Escaping Hell In Treblinka

by Israel Cymlich, Oskar Strawczynski

Escaping Hell in Treblinka presents for the first time in English two remarkable dcouments written by two survivors of that hellish darkness.l Israel (Srul) Cymlich and Oskar Strawczynski. Both memoirs were written while the authors were still in hiding, unsure if they would succeed in evading the Nazis. Srul Cymlich's memoir is one of a handful of Jewish accounts of the Treblinka I forced labor camp. It provides a rare insight into the brutal daily life he and other inmates endured. Srul escaped in April 1943, just before he was due to be transferred to and murdered in the Treblinka II extermination camp. Oskar Stawczynski's memoir is one of the earliest written eyewitness accounts of the August 2, 1943 uprising in Treblinka. Strawczynski tells of Jewish camp officials' cruel treatment of their fellow Jewish prisoners; the viciousness of the German staff; preparations for the uprising, and life after the mass escape of the camp. Both men owed their survival and the opportunity to write their stories to their own daring and initiative as well as to the assistance they received from a variety of people, including Polish rescuers. Each wrote in order to tell his tale to the world and to his surviving family members, but at the time of writing neither author knew if he would survive,or if his account would ever be read by anyone.

Genres: Holocaust

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Jessica Baumgartner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading personal accounts from two different people who escaped concentration camps taught me more about the holocaust than everything I learned in school.

Modern education loves to tell the story of the poor jews who were slaughtered and then the Americans swooped in and saved the poor victims. That is the Hollywood version. There are plenty of Jewish people who worked to save themselves and reading about them far better represents the truth of WWII than what current history books have to say.

Like The Slave Narratives, this should be required reading for all students.