Philip Bialowitz

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Philip Bialowitz on the 70th anniversary of the uprising in Sobibór (October 14, 2013)
Philip Bialowitz (Sobibór 2013)
Signature of Philip Bialowitz, letter dated August 10, 2009
Business card Philip Bialowitz (2004)

Philip Bialowitz (also Filip Bialowicz or Fiszel Bialowicz ; born November 25, 1929 in Izbica , Poland ; † August 6, 2016 in Delray Beach , Florida ) was an American jeweler of Polish-Jewish origin. He was one of the 47 survivors of the Sobibór extermination camp in present-day Poland known by name and took an active part in the uprising there on October 14, 1943 . According to Jules Schelvis , this was the only way he survived the Holocaust . He witnessed the Sobibor trials in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the 2010 trial of John Demjanjuk, and campaigned for a new Sobibór memorial in 2013. Until the time of his death, Bialowitz was considered the last remaining Jew of Polish descent who was involved in the Sobibór uprising and who survived it.

Life

In the Sobibór extermination camp 1943–1945

Philip Bialowitz was deported to Sobibór in April 1943 at the age of 13, together with his 30-year-old brother Symcha, from his place of birth, the shtetl Izbica, because of his Jewish origins . The older brother posed as a pharmacist and Philip as his assistant.

They were used as labor prisoners. Philip had to look for valuables such as money and jewels hidden in bread and other products. At times he was also used as a “hairdresser” for cutting women's hair before they were murdered in the gas chambers .

Occasionally Bialowitz was called in as a helper for the so-called station command, which had to quickly clear the wagons of arriving Jews. To do this, under the control of SS personnel, he had to push the carts of the Lorenbahn fully loaded with people to just before camp 3, where the gassings took place. As soon as the car doors were opened after the transport trains arrived at the station, Bialowitz saw that many people had not survived the transport and that most of them were half starved.

Like his brother Symcha, Philip Bialowitz was a member of the resistance group that carried out the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943. His task was to lure various SS men one after the other into an ambush by reporting to them that valuable finds had been made in the luggage of Jews. Twelve of the highest-ranking SS men in Sobibór were killed in this way by the insurgents. After the uprising, Bialowitz and his brother were able to hide with a Polish peasant family.

Witness in court proceedings from the 1960s through 2010

After the war , Bialowitz first trained as a dentist in Germany, but then emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a jeweler until his retirement. In the 1960s and 1970s he testified as a witness at the Sobibor trials in Hagen . In particular, in 1963 he described his experiences as a temporary member of the so-called station command and described the arrival of Jewish transports from the Galicia district . In 1974, in a transcript of the interrogation at the German Consulate General in New York, he stated that, according to his experiences in the camp, not only had individual SS members been involved in shooting actions against prisoners, but such participation was the norm for SS men working in the extermination camp been.

Together with Sobibór survivor Thomas Blatt , Philip Bialowitz was interrogated as a prosecution witness in the 2010 trial against John Demjanjuk . Both were also joint plaintiffs in this process. As a prisoner of work at the Sobibor extermination camp, where Demjanjuk had served as an SS guard, Bialowitz reported how the guards drove prisoners into the gas chambers with bayonets , but could no longer specifically remember Demjanjuk.

Commitment to the new Sobibór memorial in 2013

In October 2013, Bialowitz wrote a letter to Bundestag President Norbert Lammert , appealing that the German Bundestag should initiate a financial contribution from Germany to the construction of a new memorial in the former Sobibór extermination camp. The previous Sobibór memorial had to be closed in 2011 due to lack of money. A new and more dignified memorial for the victims of Sobibór, which is currently being planned, is estimated to cost three million euros.

In contrast to Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Israel have so far pledged to support the project with a total of two million euros. But he is confident that Berlin understands how important the memorial project and its support, especially by the Federal Republic of Germany, is.

Fonts

  • Philip "Fiszel" Bialowitz: A Promise at Sobibor: A Jewish Boy's Story of Revolt and Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland . University of Wisconsin Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-299-24800-0

literature

Web links

Commons : Philip Bialowitz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jules Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp , p. 12, 199ff.
  2. ↑ Holocaust hero passes away at 90 , israelnationalnews.com of August 8, 2016, accessed on August 10, 2016 (English).
  3. ↑ Holocaust hero Bialowitz passes away at 90 , sdjewishworld.com from August 8, 2016, accessed on August 10, 2016 (English).
  4. ↑ Franziska Bruder: Hundreds of such heroes , pp. 130–132. According to Jules Schelvis, Sobibór extermination camp , p. 284, Philip had already been deported to Sobibór in January 1943, three months before his brother.
  5. ^ Jules Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp , pp. 87, 284.
  6. ↑ Jules Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp , p. 82 f.
  7. ↑ Jules Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp , pp. 199–203
  8. ↑ a b Rosalia Romaniec: A survivor from Sobibor . Deutsche Welle , October 14, 2013; accessed on August 8, 2016.
  9. ↑ Philip Bialowitz: Sobibor Death Camp Survivor (1925 - 2016) . On blogspot , accessed August 8, 2016.
  10. ↑ Jules Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp , pp. 82f., 281.
  11. ^ Franziska Bruder: Hundreds of such heroes , p. 166.
  12. ↑ Demjanjuk Trial: "We heard the screams from the gas chambers" . süddeutsche.de , May 17, 2010, accessed on August 8, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Bialowitz, Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bialowitz, Fiszel; Bialowicz, Filip
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Survivor of the Sobibór extermination camp
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Izbica
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 2016
Place of death Delray Beach