The Sobibor Death Camp

The Sobibor Death Camp
Author: Chris Webb
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2017-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 3838209664

The Sobibor Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis as part of the secretive Operation Reinhardt—with intent to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry. Following the construction of the extermination camp at Belzec in south-eastern Poland from November 1941 to March 1942, the Nazis planned a second extermination camp at Sobibor, and the third and deadliest camp was built near the remote village of Treblinka. Sobibor was similarly designed as the first camp in Belzec, it was regarded as an 'overflow' camp for Belzec. This account of the Nazis' remorseless and relentless production line of killing at the Sobibor death camp tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind. Chris Webb's painstakingly researched volume ranges from the survivors and the victims to the SS men who carried out the atrocities. What makes this work special is the research which has been gathered on the survivors, who by good fortune, courage, and determination survived Sobibor and built new lives for themselves, new families, but bore the scars of this terrible place for all of their lives. Closing a gap in the existing literature, Webb focuses on the victims and presents details of their lives which have been found and re-tells them to keep their memory alive, to show they are not forgotten. The cruel and barbaric murder process is described in great detail, as well as the confiscation of the valuables and possessions of the unfortunate Jews who crossed the threshold of this man-made hell. One cannot fail to be moved by the personal accounts of those who survived, their loved ones perished in this factory of death. The book covers the construction of the death camp, the physical layout of the camp, as remembered by both the Jewish inmates and the SS staff who served there, and the personal recollections that detail the day to day experiences of the prisoners and the SS. The courageous revolt by the prisoners on October 14, 1943 is re-told by the prisoners and the German SS, with detailed accounts of the revolt and its aftermath. The post-war fate of the perpetrators, or more precisely those that were brought to trial, and information regarding the more recent history of the site itself concludes this book. There is a large photographic section of rare and some unpublished photographs and documents from the author's private archive.

A Promise at Sobibór

A Promise at Sobibór
Author: Philip “Fiszel” Bialowitz
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2010-11-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0299248038

A Promise at Sobibór is the story of Fiszel Bialowitz, a teenaged Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi gas chambers. Between April 1942 and October 1943, about 250,000 Jews from European countries and the Soviet Union were sent to the Nazi death camp at Sobibór in occupied Poland. Sobibór was not a transit camp or work camp: its sole purpose was efficient mass murder. On October 14, 1943, approximately half of the 650 or so prisoners still alive at Sobibór undertook a daring and precisely planned revolt, killing SS officers and fleeing through minefields and machine-gun fire into the surrounding forests, farms, and towns. Only about forty-two of them, including Fiszel, are known to have survived to the end of the war. Philip (Fiszel) Bialowitz, now an American citizen, tells his eyewitness story here in the real-time perspective of his own boyhood, from his childhood before the war and his internment in the brutal Izbica ghetto to his harrowing six months at Sobibór—including his involvement in the revolt and desperate mass escape—and his rescue by courageous Polish farmers. He also recounts the challenges of life following the war as a teenaged displaced person, and his eventual efforts as a witness to the truth of the Holocaust. In 1943 the heroic leaders of the revolt at Sobibór, Sasha Perchersky and Leon Feldhendler, implored fellow prisoners to promise that anyone who survived would tell the story of Sobibór: not just of the horrific atrocities committed there, but of the courage and humanity of those who fought back. Bialowitz has kept that promise. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association for School Libraries Best Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association for School Libraries Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the Public Library Association

The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

The Operation Reinhard Death Camps
Author: Yitzhak Arad
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2018-07-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253034477

Under the code name Operation Reinhard, more than one and a half million Jews were murdered between 1942 and 1943 in the concentration camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Unlike more well-known camps, which were used both for slave labor and extermination, these camps existed purely to murder Jews. Few victims survived to tell their stories, and the camps were largely forgotten after they were dismantled in 1943. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps bears eloquent witness to this horrific tragedy. This newly revised and expanded edition includes new material on the history of the Jews under German occupation in Poland; the execution and timing of Operation Reinhard; information about the ghettos in Lublin, Warsaw, Krakow, Radom, and Galicia; and updated numbers of the victims who were murdered during deportations. In addition to documenting the horror of the camps, Yitzhak Arad recounts the stories of those courageous enough to struggle against the Nazis and their "final solution." Arad's work retrieves the experiences of Operation Reinhard's victims and survivors from obscurity and exposes a terrible chapter in humanity's history.

