The Grojanowski Report is an eye-witness account about atrocities in the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

Chełmno extermination camp , known for = , location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland) , built by = , operated by = , commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth , original use = , construction = , in operatio ...

, written in 1942 by

Polish-Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...

escapee from the camp,

Szlama Ber Winer Szlama Ber Winer, ''nom de guerre'' Yakov (Ya'akov) Grojanowski (23 September 1911 – ), was a Polish Jew from Izbica Kujawska, who escaped from the Chełmno extermination camp during the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland. Szlamek (the diminut ...

(also known incorrectly as Szlawek Bajler), under the pseudonym of Yakov (or Jacob) Grojanowski. Szlama Ber Winer managed to make his way from Chelmno to the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

and gave detailed information about his week-long experience with the ''

Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber vi ...

'' at that

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

to the Ghetto's Oneg Shabbat group, headed by historian Emanuel Ringelblum.

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Winer described the entire extermination procedure at the camp, how people were murdered in

gas vans A gas van or gas wagon (russian: душегубка, ''dushegubka'', literally "soul killer"; german: Gaswagen) was a truck reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. During the World War II Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a larg ...

, how their corpses were removed by the forest commando, how the inside of the vans was cleaned between loads, and how the bodies were buried in large mass graves. Winer wrote: Chełmno (Kulmhof) 1942 (Koło)

Winer also described the brutal treatment of '' Sonderkommando'' prisoners, left alive to dispose of the corpses, and his escape from the camp. Oneg Shabbat group and Winer then copied the report in both Polish and German; they sent the Polish version to the

Polish Underground State The Polish Underground State ( pl, Polskie Państwo Podziemne, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Gover ...

, while the German copy was meant for the German people, in the hope it would evoke their compassion for the Jews. It is unclear what was done with the reports at that point. Winer subsequently escaped to Zamość where he wrote to the Warsaw Ghetto of the existence of a death camp in Bełżec. A few days after writing this letter, towards the end of April 1942, he was rounded up, deported and gassed at Bełżec.Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy, William Collins Sons & Co. Limited, London, 1986 Another escaped inmate from Chelmno,

Mordechaï Podchlebnik Mordechaï Podchlebnik or Michał Podchlebnik (1907 – 1985) was a Polish Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust. He was a member of the ''Sonderkommando'' work detail for nearly two weeks at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Pola ...

, managed to survive the war, and in 1961 gave testimony at the Eichmann trial in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

.According t

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.

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References

See also