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Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 02, Alexander 'Sasja' Pechersky
Interview with Alexander 'Sasja' Pechersky (Kremenchuk, 22 February 1909). Pechersky was a lieutenant in the Red Army, was taken prisoner in the autumn of 1941. When a medical examination revealed he was Jewish, he was transported to Sobibor on 22 September 1943. Over a period of three weeks he drew up a detailed plan to escape from the camp with all the prisoners. About his...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 13, Stephan Stelmaszuk and Tadeus Syczuk
Interview with Stephan Stelmaszuk (Nidzia 1928) and Tadeus Syczuk (Dorohucza 1923).Stelmaszuk and his family lived about four kilometres away from Sobibor. Sometimes he could smell the stench of burned bodies. His mother gave food to two survivors of the uprising. He knew little about the camp, because 'all you saw was a fence around it'.Syczuk, a railway employee, witnessed...
Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' - description and all interviews
'The Long Shadow of Sobibor' is an interview project representing a unique historical document. The collection comprises open interviews taken by Professor Selma Leydesdorff with 9 survivors of the Sobibor revolt (1943) and 22 next of kin to persons murdered in Sobibor. These unique testimonials are far more than stories about camp life alone.--Stories of lives--The...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 09, Meier Ziss
Interview with Meier Ziss (Lublin 15 November 1927). Ziss arrived in Sobibor in June 1942. At first he worked as a barber, later he became 'Brandmeister' and had to burn the documents left behind by the people who had just arrived on a transport. In the camp he heard that his parents had been killed and he 'wanted to be dead together with them'. When he joined the partisans...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 04, Stanislaw Szmajzner
Interview with Stanislaw Szmajzner (Pulawy 13 March 1927). Szmajzner arrived in Sobibor at age fifteen. He was a goldsmith and had to make signet rings and other jewellery for the guards. During the uprising he managed to get hold of three rifles wrapped in blankets. He shot one of the Ukrainian guards in the watchtower: 'That was the first time in my life I fired a...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 10, Esther Raab
Interview with Esther Raab (Chelm 11 June 1922). Raab, together with Regina Zielinski and Hella Weiss, was taken to Sobibor just before Christmas 1942 in a horse-drawn cart. They saw such atrocities that she sometimes thought that "going to the gas chambers was easier than being exposed to all the horror". After her escape she went into hiding on a farm where she was...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 06, Jules Schelvis
Interview with Jules Schelvis (Amsterdam 7 January 1921). Schelvis was put on transport from Westerbork on 1 June 1943 with his wife and in-laws. He brought his guitar as a 'welcome distraction to take our mind off things'. On arrival in Sobibor he managed at the last moment to join a group of men who were selected for labour in the peat camp of Dorohucza. Jules Schelvis was...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 15, Bernard Weber
Interview with Bernard Weber (Lemberg 25 March 1922). Weber survived Auschwitz-Birkenau where he witnessed the uprising in crematorium B. For several months he worked in the Sonderkommando that had to burn dead bodies: "Day and night the fire burned four, five metres above the chimney".Date Submitted: 2012-06-29
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 03, Samuel Lerer
Interview with Samuel Lerer (Zolkiewka 1 October 1922). Lerer was one of the first prisoners to arrive in Sobibor. He was ordered to look after the horses and this gave him access to much of the camp. During the uprising both his brothers were killed. Etched in his mind is 'how my father went to the gas chamber naked'.In the camp he also had to fatten up ducks for SS officer...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 08, Hella Weiss
Interview with Hella Weiss (née Felenbaum; Lublin 25 November 1924). Weiss arrived in Sobibor just before Christmas in a horse-drawn cart. She worked in the laundry, had to knit socks and gloves and she tended to the flower garden. About her time in the camp she remembers: "They tormented us terribly".After her escape she fought with the partisans and in the Soviet army. She...
Erfgoed van de Oorlog, Bystander Memories, interview RG-50.570.0020
De geïnterviewde was getrouwd met een Joodse vrouw en vertelt over de arrestatie van zijn schoonfamilie die ondergedoken waren. Hij vertelt dat ze de mogelijkheid hadden om te ontsnappen uit de Hollandse Schouwburg, maar dit niet durfden. Na hun deportatie naar respectievelijk Westerbork en Vught is er nog enige correspondentie geweest die de geïnterviewde voor leest. Hij...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 05, Kurt Thomas
Interview with Kurt Thomas (Brno 11 April 1914). Thomas was taken to Sobibor via the ghetto of Theresienstadt. In the sorting barracks he had to sort clothes and belongings of victims who had been gassed. As an orderly he later managed to save the lives of several prisoners by letting them rest longer than allowed. When he had climbed across the fence during the uprising he...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 11, Chaskiel Menche
Interview with Chaskiel Menche (Kolo 7 January 1910). Menche arrived in Sobibor in the summer of 1942 and he was briefly put to work in the sorting barracks. He was then appointed to shine shoes and make caps. Together with others he prepared a plan to murder Himmler during a visit to the camp. His desire for revenge was fulfilled when he stabbed a guard during the uprising:...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 01, Regina Zielinski
Interview with Regina Zielinski (Siedliczcze 2 September 1924). Zielinski was taken to Sobibor in a horse-drawn cart together with her fellow-villagers just before Christmas 1942. She was selected to knit socks and later had to sort ammunition. On arrival in the camp she heard her little brother say: Let's say farewell to the night, because we won't see the sun rise...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 07, Schlomo Alster
Interview with Schlomo Alster (Chelm 1 December 1908). Alster was a carpenter and in Sobibor he had to help build barracks. He explained to new arrivals: 'That is the fire, those are the people who just arrived.' After the uprising he joined the partisans.In 1936 Schlomo Alster married Hanna Grindberg. Not long after that their first child was born, followed by the second...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 12, Arkady Wajspapir
Interview with Arkady Wajspapir (1921). Wajspapir served as a sergeant in the Red Army and was injured in September 1941. As a Jewish prisoner of war he and the other Soviet soldiers had to build barracks in Lager IV in Sobibor. It quickly dawned on him that 'the only way out of there was to escape'.Before he was drafted into the Red Army Arkady Wajspapir worked as an...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984, interview 14, Thomas Blatt
Interview with Thomas Blatt (Izbica 15 April 1927). Blatt arrived in Sobibor by truck on 23 April 1943. He escaped the gas chamber because a guard spotted him among the women and children and said: "Du Kleiner, komm mal 'raus".In the camp he had to help strengthen the fencing, later he had to sort and burn documents. After his escape he was shot by a Polish farmer and he...
Sobibor Interviews 1983-1984
This project consists of fifteen interviews: thirteen interviews with survivors of the uprising on 14 October 1943 in the Sobibor extermination camp, one interview with two Polish locals and one with a survivor of the uprising in the crematorium of Auschwitz-Birkenau.The interviews of the Sobibor survivors were filmed in 1983 and 1984. During this period the trial against...