Chaim angel

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Chaim Engel (born January 10, 1916 in Brudzew , Poland ; † July 4, 2003 in New Haven, Connecticut ) was deported with his brother and another 2,000 Jews in a prisoner transport to the Sobibór extermination camp , where he arrived on November 6, 1942. Chaim Engel was actively involved in the armed uprising in Sobibór .

Life

Chaim Engel and 27 prisoners were not driven into the gas chambers , but selected to work. In the camp he worked in the clothes sorting room, where the victims' belongings were sorted into bundles of 25 pieces of clothing. In the dressing room, strict care was taken to ensure that no sewn symbols (Jewish stars, name tags) were left on the victims' clothing. There he met Sartje (Selma) Wijnberg (May 15, 1922 in Groningen - December 4, 2018 in East Haven (Connecticut) ), who later became his wife. He let her know about the escape plans. Chaim Engel was for a time the block leader in the women's barracks in Camp I. At times he worked in the station command, where the prisoners were forced to take off their clothes before entering the gas chamber, and he was assigned to the hair-cutting barrack, where the women put their hair in front of theirs Gassing were cut off.

In the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943, he killed SS men Rudolf Beckmann and Thomas Steffl together with Kapo Pożyczki and was able to flee.

Chaim Engel and Sartje (Selma) Wijnberg, who worked in the sorting barracks and in the forest command, were among the 47 survivors of the Sobibór extermination camp at the end of the war. Selma and Ursula Engel were the only Dutch women who survived the transport of the Jews from Westerbork to Sobibór and the uprising.

On June 23, 1944, Chaim Engel and Selma Wijnberg were liberated by the Red Army near Chełm . They traveled via Odessa and Marseille to the Netherlands, where they married and lived in Zwolle . From Zwolle they emigrated to Israel and later to the USA .

During the Sobibór trial , Engel testified that Karl Frenzel shot the dentist Besler.

Chaim Engel's reports formed the basis of the 1987 television film about Sobibor ( Escape from Sobibor ) by Jack Gold with Rutger Hauer , Alan Arkin and Joanna Pacuła .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P 276
  2. ↑ New York Times : Selma Engel, 96, Dies; Escaped Death Camp and Revealed Its Horror
  3. ↑ Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P. 78 and 99 (see literature)
personal data
SURNAME Angel, Chaim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish Holocaust survivor of the Sobibór extermination camp
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Brudzew in Poland
DATE OF DEATH 4th July 2003
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut