A-Z Wednesday: From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Reading at the Beach.

Here are the rules:

Go to your stack of books and find one whose title starts with the Letter of the Week.

Post:

1. A Photo of the Book
2. Title and Synopsis
3. A link (Amazon, B&N, etc.)
4. Come back here and leave your link in the comments

If you’ve already reviewed this book, post a link to the review as well. Be sure to visit other participants to see what books they have posted and leave them a comment (we all love comments, don’t we?) Who know? You may find your next “favorite” book.

THIS WEEK’S LETTER IS: F

My “F” Book is:

From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival

by Thomas “Toivi” Blatt

(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1997)

Trade Paperback, 242 Pages, Nonfiction

ISBN: 9780810113022, US$19.00

From the Cover: From the Ashes of Sobibor is the extraordinary account of a young man’s life during the German occupation of Poland. When the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Thomas “Toivi” Blatt was twelve years old. He and his family lived in the largely Jewish town of Izbica in the Lublin district of Poland—a district that was to become the site of three of the six major Nazi extermination camps: Bełzeċ, Sobibor, and Majdanek. Blatt’s account of his childhood in Izbica provides a fascinating glimpse of Jewish life in Poland after the German invasion and during the period of mass deportations of Jews to the camps. Blatt tells of the chilling events that led to his deportation to Sobibor, of his separation from his family, and of the six months he spent at Sobibor before taking part in the most successful uprising and mass breakout in any Nazi camp during World War II. Blatt’s tale of escape, and of the five horrifying years spent eluding both the Nazis and late anti-Semitic Polish nationalists, is a firsthand account of one of the most terrifying and savage events of human history. From the Ashes of Sobibor also includes a moving interview with Karl Frenzel, a Nazi commandant from Sobibor.

My Thoughts: Picking an F Book was much harder than choosing my E Book. After perusing and re-perusing my shelves and choosing and rejecting a handful of other F Books, I finally spotted Blatt’s book (it was hidden behind some other books) and I suddenly knew that From the Ashes of Sobibor was the book to share in this week’s A-Z Wednesday. The reason for that is that I have a personal connection to this book: Three years ago when I had just began working as an assistant teacher at the charter school where I was for the last three years, the director (an Holocaust scholar) was able to convince Toivi Blatt to come to Springville, Utah, and discuss his experiences in the Holocaust and in Sobibor with the middle school kids. (He also did the same for parents and members of the community that evening, but I didn’t go to that one.) It was a really moving experience and one that I am not soon to forget nor, I suspect, will any of the kids. While Blatt was at the school, he was passing out copies of his book, From the Ashes of Sobibor, and I was able to get myself a copy and have Toivi Blatt sign the book for me. It is one of the most special books I have in my collection because of this. It is a small piece of a very important part of history that I have for my very own now, and that I will pass on to my children when the time comes. That probably came out more insensitive than I meant it to. What I mean to say is that this is a very special book, as it not only is the story of a Holocaust victim, but it also is something he touched and wrote in to me, and is therefore a direct and concrete connection to that event that is not, in the least, abstract. Anyway, the great sin in this story is … I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet. It really is something I need to pick up.