Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' Interview 21 Paul Hellmann Project 'Late gevolgen van Sobibor'

Paul Hellmann was born March 6, 1935 in Rotterdam. Paul's father loved animals and the family of three lived in a house with a lot of pets. Paul's mother was half-Jewish; she had Russian Jewish father and a mother from Groningen, the Netherlands. His Jewish father had two Austrian Jewish parents, was raised in Austria and had come to the Netherlands at an older age. During the war the family members hid seperately. His mother went into hiding in Bilthoven and Amsterdam, was rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. Paul was in hiding in Ede, his father not far away from him in Lunteren. Paul's father was rounded up after betrayal and deported as a penitentiary case through Westerbork to Sobibor and killed there. Paul and his mother survived the war. The day before this interview Paul was in the Dutch National Archives in The Hague and found out there who betrayed his father in 1943. The interview was mainly about this special finding. During the spring of 2011 Paul Hellmann found out more about the man who betrayed his father and the circumstances of the betrayal; he wrote a book about it, "Small Evil." He wrote "My Great Expectations" earlier. (Both in Dutch) Paul Hellmann is married and has children. Before his retirement he worked as a journalist.