Treblinka Through the Eyes of Samuel Willenberg z”l

January 29, 2020
Words and pictures: Alon Goldman and the Institute of National Remembrance

In a ceremony held in Warsaw, on 29th January 2020,  Ada Willenberg, the widow of our landsmann Samuel Willenberg z'”l, officially opened an exhibition of her husband’s bronze sculptures depicting his images of Treblinka. Samuel, who sadly passed away in February 2016, was the last living survivor of Treblinka and saw it as his mission to educate others about what happened there.

The Official Opening took place in the presence of a large audience and was attended by the Polish Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Jarosław Selin, and was one of the events marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The fifteen sculptures, which arrived in Warsaw from Tel Aviv, depict one of the most tragic episodes of the Holocaust through the most dramatic scenes of routine life in the extermination camp – the death factory which the Nazis established in Treblinka – as burned into Willenberg’s memory.

The exhibition will be on show for a year in Poland and, after its time in Warsaw, will travel to Białystok, Gdańsk, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Szczecin and to Willenberg’s home town Częstochowa.

In Warsaw, the exhibition will be open to the public at the “History Point” Education Centre at ul. Marszałkowsa 21/25 from January 29 until the end of March 2020. Viewing times are:

Mondays to Fridays: 8:00am – 8:00pm.
Saturdays: 9:00am – 2:00pm.
Closed on Sunday.

Visitors to the exhibition can also view the documentary film “The Last Witness of Treblinka” (100 mins.) by American television station WLRN, which tells the story of Samuel Willenberg .

Admission is free.

Groups are asked to coordinate arrival by telephoning: +48-22-576-3009

In Czestochowa, Samuel Willenberg’s hometown, the exibition will go on display in early October 2020, coinciding with the city’s Huberman Violin Festival.