Old and New Memories

Franciszek Ząbecki
Postwar photograph
Born	8 October 1907 Łyszkowice
Died	11 April 1987(1987-04-11) (aged 79)
Residence	Treblinka, Masovian Voivodeship
Nationality	Polish
Occupation	Station master
Known for	Holocaust reporting, Home Army; The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary

Lieutenant Franciszek Ząbecki (8 October 1907 – 11 April 1987) was a station master at the village of Treblinka. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, Ząbecki worked as a dispatcher for the Deutsche Reichsbahn; he also became a secret soldier in the underground Armia Krajowa (AK), collecting classified data and reporting to the Polish resistance on the Holocaust transports that went to Treblinka extermination camp. Over 800,000 Jews were murdered there in the course of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in Poland. Ząbecki himself estimated that number to be 1,200,000 people.

After the war, Ząbecki testified at the trials of German war criminals, including SS officer Kurt Franz, and the commandant of Treblinka extermination camp, Franz Stangl. His incriminating evidence against them included original German waybills produced by the Reichsbahn, which proved that the "Güterwagen" boxcars crammed with prisoners on the way to Treblinka extermination camp, were returning empty. Ząbecki secretly stole a batch of waybills in 1944 from the control house to serve as physical proof of the ongoing extermination program. From July 1942 until the end of war, Ząbecki regularly delivered his reports about the Holocaust trains to the Polish government-in-exile.