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Chris Webb

The Sobibor Death Camp History, Biographies, Remembrance

Chris Webb

THE SOBIBOR DEATH CAMP History, Biographies, Remembrance

ibidem-Verlag Stuttgart

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

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Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem, säurefreien Papier Printed on acid-free paper ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-0966-1 © ibidem-Verlag

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Printed in Germany

Dedicated to Thomas (Toivi) Blatt

Thomas Toivi Blatt (left) – Izbica, Poland 1995 (Chris Webb Private Archive)

Part II Survivors, Victims, Perpetrators, and the Aftermath ............... 155 Chapter XIII Jewish Survivors and Victims (Roll of Remembrance) ................................................................156 Chapter XIV The Perpetrators .................................................... 303 Chapter XV Testimonies and Trials ........................................... 353 Chapter XVI Epilogue.................................................................. 378 Appendix 1 The Sobibór Area Labor Camps ...........................381 Appendix 2 List of Trawniki Männer Who Served at Sobibór Death Camp ..................................... 389 Illustrations and Sources ...................................................... 395 Documents, Drawings, Maps and Sources ........................... 433 Equivalent Ranks................................................................... 477 Glossary of Nazi Terms .......................................................... 479 Selected Bibliography ........................................................... 485 Sources and Acknowledgements .......................................... 489 Index of Names ...................................................................... 493

Foreword The Holocaust has never been so widely researched and discussed as it is today. Each year on 27 January an International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated throughout the world. The fo‐ cus of Holocaust ceremonies is the infamous Auschwitz‐Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Poland where an esti‐ mated 960,000 Jews were killed. Many films, novels and lessons in schools and at universities focus on this camp too. However, there were other camps, much less well known, such as Sobibór which was exclusively an extermination camp and operated from 16 May 1942 to 17 October 1943. Up to 250,000 Jews were killed in this camp. On 14 October 1943, a revolt by approximately 600 prisoners was made in an attempt to escape. Shortly after this the camp was closed. In this meticulously researched, and very well written mono‐ graph, Chris Webb tells the grim story of this camp, which was part of the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in German‐occupied Poland during 1942–43. This work also includes the unique Jewish Roll of Remembrance. Other previously published books on the Sobibór death camp have brief biographies of the survivors, but to my knowledge, none of these record the victims in the way that is pre‐ sented here. It is a book that is not only important for scholars, but also to teachers and lecturers of the Holocaust and this completes the tril‐ ogy of books written by Chris Webb on the three Aktion Reinhardt camps in Poland, Bełźec, Sobibór and Treblinka. Professor Frank McDonough Liverpool John Moores University July 2016

Author’s Introduction

Chris Webb – HMD Northampton University 2010 Photograph: Claire Feldman)

The Sobibór Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis, in order to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry, as part of the Aktion Reinhardt programme headed by Odilo Glo‐ bocnik, the SS and Police Leader of Lublin. On October 13, 1941 Heinrich Himmler Reichsführer‐SS met with Globocnik and Frie‐ drich‐Wilhelm Krüger, Higher SS and Police Leader East at the Füh‐ rer‘s Headquarters in Rastenburg, and Himmler ordered Globocnik to commence the murder programme. Following the construction of the extermination camp at Bełźec, in south‐eastern Poland during November 1941–March 1942, the Na‐ zis planned a second extermination camp at Sobibór, and the third and most deadly camp was built near the remote village of Tre‐

