New opinions about the „Golden Harvest” by Jan Tomasz Gross

Samuel Willenberg, participant of the uprising of the inmates of Treblinka and escapee from the camp does not agree with the method chosen by the researcher. He claims that Jan Tomasz Gross is not objective in his publications.

The author of the book “Bunt w Treblince” (“Rebellion at Treblinka”) emphasizes that he himself had never decided to refer to events the existence of which he was not able to prove. “History should be real. One cannot present only one type of facts. One cannot write only in black or white” – Willenberg claims.

Ada Willenberg survived the Holocaust thanks to the Poles. “Ms Helena Majewska, who rescued me and managed to get about a dozen of children out of the ghetto, has her tree in Yad Vashem. It was planted for her, a Righteous Among the Nations, as well as for many other Poles who rescued Jews during the occupation. And Gross only writes about one kind of people” – concludes the survivor.

At the same time Willenberg does not deny the fact that people had been searching for gold in the former camp of Treblinka after the Holocaust: “Peasants used to come and dig, search for treasures, jewelry that had remained after the Jews”.

Rev. Adam Boniecki, editor-in-chief of the “Tygodnik Powszechny” explains that Gross “presents painful, true facts in a light so sharp, he turns the spotlight on them in such a way that one has the impression of it being pars pro toto”.

“We should be thankful to Gross for pushing us to a discussion. We can be annoyed by the exaggerations and a certain nonchalance that historians accuse him of. But we should be really grateful to him because he stimulates us to seek true answers” – concludes Boniecki.