Sasha Pechersky

Sasha Pechersky
Author: Selma Leydesdorff
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2017-06-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351627198

Despite leading the only successful prisoner revolt at a World War II death camp, Aleksandr "Sasha" Pechersky never received the public recognition he deserved in his home country of Russia. This story of a forgotten hero reveals the tremendous difference in memorial cultures between societies in the West and societies in the former Communist world

Sobibor

Sobibor
Author: Jules Schelvis
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2014-05-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 147258905X

Auschwitz. Treblinka. The very names of these Nazi camps evoke unspeakable cruelty. Sobibör is less well known, and this book discloses the horrors perpetrated there.Established in German-occupied Poland, the camp at Sobibör began its dreadful killing operation in May 1942. By October 1943, approximately 167,000 people had been murdered there. Sobibör is not well documented and, were it not for an extraordinary revolt on 14 October 1943, we would know little about it. On that day, prisoners staged a remarkable uprising in which 300 men and women escaped. The author identifies only forty-seven who survived the war.Sent in June 1943 to Sobibör, where his wife and family were murdered, Jules Schelvis has written the first book-length, fully documented account of the camp. He details the creation of the killing centre, its personnel, the use of railways, selections, forced labour, gas chambers, escape attempts and the historic uprising.In documenting this part of Holocaust history, this compelling and well-researched account advances our knowledge and understanding of the Nazi attempt to annihilate the European Jews.Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka
Author: Yitzhak Arad
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1999-03-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780253213051

" . . . Mr. Arad reports as a controlled and effective witness for the prosecution. . . . Mr. Arad's book, with its abundance of horrifying detail, reminds us of how far we have to go."—New York Times Book Review " . . . some of the most gripping chapters I have ever read. . . . the authentic, exhaustive, definitive account of the least known death camps of the Nazi era." —Raul Hilberg Arad, historian and principal prosecution witness at the Israeli trial of John Demjanjuk (accused of being Treblinka's infamous "Ivan the Terrible"), uses primary materials to reveal the complete story of these Nazi death camps.

Sobibor

Sobibor
Author: Jean Molla
Publisher:
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2005
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN:

""I did it so they'd stop me," Emma said, when she was caught stealing biscuits from a supermarket. But Emma is hiding behind these tough words and her waif-like body... Emma is sixteen and anorexic. Why does she do it? Is it her parents' indifference, the long family silences, the lies they tell each other? Emma wants to know. She wants to understand. When she discovers an old notebook in her grandparents' house, disturbing secrets emerge that demand an answer."--BOOK JACKET.

The Treblinka Death Camp

The Treblinka Death Camp
Author: Chris Webb
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2014-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 3838265467

This book is the definitive account of one of history's most infamous death factories, where approximately 800,000 people lost their lives. From the Nazis who ran it to the Ukrainian guards and maids, the Jewish survivors, and the Poles living in the camp's shadow -- this text represents every perspective. It provides biographies of the Jews who perished in the death camp as well as those who escaped from Treblinka in individual efforts or as part of the mass prisoner uprising on August 2, 1943. It also includes unique and previously unpublished sketches of the camp's ramp area and gas chamber, drawn by survivors.

Escaping Hitler

Escaping Hitler
Author: Phyllida Scrivens
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 147387873X

Escaping Hitler is the true story, covering ninety years, of a fourteen-year-old boy Gnter Stern who, when Adolf Hitler threatened his family, education and future, resolved to escape from his rural village of Nickenich in the German Rhineland. In July 1939 Gnter boarded a bus to the border with Luxembourg, illegally crossed the river and walked alone for seven days through Belgium into Holland, intent on catching a ferry to England and freedom. The outcome was not exactly as he had planned. The author gathered her information through interviews with Gnter, now known as Joe Stirling, and with those closest to him. During an emotional foot-stepping journey in September 2013 the author visited Gnters birthplace, met with a school friend, discovered the apartment in Koblenz where he fled following Kristallnacht in 1938, drove the route of Gnters walk through Europe and retraced the final steps of his parents prior to their deportation to a Nazi death camp in Poland during 1942.