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Chaim Engel: "So I knew already what happened...that he went to the gas chamber with my friend and I am here separating his clothes." | |||
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Chaim Engel Born 1916 Brudzew, Poland 
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Chaim's family came from a small town where his father owned a textile store. When antisemitic pogroms broke out in Brudzew, the Engels moved to the industrial city of Lodz. Chaim was then 5 years old. In Lodz he attended a Jewish school that also provided a secular education. After finishing middle school, Chaim went to work at his uncle's textile factory.
1933-39: Our neighborhood in Lodz was predominantly Jewish, so most of my friends were Jews. As a young adult I began my compulsory army service. On September 1, 1939, only two weeks before my tour of duty was scheduled to end, the Germans invaded Poland. After a few weeks I was taken as a POW. One German captor learned I was Jewish, but he didn't shoot me. I was taken to Germany for forced labor. 1940-44: In March 1940 all Jewish POWs were returned to Poland. I was deported to the Sobibor death camp in the summer of 1942. In October 1943 a small group of prisoners revolted. I stabbed our overseer to death. With each jab I cried, "This is for my father, for my mother, for all the Jews you killed." The knife slipped, cutting me, covering me with blood. Chaos took over; many prisoners ran out the main gate. Some stepped on mines. Some gave up and didn't run at all. I grabbed my girlfriend and we ran into the woods. Chaim hid in the Polish woods with his girlfriend, Selma. After the war they married and lived in Europe and Israel. The Engels settled in the United States in 1957. |
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Chaim Engel Born 1916 Brudzew, Poland 
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Now we decided, at four o'clock we start to make an uprising in this way: in each group what worked, like we, for example, with separating the clothes, we had two, three Germans what were [in] supervision over us. They supervised us with the...And each group what worked in different ways had two or three Germans what they were there uh...uh to to watch them, how they work. So we decided in...in each group to assign two people and these people with some pretext, they will have to get them to a warehouse or somewhere and quietly kill them with a knife or an axe or whatever and just do it like nothing happened and in, in the meantime also to cut the wires. And as I said, as I said before we tried to gear to do it in the time when [SS Sergeant Gustav] Wagner was on vacation, so that was really not safe, but safer. And that was...and so as I say, we was assigned people in each group to...to do this kind of work. Now there were in the barracks where we lived, there was a goldsmith, a tailor, a shoemaker, and that they made for them clothes, shoes...these people there. So that meant they had to come to fit. So they told them, "In this day I will have the fit for you. Come then, and I will have the fit for you, your shoes or your clothes." And when they came there they were already people with this axe or knives. They were hiding behind a a curtain or something, and they killed them on the spot. When they came in to fit, they overwhelmed them and they killed them, and shoved them in under the, under somewhere that nobody sees, and, and the work went through like nothing happened. | ||
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Chaim Engel Born 1916 Brudzew, Poland 
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We knew there were already Germans killed. We knew already it's going on, so we just hoped that nobody unexpectedly comes to a place where he doesn't supposed to come and finds out what happened. If that is it, then we all killed and lost. So somehow we are lucky with that. The...we killed these Germans wherever we worked and uh we...everything went according to, to the plan, 'til we came to the main gate. Now we could...people ran...ran all over, so the whole camp knew already what's going on by then, so some ran on the mines, got killed. Some people didn't ran at all. They gave up. They didn't want to run. They just gave up. They, they just uh waited 'til they get killed. They...but the younger people, most of them, and whoever was courageous enough to run, they ran away. And then a lot ran on the main gate. Now we started to run and we were next to a barrack and then I saw [SS Sergeant Karl] Frenzel with a machine gun, and he started to shoot. And more people were running and I...I wanted to hold back because afraid for the machine gun, and I figured, "Here is dead. Here is maybe something." So I pulled Selma's hand and we ran through and somehow, some fell, and we made it through the gate. | ||
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Chaim Engel Born 1916 Brudzew, Poland 
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There were two people were assigned to go to kill somebody in the office, a German in the office. And the last minute, one of them got scared and he didn't want to go. And I was there and I hear the story, and I knew already that there's ten to twelve German were already killed. So I know the...the ordeal I know already. We are already...unless we get out, otherwise we are dead. So Selma brought me a knife with a point, knife. I said I wanted to go. You see, from all these people, what people brought from the transport...utensils and all the things...there were a warehouse for it, and we're not far from this warehouse, so she went there in and she picked a knife, a pointed knife. She gave me a knife, and I went with the other fellow. I don't think I was a big hero or a big uh courageous man, but I I figured it's self defense and survival. If I don't do it, it might spoil the whole thing. So I, I instinctively ... there's no decision. It's not a decision. You just react, instinctively you react to that, and I figured, "Let us to do, and go and do it." And I went. I went with the man in the office, and we killed this German. With every jab, I said, "That is for my father, for my mother, for all these people, all the Jews you killed." And I...my knife slipped out...slid out from my hand and I cut myself. | ||
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