I just scan read the timeline, so some figures and totals may be off. But the point is, some days did hit the highs Wiernik suggested, but only some. Then, the day's arrivals is not the number then gassed for the reasons given.
Regarding translations, an often cited Wiernik comment is chapter 5, "There was no longer any beauty or ugliness, for they all were yellow from the gas." That is held as a lie because all the bodies would allegedly be chery red. But putting that debate aside, the comment about yellow is odd. he also states in Chapter 4, "Some people who had been spared from another form of death, which I shall discuss later on, would become yellow and swollen from hunger and finally drop dead."
Dead people don't go yellow. They may be jaundiced before hand, or some yellow tinge appears with decay, but no where else have I heard of bodies being yellow. I have also seen a good few dead bodies over the years and none were yellow.
Could you Polish contacts be asked for their opinion on that.
This is what I worked out with them in 2015 (posted in SSF at that time, I linked to this above):
. . . Last I recall we were kicking around what żółci means (gall or yellow). For some reason Corrections54 fled, telling us he’d be back but never returning. David tried making out that Wiernik had written "they all were yellow from the gas." But Wiernik’s Polish-language typescript doesn't say "gas” at all; the draft says “poison” (zatruci). I happen to know a number of Polish speakers and shared the passage with them: “all yellow and poisoned” is what every one of them gave me for "wszyscy żółci i zatruci." (In the published version żółci i zatruci became żółci -zatruci – or yellow-poisoned). This means that the HC White Paper is wrong on this point.
I had told Corrections54 that, having read the HC White Paper’s objection, I didn’t view the meaning of żółci as used by Wiernik as settled; I do now, having checked with about a half dozen people who know Polish and having done additonal reading on Polish grammar.
But I was also told by some of those I gave the passage that it was poetic, difficult to understand, or written by a talented writer. A lyrical, reflective bit of writing. For one thing, the phrases in Wiernik’s typescript, including "wszyscy żółci i zatruci," are not in the past tense – as I wrote before it’s reflective, not a literal description of what took place behind the doors of the sealed gas chamber. Nor is it an account of the opening of the doors and what Wiernik saw at that point. The account of what happened on the doors of the gas chamber being opened, in fact, comes in the paragraph of Wiernik’s manuscript that follows the yellow-poisoned paragraph: p 6 of typescript: “Po zakończeniu gazowania Iwan i Mikołaj badali stan rzeczy. Następnie przechodzili na druga stronę, idzie mieszcza się drzwi przy rampie, otwieraja je i wyrzucaja zagazowanych.” Google Translate:
Upon completion of the gassing Ivan and Nicholas studied the situation. Then switch to the other side, goes fit with ramp door, open it and throw out gassed.
Now, if the HC White Paper is wrong, is Mattogno correct? The word "żółci" indeed translates as bile (and that's what Google Translate gives) but in the sentence it is the masculine plural form of the adjective “żółty” - to agree with "wszyscy" - this is as Mattogno (gritting teeth) says.
However, Mattogno also concludes, "The yellow coloring of the corpses is without a doubt a reference to chlorine gas that was associated with a yellowish green pall and which, according to Wiernik, was used for the purpose of killing in the 'gas chambers'” - this on the other hand is nonsense . . . "without a doubt" - "chlorine gas" - total BS.
So, understanding the structure of the passage, as mentioned above and discussed more fully upthread, and that żółci -zatruci means yellow-poisoned, I thought more about the poetic-philosophical paragraph that Wiernik wrote.
Here’s the Donat English translation of the paragraph again (bear in mind that the tense isn’t necessarily past as Wiernik wrote it and that some other liberties – “gassed” for “poisoned” – are evident):
They no longer shouted, because the thread of their lives had been cut off. They had no more needs or desires. Even in death, mothers held their children tightly in their arms. There were no more friends or foes. There was no more jealousy. All were equal. There was no longer any beauty or ugliness, for they all were yellow from the gas. There were no longer any rich or poor, for they all were equal before God's throne. And why all this? I keep asking myself that question. My life is hard, very hard. But I must live on to tell the world about all this barbarism.
Please note that Wiernik twice used variations on the phrase “all equal” and that he used the phrase “no longer any rich or poor. I’ve boldfaced these phrases – the reasons why will become clear, beginning with “all equal.”
