This is a list of survivors of theSobibor extermination camp. The list is divided into two groups. The first comprises the 58 known survivors of those selected to perform forced labour for the camp's daily operation. The second comprises those deported to Sobibor but selected there for forced labor in other camps.
This list is as complete as current records allow. There were 58 known Sobibor survivors: 48 male and 10 female. Except where noted, the survivors wereArbeitshäftlinge, inmates who performed slave-labour for the daily operation of the camp, who escaped during the camp-wide revolt onOctober 14, 1943.
The vast majority of the people taken to Sobibor did not survive but were shot or gassed immediately upon arrival. Of theArbeitshäftlinge forced to work asSonderkommando inLager III, the camp's extermination area where the gas chambers and most of the mass graves were located, no one survived.
| Name | Birth | Death | Age at Death | From | Ethnicity | Arrival | Other names/spellings | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schlomo Alster[1] | December 1, 1908 | March 1992 | 83 | Chełm, Poland | Jewish | November 1942 (approximately) | Worked as a carpenter, and served on theBahnhofskommando. Emigrated toRehovot, Israel. | |
| Moshe Bahir[1] | July 19, 1927 | 2002[2] | 75 | Płock, Poland | May 24, 1942, fromZamość | Changed name from Moshe Szklarek. | Worked in provisions barracks, in theBahnhofskommando, and as a barber. Emigrated to Israel, where he wrote a testimony for theGhetto Fighter's House and testified at theEichmann Trial.[2] | |
| Antonius Bardach[1] | May 16, 1909 | 1959 (approximately)[citation needed] | 50 | Lemberg, Poland | March 30, 1943[citation needed] fromDrancy, France. | Later settled in Belgium. | ||
| Philip Bialowitz[1] | December 25, 1925 | August 6, 2016[2] | 90 | Izbica, Poland | January 1943[1] orApril 28, 1943[2] | Surname also "Białowicz". First name sometimes "Fishel" or "Fiszel".[3][2] | Brother of Symcha Bialowitz. Worked in sorting barracks and provisions barracks, and as a barber andBahnhofskommando member. Emigrated to the US and co-authored the memoirA Promise At Sobibor with his son Joseph. | |
| Symcha Bialowitz[4] | December 6, 1912 | February 2014[2] | 101 | April 28, 1943 | Brother of Philip Bialowitz. Worked in theWaldkommando and in the camp pharmacy. Participated in the revolt. Married a survivor from Zamość and settled in Israel. | |||
| Jakob Biskubicz[4] | March 17, 1926 | February 8, 2002 | 76 | Hrubieszów, Poland | May 1942[2] orJune 1942[4] | Was unloading a truck full of vodka for SSErich Bauer when the revolt began. Hid in Camp IV and escaped that night. Joined theParczew partisans[5][better source needed] and later settled in Israel, where he gavetestimony in the Eichmann trial. | ||
| Thomas "Toivi" Blatt[4] | April 15, 1927 | October 31, 2015[6] | 88 | Izbica, Poland | April 23, 1943 | Name also rendered as Toivi Blatt and Tomasz Blatt. Used the Polish name Bolesław Stankiewicz[7] for a short period after the war. | Escaped over the fence in theVorlager. Witness in post-war trials. Wrote Sobibor memoirFrom the Ashes of Sobibor and historySobibor: The Forgotten Revolt. Worked as an assistant to Richard Rashke in writingEscape from Sobibor and acted as a consultant on the movie adaptation. InterviewedKarl Frenzel. | |
| Herschel Cukierman[8] | April 15, 1893 | July 15, 1979[6] | 86 | Kurów, Poland | May 1942 | Hershel Zuckerman, including inEscape from Sobibor. | Father of Josef Cukierman. Arrived with wife and daughters who were gassed on arrival. Worked as a gardener before the war, but told the SS that he was a cook in order to be selected for work. Had an excellent memory which helped him identify SS officers in postwar trials.[6] | |
| Josef Cukierman[9] | May 26, 1930 | June 15, 1963 | 33 | May 1942 fromOpole Lubelski Ghetto | Joseph Zuckerman | Son of Herschel Cukierman. Worked with his father in the kitchens. After the war, lived in Stuttgart before moving to Karlsruhe. | ||
