SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 85
14 October. The Jews who succeeded to escape split into various
groups. On 22 October Pechersky’s group encountered a unit of Soviet
underground fighters and decided to join them.
An investigation into Pechersky’s fate after that date yields the most
astonishing contradictions. The Russian edition of Wikipedia tells us: 190
“After the liberation of Byelorussia, [191] Pechersky was suspected
of treason and assigned to a disciplinary battalion. The commander
of that battalion, Major Andreyev, was so moved by Pechersky’s account
that, in spite of the prohibition to leave the territory of the
unit, he allowed Pechersky to travel to Moscow and to depose before
the commission investigating the misdeeds of the German-Fascist intruders
and their helpers. Being members of the commission, the
writers Pawel Antokolskij and Wenjamin Kawerin heard Pechersky’s
account. On that basis they published an article entitled
Wosstanje w Sobibore (Uprising at Sobibór). [192] After the war, this
text was incorporated into the famous collection The Black Book.
[…] In 1948, during the course of the political persecution of socalled
‘unpatriotic cosmopolites,’ he lost his job. For the following
five years he could not find employment and depended on the support
of his wife.”
However, in a conversation with another Sobibór detainee, Thomas
(Toivi) Blatt, which took place in 1979 according to T. Blatt 193 and in
1980 according to the English edition of Wikipedia, 194 Pechersky says
nothing about the disciplinary battalion. Instead he maintains that he
suffered a serious wound in his leg during action in August of 1944 and
was awarded a medal for bravery on that occasion. 195 He was, however,
not able to enjoy this for any length of time, because, as he tells us: 196
“I was thrown into prison for many years. I was considered a
traitor because I had surrendered to the Germans, even as a
wounded soldier. After people from abroad kept inquiring about me,
I was finally released.”
190 http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/���������,_���������_��������
191 The northwestern part of the Soviet Union south of the Baltic states is referred to at times
as White Russia (literal translation into English), Byelorussia (Russian name),
Byelorussian SSR (political unit of the USSR), or Belarus (today’s name of the independent
country).
192 A footnote informs us that this article appeared in No. 4/1945 of the magazine Znamya.
193 T. Blatt, op. cit. (note 17), p. 121.
194 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pechersky
195 T. Blatt, op. cit. (note 17), p. 123.
196 Ibid., p. 124.