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Placing Women in the Revolt: Gender and the History and Memory of Resistance at Treblinka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2025

Chad S. A. Gibbs Open the ORCID record for Chad S. A. Gibbs [Opens in a new window]
Chad S. A. Gibbs*
Affiliation:
Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, United States
*
gibbsc@cofc.edu
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Abstract

The Treblinka revolt has received extensive scholarly attention, though little of this work considers the resistance actions of women prisoners. In this article, I use spatial methods to reveal how Jews at Treblinka created three examples of what I term ‘places of resistance’ and how women supported each. Critically, this article demonstrates how studying these locations highlights the roles of women in resistance up to and including the famous uprising. Taking analyses of gender and memory further, I also examine how our scant knowledge of women's lives at Treblinka prompts consideration of archival silences, masculinity, and oral history practice.

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Contemporary European History , First View , pp. 1 - 14
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Abram Kolski, Interview 49970. Tape 5 of 8, 03:00–13:20. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 29 July 1999. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020; survivor Richard Glazar in: Sereny, Gitta, Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 239Google Scholar.

2 Willenberg, Samuel, Revolt in Treblinka (Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, 1984), 182–83Google Scholar; Willenberg, Samuel, ‘I Survived Treblinka,’ in The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, ed. Donat, Alexander (New York: Waldon Press, 1979), 189–213Google Scholar, 210; Rajzman, Samuel, ‘The End of Treblinka,’ in The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, ed. Donat, Alexander (New York: Waldon Press, 1979), 231–51Google Scholar, 244; Abraham Kolski, Oral history interview RG-50.030.0113, transcript 11, The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive (hereafter HOHA), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (hereafter USHMM), 29 Mar. 1990. Accessed 18 Apr. 2015.

3 Organizing Committee is a term of the prisoners’ own invention, see: Arad, Yitzhak, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 274–77Google Scholar; Glazar, Richard, Trap with a Green Fence: Survival in Treblinka (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1995), 110–12Google Scholar.

4 Abraham Krzepicki, ‘Eighteen Days in Treblinka,’ in The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, ed. Alexander Donat (New York: Waldon Press, 1979), 77–145.

5 Vasily Grossman, The Hell of Treblinka, Reprint Edition (Lexington, KY: Martin Zwinkler, 2015).

6 Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka; Konnilyn G. Feig, Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness (New York: Holmes and Meir Publishers, 1981); Chris Webb and Michal Chocholaty, The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2014); Manfred Burba, Treblinka: Ein NS-Vernichtungslager im Rahmen der ‘Aktion Reinhard’ (Goettingen: Pachnicke, 1995); Witold Chrostowski, Extermination Camp Treblinka (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004).

7 Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka; Sereny, Into That Darkness; Claude Lanzmann, Shoah, DVD, Documentary (Criterion Collectoin, 1985); Claude Lanzmann, Shoah: The Complete Text of the Acclaimed Holocaust Film, Second (New York: De Capo Press, 1995).

8 Bryant cites extensively the collections of the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen [Central Office for the State Investigator of National Socialist Crimes] Ludwigsburg, Germany, B162, Files 3817–3848, see: Michael S. Bryant, Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955–1966, Legacies of War – G. Kurt Piehler, Series Editor (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 2014).

9 Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, eds., The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, trans. Deborah Burnstone (Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky, 1991).

10 Ian Baxter, The SS of Treblinka (Stroud: Spellmount, 2010).

11 Interviews with Samuel Willenberg, Eliahu Rosenberg, Kalman Teigman, and Edi Weinstein in: Webb and Chocholaty, The Treblinka Death Camp, Chapter 11, 125–68.

12 See all of Part II in: Webb and Chocholaty, The Treblinka Death Camp.

13 Survivor Samuel Rajzman estimated that 150–200 escaped in the revolt, while Alexander Donat offered the figure of 200. Other estimates by survivors and historians exist, though none can offer any certainty; see: House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Samuel Rajzman, ‘H.J. Resolution 93 – Punishment of War Crimes – 79th Congress, First Session’ (United States Government Printing Office, 1945), Doc. Y4.F76/1: W19/5, 125, US Congressional Record; Alexander Donat, ‘The Scroll of Treblinka,’ in The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary, ed. Alexander Donat (New York: Waldon Press, 1979), 9–16, 15.

14 Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, 284–91.

15 Edwarda Kopówka and Aliny Skibińska, ‘Resistance and Uprising – Muzeum Treblinka,’ accessed 28 Sept. 2019, https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/en/informacje/resistance-and-uprising/. Michał Wójcik's 2018 Treblinka ’43 and its 2020 German translation Der Aufstand von Treblinka: Revolte im Vernichtungslager use Donat's work in addition to the museum update to arrive at a total of 90 survivors in the later German edition. This number is in error, however, as it repeats all of Donat's mistakes, see: Michał Wójcik, Der Aufstand von Treblinka Revolte im Vernichtungslager, trans. Paulina Schulz-Gruner (München: Piper Verlag, 2020); Michał Wójcik, Treblinka ‘43: Bunt w Fabryce Śmierci (Kraków: Znak litera nova, 2018), 397–400.

