Tanenbaum Roy Told Sigmund Sobolewski (1 results)

Trade paperback. Condition: Very good. Presumed First Edition, First printing. xv, [1], 347, [5] pages. Folding front and back covers. Illustrations. Notes. SS ranks and their Approximate equivalent. The Extent of Pre-Hitler Neo-Romanticism. Text of Cardinal Hlond's 1936 Speech. Glossary. Inscribed and dated on half-title page by both the author and Sigmund Sobolewski. Foreword by Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb. Sigmund Sobolewski (Zygmunt Sobolewski; May 11, 1923 - August 7, 2017) was a Polish activist and Holocaust survivor. He was the 88th prisoner to enter Auschwitz on the first transport to the concentration camp on June 14, 1940, and remained a prisoner for four and a half years during World War II. Fluent in German, Sobolewski was pressed into service as a translator. He was an opponent of Holocaust denial and confronted modern neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers. He was the sole surviving witness of the October 7, 1944, revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau, when Jewish prisoners blew up Crematorium Number 4 and attempted to escape. What happens to a man who spends his 'university years' in Auschwitz? This book presents the story of tragedies: the tragedy of a Roman Catholic imprisoned in Auschwitz; and, the tragedy of a man who subsequently unsuccessfully tries to erase four-and-a-half years from his life. When 15-year-old Sigmund Sobolewski walked through the gates of Auschwitz on June 14, 1940, he never thought he'd live to see his next birthday (he lived to be 94). Like many others Sobolewski, a Roman Catholic, was eventually put to work. "In 1942 I was assigned to the Auschwitz fire brigade," Sobolewski reminisced. "This meant very often we had to leave the camp to fight a fire - two or three times a month after a bombardment. Auschwitz was in a heavily industrialized area that was often bombed. Sobolewski spent nearly five years in the camp.