| Josef Duniec[9] | December 21, 1912 | December 1, 1965 | 52 | Równo, Poland | March 25, 1943 | Sent to Sobibor fromDrancy, having emigrated to France in 1932 in order to study chemistry. Moved to Israel after the war, where he died of a heart attack the day before he was expected to testify at the Sobibor trial. | ||
| Leon Cymiel[6] | February 20, 1924 | 1997 | 73 | Chełm, Poland | Spring1943 | Leon Szymiel | Stayed in Poland after war. Testimony availableat ushmm.org | |
| Chaim Engel[9] | January 10, 1916 | July 4, 2003 | 87 | Brudzew, Poland | November 6, 1942 | KilledSS-OberscharführerRudolf Beckmann during the revolt. Escaped withSelma Wijnberg-Engel and survived the rest of the war in hiding. The two later married and moved toConnecticut. | ||
| Selma Engel-Wijnberg[9] | May 15, 1922 | December 4, 2018 | 96 | Zwolle, Netherlands | April 9, 1943 | Saartje Engel, Selma Engel, Saartje Wijnberg, Selma Wijnberg, Selma Wynberg | Worked in the sorting barracks andWaldkommando. Escaped with Chaim Engel during the revolt. They survived the rest of the war in hiding together. The two later married. | |
| Leon Feldhendler[10] | 1910 | April 6, 1945 | 34 or 35 | Żółkiewka, Poland | early1943 | First name sometimes Lejb or Lejba. Surname sometimes Felhendler. | One of the co-organizers of the revolt. After fighting as a partisan, made his way back toLublin, where he was murdered under disputed circumstances. | |
| Dov Freiberg[10][11] | May 15, 1927 | 2008 | 80 | Warsaw, Poland | May 15, 1942 | First name also Berek. | Deported to Sobibor fromKrasnystaw, where he had been sent from theWarsaw Ghetto. After the revolt, hid withSimeon Rosenfeld after the revolt. Gavetestimony at theEichmann trial. Author of memoir"To Survive Sobibor". | |
| Catharina Gokkes[5][12][13][14][15] | September 1, 1923 | June 22, 1944 | 21 | Netherlands | April 9, 1943 | First name also Kitty, Katty, Kathy. | Was shot in the leg byKarl Frenzel during the escape. Joined Parczew partisans but was killed before liberation. | |
| Mordechai Goldfarb[10] | March 15, 1920 | June 8, 1984 | 64 | Piaski, Poland | November 6, 1942 | First name also Moshe. | Worked as a sign painter in Sobibor. Joined theParczew partisans after the revolt and later settled in Israel. | |
| Josef Herszman[10][16] | 1925 | 2005[citation needed] | 80 | Żółkiewka, Poland | 1942 | Worked in the sorting barracks. Later moved to Israel. Gave testimony at war crime trails. | ||
| Moshe Hochman[17][18][19] | March 15, 1935 | June 8, 1993[citation needed] | 58 | April 1942 | Worked as the foreman in the tailor's shop. He hid Niemann's body after getting him to try on a new jacket. | |||
| Zyndel Honigman[20] | April 10, 1910 | July 1989[citation needed] | 79 | Kiev, Ukraine | November 1942 | Escaped from the camp twice. Taken to Sobibor in November 1942 from Gorzków near Izbica, he escaped by crawling under a fence. Was captured and sent back in April 1943, where he worked in the kitchen and in the forest brigade. Escaped from the forest brigade and joined theParczew partisans. | ||
| Abram Kohn[21] | July 25, 1910 | January 19, 1986 | 75 | Łódź, Poland | May 1942 | Abraham Kohn | Worked in the kitchens, the sorting barracks, and forest brigade. Later moved to Australia. | |
| Josef Kopp[21] | 1944 or 1945 | Biłgoraj, Poland | Allegedly escaped by killing a Ukrainian guard onJuly 27, 1943 while on duties outside of the camp in the nearby village ofZlobek; did not survive World War II. | |||||
| Chaim Korenfeld[21] | May 15, 1923 | August 13, 2002 | 79 | Izbica, Poland | April 28, 1943 | Worked in the forest brigade. Unclear whether he escaped with the forest brigade or in the ultimate revolt. Later moved to Italy, then Brazil. | ||
| Chaim Powroznik[22] | unknown | Polish | Testimony available.[23][a] | |||||
| Chaim Leist[21][25] | Unknown | October 2005 | Żółkiewka, Poland | April 23, 1943 | Lajst | Little is known about him except that he worked in Sobibor as a gardener and that he settled in Israel after the war. | ||