16 In the course of this research I have had support from several archives and organisations that have allowed me to challenge this number of survivors and expand the recognised list of witnesses. As 2020–2021 Breslauer, Rutman, and Anderson Research Fellow at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, I benefitted from the opportunity to survey testimonies tagged in the VHA collection as individuals who experienced Treblinka and confirmed 42 survivors who do not currently appear on the museum's updated list or Donat's original. My work to expand this list further benefits from my tenure as the inaugural Dori Laub Fellow at the Yale University Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, a fellowship at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, extensive support from the George L. Mosse Program in History, as well as research at Yad Vashem, the Zentralle Stelle Ludwigsburg, and further collections in Germany and elsewhere.

17 Yaakov E. Mssa.hvt.3371. Part 2, Segment 17, 00:24:51. Yale University Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. 19 June 1992. Accessed 17 Mar. 2019. This interview is in Yiddish.

18 Alexander Donat's list of Treblinka survivors includes three women. Bronka Sukno, Sonia Lewkowicz, and Sonia Grabinski. Grabinski, however, is the unmarried name of Sonia Lewkowicz. Other than this error, Donat makes only two other known mistakes on his list. He includes Zygmunt Gostynski and Tobias Mieczyslaw, though research now indicates that these two men were non-Jewish Poles who survived the nearby Treblinka I labor camp, not the Treblinka II extermination camp. For the original list, see: Alexander Donat, ed., The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary (New York: Waldon Press, 1979), 284–91.

19 The seven other women survivors are: Minia Berman, Vivian Chakin (formerly Sidranska), Zelda Gordon, Riva Kremr, Linda Penn (formerly Luba Kremr, daughter of Riva Kremr), Helen Schwartz, and Feny Zycherman. Minia Berman is included on the updated Treblinka Muzeum list. I do not know how she survived, see: Edwarda Kopówka and Aliny Skibińska, ‘Resistance and Uprising – Muzeum Treblinka,’ accessed 28 Sept. 2019, https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/en/informacje/resistance-and-uprising/. For the other six women, see: Vivian Chakin, Interview 7457. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 21 Nov. 1995. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020; Zelda Gordon, Interview 15. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 15 July 1994. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020; Linda Penn, Interview 38042. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 11 Jan. 1998. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020; Linda Penn, Interview 55144. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 24 Jan. 1992. Accessed 19 Oct. 2020; Helen Schwartz, Interview 2889. Tape 3 of 6. 07:20–15:00 and archival PIQ Report, 5. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 29 May 1995. Accessed 7 Sept. 2020. Helen Schwartz also gave a prior, shorter, less-detailed interview to the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of Greater Toronto, a USC Shoah Foundation partner institution. She does not mention Treblinka in this interview. Helen Schwartz, Interview 54305. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 4 May 1988. Accessed 7 Sept. 2020; Feny Zycherman, Interview 1228. Tape 2 of 3. 02:30. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 27 Feb. 1995. Accessed 8 Sept. 2020.

20 Yaakov E. Part 4, Segment 31, 00:00:36. Fortunoff Video Archive.

21 Sources disagree on Lagerälteste Galewski's first name. Samuel Willenberg's memoir Revolt in Treblinka consistently uses the name Alfred and includes recollections of many personal interactions with Galewski. Given Willenberg's closeness to Galewski, I believe he is most likely correct about his first name, see: Willenberg, Revolt in Treblinka; Willenberg, ‘I Survived Treblinka’; Alan Tomlinson, Treblinka's Last Witness, DVD, Documentary (Miami Beach, FL: Tomlinson De Onis Productions LLC, 2014).

22 Willenberg, Revolt in Treblinka, 84–85; Israel Cymlich and Oskar Strawczynski, Escaping Hell in Treblinka (New York: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2007), 161–62.

23 Willenberg, Revolt in Treblinka, 84–85.

24 Ibid., 92–94.

25 Cymlich and Strawczynski, Escaping Hell in Treblinka, 161–64.

26 Ibid., 161–62.

27 Statement of Bronka Sukno, 14 June 1962, in B162/3825 Bundesarchiv Ludwigsburg (hereafter BL), 1875.

28 Unpublished memoir of Moyshe Klaynman (in Yiddish), written between 1944–1947, in M.49, File 118, Item 3547904 Yad Vashem Archive (hereafter YVA), 44.

