A Story of Heroic Achievement by Richard Rashke
On October 14, l943, six hundred Jews imprisoned in Sobibor, a secret Nazi death camp in eastern Poland, revolted. They killed a dozen SS officers and guards, trampled the barbed wire fences, and raced across an open field filled with buried anti-tank mines. Against all odds, more than three hundred made it to safety in the woods. Fifty of those men and women managed to survive the war.
In this fully updated edition of the book, Escape from Sobibor, Richard Rashke tells their stories, based on interviews with eighteen of the survivors living in the United States, Israel, Poland, and Brazil. He not only vividly describes the biggest prisoner escape of World War II, he also delves deep into the hearts and souls of those survivors.
Translated into eleven languages and made into a movie, Escape from Sobibor is a story of unimaginable cruelty and the power of unbridled hatred. But it is also a story of courage and a fierce desire to live and to tell the world what truly went on behind those barbed wire fences. The San Francisco Chronicle called it, “a memorable and moving saga, full of anguish, a reminder never to forget.” Given the widespread hatred and anti-Semitism sweeping across America today, Escape from Sobibor remains highly relevant.
Richard Rashke is also the award-winning author of The Killing of Karen Silkwood; Useful Enemies: America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals; Whistleblower’s Dilemma: Edward Snowden, Karen Silkwood and their Quest for the Truth; and the Sobibor-related play Dear Esther.
