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Thomas Blatt, Sobibor escapee and author, 88

Thomas Blatt, one of the few Jews to escape the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp and a key witness against camp guard John Demjanjuk, has died.
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November 4, 2015

Thomas Blatt, one of the few Jews to escape the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp and a key witness against camp guard John Demjanjuk, has died.

Blatt, who escaped Sobibor in a group uprising in 1943, died Oct. 31 at his home in Santa Barbara, the Associated Press (AP) reported. He was 88.

Blatt was born in 1927 Izbica, a largely Jewish and Yiddish-speaking Polish town, and was imprisoned in the ghetto with his family and the town’s other Jews before being taken to Sobibor in 1943. His parents and younger brother were murdered upon arrival at the camp. 

Six months after arriving at Sobibor, Blatt was one of more than 300 prisoners to participate in the uprising, during which many Nazis were killed. Blatt, who was 16 at the time, was among approximately 60 escapees to survive the war, however. The others were caught and brought back to the Polish camp or killed on the spot.

Blatt immigrated to Israel after the war and to the United States a year later, where he ran three electronics stores in the Santa Barbara area. He gave frequent talks about the Holocaust and authored two books about Sobibor.

In a 2010 interview with the AP, Blatt said he still experienced nightmares and depression related to his Holocaust experiences.

“I never escaped from Sobibor. I’m still there — in my dreams, in everything,” Blatt said. “My point of reference is always Sobibor.”

But a friend from Warsaw, Alan Heath, told the AP that while Blatt had suffered from nightmares and depression, he never harbored feelings of revenge.

“Despite what had happened to his family,” Heath said, “he constantly repeated that one should not hate, and he certainly bore no malice toward Germans — and urged others to do the same.”

Demjanjuk died in 2012 while he was awaiting an appeal of his conviction the previous year by a Munich court for his role in the murder of 27,900 people at Sobibor.

Blatt is survived by three children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara will pay tribute to Blatt as part of its annual commemoration of Kristallnacht on Nov. 8. The program begins at 1 p.m. at the Bronfman Family Jewish Community Center in Santa Barbara. 

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