blinka. Sobibór was similar to the first camp in Bełźec in design, alt‐ hough in Sobibór most of the living quarters for the SS were con‐ tained within the camp itself, unlike at Bełźec where the SS living quarters were located outside the camp. Sobibór was regarded as an overflow camp of Bełźec and the Jews from the Lublin district and in time, Jews from Austria and Germany were also murdered there. Following RFSS—Heinrich Himmler’s visit in 1943, Jews from France and Holland met the same fate. This account of the Sobibór death camp is not for the faint hearted, it tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind. This account ranges from the survivors and the victims, to the SS men who carried out the atrocities. One cannot fail to be moved by the personal accounts of the survivors, those that survived this man‐made hell on earth, their loved ones may have perished in this factory of death, but they escaped to tell the world what happened there. What makes this work special is the research which has been gathered on the survivors, who by good fortune, courage and deter‐ mination survived Sobibór and built new lives for themselves, new families, but every day bore the scars of this terrible place. What is particularly chilling looking through the www.Joodsemonument.nl website is the recording of the destruction of whole families, often on the same day. The mass murder was chilling and the Nazis pro‐ duction line of death was relentless and remorseless. For the victims, details of their lives have been found, and re‐told to keep their memory alive, to show that they are not forgotten. In some cases we have found comprehensive information, whilst sadly for some, only scant details are known. The book covers the con‐ struction of the death camp, the physical layout of the camp, as re‐ membered by both the Jewish inmates and the SS staff who served there, and the personal recollections that detail the day to day expe‐ riences of the prisoners and the SS. 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. The courageous revolt by the pris‐ oners 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 some 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 my private archive. As I write this book, it is eerie that I can hear the sound of ma‐ chine‐gun fire from the nearby army ranges; looking out of my up‐ stairs study window, surrounded by trees. My mind wanders; think‐ ing of the dense forest that Sobibór lies within, and all those years ago, local people heard machine gun fire, coming from the forests that surrounded the death camp. This book has been written as a companion piece to the Tre‐ blinka death camp, which was co‐written with Michal Chocholaty, which was published in 2014 and my book on the Bełźec death camp which was published during 2016, both by Ibidem‐Verlag. They have been a fantastic publishing house to work with, and I must thank Valerie Lange for her tremendous efforts and support over the years. It has been a real pleasure working with her and her colleagues on all three books. The trilogy of books serve as a memorial to each individual who was murdered in these horrendous ‘factories of death’. Chris Webb, Whitehill, England – 14 October 2016

With Grateful Thanks Many people have helped me in my research, sadly some of them are no longer with us, and I am thinking of them as I pen these words. My first acknowledgement is to my father, Frederick John Webb, who was born in 1918, and lived through the Second World War. It was he who first stimulated my love of history in general and the Second World War in particular. In 1971, he bought me the book ‘The Final Solution’ by Gerald Reitlinger, and that started me on my way, in the field of Holocaust research. Before I set out the historical timeline, I must thank Professor Matthew Feldman, for his support and friendship and to his wife Claire for the fine photograph of me at the Holocaust Memorial Day at Northampton University in Janu‐ ary 2010. My heartfelt thanks go to Frank McDonough, Professor of Inter‐ national History at Liverpool John Moores University, who has kindly written the foreword to this book. Frank has written ac‐ claimed books on Sophie Scholl, and The Gestapo. I must also place on record my thanks to Tania Helene Mühlberger, who ably proof‐ read the book and made so many useful and helpful suggestions to improve it. I must finally thank Clare Spyrakis, who has designed the cover of this book and has now been responsible for the covers for all of my three books on the Aktion Reinhardt camps. In the mid‐1990’s, I was fortunate enough to make contact with Michael Tregenza, an English writer and historian who had relo‐ cated to Lublin in Poland. Michael is a well‐known expert on Aktion Reinhardt, in particular Bełźec. It was with Michael as a guide that I first went to Bełźec in 2000, and two years later the fledgling ARC group, which I co‐founded, went to Sobibór and Treblinka for the first time. I have consulted many documents and photographs that Michael has given to me over the years, connected with Aktion Rein‐ hardt in this book. 15

I first visited the Sobibór death camp in 2002 as part of the ARC group that produced the www.deathcamps.org website. Among the group was the late William ‘Billy’ Rutherford who made a scale model of the Sobibór death camp, which thankfully he filmed and passed onto me, prior to his death in 2011. Martin van Liempt and Robert Kuwalek, who were part of the ARC and H.E.A.R.T. groups, have also both sadly passed away. They both provided much infor‐ mation on the transports from the Netherlands to Sobibór and gen‐ eral information on the camp. They also gave me specific infor‐ mation on some of the Jews who were sent there, and they both pro‐ vided much encouragement and support. I must also thank Dr. Robin O’Neil, who, as a recognized expert on Bełźec and Aktion Reinhardt, gave me material from his own ex‐ tensive collections, including post‐war testimonies by former Trawnikimänner, who served in Aktion Reinhardt. Through Dr. Robin O’Neil I was able to make contact with the late Sir Martin Gilbert, who very kindly made a number of his maps available to both ARC and myself, and one of his maps graces this book. I am delighted to include this. Sir Martin very much fired my imagination with his numerous books on the Holocaust, and in particular his 1997 book, ‘Holocaust Journey,’ which is a fantastic read. His passing in 2014 was a great loss. As a result of my work with H.E.A.R.T. (Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team) which I co‐founded with Carmelo Lisciotto in 2006, I was fortunate enough to make contact with Thomas (Toivi) Blatt, a survivor from Sobibór, and I donated some historical photographs for his 2010 Polish edition book on Sobibór. I was also blessed with making contact with the late Jules Schelvis, who was selected on the ramp at Sobibór to work at the Dorohucza Labor Camp. I mention these two men, whose books on Sobibór have been an excellent reference and much quoted from in my book. In addi‐ tion the scholarly work on the three Aktion Reinhardt death camps, Bełźec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, by Yitzhak Arad, and Miriam Novitch’s book on Sobibór have also contributed to this book.

