Tadeusz Sobolewicz
Encyclopedia
Tadeusz Sobolewicz is a Polish actor and author, and a survivor of six Nazi concentration camps
, a Gestapo
prison, and a nine-day death march
.
, Poland
. Prior to the outbreak of World War II
, he attended Pederewski Gymnasium (secondary school) and was a member of the boy scouts.
When the war broke out
, he and his mother and younger brother were forced to flee from Poznań. During the German
occupation of Poland, together with his father, who was a Polish army officer, Sobolewicz became an active member of the Polish resistance movement
. He served as a liaison officer for the area command of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ), first in Tarnów
, and then later in Częstochowa
.
Living underground and under a false name, he was eventually betrayed, and was arrested by the Gestapo on September 1, 1941, and transferred to Zawodzie (Częstochowa) Gestapo prison. In prison the Gestapo interrogated and severely beat him in order to learn the names of other resistance movement fighters from him, but he revealed nothing, and as he was being led away, he saw that his father was likewise brought in for interrogation. Sobolewicz was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp
on November 20, 1941, where he was issued a striped uniform, wooden clogs, a red triangle badge
for political prisoners, and the number 23053.
Sobolewicz endured the entire rest of the war in six concentration camps, first and longest in Auschwitz (until March 10, 1943), and then in Buchenwald
, Leipzig
(subcamp of Buchenwald), Mülsen
(subcamp of Flossenbürg), Flossenbürg
, and Regensburg
(subcamp of Flossenbürg).
In Mülsen, on May 1, 1944, Soviet
prisoners staged an uprising and mass escape attempt from the camp, which was located in the cellars of an arms factory. They set their bunks on fire, and the flames and smoke quickly filled the cellars. SS
guards prevented any rescue and shot at those who tried to escape. Nearly 200 prisoners (out of 1,000) died from burns and wounds sustained in the uprising. Sobolewicz suffered severe burns in the fire and narrowly escaped death. Survivors of the fire were loaded onto trucks and driven five hours non-stop to Flossenbürg. With the help of fellow Polish prisoners, Sobolewicz spent the next three months recuperating from his burns in the camp hospital barracks.
Sobolewicz and about 500 other prisoners were transported to Regensburg on March 19, 1945. In Regensburg, by day the prisoners were forced to clear bomb debris, fill bomb craters and repair the railroad yards, often under Allied
bombardment, and by night they slept on the wood shavings covered floor of a dance hall. This building, called the Colosseum, was renovated in 2006, and is located in Stadtamhof (district), less than 200 meters north of the Danube
river and the Steinerne Brücke (old stone bridge), which connects Stadtamhof to the Altstadt
(old town center) and the railroad yards beyond. Sobolewicz worked as one of two cooks in the open-air camp kitchen, which was located in the inner courtyard of the building directly across the street from the Colosseum.
On the night of April 22, 1945, as the American army was approaching from the north, the SS evacuated the prisoners on a nine-day death march south and east toward the Austria
n border. All along the march route, the SS shot dead those who could not keep up the pace or who tried to escape. The prisoners were forced to march at night, and by day slept in barns to avoid detection by Allied aircraft.
Towards the end of the march, with the remaining prisoners suffering from severe hunger and exhaustion, and word spreading that Hitler
had committed suicide and that the American Army was closing in on them, Sobolewicz and some fellow comrades managed to escape the march by hiding in the hayloft of a barn, and the SS ultimately abandoned the rest of the surviving prisoners. Of the approximately 400 prisoners who started the march, less than 50 survived.
Sobolewicz and other survivors made their way to local farm hamlets, where the local farmers took them in and gave them food and shelter until the American army arrived. They were finally liberated near Laufen, Germany, along the Austrian border near Salzburg
, on May 2, 1945. Sobolewicz eventually made his way to an army hospital unit, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and spent the next several months recuperating in hospitals in the foothills of the Alps
, before finally returning to Poland in 1946.
