When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Thomas Toivi Blatt was twelve years old and living with his family in Izbica, a largely Jewish town in the Lublin district. This region would soon become central to the Nazi program of mass murder, with the construction of the extermination camps at Bełżec, Sobibór and Majdanek. Blatt describes the escalating persecution of Jews in occupied Poland and the events that led to his deportation to Sobibór.

Blatt spent approximately six months imprisoned in Sobibór, a camp designed solely for systematic killing. He provides rare and chilling details of daily life in the camp, the mechanics of genocide and the atmosphere of terror under which prisoners lived. His account culminates in his participation in the Sobibór uprising of October 1943, one of the most significant acts of armed resistance by prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp, during which hundreds attempted to escape.

After his escape, Blatt recounts the constant danger he faced during the final years of the war, hiding from German forces and surviving in an environment marked by widespread antisemitism. His story is one of extraordinary courage, endurance and determination to live.

This edition also includes an interview conducted by Blatt with Karl Frenzel, a former SS officer and deputy commandant of Sobibór, offering rare insight into the mindset and actions of the camp’s perpetrators. Together, these elements make From the Ashes of Sobibor an important historical document and a vital educational resource for understanding the Holocaust.

From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival is a powerful and essential eyewitness account of the Holocaust, told from the perspective of a child who endured one of Nazi Germany’s extermination camps.