Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' Survivors: Interview 08 Arkady Wajspapir (Arkadii Weisspapier) Project 'Late gevolgen van Sobibor'

Arkady Wajspapir (Arkadii Weisspapier) was born in 1921 in the Ukrainian village of Bobrovyy Kut, then a Jewish community. He had an elder brother and a younger sister. The family lived together with the grandfather from his father's side - and his second wife plus a few relatives - in a house divided for the purpose. Arkady had had ten years of school when he enrolled in the Red Army in 1939. He was wounded, made POW (prisoner of war), and, in September 1943, deported to Sobibor, where he was selected for forced labour. Arkady played an active part in the preparation of the revolt and during the revolt together with a fellow inmate killed an SS man and a Ukrainian guard with their own hands. After his escape from Sobibor he enrolled with the partisans. When the war was over Arkady took up his studies, got married, and started working as a technical engineer in various factories at several places in the Soviet Union. Upon retirement he and his wife moved to Kiev so as to live close to one of their sons. His wife died in 2004.