All equal – Alle glajch
Interestingly, Jan Mawult (Stanislaw Gombinsksi), a Jewish police official in Warsaw ghetto, entitled, with biting irony, the first section of his memoir “All Equal.” This phrase comes, in part, from the Warsaw Judenrat, whose “PR” slogan concerning its own economic and social policies, was “All are equal.” The wide currency of the phrase “all equal” in the ghetto, however, came from “crazy” Rubinstein, a popular street entertainer during 1940-1941 (facts on Rubinstein’s death are scarce and he may have been active right up until the deportations in summer 1942), who used the phrase ironically to needle the ghetto bigwigs, bitterly mocking the Judenrat’s claims – as its policies were viewed as highly unequal and hit the ghetto poor hard. As we will see below, Saul Friedlander, commenting on Hersh Wasser’s description of Rubinstein gives the implication of the phrase as "all equal before death." (Years of Extermination (p 416)
One idea for what was behind the lyrical paragraph wherein Wiernik imagines yellow-poisoned Jews in the Treblinka gas chambers, offered by Polish readers, was Wiernik had picked up some Yiddish or other traditional language for death and applied it to what he was witnessing. That may be true: what we can see, with the phrase “all equal,” however, is that Wiernik echoed a popular, bitter phrase he’d undoubtedly heard in Warsaw ghetto pertaining to those on the losing end of things.
One more note to begin with: Wiernik's typescript does not read "Wszystkie były równe" but rather "Wszyscy równi” - one could as well translate the phrase in the present or past tense as one could "wszyscy żółci i zatruci."
To give a bit more background on the use of the phrase “All equal” in Warsaw ghetto, this is something I wrote up last fall for a colleague on Warsaw taxation policy:
Many of those in the ghetto without income – thus exempt from paying the indirect taxes – were people living off previously accumulated wealth and having a high standard of living relative to their neighbors, as well as smugglers and others made newly rich through “grey” activities. Engelking & Leociak quote Kaplan (see below) on the widespread refusal to pay taxes. According to E&L, “Many activists held it against Czerniakow that he did not impose a higher, special tax on the rich and nouveau riche of the ghetto.” E&L quote Ringelblum on the “scandal” of tax policy: “'All are equal’ – that is the unfortunate motto of the ‘minister of finance.’ Indirect taxes are imposed that place the burden on the poor.” So widespread was the sentiment against this policy that Rubinstein, an immigrant from Lodz, made a living as a popular street performer lampooning ghetto big-wigs using as one of his stock phrases “All are equal.” E&L detail Rogowy’s complaints to Czerniakow on the stark disparity between the wealthy and those who depended on soup kitchens.
On 3 April 1941, Chaim Kaplan lamented in his diary (pp 262-263) that “Many evade payment of the tax” and that “If the Jews of Warsaw who are able to pay had obeyed Czerniakow’s decree and turned over the tax of two zloty apiece each month willingly, the problem of feeding the hungry would not be so serious.” Kaplan writes of the efforts of the courtyard committees to extract such “assessments” (earlier he’d reported that corruption was believed even to affect the Self-Help – p 260); heated arguments and threats accompanied the attempts of the courtyard committees to collect from people unable to pay. According to Kaplan, punishments of the recalcitrants were not forthcoming, and, with shortfalls, soup kitchens were closing. By November Kaplan himself was complaining about the Council’s imposition of a 25% tax on medicines, his wife stricken with typhus (p 278).
Now to the good stuff . . .
Samuel Puterman was one of many Warsaw ghetto inmates to write about Rubinstein, who became, as I’ve said, a familiar street figure. Puterman wrote that “Rubinsztejn” was “the king of the street beggars” and became known by his phrase “Alle glajch” - Yiddish for everybody’s equal (it is this Yiddish phrase that Mawult/Gombinski used for his memoir’s section title). (Words to Outlive Us, p 30)
Another diarist, Chaim Hasenfus, described Rubinstein as “well known” and told how “From time to time he calls out ‘Alle glajch’ - All are equal! Who knows? Maybe we’ll all end up as beggars.” (WTOU, p 35)
According to Engelking & Leociak, “Rubinsztajn” (possibly Abraham) came from Lodz to Warsaw and in Warsaw ghetto mainly worked Leszno Street: “His most famous sayings, which made the rounds in the ghetto, were ‘Hand over your ration coupon” (ration card; in other words, die) and ‘ale głajch - everyone’s equal (in the face of death).” (E&L, p 592)
Rubinstein was so popular that Szpilman, among others, commented on his street routine, unable to figure whether the performer was demented or "playing the fool" (Susan Berger, A Clandestine Curriculum of Resistance, p 181).
