SZYMON SREBRNIK

WORLD WAR II

• He was a Jew from Poland born on 10 April 1930
• When he was 9, the Germans invaded Poland
• His father died in Łódź when Szymon was about 10 years old

WORLD WAR II

• At age 13, he and his mother were sent to Chelmno extermination camp
• Chelmno was an extermination camp in Poland which killed around 152,000 to 340,000 people

WORLD WAR II

• When he arrived, he found his mother’s documents in a pile of handbags
• When he showed another prisoner, the prisoner told him that his mother was in Heaven

WORLD WAR II

• The Germans nicknamed Szymon, ‘Spinnefix’
• He was selected to work alongside a Jewish-work detail which disposed incinerated bodies

WORLD WAR II

• Szymon was assigned with disposing evidence of German genocide
• He had to collect the bones of the victims and row a boat out to the Ner River so evidence could be thrown into the river
• While rowing, he would sing Prussian military songs to entertain the soldiers

WORLD WAR II

• On 18 January 1945, most members of Jewish work units in Chelmno were killed
• Srebrnik was shot in the head, but according to his testimony, it missed his spine and went through his mouth without severe blood loss

AFTER THE WAR

• At age 15, he testified about Chelmno in Łódź, during the Polish trial of Chelmno personnel in 1945
• He moved to Ness Ziona, a city that is in Central Israel

AFTER THE WAR

• Srebrnik joined the military while in Israel
• He testified against Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, during his trial in 1961

AFTER THE WAR

• He testified in the Chelmno guard trials from 1962-65
• The Jerusalem Post reported that he had died on 18 September 2006

WORKS CITED

• Good, Meaghan. “ExecutedToday.com.” ExecutedToday.com, 17 Jan. 2011
• “Transcript of the Shoah Interview with Simon Srebnik.” Translated by Sarah Lippincott, Ushmm.org, Aug. 2008
• Lefkovits, Etgar. “The Last Survivor.” The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com, Jerusalem Post, 18 Sept. 2006