Stanisław Szmajzner
Stanisław Szmajzner (born March 13, 1927 in Puławy , Poland; † March 3, 1989 in Goiânia , Brazil ) was one of 47 survivors of the Sobibór extermination camp in Poland and involved in the Sobibór uprising. He wrote a book about his experiences as a 15-year-old in this extermination camp, which was published in Brazil in 1968. He worked alongside Thomas Blatt , a survivor of the extermination camp, on the drafting of the script for the film Escape from Sobibor .
Life
Stanisław Szmajzner was taken to the Sobibór extermination camp on May 12, 1942 on a prisoner transport from Opole .
Activities in the Sobibór concentration camp
There he was not sent to the gas chamber because he stated that he was a goldsmith. He even took his tools with him on the transport. On behalf of Gustav Wagner , he made gold work for the SS crew , which came from stolen gold or from the gold of the teeth of the murdered prisoners. The orders included rings with SS runes and knobs for the whips with which they beat the inmates. Later, when Franz Stangl took over the camp as commandant, he became the foreman of the maintenance technicians in the camp. He therefore had access to all camps except for camp III. As a witness in the trial against Stangl, he testified that he had to make a gold pommel for a light riding whip with his monogram.
revolt
The 15-year-old Szmajzner joined the underground committee in the camp and took part in the Sobibór uprising on October 14, 1943 . He let four people know about the plans, including his brother and nephew Nojech. Before the uprising, he had the task of stealing three rifles from the armory with which the Soviet prisoners of war were supposed to arm themselves. Under the pretext of repairs, he outsmarted a Trawniki man from the Ukrainian guards and brought the rifles to Alexander Aronovich Pechjorsky , the military leader of the uprising.
Escape
Of 600 inmates, he and about 200 other inmates managed to escape from the camp to the nearby edge of the forest. He belonged to the Pechjorski group, which consisted of 57 people. In order not to be discovered, the refugees divided into smaller groups and went different routes. Pechjorski preceded a group of eight prisoners in order to make contact with partisans. Szmajzner's group was waiting for Pechjorski's return. When he didn't come back, the men split up into smaller groups and looked for their own escape routes. Szmajzner's further escape to freedom is not documented.
In 1947 Stanisław Szmajzner emigrated to Brazil, where he identified Gustav Wagner in a police station in São Paulo in May 1978 .
Fonts
- Sobibor - Inferno em Sibibor. A tragédia de um adolescente judeu (= Coleção Depoimento ). Ed. Bloch, Rio de Janeiro 1968, OCLC 2872271 (Portuguese).
Movie
- Uprising in Sobibor. Director: Pavel Kogan, Lily van den Bergh. Research and literary submission to the Sobibór extermination camp by Jules Schelvis. Contributors: Alexander Petscherski , Stanislaw Szmajzner, Samuel Lerer u. a. Absolut Medien, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-8488-4007-6 (DVD; PAL; approx. 112 min .; different languages, subtitles in German and English).
literature
- Jules Schelvis : Sobibór extermination camp (= series of anti-fascist texts ). Unrast-Verlag, Hamburg / Münster 2003, ISBN 3-89771-814-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b A reunion after the time of Sobibor. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . June 2nd 1978.
- ↑ Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. 2003, p. 95 (see literature ).
- ↑ Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P. 184.
- ↑ Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P. 197.
- ↑ Schelvis: Sobibór extermination camp. P. 212 ff.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Szmajzner, Stanisław |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Szmajzner, Stanislaw |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish Holocaust survivor and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 13, 1927 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Puławy , Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1989 |
| Place of death | Goiânia , Brazil |