| Samuel Lerer[26][27] | October 1, 1922 | March 3, 2016 | 93 | May 1942 | Szmuel | Worked in the stables and later in the Erbhof, taking care of chickens and ducks. During the revolt, he escaped with Ester Raab and hid with a friend of her family. In 1949, he and Raab encountered Sobibor "gasmeister"Hermann Erich Bauer in Berlin, leading to his arrest. Moved to New York City and became a cab driver. | ||
| Yehuda Lerner[26] | July 22, 1926 | 2007 | 81 years | Warsaw, Poland | September 1943 | Jehuda Lerner, sometimes went by "Leon" | He and Arkady Wajspapir killed two guards,SS-OberscharführerSiegfried Graetschus andVolksdeutscher Ivan Klatt during the revolt. Joined theParczew partisans and later settled in Israel. Interviewed extensively in the documentarySobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. | |
| Ada Lichtman[26] | January 1, 1915 | 1993 | 78 | Jarosław, Poland | June 1943 | Eda Fisher, Eda Lichtman | Worked in the laundry and as a knitress, where she was regarded as a "surrogate mother" to other prisoners. Joined theParczew partisans. Moved to Israel, married another survivor, and gavetestimony at theEichmann trial.[5] | |
| Jitschak Lichtman[26][28] | December 10, 1908 | 1992 | 83 or 84 | Żółkiewka, Poland | May 15, 1942 | Itzhak Lichtman | Joined the Parczew partisans. Married Ada Lichtman (Fischer). | |
| Yefim Litwinowski[29] | May 25, 1921[citation needed] | January 29, 1993[citation needed] | 71 | Soviet | September 22, 1943 | Red Army soldier in Pechersky's group. Was a participant of the uprising and subsequently rejoined the Red Army. | ||
| Abraham Margulies[29] | January 25, 1921 | 1984 | 62 or 63 | Żyrardów, Poland | lateMay 1942 | Worked in the Bahnhofskommando, as well as kitchens and sorting barracks. Joined the Parczew partisans withHela Felenbaum-Weiss, then emigrated to Israel, where he worked as a printer. | ||
| Chaskiel Menche[29] | January 7, 1910 | 1984 | 73 or 74 | Koło, Poland | June 1942 | Worked in sorting barracks then as a shoe shiner and hat maker. Emigrated to Australia after the war. | ||
| Mojzesz Merenstein[citation needed] | January 15, 1899 | December 1985 | 86 | Polish | Worked with Felhendler to plan revolt. | |||
| Zelda Metz[29] | May 1, 1925 | 1980 | 54 or 55 | Siedliszcze, Poland | December 20, 1942 | Zelda Kelbermann | Cousin of Regina Zielinski. Worked as a knitress and in the laundry. Went toLviv after the escape, where pretended to be Catholic and worked as a nanny. Emigrated to the US in 1946. | |
| Alexander Pechersky[5][better source needed] | February 22, 1909 | January 19, 1990 | 80 | Ukrainian | September 22, 1943 | Sasha Pechersky | Chief organizer and leader of the revolt. Red Army soldier who joined theParczew partisans. | |
| Nachum Platnitzky | 1913 | unknown | Belarusian | Surname also listed as Plotnikow; | Lived in Pinsk, Belarus after the war. | |||
| Shlomo Podchlebnik[5] | February 15, 1907 | February 1973 | 66 | Polish | April 28, 1943 | He andJosef Kopp escaped by killing a Ukrainian guard onJuly 27, 1943 while on duties outside of the camp in the nearby village ofZlobek. | ||
| Gertrud Poppert–Schönborn | June 29, 1914 | Nov 1943 | 29 | German | Luka, Loeka | Identified by Jules Schelvis as likely identity of "Luka". Presumed dead following mass escape.[30][31] | ||
| Esther Raab[5][32] | June 11, 1922 | April 13, 2015 | 92 | Polish | December 20, 1942 | Née Terner, she became known as Esther Raab after her 1946 marriage to Irving Raab. | She identified gas chamber executioner Erich Bauer after the war in Berlin, leading to his arrest. | |
| Simjon Rosenfeld[33][better source needed] | October 10, 1922 | June 3, 2019 | 96 | Soviet | September 22, 1943 | Semion Rosenfeld, Semyon Rosenfeld, Semion Rozenfeld. | Red Army soldier under Pechersky's command. Was separated from the other Russians and survived in hiding. Rejoined the Red Army and fought in theBattle of Berlin, where he carved the name "Sobibor" into the wall of the Reich Chancellery. Returned to the Soviet Union, but eventually emigrated to Israel.[5] | |