29 Edward Weinstein, Interview 2694. Tape 3 of 7. 00:20–19:00. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 17 May 1995. Accessed 4 Sept. 2020; for a more detailed description, see: Eddie Weinstein, 17 Days in Treblinka: Daring to Resist, and Refusing to Die, 4th ed. (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Publications, 2009).

30 Sereny, Into That Darkness, 206; Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, 273; Cymlich and Strawczynski, Escaping Hell in Treblinka, 154, 161.

31 Statement of Bronka Sukno, 14 June 1962, in B162/3825 (BL), 1875; Unpublished memoir of Moyshe Klaynman, written between 1944–1947, in M.49, File 118, Item 3547904 (YVA), 60; former Treblinka commandant Franz Stangl also told Gitta Sereny that Jewish women were allowed in the SS barracks to clean it, see: Sereny, Into That Darkness, 166.

32 Abram Kolski, Interview 49970. Tape 5 of 8, 03:00–13:20. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 29 July 1999. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020.

33 Sam Goldberg, Interview 30760. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 13 July 1997. Accessed 8 Sept. 2020; Sam Goldberg, Family interview with his son, Dr. Shlomo Goldberg. 1991. In possession of the author courtesy of Karen Treiger, daughter-in-law of Sam Goldberg. See also: Karen I. Treiger, My Soul Is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story, 1st ed. (Seattle, WA: Stare Lipki Press, 2018); Shmuel ‘Samuel’ Goldberg, ‘Between Stok and Treblinka [Tsvishn stok un treblinke],’ in The Chronicle of Stok (Near Wengrow): An Eternal Memorial [Pinkes stok (bay vengrow): matseyve netsekh], ed. Y. Tsudiker (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Organization of Stokers in Israel; Stok Community Group ‘Society’ of North America; Stok Community Group of Argentina; Stoker Group of Canada, 1974), 429–34.

34 Statement of Sonia Lewkowicz, 8 Nov. 1959, in B162/3818 (BL), 179; Statement of Sonia Lewkowicz, 23 June 1960, in B162/3824 (BL), 1658.

35 Abraham Bomba, Interview 18062. Tape 3 of 7, 21:27. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 14 Aug. 1996. Accessed 15 Sept. 2020.

36 Lanzmann, Shoah (film); Lanzmann, Shoah (book), 102–8.

37 Jonas Kornhendler was deported to Treblinka from the Czestochowa Ghetto around Yom Kippur (20–21 Sept.) 1942. He escaped with one other man from Czestochowa over the fences after two weeks in the camp; see: Jonas Kornhendler, Interview 30369. Tape 1 of 4, 20:00–26:00 and Tape 2 of 4, 00:15–13:30. See also PIQ Report, 3, 5, 7, and 14. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 30 June 1997. Accessed 10 Sept. 2020.

38 Lanzmann, Shoah (book), 17.

39 Glazar, Trap with a Green Fence, 58; Richard Glazar, Interview 8552. Transcript 60 of 86. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 5 Feb. 1996. Accessed 11 Sept. 2020.

40 Sonia Lewkowicz told an American court that she was not transferred to Camp 2 until 5 Mar. 1943. Her citation of this quite specific date indicates that this was a particularly strong memory for her; see: Testimony of Sonia Lewkowicz, United States v. Fedorenko, 597 F. 2d 946 (Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit 1979).

41 Abraham Bomba escaped from Treblinka in either Dec. 1942 or Jan. 1943. Bronka Sukno arrived at Treblinka on 18 Jan. 1943, so it is possible that they were also in the camp at the same time, though this cannot be stated with certainty. Lewkowicz arrived at Treblinka 14 Dec. 1942, so she and Bomba were likely in the camp at the same time; see: Statement of Sonia Lewkowicz, 23 June 1960, in B162/3824 (BL), 1658; Statement of Bronka Sukno, 14 June 1962, in B162/3825 (BL), 1874. For Bomba's escape date, see ‘Oral History Interview with Avraham [sic] Bomba,’ Video, 18 Sept. 1990, RG-50.030.0033, USHMM – The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive (JTHOHA), at 1:47:00 and 1:57:00; ‘Abraham Bomba – Prisoner T2,’ Muzeum Treblinka, n.d., https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/en/informacje/bomba-abraham/.

42 Goldberg/Treiger Family Treblinka Survivor Reunion Video (in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English). Feb. 2000. In possession of the author courtesy of Karen Treiger.

43 Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chapter 15, ‘Women Prisoners,’ 114–18; Yitzhak Arad, The Operation Reinhard Death Camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Revised and expanded edition (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2018), Chapter 16, ‘women prisoners,’ 150–54. The 2018 edition of Arad's book repositions his work in the historiography and revises his statements on the place of the Operation Reinhard camps in the wider context of the Holocaust. His work on the camps themselves is unchanged. As there are no differences between Arad's original and his updated rerelease in their core primary source research, I will cite only the original.

