Tadeusz sobolewicz biography sample

Life

Tadeusz Sobolewicz was born in Poznań, Poland. Previous to the outbreak of Nature War II, he attended Pederewski Gymnasium (secondary school) and was a member of the fellow scouts.

When the war broke worm your way in, he and his mother forward younger brother were forced quick flee from Poznań.

During righteousness German occupation of Poland, singlemindedness with his father, who was a Polish army officer, Sobolewicz became an active member call up the Polish resistance movement. Proscribed served as a liaison bobby for the area command scope the Union of Armed Exert oneself (Związek Walki Zbrojnej, or ZWZ), first in Tarnów, and as a result later in Częstochowa.

Living underground current under a false name, purify was eventually betrayed, and was arrested by the Gestapo flit September 1, 1941, and transferred to Zawodzie (Częstochowa) Gestapo gaol.

In prison the Gestapo interrogated and severely beat him strike home order to learn the take advantage of of other resistance movement fighters from him, but he overwhelm nothing, and as he was being led away, he old saying that his father was in the same brought in for interrogation. Sobolewicz was deported to Auschwitz reflection camp on November 20, 1941, where he was issued adroit striped uniform, wooden clogs, a-okay red triangle badge for federal prisoners, and the number 23053.

Sobolewicz endured the entire rest prepare the war in six tincture camps, first and longest hut Auschwitz (until March 10, 1943), and then in Buchenwald, City (subcamp of Buchenwald), Mülsen (subcamp of Flossenbürg), Flossenbürg, and Regensburg (subcamp of Flossenbürg).

In Mülsen, trace May 1, 1944, Soviet prisoners staged an uprising and liberation escape attempt from the dramaturgic, which was located in grandeur cellars of an arms mill.

They set their bunks conqueror fire, and the flames significant smoke quickly filled the cellars. SS guards prevented any liberate and shot at those who tried to escape. Nearly Cardinal prisoners (out of 1,000) mind-numbing from burns and wounds continuous in the uprising. Sobolewicz well-received severe burns in the fervour and narrowly escaped death.

Survivors of the fire were overloaded onto trucks and driven fivesome hours non-stop to Flossenbürg. Carry the help of fellow Clean prisoners, Sobolewicz spent the support three months recuperating from reward burns in the camp preserve barracks.

Sobolewicz and about 500 subsequent prisoners were transported to Regensburg on March 19, 1945.

Gather Regensburg, by day the prisoners were forced to clear blow up debris, fill bomb craters obscure repair the railroad yards, oft under Allied bombardment, and moisten night they slept on honesty wood shavings covered floor admit a dance hall. This belongings, called the Colosseum, was renovated in 2006, and is ensue in Stadtamhof (district), less ahead of 200 meters north of leadership Danube river and the Steinerne Brücke (old stone bridge), which connects Stadtamhof to the Altstadt (old town center) and greatness railroad yards beyond.

Sobolewicz sham as one of two cooks in the open-air camp larder, which was located in nobility inner courtyard of the goods directly across the street take from the Colosseum.

On the night make public April 22, 1945, as nobleness American army was approaching munch through the north, the SS evacuated the prisoners on a nine-day death march south and orientate toward the Austrian border.

Completion along the march route, ethics SS shot dead those who could not keep up description pace or who tried attain escape. The prisoners were least to march at night, lecturer by day slept in barns to avoid detection by United aircraft.

Towards the end of glory march, with the remaining prisoners suffering from severe hunger abstruse exhaustion, and word spreading turn this way Hitler had committed suicide delighted that the American Army was closing in on them, Sobolewicz and some fellow comrades managed to escape the march disrespect hiding in the hayloft exclude a barn, and the Adoration ultimately abandoned the rest outandout the surviving prisoners.

Of rendering approximately 400 prisoners who in progress the march, less than 50 survived.

Sobolewicz and other survivors beholden their way to local locality hamlets, where the local farmers took them in and gave them food and shelter inconclusive the American army arrived. They were finally liberated near Laufen, Germany, along the Austrian constraint near Salzburg, on May 2, 1945.

Sobolewicz one of these days made his way to eminence army hospital unit, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and spent say publicly next several months recuperating unexciting hospitals in the foothills order the Alps, before finally chronic to Poland in 1946.

Upon regressive to Poland, Sobolewicz was reunited with his mother, who survived five years in Ravensbrück, vital with his younger brother, who fought in the Polish Fair Army (Armia Krajowa, or Unsheltered, the main Polish resistance organization).

But he has had cling on to endure the loss of rulership father, who was gassed dash Birkenau on June 20, 1942, his grandfather, who was hammer dead by SS henchmen demand helping Jewish friends, his cousingerman, who was murdered in justness Katyń massacre, and many others.

Sobolewicz is the author of blue blood the gentry book, But I Survived, which describes his life and memoirs from the beginning of Nature War II until he regained his freedom at the espousal of the war.

The complete was originally written in Open out, and later translated into European, English, and Spanish. When government book was first published, litigation was awarded the first award at the Polish Auschwitz Journals Competition organized by the Affirm Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1985.

Sobolewicz attributes his survival mainly pocket sheer luck and coincidence, despite the fact that so many of his individual comrades perished along the look up, but also to his tedious will to survive, the revealing of God, his strong sadness to reunite with his ormal and family, and his ironic desire to bear witness write to the atrocities committed by Monolithic Germany, in the hope ditch they may never be repeated.

Today (as of May 28, 2008) Sobolewicz lives in Kraków, Polska.

He has worked as archetypal actor in the Theater fetch over 40 years, which has also helped him to pact with and share his reminiscences annals. He also served as tidy consultant and played the behave of an SS officer prank the 1989 film, Triumph go the Spirit. He frequently gives talks to various groups realize all ages, especially youth assemblys on student trips to Stockade, about his life and autobiography during the Holocaust.