Szymon Srebrnik

Szymon (Shimon, Simon) Srebrnik

At the age of fifteen, Srebrnik testified in June 1945 in the Polish trial of Chełmno personnel. He testified again about Chełmno in the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, and in the Chełmno trials in Germany (1962–1965) of the former SS men from the SS Special Detachment Kulmhof.

Life

Ghetto and camp Srebrnik witnessed his father killed in the Łódź Ghetto. He was thirteen years old when he and his mother were deported to the Chelmno extermination camp. His mother was killed in a gas van. The camp SS selected Simon to work with a Jewish work detail which incinerated bodies of the victims in open-air crematoriums. He helped take the sacks away at night. He rowed a flat-bottomed boat on the Ner River where the sacks were being emptied into the water. While rowing, Srebrnik used to entertain the Nazi SS guards by singing Prussian military songs which they taught him. Srebrnik also won jumping contests and speed races which the SS organized for chained prisoners to participate in. The SS usually killed those who lost.

On January 18, 1945, two days before Soviet troops arrived and liberated the camp, the Germans shot and killed most Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners who took part in the disposal of Holocaust evidence. Despite being shot in the head like the others, Srebrnik survived. According to his own testimony, the German bullet missed the spine ("vital brain centres") and exited through his mouth without substantial blood loss.

Life in Israel After his emigration to Israel, Srebrnik lived in a Kibbutz and went into military service, eventually taking part in four wars. In addition, he testified in the Chełmno Guard Trials, which were conducted in Germany from 1962–1965.