Sam Goldberg – Historical Record Corrected – a little bit anyway

Back row center – the short man with a hipster scarf – is Sam Goldberg. 

This iconic picture, taken by the Soviets in 1944, shows a group of men who participated in and survived the Treblinka uprising on August 2, 1943.  This picture is in almost every book about Treblinka.  The short man in the back row with the hipster scarf is either unidentified or given the name of “Shimon Goldberg.”   Shimon Goldberg is also in the picture, but he is in the front row, second from the right, the one with his legs crossed, wearing gloves – he usually gets labeled just “Goldberg.”  

Yad Vashem has this picture in their photo archive, but they gave up and just say – Treblinka uprising survivors.  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum does that same:

https://www.ushmm.org/research/the-center-for-advanced-holocaust-studies/miles-lerman-center-for-the-study-of-jewish-resistance/medals-of-resistance-award/treblinka-death-camp-revolt

Many books and websites, however, name the individuals in back row center as Shimon Goldberg.   One such website is the website run, in part, by Chris Webb, who has provided me with invaluable information and corrections to my book about Treblinka, as well as a couple of amazing photos found in the book.   His website – Holocaust Historical Society – is chocked full of so much information that you could write a master’s thesis on the Holocaust just from the information on this website.

https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/index.html

But this website had Sam labeled as Shimon in the picture and in his list of Treblinka survivors, Shmuel Goldberg’s name was missing.   So, I wrote to Chris to see if we could remedy this historical error – at least on his website.   He agreed and the mench that he is, fixed it right away.   Now the short man with the hipster scarf is identified as Shmuel Goldberg and a short biography of Sam is included in the list of survivors on the website.

https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/contents/treblinkadeathcamp/survivorsandescapees.html

I am grateful to Chris Webb for helping me begin to fix this historical error.

But there is more – I noticed that the website includes testimonies of Treblinka survivors.   So, I asked Chris if he would be willing to include Sam’s testimony, as it relates to Treblinka, on the website.  He said “yes.”   I am so pleased that Sam’s testimony will live on the website, along with other survivor’s testimonies.   Chris may even include some of Sam’s testimony about Treblinka in the next edition of his book – The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance.  It will be published in 2020.

I am humbled as we begin to bring Shmuel (Sam) Goldberg into the world of Holocaust research and literature.  He is one of approximately 65 to have survived this place of horror, but was one of the fifty or so men who planned and participated in the uprising.  Perhaps most astonishing, he is one of only two people to have been brought to the camp in June of 1942 and forced to help build it  – to survive.

Remarkable, really.