Thomas Blatt

Born:
15 April 1927, Izbica (Poland)
Interview:
15 December 2009

"Anti-semitism and emigration abroad"

Spoken language: English

Thomas Blatt grew up in the Polish village of Izbica, which was used by the Geman Nazis as a transit ghetto for Jews on their way to the extermination camps in Eastern Poland. He was sixteen years old when he arrived at Sobibor with his parents and his brother. All three were immediately sent to the gas chambers, but Thomas himself was selected for forced labour. He had to cut women's hair before they were driven into the gas chambers. Thus he recollects how Dutch women would ask the "hairdressers" not to cut their hair too short.

Thomas managed to survive in Sobibor for six months and was involved in the October 14, 1943 revolt. Until the end of the war he hid in Poland, which was by then afflicted by anti-Semitism. He returned to Sobibor in search of any remnants. After the war, during the 'fifties, Thomas Blatt emigrated to Israel, where he met his future wife, an American with whom he left for the United States. After remarriage and the divorce from his second wife he returned to Poland. He has children, grandchildren, and grand-grandchildren.

 

Thomas Blatt still visits his place of birth, Izbica, and the site of the Sobibor extermination camp every year. For a large part of his life he has been working to save Sobibor from oblivion. To this end, he has written several books about his war experiences and the Sobibor revolt. In the eighties he acted as a witness during the trial of the former SS man, Karl Frenzel, in the German city of Hagen. In this period he also had a four-hour interview with Karl Frenzel.

In this interview is talked about:

  • Shtetl

    Before the Second World War most Eastern European Jews lived in shtetls. The traditional shtetl, that typically Jewish community in which all or most residents were Jewish, didn't survive the Shoah.

    Thomas Blatt was born in Izbica, a small, Jewish orthodox community (shtetl) in Poland. Many inhabitants of Izbica were poor; the Blatt family were hard up as well. His father, a veteran of the Polish struggle for independence, had a small liquor shop. His mother borrowed books from the library, which Thomas would read in secret at night. They got along well with the non-Jewish population; so much the heavier was the blow when Polish anti-Semitism exploded during and after the war.

  • Jewish life

    Which Jewish customs and traditions are referred to by the interviewees? Did they observe Jewish holidays before the Second World War? What role does their Jewishness play now? This section deals with Jewish life in the Netherlands and Poland.

    Most inhabitants of Izbica, the place where Thomas Blatt lived, were Jewish Orthodox. The Blatt family was not religious but did behave so because of heavy social pressure. Cycling through town without a hat on Saturdays meant running the risk of being pelted with stones. The family did not eat kosher and Thomas went to synagogue only once a year, at Yom Kippur. He did not do bar mitzvah. Thomas detested kheider, the Jewish school.

  • Life during the war

    Daily life was becoming more and more difficult for Jews during the German occupation. Persecution gradually became more intrusive and more gruesome. People tried to carry on with their everyday lives as long as they could.

    When the Nazi Germans invaded Poland the Blatt family took refuge in the woods. After the fighting was over they found Izbica under German occupation. Thomas is still surprised at his own naïvity, expecting that Jews and non-Jews in Poland woud have a single enemy together after the German invasion. Things turned out the opposite: most non-Jewish Poles helped the Nazis against the Jews, whom they accused of collaboration with the hated, now expelled, communist Soviet occupier. After the revolt Thomas Blatt was on the run for Nazi-Germans and anti-Semitic Poles. With a number of others he was discovered and shot down by German soldiers a number of months after his successful escape attempt from Sobibor. Thomas managed to lie for dead, and survived. By enrolling with a group of partisans fighting agains the Germans he succeeded to survive the war.

  • Expectations

    Jews in the Netherlands must have sensed that life under German occupation was going to be hard and unpleasant for them. But what did they expect, what exactly did they think?

    Thomas Blatt expected that Jews and non-Jews in Poland woud have a single enemy together after the German invasion. But many Poles collaborated with the Germans in epelling the Jewish population. For Blatt, those Poles who helped the Jews are the true heroes. He criticizes anti-Semitism during and after the Second World War.

  • Life after the war

    How did it feel when many did not return after the war? Interviewees recollect how they resumed their lives, shaped by such huge losses.

    Thomas Blatt didn't dare to go back to his place of birth, Izbica, after the war, for fear of anti-Semitism. He called on his grandparents' house in Lublin, but found other occupants there. Although a free man, he found himself still on the run after the war. In 1957 he emigrated to Israel and a few years later to the United States. His life has been a query for the truth about Sobibor since. He wrote two books, "Sobibor. The Forgotten Revolt," and "From the Ashes of Sobibor," and participated in a film about Sobibor. These activities he terms his "will."

     

  • Camps & ghettos

    There were three transit camps and one SS concentration camp in the Netherlands during the German occupation. Interviewees recollect their experiences in Westerbork and Vught. Camp life in Germany and Poland is also discussed.

    Thomas Blatt arrived in Sobibor with his parents and brother, aware of the fact that Sobibor was a destruction camp but hoping against hope till the last moment. "Let us die as a family," he recalls his father's words. Blatt lived in Sobibor as a boy for half a year. He was among the few who were selected for forced labour upon arrival: he sorted clothes, burnt personal documents and other belongings, and cut the hair of women before they would enter the gas chambers. He remembers the ignorance of the Dutch jews, as well as the heart-rending screams of people when they realized having ended up in the gas chambers. During the revolt he managed to escape.

  • Consequences of Sobibor

    Interviewees lost loved ones and relatives in Sobibor. Here they talk freely about the role these losses still play in their lives.

    Sobibor still haunts his dreams. ‘Looking over my life, I am still in Sobibor’, says the interviewee himself. He wrote books on Sobibor in order to record life in the destruction camp.

  • Demjanjuk trial

    Next of kin to people killed in Sobibor, and survivors of the revolt played a major role as co-plaintiffs during the Demjanjuk trial.

    Demjanjuk may have been lowest in rank as a guard, but people should not escape their punishment even then. If he was in Sobibor during the period that Thomas Blatt was forced to stay there he can only have been a murderer, says Blatt. Guards were a necessary link in the destruction machinery.

  • Sobiborinterviews.nl

    The Sobiborinterviews.nl website is published by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. This website revolves around thirteen interviews with survivors of the revolt that broke out in the Sobibor destruction camp on October 14, 1943. Sometimes emotional, sometimes detached, they talk about their lives being disrupted by the war, the degrading conditions in the camp, their escape and their lives after the war. The leader of the uprising, Pecherski, gives a detailed account of the preparation and execution of the mass escape.

    Thomas Blatt was interviewed by Jules Schelvis and Dunya Breur in 1984. Watch here.

  • 2,000 testimonials

    The Jewish Historical Museum made two thousand interviews from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute accessible to the public.

    An interview with Thomas Blatt, with a duration of 2hrs52min, can be watched in the "Hollandsche Schouwburg" and in the so-called "mediatheek" of the Jewish Historical Museum; reference number 1873. Please click here for more information.