According to E&L (p 593), Rubinstein “became a literary hero in his own lifetime” with a song about him, composed by Jerzy Jurandot, including these lines:
Our Rubinsztajn is now calling loudly:
’Szabes far ale jidełach
Urem rach, ale głajch!’
E&L quote a ghetto publication Gazeta Zydowska,
Do you know Rubinstsztajn? Almost the whole Jewish District knows him. Although he holds no office, is not highly respected, and does not deserve to be taken seriously, he is no less popular than our most distinguished statesmen and representatives. . . . Rubinsztajn has become famed in the Jewish streets for his sayings . . . In this can be found the meaning of our times, and it has been best expressed by Rubinsztajn. It is therefore not surprising that the masses have taken up this original saying, and now it is constantly on everyone’s lips. . . .
According to the article, a ghetto photo shop was selling a photograph of Rubinstein (Rubinsztajn) to ghetto inmates for 2 złoty! (p 593) Mawult (p 594) has Rubinstein voluntarily boarding a train at the Umschlagplatz in July 1942, to be taken to Treblinka.
Friedlander writes this (YOE, p 393) about the phrase “Everyone’s equal” and Rubinstein:
With hindsight, the silencing of Rubinstein the ghetto jester, could be considered as an indication of the end: “Rubinstein is finished,” Wasser noted on May 10, 1942. “The most popular philosopher of ‘Oh boy, keep your head,’ renowned throughout the Warsaw ghetto is expiring. In rags and tatters, he wallows in the streets . . . taking the sun, almost naked. Thus expires an idea, a symbol that dazzled everyone with its truth and lie of ‘All Men Are Equal.’ ”243 In fact, the sentence was Alle Glaich, all equal before death (my emphasis). Within weeks, what had already been almost true in the ghetto was to become an absolute reality that no jester—or anybody else—could imagine. The new reality was about to obliterate the jest, the jester, and the population that, notwithstanding all misery—or because of it—needed a jester and loved his sayings and antics.244
Neither rich nor poor people
Recall that Wiernik also wrote “There were no longer any rich or poor.”
So let’s turn to two additional items concerning Rubinstein - the first from a biography and the second from Donat. Taken with “All equal,” I believe that they help crack part of the code in Wiernik’s difficult, lyrical, reflective paragraph.
In Betty Jean Lifton's biography of Janusz Korzcak (online here:
http://www.korczak.com/Biography/kap-29.htm), we can read this:
At the corner a half-crazed man came leaping toward them, flailing his arms and crying: "Look lively, Jews, we've lost all shame! Rich and poor are now the same!"
"It's Rubinstein, the self-appointed jester of the Warsaw Ghetto," Zylberberg said. "No one knows anything about him except that he's a refugee from the provinces. He always runs wild through the streets like this, shouting some ditty he's made up."
It was as difficult to make their way back to the Small Ghetto as it had been to advance forward. Not only did they have to push once more past the thousands of peddlers and beggars, but they had to climb back over those inert refugee families. Turning a corner, they were again accosted by Rubinstein, who sprang at them this time with a threat: "Give me a penny and you may go! if you don't, I'll start screaming!"
"It's his form of blackmail," Zylberberg explained. "Everyone knows that if he doesn't get his coin, hell begin shouting: "Down with the Führer! Down with Hitler! And the Germans will start shooting everyone in sight."
Korczak handed Rubinstein a coin.
This account is from a chapter called "The Ghetto," which is followed by, er, "All Are Equal" - a chapter in which Lifton writes
The Jews held on to their sardonic wit as a way of surviving. Nothing that happened inside or outside the walls was too insignificant to be recycled into gallows humor. People would greet each other with: "Why should the Germans bomb London, and the English Berlin? All that flying back and forth is a waste of gas. The Germans ought to bomb Berlin and the English London." Or: "Horowitz [Hitler] comes to the Other World, sees Jesus in Paradise. "Hey, what's a Jew doing without an armband?" "Let him be," answers St. Peter. "He's the Boss's son.'" Rubinstein, the mad jester, was still making absurd pronouncements: "The rich are dissolving!" "we're going to have some fat!" People were so amused by his chant "All are equal! In the ghetto all are equal!" (a parody oft he Judenrat slogan that was intended to convince the population that everyone was being treated fairly) that a revue, All Are Equal, opened at the Melody Palace, one of the popular music halls.
