Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' Interview 17 Jules Schelvis Project 'Late gevolgen van Sobibor'

Jules Schelvis was deported from Westerbork to Sobibor together with his wife and family-in-law on June 1, 1943. Unsuspectingly, he took with him his guitar. Jules stayed in the Sobibor extermination camp for a few hours, but was then transferred to the Dorohucza labour camp to cut peat there. After a short stay in this camp he managed to get sent to another labour camp in Lublin as member of a team of printers. In August 1944, having stayed for months in the Radom ghetto and subsequently in Szkolna camp, he arrived in a labour camp not far from Vaihingen. Here, together with thousands of others, he had to participate in construction work at an underground airplane plant. After this, he worked in still another labour camp in Southern Germany. He was suffering from typhus when he was liberated in April 1945. The importance of not forgetting urged Jules Schelvis in 1999 to initiate the Sobibor Foundation. His wife and family-in-law were murdered in Sobibor. He published the story of his life, "Within the Gates," in the eighties, and the scientific study, "Sobibor Extermination Camp," in 1993. Jules was married with Jo for 53 years and has two children.