SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

46 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
In spite of this, the book is valuable because it enables us to judge
the credibility of Esther Raab, a witness for the prosecution who appeared
in 1950 at the two Sobibór trials. 66
2.3.16. Michael Lev (2007)
The English translation of a novel entitled Sobibór has been published
in Israel and the USA. The original was written in Yiddish sometime
in the 1960s (the exact date is not indicated) by the Soviet writer
Michael Lev. 67 The hero of the novel is a Polish Jew named Berek
Schlesinger who is deported to Sobibór by the Germans, takes part in
the uprising of 14 October 1943, and joins the Soviet partisans after his
escape. Literary criticism not being our specialty, we have no reason to
discuss this “masterpiece of historical fiction” the cover of the book
promises us.
2.3.17. Dov Freiberg (2007)
The same year saw the publication in the USA of the English version
of a book that had appeared twenty years earlier in Hebrew, written by
the former Sobibór detainee Dov Freiberg (who used to call himself Ber
Freiberg) and entitled To Survive Sobibór. 68 The fourth chapter of our
book is devoted to the analysis of witness testimonies, and Freiberg’s
statements will be discussed there in the necessary detail.
2.3.18. Barbara Distel (2008)
Before the year 2008 no German historian had mustered up enough
courage to write an article, let alone a book, about Sobibór. The world
had to wait for Barbara Distel, long-time head of the Dachau memorial
site, who squeezed a 30-page article entitled “Sobibór” 69 into the eighth
volume of a series she and Wolfgang Benz have been editing. Barbara
Distel’s text marks the intellectual and moral low point of the literature
about this camp.
Concerning the number of victims ascribed to Sobibór, Barbara Distel
starts out by saying that this figure “is taken to be 150,000 to
250,000” (p. 375). At the end of her contribution she opts for 250,000
66 Cf. chapters 6.2 f.
67 Michael Lev, Sobibór, Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem and New York 2007.
68 Dov Freiberg, To Survive Sobibór, Gefen Books, Lynnbrook (NY) 2007.
69 Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.), Der Ort des Terrors. Geschichte der nationalsozialistischen
Konzentrationslager, Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich 2008.