[36] p. : ill., portr. ; 19 cm.

Duits, Engels, Nederlands, Pools, Portugees en Russisch gesproken, Nederlands ondertiteld. (135 min.) : kleur, geluid. + Handleiding (33 p.)

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".

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 camp commander Karl Frenzel ...

Archief 804: Onderzoek - Vernietigingskamp Sobibor 8. Aanvullingen

Archief 804: Onderzoek - Vernietigingskamp Sobibor 8. Aanvullingen

Selma Engel was born Saartje Wijnberg on May 15, 1922, in Groningen. Her parents ran a kosher hotel in Zwolle during the crisis years. Being Jewish, Selma went into hiding during the German occupation. She was rounded up and deported to Sobibor as a penitentiary measure in April 1943. She lived in this extermination camp for six months, working in the sorting barracks and, sometimes, in the woods. ...

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 one of the eighteen Dutch ...

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 engineer. After his recovery ...

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 two years later. When they ...

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: "My heart is lighter now ...

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 received six decorations, ...

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 wandered through the surrounding ...

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 reunited with her long lost brother. ...

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 refused to hurry: "I don't ...

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 gun'. Apart from making gold jewellery ...

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 after the uprising he felt ...

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 Frenzel. After the war ...