A documentary film screening this Sunday tells the story of an investigation into the cover up of a deadly revolt at a top-secret Nazi death camp in 1943.
The Hartford Jewish Film Festival continues this weekend with the film by Emmy Award-winning PBS filmmaker Gary Hochman, of North Haven, Connecticut. Hochman spent ten years making the documentary "Deadly Deception at Sobibor" about the archaeological dig to uncover Nazi crimes.
“There’s never been a holocaust investigation like the one at Sobibor, one that combines history and science, secret telegrams and Luftwaffe aerials, and the dramatic outcomes of the excavations themselves,” Hochman told Connecticut Public’s “Morning Edition.” Below are excerpts from the interview.
Describing Sobibor
About a mile from the border of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, the Nazis set up a top-secret death cap in a heavily forested area. Sobibor was one of three such death camps, Hochman said.
“The Nazis launched a master plan called Action Reinhardt to set up three killing centers that would be Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor,” he said. “The sole purpose of these places was extermination.”
Between 1942 to 1943, the Nazis secretly murdered 250,000 Jews from Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia and Russia, according to Hochman.
“They operated this place like a factory of death,” he said. “That was Sobibor.”
The coverup
On Oct. 14, 1943 the killings came to an abrupt end.
“A group of slave laborers launched a daring revolt,” Hochman said. “They lured guards into barracks one at a time and killed them.”
Hundreds staged a daring escape into the Sobibor woods.
“Then a manhunt was carried out. And 52 people survived out of the 300 who escaped,” Hochman said. “Because that occurred, the Nazis decided that they had to meticulously destroy the camp. They could leave no evidence, because they were supposed to be the master race and they were defeated by a group of Jewish prisoners.”
Now, 81 years later, there stands a mature forest where the Nazis had burned barracks, uprooted fence lines, destroyed the gas chambers, and flattened the camp.
The archeological excavation
Archaeologists and historians from several countries used local people to excavate the site and document evidence. Among the artifacts are bullets, coins, glasses and Judaica Jewish stars. There are also wedding rings, and the most telling are a small group of metal, name tags, Hochman said.
“This would serve as a historic record all on its own. There were 52 survivors at the end of the Sobibor Revolt. Today, none of them are alive,” Hochman said. Most of the survivors were children.
But he said he was able to contact descendants of Sobibor, including Philip Bialowitz, who took part in the earliest excavations.
“And there was a family from the New Haven area, Chaim and Selma Engel. Their granddaughter, Tagan Engel, is going to join me on a panel following the film, and she'll be able to address the personal aspects of a survivor's life from Sobibor,” Hochman said.
“There have been many Holocaust films. There have been many Holocaust stories. But there's never been a holocaust investigation like the one at Sobibor.”
A note, Tagan Engel is a freelance producer at Connecticut Public. "Deadly Deception at Sobibor" can be seen Sunday, Jan. 21, at 1 p.m. at the Mandell Jewish Community Center in West Hartford. It will be followed by a Q&A session that includes Hochman and Engel, the granddaughter of a Sobibor survivor.
