Tomasz “Toivi” Blatt was born in 1927 in Izbica, Poland -and since his birth, life did not give him any option.


 His family was deported to the Izbica ghetto when Nazis seized power. He attempted to run away only to be re-arrested and taken to jail. He somehow returned home but all went wrong by 1943.


On April 28 he and his family were deported to the death camp of Sobibor. His parents and younger brother were immediately killed. Tomasz was spared to labor - to cut hair off women just before they were killed. It was survival, not mercy.


Then October 14, 1943 the Sobibor rebellion. In the chaos, he ran for it. Stuck under a fence and this saved his life, as many other died at the mine field. He scrambled out and ran away in the woods. He was shot in the jaw by a farmer later but he survived. Tomasz went to the U.S. after the war and wrote The Ashes of Sobibor and informed the world about what had occurred. He died at 88, a man who had witnessed the worst of mankind -and never wanted anybody to forget it.

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