Jules Schelvis

Jules Schelvis (2006)

Jules Schelvis (born January 7, 1921 in Amsterdam ; died April 3, 2016 in Amstelveen ) was a Dutch concentration camp survivor. He was a prisoner of several concentration camps, including the Sobibór extermination camp , and later appeared as a joint plaintiff in the Sobibor trials . Schelvis has published his experiences in a book that is considered a standard work on the Sobibór extermination camp.

Life

Jules Schelvis, his wife Rachel and their family were arrested as Jews in May 1943 in Amsterdam by the German police. This was followed by deportation to Sobibór via the Westerbork transit camp . Schelvis, who came to Sobibór in a transport of more than 3,000 people, was one of 81 men who were selected as labor prisoners and were not murdered in the gas chambers on the day of arrival. Jules Schelvis was the only one of his transport to survive and was one of eighteen Dutch Jews who survived the Sobibór concentration camp. As a labor prisoner he was taken to the SS labor camp Dorohucza and then to the Radom ghetto . Later deported to Auschwitz , he again escaped death by gassing during the selection process. Most recently he was in the Vaihingen / Enz concentration camp , which was a satellite camp of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . In March 1945, Schelvis, who had survived ten concentration camps by then, was liberated by French troops.

Schelvis has published his experiences in Sobibór and the other camps in a book, supplemented with testimonies from the Sobibór trials and archive material. His book, the Sobibór extermination camp , was published in 1993 in the Netherlands. Schelvis lived in the Netherlands, but despite his old age he often went on lecture tours. On June 30, 2014 Jules Schelvis took the train from Amsterdam to Sobibor again and was accompanied by the musicians of the Dutch National Symphony and Chamber Orchestra without a fee. After a first concert in Amsterdam on June 30, 2014, Schelvis read the story of the journey in German on July 2 in Berlin. The third concert with the reading by Jules Schelvis took place on July 4th in Lublin.

Fonts

• Vernietigingskamp Sobibor. Bataafsche Leeuw, Amsterdam 1993.
  • Sobibór extermination camp. Unrast Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-89771-814-6 . (1st German edition: Metropol, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-926893-33-8 ).
• Binnen de poorten. Bataafsche Leeuw, Amsterdam 1995.
  • A journey through darkness. A report over two years in German extermination and concentration camps. Translation of Waltraut Hüsmert. Unrast Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-89771-815-4 .
• Sobibor. Transport lists. Bataafsche Leeuw, Amsterdam 2001.

Web links

• Literature by and about Jules Schelvis in the catalog of the German National Library
• Claudia von Salzen : Demjanjuk trial: testimony to horror. In: Der Tagesspiegel . November 30, 2009 . 
• Jules Schelvis. In: Sobibor Interviews. Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD)(English). 
• Interview with Jules Schelvis. (mp4 video, 46.4 MB, 20:53 minutes) In: Sobibor Interviews. Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), 1983(Dutch, English). 
• Jules Schelvis. Educational Institute Stanizlaw Hantz, June 13, 2007. 
• He reed een trein naar Sobibor. (Dutch, Dutch website of the memorial project “A train went to Sobibor” for the concert and reading tour on the 71st anniversary of the transport to Sobibor). 
• A train went to Sobibor. Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Berlin, July 2, 2014, archived from the original on June 28, 2014 (historical concert by Sobibor survivor Jules Schelvis (93) and the Dutch National Symphony and Chamber Orchestra on July 2 in Berlin). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sobibor-overlevende Jules Schelvis (95) overleden. In: NU.nl. April 6, 2016, accessed June 15, 2019 (Dutch).