Upon returning to Poland, Sobolewicz was reunited with his mother, who survived five years in Ravensbrück, and with his younger brother, who fought in the Polish Home Army
(Armia Krajowa, or AK, the main Polish resistance organization). But he has had to endure the loss of his father, who was gassed in Birkenau on June 20, 1942, his grandfather, who was shot dead by SS henchmen for helping Jewish friends, his cousin, who was murdered in the Katyń massacre
, and many others.
Sobolewicz is the author of the book, But I Survived, which describes his life and experiences from the beginning of World War II until he regained his freedom at the end of the war. The book was originally written in Polish, and later translated into German, English, and Spanish. When his book was first published, it was awarded the first prize at the Polish Auschwitz Recollections Competition organized by the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1985.
Sobolewicz attributes his survival mainly to sheer luck and coincidence, as so many of his fellow comrades perished along the way, but also to his strong will to survive, the help of God, his strong desire to reunite with his mother and family, and his strong desire to bear witness to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany
, in the hope that they may never be repeated.
Today (as of May 28, 2008) Sobolewicz lives in Kraków
, Poland. He has worked as an actor in the Theater for over 40 years, which has also helped him to deal with and share his experiences. He also served as a consultant and played the role of an SS officer in the 1989 film, Triumph of the Spirit
. He frequently gives talks to various groups of all ages, especially youth groups on student trips to Auschwitz, about his life and experiences during the Holocaust
.
The below titles are translations of the above Polish original.
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
, a Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
prison, and a nine-day death march
Death marches (Holocaust)
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
.
Life
Tadeusz Sobolewicz was born in PoznańPoznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. Prior to the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he attended Pederewski Gymnasium (secondary school) and was a member of the boy scouts.
When the war broke out
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
, he and his mother and younger brother were forced to flee from Poznań. During the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupation of Poland, together with his father, who was a Polish army officer, Sobolewicz became an active member of the Polish resistance movement
Polish resistance movement in World War II
The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European...
. He served as a liaison officer for the area command of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ), first in Tarnów
Tarnów
Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection...
, and then later in Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
.
Living underground and under a false name, he was eventually betrayed, and was arrested by the Gestapo on September 1, 1941, and transferred to Zawodzie (Częstochowa) Gestapo prison. In prison the Gestapo interrogated and severely beat him in order to learn the names of other resistance movement fighters from him, but he revealed nothing, and as he was being led away, he saw that his father was likewise brought in for interrogation. Sobolewicz was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
on November 20, 1941, where he was issued a striped uniform, wooden clogs, a red triangle badge
Nazi concentration camp badges
Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in Nazi camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the Nazi-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed there. The triangles were made of fabric and were sewn on...
for political prisoners, and the number 23053.
Sobolewicz endured the entire rest of the war in six concentration camps, first and longest in Auschwitz (until March 10, 1943), and then in Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
(subcamp of Buchenwald), Mülsen
Mülsen
Mülsen is a municipality in Germany, Landkreis Zwickau in the administrative region of Chemnitz, the Free State of Saxony. It is situated 6 km northeast of Zwickau....
(subcamp of Flossenbürg), Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...
, and Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
(subcamp of Flossenbürg).
In Mülsen, on May 1, 1944, Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
prisoners staged an uprising and mass escape attempt from the camp, which was located in the cellars of an arms factory. They set their bunks on fire, and the flames and smoke quickly filled the cellars. SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
guards prevented any rescue and shot at those who tried to escape. Nearly 200 prisoners (out of 1,000) died from burns and wounds sustained in the uprising. Sobolewicz suffered severe burns in the fire and narrowly escaped death. Survivors of the fire were loaded onto trucks and driven five hours non-stop to Flossenbürg. With the help of fellow Polish prisoners, Sobolewicz spent the next three months recuperating from his burns in the camp hospital barracks.
Sobolewicz and about 500 other prisoners were transported to Regensburg on March 19, 1945. In Regensburg, by day the prisoners were forced to clear bomb debris, fill bomb craters and repair the railroad yards, often under Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
bombardment, and by night they slept on the wood shavings covered floor of a dance hall. This building, called the Colosseum, was renovated in 2006, and is located in Stadtamhof (district), less than 200 meters north of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
river and the Steinerne Brücke (old stone bridge), which connects Stadtamhof to the Altstadt
Altstadt
Altstadt is the German language word for "old town", meaning "historical city centre within the city wall", in contrast to a Neustadt built outside later....