(the quoted phrases in Lifton's book about the rich dissolving and having fat come from Ringelblum’s diary, p 138, for 18 March 1941; a month later Ringelblum would write - p 148 - on the occasion of Czerniakow’s arrest that “Rubinstein, the mad jester, is the voice of the people . . .”; Ringelblum quotes Rubinstein a number of times; last, the information about the revue, All Are Equal, is also from Ringelblum, p 177, May 1941; Puterman also wrote about the revue, saying that its star was Minowicz in the role of Rubinstein and that in the final performance Rubinstein, “the most popular madman in the ghetto,” appeared as himself, WTOU, pp 30-31; see also Engelking & Leociak, p 573 – there should be no doubt about the popularity of crazy Rubinstein and his catch phrases).
Finally, Donat’s description of Rubinstein underscores what we learn from these observers - foregrounding the obvious linkage of Rubinstein’s profound street antics with Wiernik’s passage on the gas chambers:
He was half-madman, half-clown. Small and dark, he roamed the streets with his peculiar hopping gait, uttering wild yells and singing ‘Alle glaych, item yn ranch!’ (Everyone’s equal, rich and poor!)
So what?
All equal, rich and poor - there we have it, good grief, staring us right in the face. Rubinstein used “crazy” to blackmail the nouveaux riches, according to Donat, into feeding him and giving him money. He asked himself how many in the ghetto would survive and answered, “Fifty-five!” (The Holocaust Kingdom, pp 44-45)
Rubinstein's street act, with its ironic stock-phrases, was widely known in Warsaw ghetto (important enough to earn a biography in Engelking & Leociak’s end matter). Ringelblum called Rubinstein the voice of the people on so important a matter as the arrest of the chairman of the Judenrat in 1941 and further observed, in August of that year, that “Rubinstein’s phrase about giving up the ration card to death has made a tremendous hit” (p 208). As we’ve seen, there was even a play performed riffing on Rubinstein’s most famous phrase - "All are equal."
Friedlander and Engelking & Leociak alike add to the obvious lampoon of Judenrat BS that the phrase implied a second dimension: the equality of people in the face of death (No one gets out of here alive!).
We can see that among the phrases the ghetto's jester popularized was also "Rich and poor are now the same." Both these phrases (“ear worms,” popular wisdom, words on everyone’s lips, penetrating insights?) were almost certainly picked up by Wiernik in his reflections on the fate of Jews gassed in Treblinka's new gas chambers. In Rubenstein's street act, the occupation and ghettoization were figuratively "dissolving" the rich - for Wiernik, the yellow-poisoning was the specific agent of the dissolution taking place behind the closed doors of the gas chambers at the behest of the occupier. With some of Rubinstein's language, albeit now wholly tragic and deeply somber, was how Wiernik expressed what he witnessed in the upper camp.
The yellow-poisoned paragraph is, to drive this home, not a literal description of a process; rather, it includes an application of Rubinstein's ironic word-play to the ultimate demise of Warsaw's Jews and constitutes a bitter reflection on what the Germans were doing to the Polish Jews. It is as though Wiernik, channeling Rubinstein, has discovered the full truth behind Rubinstein's sayings - the German policy did come down to extermination in the gas chambers Wiernik at last stood before. That is what this supposedly controversial paragraph in Wiernik's book is about - nothing more, nothing less - the dawn of realization and the burden of realization.
Addendum, from a few days later:
. . . Bear with me. Wiernik wrote, in the passage abused by deniers, in a moving, almost poetic way about death as the great equalizer, echoing Rubinstein, making everyone equal, rich and poor, everyone.
Today I was reading a diary of an observant Orthodox Jew in Warsaw, an entry written on 27 August 1942, during the great roundups of that time, and deportations to Treblinka. Here is what the diarist thought of as Jews were being hauled off to their deaths in Treblinka:
Today I am caught among the multitude being taken to the Umschlagplatz for deportation to . . . I am scared to continue that train of thought.
And so we march - binoreinu ub'zekenenu, with our youth and our elders" - old and young, women and children, rich and poor. "Alle zenen gleich," as Rubinstein the town meshugene used to chant; now we all are indeed equal (perhaps Rubinstein was not so mad after all).
And so we march . . .
In short, the diarist, facing death at Treblinka, was reminded of almost the same phrases, chanted by the familiar Rubinstein, that struck Wiernik as he observed the death process at Treblinka itself. With the difference that this diarist expicitly named the source, Rubinstein. . . .
