Oral History

Chaim Engel describes plans for the Sobibor uprising

The Germans captured Chaim, a soldier in the Polish army, as they invaded Poland in 1939. They first sent Chaim to Germany for forced labor, but as a Jewish prisoner of war, he was returned to Poland. Ultimately, Chaim was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation in June 1944.

In this clip, Chaim refers to [Gustav] Wagner, Sobibor's deputy commandant.

Transcript

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  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
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