44 Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, 116.

45 For the quote in his book, Arad cites ‘YVA O-3/4039, 11, testimony of Eli Rozenberg (in German) (hereafter Rosenberg). Rosenberg was from Warsaw and worked in the extermination area.’ A statement by Rosenberg under this archival file number exists; however, it is not the correct document. Yad Vashem has reorganised their collections since the time of Arad's original research. For the original citation, see: Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, 8, 412; Arad's quotation of Rosenberg appears on 116. Rosenberg's statement in German with this quote on a page with the original numbering ‘11’ can now be found in: Statement of Elias Rosenberg. 24 Dec. 1947, in O.3, File 4548, Item 3558557 (YVA), 11. Translation from the German of this longer excerpt is my own.

46 Though I find the term ‘brothel’ distasteful, I recognise that its use does appear to be in keeping with the field more broadly and that a suitable replacement is elusive. For work on camp sites of forced sexual exploitation and use of the term brothel, see: Sommer, Robert, Das KZ-Bordell: Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in Nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hedgepeth, Sonja M. and Saidel, Rochelle G., eds., Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, HBI Series on Jewish Women (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press; Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2010)Google Scholar.

47 Statement of Szlomo Helman (in Yiddish), 7 June 1961, in O.3, File 2267, Item 35555994 (YVA), 14. Translation from the Yiddish here is my own.

48 Statement of Eliasz Rosenberg (in German), 17 Apr. 1961, in B162/3826 (BL), 1919; Statement of Bronka Sukno (in German), 14 June 1962, in B162/3825 (BL), 1876.

49 Edward J. ‘Eddie.’ Weinstein, Interview 2694. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 17 May 1995. Accessed 14 Sept. 2020.

50 Weinstein, 17 Days in Treblinka, 56.

51 Hájková, Anna, ‘Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto,’ Signs 38, no. 3 (2013): 503–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beorn, Waitman Wade, ‘Bodily Conquest: Sexual Violence in the Nazi East,’ in Mass Violence in Nazi-Occupied Europe, eds. Kay, Alex J. and Stahel, David (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2018), 195–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 Roberts, Mary Louise, ‘Beyond “Crisis” in Understanding Gender Transformation,’ Gender & History 28, no. 2 (Aug. 2016): 358–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Leon Diskin, Interview 17082. Archival Pre-Interview Questionnaire (PIQ) Report, ‘Spelling Verification Form’ insert, 2 of 6. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 14 July 1996. Accessed 3 Sept. 2020.

54 I would like to thank USC Shoah Foundation Collections Curator Crispin Brooks for conversations on this topic and others. For USC Shoah Foundation interviewer training on the topic of sexual assault and the practice of interviewing subjects alone (that is, with only the interviewee, interviewer, and videographer in the room), see: ‘Interviewer Guidelines.’ USC Shoah Foundation, The Institute for Visual History and Education, Oct. 2020, 13, 43.

55 Sam Goldberg, Interview 30760. Transcript, 32 and 33. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 13 July 1997. Accessed 8 Sept. 2020. This interview is in Yiddish.

56 Adek Stein, Interview 3169. Tape 2 of 12, 06:45–11:00. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 13 June 1995. Accessed 18 Sept. 2020.

57 Whether or not family members or others are nearby during the interview process is not routinely recorded in archival metadata and only becomes apparent if the individuals in the background or adjacent rooms of the home make themselves known. While it is not policy to allow an audience, research shows it was often unavoidable. Since many may have listened silently, statistics on how many interviews had an audience beyond the interviewer and videographer would be impossible to compile with any accuracy.

58 I compiled these statistics with the help of spreadsheets provided by Martha Stroud of the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research. I first set aside some 1,722 interviews for which the identity of the interviewer is not recorded and then chose the sex of each identified interviewer based on their first names. The sex of interviewees is recorded in USC Shoah Foundation metadata, though the sex of interviewers is not. Therefore, some level of inaccuracy may exist if, for example, an interviewer named Alexandra recorded her name as Alex, though this should not be so significant as to profoundly affect the outcome of this statistical work. Similar statistical work for the Fortunoff collection is not possible given the large number of interviews conducted by multiple interviewers and the manner in which archival metadata is recorded for this collection.

59 In his oral history interview with a male interviewer, survivor Richard Glazar discusses instances of rape during the Holocaust; see: Richard Glazar, Interview 8552. Transcript 39 of 86. USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. USC Shoah Foundation. 5 Feb. 1996. Accessed 11 Sept. 2020.

60 Statement of Bronka Sukno, 14 June 1962, in B162/3825 (BL), 1875.