motlc.learningcenter.wiesenthal.org/text/x06/xm0619.html Wiesenthal Center] ] [ [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206317.pdf Grojanowski Report, Yad Vashem] ] [ [http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205915.pdf Chelmno, Yad Vashem] ]Bajler subsequently escaped to
Zamość where he wrote to the Warsaw ghetto of the existence of a death camp inBelzec [Ringelblum archive, Warsaw] . A few days after writing this letter, towards the end of April 1942 he was rounded up, deported and gassed at the Belzec extermination camp.Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy, William Collins Sons & Co. Limited, London, 1986]Another escaped inmate from Chelmno,
Mordechaï Podchlebnik , managed to survive the war, and in 1961 gave testimony at the Eichmann trial inJerusalem . [ [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203134.pdf Yad Vashem "Diaries", footnote 12] ] [According to [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203134.pdf] the Grojanowski Report is available at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (copy in YVA, JM/2713), and it was also translated into Hebrew by Elisheva Shaul, "Taking of Testimony from the Forced Undertaker Jakob Grojanowski, Izbice-Kolo-Chelmno," Yalkut Moreshet 35 (April 1983), pp. 101-122.]ee also
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Witold Pilecki Notes
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