Turning to Holocaust and Historical Institutions, I cannot thank enough the support and provision of material from amongst others, Zvi Oren, Dafna Itzkovich and Judy Grossman at the Ghetto Fighters House in Israel, who kindly allowed me to use images from their extensive photo archive. Zvi Oren has supported my research for a great number of years and I thank him whole heartedly. David Sil‐ berklang, Emmanuelle Moscovitz and Shaul Fererro at Yad Vashem, Israel, have also helped and I am most grateful to them as well. I must also pay recognition to my long‐standing supporter, Ma‐ rek Jaros from the Wiener Library in London. Also I am grateful to Michael Abdo at the Hessisches Hauptarchiv Wiesbaden, Germany, for copies of Dr. Irmfried Eberl’s letter from Sobibór and supplying the rare photographs of Hubert Gomerski in Sobibór. I am also grateful to Florian Schwanninger and Peter Eigelsberger at the Schloss Hartheim, for a number of rare documents of Sobibór Per‐ sonnel, who also served at Hartheim. I am also very thankful to the NIOD and the Remembrance Cen‐ tre of Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands for their assistance in my research on the Jews deported from the Netherlands from Westerbork in order to compile the Roll of Remembrance. I must thank personally, Guido Abuys, from Camp Westerbork and Marieke Zoodsma from the NIOD in Amsterdam for all of their help, in relation to information supplied regarding Dutch Jews and Ger‐ man Jews who had settled in Holland, but were later deported to Sobibór. In respect of the NIOD, they helped me enormously with copies of German documents, particularly regarding the escape and shoot‐out letter from the Cholm Police Chief, dated January 7, 1943. They have simply been superb. I cannot thank enough Dr. Llewellyn Brown for his efforts in ob‐ taining a copy of the letter sent to Dr. Helmuth Knocken concerning deportations from France to Sobibór from the Centre de Documen‐ tation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) in Paris, which ended a long and difficult search.

Whilst rather late in my research I was lucky enough thanks to Tomasz Hanejko, the Belzec Museum Director, who put me in con‐ tact with Tomasz Oleksy –Zborowski, who works for the Sobibór Museum, in Włodawa, who was able to help me with a number of questions, that have been unresolved for years. I must also place on record my thanks to Marek Bem, for his book on Sobibór that has provided invaluable information, on the early days of the camp’s ex‐ istence. To Cameron Munro, Robert Parzer and the late Artur Hojan from the Tiergartenstrasse 4 Association, my heartfelt gratitude for their support and friendship over the years, as I look back with affection on our many Holocaust related trips to Poland and other countries. They have supported me with this book and my general research into the Holocaust. Cameron, Artur and myself visited Sobibór to‐ gether in 2004 and it was a memorable visit. Cameron very kindly let me use some of his photographs from our trip in this book, as did Paul Denton, and Robert Parzer confirmed with Grafeneck that Ru‐ dolf Beckmann, who served in Sobibór, was pictured next to Willy Mentz, in a photograph from 1940. Robert also pulled out all the stops, to provide documentation and information in various Ger‐ man archives, and I am extremely grateful for all his efforts. Writing about the destruction of so many families, it is no sur‐ prise that you think about your own family. So it is with much love and gratitude for their fantastic support over the years, that my lovely wife Shirley and our beautiful daughter Heather and her hus‐ band Mark deserve a special mention. I am truly blessed to have them in my life. Chris Webb Whitehill, England October 2016

Abbreviations used in the Footnotes BA

Bundesarchiv (Federal Archive), Germany

CDJC

Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Pa‐ ris, France

GFH

Ghetto Fighters House, Israel

HHS

Holocaust Historical Society, UK

National Archives Kew, UK (Formerly the Public Records Office ‐ PRO)

NARA

National Archives Washington DC, United States of America

NIOD

Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

USHMM

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States of America

The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide London

YVA

Yad Vashem Archives, Israel

The Author – Whitehill 2016 The Author, Chris Webb has studied the Holocaust for over 45 years. This book on the Sobibór death camp, is the latest book in his trilogy of the three Aktion Reinhardt camps, all published by ibidem‐Ver‐ lag, Germany. Chris has co‐founded a number of Holocaust web‐ sites, as well as acted as a consultant on a number of documentaries shown on television regarding the Holocaust. He has also donated images from his extensive private archive. He is a Research Associate for the Centre of Fascist, Anti‐Fascist and Post‐Fascist Studies at Teesside University.