Project 'Long shadow of Sobibor' Survivors: Interview 01 Thomas Blatt Project 'Late gevolgen van Sobibor'

Thomas Blatt grew up in the Polish village of Izbica, which was used by the Geman Nazis as a transit ghetto for Jews on their way to the extermination camps in Eastern Poland. He was sixteen years old when he arrived at Sobibor with his parents and his brother. All three were immediately sent to the gas chambers, but Thomas himself was selected for forced labour. He had to cut women's hair before they were driven into the gas chambers. Thus he recollects how Dutch women would ask the "hairdressers" not to cut their hair too short. Thomas managed to survive in Sobibor for six months and was involved in the October 14, 1943 revolt. Until the end of the war he hid in Poland, which was by then afflicted by anti-Semitism. He returned to Sobibor in search of any remnants. After the war, during the 'fifties, Thomas Blatt emigrated to Israel, where he met his future wife, an American with whom he left for the United States. After remarriage and the divorce from his second wife he returned to Poland. He has children, grandchildren, and grand-grandchildren. Thomas Blatt still visits his place of birth, Izbica, and the site of the Sobibor extermination camp every year. For a large part of his life he has been working to save Sobibor from oblivion. To this end, he has written several books about his war experiences and the Sobibor revolt. In the eighties he acted as a witness during the trial of the former SS man, Karl Frenzel, in the German city of Hagen. In this period he also had a four-hour interview with Karl Frenzel.