July 11th 2010 at Saratoga Chabad

Mr. Phillip Bialowitz is one of eight remaining survivors of the Jewish inmate revolt at Sobibor, a Nazi death camp, in 1943. He spoke at Saratoga Chabad to a full house of eager listeners. He spoke of the many reasons why Jews did not fight back, the deception, the unknowns, the tremendous physical and emotional weakness… He told of rising from the death pits, and how his brother later saved him by pretending to be a pharmacist. He described Sobibor in detail, talked about the revolt against the Nazis and the Ukranian guards, and how a Polish family (with whom he remains close) hid him and his brother in a barn until the Russian army came. Following his talk, he showed an 8 minute video of his return to the grounds of Sobibor, along with a German son of a Nazi commandant at the camp, to say Kaddish at the pile of ashes of the 250,000 people who were gassed by the Nazis at Sobibor before the revolt. Hearing his story, watching his return there, and then hearing him say the Kaddish at that very spot was a very intense feeling.