| Ajzik Rotenberg[5][better source needed] | 1925 | 1994 | 69 | Polish | May 12, 1943 | Joined theParczew partisans. Murdered in 1994 in Israel by two Palestinian terrorists. | ||
| Joseph Serchuk | 1919 | November 6, 1993 | 74 | Surname also spelled Serczuk. | Brothers Joseph and David Serchuk escaped the day after arriving when on forest duty. | |||
| David Serchuk | 1948 | |||||||
| Alexander Shubayev | 1945 | Belarusian | Often referred to in accounts by the nickname "Kali Mali". | Red Army soldier. Killed deputy commandantJohann Niemann with anaxe to his head. Joined theParczew partisans after escaping the camp, but was killed.[5][34] | ||||
| Ursula Stern[5][better source needed] | August 28, 1926 | September 19, 1983 | 57 | German | April 9, 1943 | Changed her name to Ilana Safran after the war. | Joined theParczew partisans. Witness atHagen trial. | |
| Stanisław Szmajzner | March 13, 1927 | March 3, 1989 | 61 | Polish | May 12, 1942 | Shlomo Smajzner, Szlomo Smajzner | Goldsmith and machinist in Sobibor. Made the knives used in the revolt, and also stole rifles. Shot a guard in one of the guard towers. After escaping, joined the Parczew partisans[5] and eventually emigrated to Brazil where he worked as an executive in a paper factory. Testified againstFranz Stangl, and identifiedGustav Wagner at a police station in Goiana. | |
| Boris Tabarinsky | 1917 | 2004 | Belarusian | September 22, 1943 | Job was to cut the barbed wire fence as a backup exit.[5] | |||
| Kurt Ticho[5] | April 11, 1914 | June 8, 2009 | 95 | Czech | November 6, 1942 | Kurt Thomas | Worked as a nurse in Sobibor. After the war, he brought charges against SS officersHubert Gomerski andJohann Klier. | |
| Israel Trager | March 5, 1906 | August 1, 1969 | 63 | Polish | Mar 1943 | Shrulke | Camp bricklayer andBahnhofkommando train station worker. After the war moved to Israel.[5][better source needed] | |
| Aleksej Waizen | May 30, 1922 | January 14, 2015 | 92 | Ukrainian | autumn1943 | Worked in sorting room.[35][5] | ||
| Arkady Wajspapir[5][36][better source needed][34][37][better source needed] | 1921 | January 11, 2018 | 96 | Russian | September 22, 1943 | He andJehuda Lerner killed two guards withaxe blows,SS-OberscharführerSiegfried Graetschus andVolksdeutscher Ivan Klatt, during the revolt. A Red Army soldier, he joined theParczew partisans.[citation needed] | ||
| Abraham Wang[5][better source needed] | January 2, 1921 | 1978 | 57 | Polish | Apr 23, 1943 | Escaped onJul 27, 1943, along with four other prisoners. | ||
| Hela Felenbaum-Weiss | November 25, 1925 | December 1988 | 63 | December 20, 1942 | Joined theParczew partisans; later joined the Red Army.[5][better source needed] | |||
| Kalmen Wewryk | June 25, 1906 | Unknown | November 1942 | Joined partisans after the revolt.[5][better source needed] | ||||
| Regina Zielinski | September 2, 1924 | September 2014 | December 20, 1942 | Née Feldman | Worked as a knitter in Sobibor. After the war, married a Polish Catholic army officer and settled in Australia. Her son wrote a book "Conversations with Regina" which recounts her experiences as well as his own later-in-life discovery of his Jewish origins and his mother's status as a Holocaust survivor. | |||
| Meier Ziss[38][39] | November 15, 1927 | 2003 | Żółkiewka, Poland | May 1942 | Arrived on one of the first transports. After the war, he moved to Venezuela and then to Israel, where he worked in electronics. |
Selections sometimes took place at the point of departure, often well before people were forced to board the trains, but there are also reports of selections from trains alreadyen route to the camps. In his June 20, 1942 report, Revier-Leutnant der Schutzpolizei Josef Frischmann, in charge of the guard unit on the train, wrote that "51 Jews capable of work" were removed from the transport at Lublin station. The train had departed Vienna on June 14, 1942, ostensibly for Izbica, but the remaining 949 people on board were delivered to their final destination in Sobibor.[40][b]
