The complete and extraordinary story of police officer Yaakov Biskowitz was never fully revealed until now. He embodied heroism both as a Holocaust survivor from the Sobibor camp in Poland and as an Israeli police officer who received a commendation for saving a human life.

As a young boy, Biskowitz became one of the few people who survived for an extended period in a death camp, participated in the revolt that led to the camp's closure, and was the last Jew to leave Sobibor alive. He testified at the Eichmann trial, taking the stand in police uniform and presenting the camp map he drew himself, which became the most detailed documentation of the site to date. The camp map he meticulously created contributed significantly to exposing Nazi atrocities and assisted in archaeological excavations that uncovered gas chambers and crematoria that had remained buried and hidden underground for decades.

Eighty-two years after his escape from the camp and 13 years after his death, the Israel Police Heritage Center has produced a virtual reality exhibit dedicated to his work exposing the mass murder at Sobibor. Simultaneously, an academic article titled "Reassessment Based on Archaeological Excavations and Documentation as Tools for Reconstructing Sobibor Camp: The Testimony of Yaakov Biskowitz as a Test Case" will soon be published by Chief Inspector Dr. Yossi Hemi from the History Department of the Heritage Center and archaeologist Dr. Yoram Haimi, who excavated the area for 15 years and revealed the remains of the death camp to the world.

Sobibor was one of three death camps, along with Treblinka and Belzec, established as part of "Operation Reinhard," a comprehensive plan to exterminate Polish Jews. The camp was established in 1942, and shortly afterward, 15-year-old Biskowitz arrived there with his parents and sister Hinda. His mother and sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers, while his father was selected to work in the camp as a carpenter.

"I, being a child, was dragged by my father," he recounted during the Eichmann trial. "From that transport, they took about 12 people. From the first day, I worked with everyone. Initially, it was building the camp and barbed wire fences, and we dragged branches running from a distance of about 1.9 miles."

With his father in the killing valley, Biskowitz witnessed how those who didn't work were shot or sent to gas chambers, and he worried constantly about his father, who had fallen ill with typhus. "I would carry him to work every day," he recounted. "We worked in the Ukrainians' casino. He sat in the corner, and I worked for him too. I did my best, but the day came when I could no longer carry him. That day, two SS men came, removed him from the barracks, and led him to the shooting pit, accompanied by beatings and shouting. They shot him in front of me. I wanted to run after him, but the workers who were with me held me back."

Biskowitz remained in Sobibor for one year and four months, making him one of the few Jews who survived so long in a death camp, as the average life expectancy in these facilities did not exceed two months.

On October 14, 1943, the famous revolt broke out that was later immortalized in the film "Escape from Sobibor," with a screenplay written by camp survivor Thomas Blatt.

"With the cessation of frequent transports to the camp, towards spring 1943, the Jews understood that the place would be closed and all its inhabitants eliminated," Dr. Hemi explains. "Then the Jewish underground members began to organize for the revolt, in which hundreds of prisoners participated." The Jewish prisoners set an ingenious trap for the Nazis, inviting them to try on new leather coats, shoes, or to inspect items they had crafted for them. Every SS man who entered was attacked with axe blows or knife stabs. Sixteen camp staff members were eliminated through this strategy. Biskowitz himself stabbed one of them.

The guards eventually recovered from the shock and shot hundreds of the Jewish prisoners. Those who managed to escape to the forests were caught and executed. Only 47 camp residents survived, but Biskowitz's survival story stands out as truly miraculous. Due to the commotion during the revolt, he failed to reach the fence and was forced to flee toward the crematoria. He hid in a shooting pit until after midnight, when only guards remained in Sobibor. Under the cover of darkness, he managed to escape and became the last living Jew to leave the camp.

In his testimony at the Eichmann trial, he described his harrowing escape from Sobibor: "I remained in the Lazarett, the shooting pit, until after midnight. After jumping over a fence two meters high, through the yard where people undressed before the gas chamber, several shots were fired at me from the guard on the tower. Since it was already dark, no bullet hit me. Later, many SS men came and started running in my direction, but they thought no one was running and left the place. Only at night did I start to penetrate through wire fences, tearing barbed wire with my hands. The guard wasn't there by chance. Finally, I managed to get out of the camp."

The hardships Biskowitz endured did not weaken his resolve. At about 17 years old, he joined the partisans and later enlisted in the Polish army, working in mine clearance. About a year later, he deserted the army following an antisemitic dispute and was sentenced to death. The army ultimately decided to grant him clemency, and he served four months in prison before returning to his position. A few months later, he deserted again, joined the Betar movement, and with its help relocated to a refugee camp in Germany.

In 1947, he boarded an immigrant ship bound for Palestine that the British intercepted and diverted to Cyprus. Two years later, he immigrated to Israel and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces. In 1952, he was discharged and joined the police force. During his law enforcement career, he served as a patrol officer, traffic policeman, embassy guard, member of the prisoner escort unit, and in the national headquarters guard.