(old town center) and the railroad yards beyond. Sobolewicz worked as one of two cooks in the open-air camp kitchen, which was located in the inner courtyard of the building directly across the street from the Colosseum.
On the night of April 22, 1945, as the American army was approaching from the north, the SS evacuated the prisoners on a nine-day death march south and east toward the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n border. All along the march route, the SS shot dead those who could not keep up the pace or who tried to escape. The prisoners were forced to march at night, and by day slept in barns to avoid detection by Allied aircraft.
Towards the end of the march, with the remaining prisoners suffering from severe hunger and exhaustion, and word spreading that Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
had committed suicide and that the American Army was closing in on them, Sobolewicz and some fellow comrades managed to escape the march by hiding in the hayloft of a barn, and the SS ultimately abandoned the rest of the surviving prisoners. Of the approximately 400 prisoners who started the march, less than 50 survived.
Sobolewicz and other survivors made their way to local farm hamlets, where the local farmers took them in and gave them food and shelter until the American army arrived. They were finally liberated near Laufen, Germany, along the Austrian border near Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, on May 2, 1945. Sobolewicz eventually made his way to an army hospital unit, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and spent the next several months recuperating in hospitals in the foothills of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, before finally returning to Poland in 1946.
Upon returning to Poland, Sobolewicz was reunited with his mother, who survived five years in Ravensbrück, and with his younger brother, who fought in the Polish Home Army
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
(Armia Krajowa, or AK, the main Polish resistance organization). But he has had to endure the loss of his father, who was gassed in Birkenau on June 20, 1942, his grandfather, who was shot dead by SS henchmen for helping Jewish friends, his cousin, who was murdered in the Katyń massacre
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
, and many others.
Sobolewicz is the author of the book, But I Survived, which describes his life and experiences from the beginning of World War II until he regained his freedom at the end of the war. The book was originally written in Polish, and later translated into German, English, and Spanish. When his book was first published, it was awarded the first prize at the Polish Auschwitz Recollections Competition organized by the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1985.
Sobolewicz attributes his survival mainly to sheer luck and coincidence, as so many of his fellow comrades perished along the way, but also to his strong will to survive, the help of God, his strong desire to reunite with his mother and family, and his strong desire to bear witness to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, in the hope that they may never be repeated.
Today (as of May 28, 2008) Sobolewicz lives in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Poland. He has worked as an actor in the Theater for over 40 years, which has also helped him to deal with and share his experiences. He also served as a consultant and played the role of an SS officer in the 1989 film, Triumph of the Spirit
Triumph of the Spirit
Triumph of the Spirit is a 1989 American film directed by Robert M. Young and starring Willem Dafoe and Edward James Olmos. The majority of the film is set in the death camp at Auschwitz during the Holocaust and details how the Jewish boxer Salamo Arouch was forces to fight other internees to the...
. He frequently gives talks to various groups of all ages, especially youth groups on student trips to Auschwitz, about his life and experiences during the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
Books by Tadeusz Sobolewicz
- Wytrzymałem więc jestem. (Polish, 1986). OświęcimOswiecimOświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...
: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 8321606741.
The below titles are translations of the above Polish original.
- Aus dem Jenseits zurück. (German, 1993). Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 83-85047-09-3.
- Aus der Hölle zurück: Von der Willkür des Überlebens im Konzentrationslager. (German, 1999). Frankfurt: Fischer. ISBN 3-596-14179-6.
- But I Survived. (English, 1998). Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 83-85047-63-8.
- He Sobrevivido al Infierno. (Spanish, 2002). Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 978-83-88526-26-8.
External links
- Undated photograph of Tadeusz Sobolewicz (on the Auschwitz website)
- Photographs of Tadeusz Sobolewicz upon registration at Auschwitz (on the Auschwitz website)
- Auschwitz website homepage
- Tadeusz Sobolewicz on YouTube (in Polish)