The precise number of those spared upon arrival in the Sobibor extermination camp is unknown, but there were occasional selections there, for forced labour in other camps and factories, amounting to a total of several thousand people. Many of those selected subsequently perished due to harsh conditions in the slave-labour details. A number of them were murdered after internal selections, following transfers toMajdanek andAuschwitz, where people were also routinely murdered by hanging or shooting for arbitrary offences. Thousands of Jews initially selected for slave-labour were among those killed in the Lublin district duringAktion Erntefest, and many were shot or succumbed on thedeath marches in the closing stages of the Nazi regime. However, some of the people selected at Sobibor ultimately survived beyond the total defeat and unconditional surrender of the Nazis in May 1945.[40]
On August 17, 1943, a survivor fromSabinov in Slovakia, who has remained anonymous, wrote a report in which he described his selection in Sobibor, together with approximately 100 men and 50 women, upon arrival. For slave-labour in the drainage works in the vicinity of Sobibor they were taken toKrychów. He had arrived following the violent clearance of deported Slovakian Jews and the few remaining Polish Jews from theRejowiec ghetto on August 9, 1942. He described how a few additional skilled workers, technicians, blacksmiths and watchmakers were separated upon arrival in Sobibor. He further wrote that fire was visible in the night sky in the vicinity of Sobibor, and that the stench of burning hair permeated the air.[40][c]
Approximately 1,000 people were selected from the 34,313 named deportees who had been deported from the Netherlands via Westerbork to Sobibor between March 2 and July 20, 1943. Only 16 of them, 13 women and three men, survived.[d]From the group of approximately 30 women selected from the train which left Westerbork with 1,015 people on March 10, 1943, 13 survived the various camps.[e] Although they were split up after arrival in Lublin and returned to the Netherlands via different camps and routes, this was the largest single group of survivors from any one of the 19 trains which departed the Netherlands.Upon arrival they were separated from the other deportees and shortly afterwards taken by train to Lublin, where they spent the next months in various work details divided over Majdanek and theAlter Flugplatz camp, on the site of an airfield. Eventually, eleven of the women were transferred toMilejów, where they worked for a brief period in aWehrmacht operated provisions factory, but were soon taken toTrawniki, with a larger group of men and women of mixed nationality, in the immediate aftermath ofAktion Erntefest in November 1943. Here, their first assignment was assisting in body disposal and sorting the looted possessions of those murdered at the Trawniki camp. After body disposal had nearly been completed, the remaining men were also murdered.Elias Isak Alex Cohen was the only survivor of the March 17, 1943 transport. He was taken to Majdanek with a group of approximately 35 people selected based on profession. His experiences include a period operating machinery in the ammunition factory inSkarżysko-Kamienna, where the poisonous materials and lack of protections decimated the forced-labourers. Jozef Wins was the only one to return to the Netherlands from the May 11 transport. He was among a group of 80 men taken toDorohucza.Jules Schelvis was the sole survivor of the 3,006 people on the deportation train of June 1, 1943, He too was taken to Dorohucza, with a group of 80 other men. From the remaining 14 trains, people were also selected but no one survived theHolocaust.[61][40][43][62][63][64][65][66][67][68]