SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 43
“On June 26, 1943, all Sobibór prisoners were suddenly locked
in their barracks with strict orders to stay away from the windows so
as not to observe the outside. As we found out later, a transport of
the last 300 Jews from Be��ec had arrived in Sobibór. While being
unloaded, the Jews, realizing what was going to happen and aware
that there would be no salvation, resisted by running in all directions,
choosing to be shot rather than gassed. This act of defiance
was in vain: they were shot at random throughout the camp. The bodies
were later collected by the Bahnhofkommando and delivered to
Lager [camp] III for cremation.
While sorting their clothing and burning the documents, I found a
diary written up to the last minute which revealed that the transport
was made up of workers from the Be��ec death camp. The anonymous
author states that, after the closure of Be��ec in December of
1942, the surviving Jews had burned the corpses and dismantled the
camp in the period until June of 1943. The Germans told them that
they were being transferred to a new work place. They suspected a
trap.” (p. 56)
Blatt states that he handed this diary to Leon Feldhendler, his codetainee.
Feldhendler allegedly confirmed this in Lublin in 1944 (p. 56,
footnote 3). As Feldhendler was shot to death in a street of Lublin at the
end of 1944 by a Polish anti-Semite, he unfortunately could not make
this irreplaceable piece of evidence for the Be��ec Holocaust known to
the rest of the world… 62
The reason why Toivi Blatt allowed five decades to pass after his liberation
before he finally published a little book about his adventures is
probably the fact that he had to thoroughly study the literature about
Sobibór and the trial files – fortunately, not an overly taxing effort. We
must admit, though, that he did this very diligently and serves his readers
all the potboilers that can be found in the earlier works about the
camp, beginning with Shaul Stark, killed by the SS because one of the
geese he had been entrusted with suddenly died (p. 51), moving along
to Barry, the fiendish hound who would, on command, chew up the detainees’
genitals (p. 52; see on p. 99 of this book), right up to the old
Jew who, before being gassed, picked up a handful of dirt, threw it into
the wind, and said to an SS man: “This will happen to your Reich!” (p.
62 Shaindy Perl, Tell the World: The Story of the Sobibór Revolt, Eastern Book Press, Monsey
(NY) 2004, p. 244. Jules Schelvis (op. cit. (note 58), p. 234) dates Feldhendler’s
death to 6 April 1945.