A Promise at Sobibor

A Jewish Boy's Story of Revolt and Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland

By: Philip "Fiszel" Bialowitz, Joseph Bialowitz

Narrated by: Jim Tedder

Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

A Promise at Sobibór is the story of Fiszel Bialowitz, a teenaged Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi gas chambers. Between April 1942 and October 1943, about 250,000 Jews from European countries and the Soviet Union were sent to the Nazi death camp at Sobibór in occupied Poland. Sobibór was not a transit camp or work camp: Its sole purpose was efficient mass murder. On October 14, 1943, approximately half of the 650 or so prisoners still alive at Sobibór undertook a daring and precisely planned revolt, killing SS officers and fleeing through minefields and machine-gun fire into the surrounding forests, farms, and towns. Only about 42 of them, including Fiszel, are known to have survived to the end of the war.

Philip (Fiszel) Bialowitz, now an American citizen, tells his eyewitness story here in the real-time perspective of his own boyhood, from his childhood before the war and his internment in the brutal Izbica ghetto to his harrowing six months at Sobibór - including his involvement in the revolt and desperate mass escape - and his rescue by courageous Polish farmers. He also recounts the challenges of life following the war as a teenaged displaced person, and his eventual efforts as a witness to the truth of the Holocaust.

In 1943 the heroic leaders of the revolt at Sobibór, Sasha Perchersky and Leon Feldhendler, implored fellow prisoners to promise that anyone who survived would tell the story of Sobibór: Not just of the horrific atrocities committed there, but of the courage and humanity of those who fought back. Bialowitz has kept that promise.

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©2010 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks

Great personal testimony about Holocaust survival

This is a great personal history of life before during and after the holocaust. It is a testimony to Perseverance and choosing to move forward and to choose life. This is a great book to go along with “Escape From Sobibor”. It tells a story story from a personal perspective, rather than a group perspective.

Another Prisoner's Insight of Nazi Death Camp Sobibor

There are not many books written by Sobibor prisoners as Sobibor was a Nazi death camp. It's sole purpose was to immediately murder Jews by the thousands every day. This book is another perspective of one of the few Sobibor survivors. The author tells of his arrival at Sobibor and the fate of his family, his involvement in the Sobibor escape planning, how it was executed and finally how he survived the still dangerous world for Jews until well after WWII. It's an important work as we should never forget the fascist Nazi rule and now how the U.S. is threatened of fascism by Trump.

fantastic story!

loved it. I would have liked to hear more about what exactly happened to his fiance but maybe he never found out. most Holocaust memoirs include the search for loved ones after liberation. this one didn't really touch on that. however everything else was fantastic.

Sobering and Enlightening

One of the very best personal remembrances of the SHOA. ( Holocaust) I have ever read! Impossible to put down. Especially as our family lost people during that horrific time!

Such a heart felt true story

He was so young to have experienced this most dark of times
He kept the faith and never gave up as far as I can see. His acknowledgement of God and why this happened was so real . I would love to read more from this man also I would have been so honored to have met him and attend his seminars. Cant say more or I’ll give away the story. You won’t be sorry about this one. What a courageous young man

Well written

The narrator was a bit difficult to listen to at times. This is an excellent telling of a very horrific time in history.

An unforgettable testimony of a young holocaust survivor.

This tragically is but one specific account of a young Polish man's experiences during the Second World War especially as regards his survival in a nazi death camp. His first hand account made me recognize not for the first time that human beings under certain circumstances are capable of barbarous and sadistic cruelty to other human beings.
That reality reinforces my need to keep reminding myself of that as powerful political systems can use modern propaganda techniques to dehumanize others who are different from themselves

Minor criticism that the reader's diction was overly precise to leave me feeling it was not conversational enough to flow unobtrusively

A story I will not forget