Last Survivor of Treblinka Passes Away

YERUSHALAYIM (AP) —
FILE -- In this Oct. 31, 2010 file photo, Holocaust survivor Samuel Willenberg displays a map of Treblinka extermination camp during an interview with the Associated Press at his house in Tel Aviv, Israel. Willenberg, the last survivor of Treblinka, the Nazi death camp where 875,000 people were killed, has died, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, at 93. Willenberg was among a group of Jews who in 1943 set fire to the camp and headed to the woods. Hundreds fled, but most were killed by Nazi troops in the surrounding mine fields or captured by Polish villagers. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)
In this 2010 file photo, Holocaust survivor Shmuel Willenberg displays a map of the Treblinka extermination camp during an interview with the Associated Press at his house in Tel Aviv. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)

Shmuel Willenberg, z”l, the last survivor of Treblinka, the Nazi death camp where 875,000 people were systematically murdered, passed away Friday at the age of 93.

Only 67 people are known to have survived the camp, fleeing in a revolt shortly before it was destroyed.

Treblinka holds a notorious place in history as perhaps the most vivid example of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Unlike other camps, where some Jews were assigned to forced labor before being killed, nearly all the Jews brought to Treblinka were immediately gassed to death.

Only a select few — mostly young, strong men like Willenberg, who was 20 at the time — were spared from immediate death and assigned to maintenance work instead.

On Aug. 2, 1943, a group of Jews stole some weapons, set fire to the camp and headed to the woods. Hundreds fled, but most were shot and killed by Nazi troops in the surrounding mine fields or captured by Polish villagers who returned them to Treblinka.

“The world cannot forget Treblinka,” Willenberg told The Associated Press in a 2010 interview.

He described how he was shot in the leg as he climbed over bodies piled at the barbed wire fence and catapulted over. He kept running, ignoring dead friends in his path. He said his blue eyes and “non-Jewish” look allowed him to survive in the countryside before arriving in Warsaw and joining the Polish underground.

After the war, Willenberg moved to Israel and became a surveyor for the Housing Ministry. Later in life, he took up sculpting to describe his experiences, especially those during the Holocaust.

“I live two lives, one is here and now and the other is what happened there,” Willenberg said. “It never leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always.”

His two sisters were killed at Treblinka.

The Nazis and their collaborators killed about 6 million Jews, Hy”d, during the Holocaust. The death toll at Treblinka was second only to Auschwitz — a prison camp where more than a million people died in gas chambers or from starvation, disease and forced labor.

His daughter said he passed away on Friday. He is survived by a daughter and grandchildren.

 

To Read The Full Story

Are you already a subscriber?
Click to log in!