In 1959, Biskowitz was called at night to a street in Tel Aviv following a report of a man threatening to jump from his apartment window. When he arrived, the man jumped, and Biskowitz extended his hands to catch him. While the man was saved, Biskowitz suffered severe injuries that required a month of hospitalization.

The incident was reported in newspapers at the time, and much was said about the police commissioner's commendation awarded to him, but Biskowitz deliberately concealed the fact that he was a Holocaust survivor. Only with the opening of Adolf Eichmann's trial in May 1961 did he reveal what he had endured, describe his role in the Sobibor revolt, and disclose that a friend from the death camp had managed to save some photographs from the crematoria – the only memento of his parents and sister. On his own initiative, he also presented his drawing of the camp to the court without realizing the historical significance it would later hold.

Throughout his life, Biskowitz married twice, to Bella and Tova, and left behind two children, Aryeh and Yechiel. He retired from the police force and passed away in 2002 at the age of 76. Four years after his death, the map he had drawn became one of the key tools that exposed what had transpired in the camp. The process began when archaeologist Dr. Yoram Haimi from Kibbutz Mefalsim in the Gaza border region discovered that his uncles had been murdered in Sobibor. "I went there to see if there was a museum or archive, but there was nothing," Haimi recalls. "There were only three monuments and a forest. As an archaeologist, I thought it was a place worth investigating. I met with the manager of a synagogue museum in the town near Sobibor, and he said if I get funding, he would arrange the permits."

Haimi located Biskowitz's map in the state archives, and it guided him throughout the excavations that began in 2007 and concluded in 2021. "We found 220,000 artifacts there, including jewelry, watches, tableware, perfume bottles, and teeth," he says. "Unfortunately, the Polish authorities placed most of them in storage and didn't allow us to bring them to Israel. Biskowitz's map proved remarkably accurate and was enormously helpful. Wherever he indicated barracks or gas chambers had stood, that's precisely what we found. Everything had been buried in the ground."

As someone who experienced October 7 in Mefalsim, Haimi commented on conducting similar excavations in the Gaza border region in the future. "I need to recover from the trauma, and since that Saturday I've taken a break from excavations."

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David "Dugo" Leitner was born in Hungary in 1930 to his parents, Meir and Golda Leah, and raised in an Orthodox home. In March 1944, invading Nazi Germans corralled his family to the ghetto; six weeks later, they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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Young David was separated to live with thousands of other children there.

On Jan. 18, 1945, he started the long trek (known as the death marches) from Auschwitz to Mauthausen and from there to Gunskirchen, where he was liberated. Gripped with hunger, the teen dreamed of his murdered mother's bilkalach – balls of dough cooked to a golden brown.

Video: Leitner visiting the Testimony House Holocaust museum in Nir Galim. Credit: Testimony House

Leitner survived to enjoy similar foods for the rest of his life.

He moved to Israel in 1949, joined the Israel Defense Forces and eventually settled in Moshav Nir Galim. At an outdoor market in Jerusalem, he saw falafel for the first time and recalled the nostalgic cuisine of his youth that had sustained him during the escape through the Polish countryside. Despite the chickpea dish tasting very different, a new yearly ritual commemorating his survival began.

The Times of Israel reported that Leitner died on July 26 at the age of 94. His annual personal observance every Jan. 18 grew to be celebrated and recognized around the globe.

While initially a private act, Leitner's family began participating with him, and the media took notice. As more people joined in, the day took on a special name: "Operation Dugo."

In 2019, then-President Reuven Rivlin invited Leitner for a falafel meal. Other leaders who have also participated in the tradition include current President Isaac Herzog and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi.

Leitner and his wife, Sarah, had two daughters; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Bruno Dey was convicted last month of 5,232 counts of accessory to murder in Hamburg state court – equal to the number of people believed to have been killed at Stutthof during his service there in 1944 and 1945.

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Dey was convicted under new legal reasoning that even though there was no evidence linking him to a specific crime, as a camp guard he was guilty of accessory to murders committed while he was there.

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Amazon, which functions as a marketplace on top of selling products itself, said in a statement that "all sellers must follow our selling guidelines" and that those who do not will be removed.

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The move comes after the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum on Sunday appealed to Amazon to remove the merchandise, which also included an Auschwitz bottle opener and a Birkenau "massacre" mouse pad.

It said that "Selling 'Christmas ornaments' with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate. Auschwitz on a bottle opener is rather disturbing and disrespectful."

Many others on Twitter voiced outrage.

On Monday, the state memorial said it was still calling on another online outlet, Wish shopping, to stop selling the products.

Nazi Germany killed 1.1 million people at the death camp, most of them Jews, during its occupation of Poland during World War II.

Selling "Christmas ornaments" with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate. Auschwitz on a bottle opener is rather disturbing and disrespectful. We ask @amazon to remove the items of those suppliers. https://t.co/0uG2JG558e pic.twitter.com/ucZoTWPk1W

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 1, 2019

It's not the first time Amazon has had to pull offensive products sold on its site. In the past year, it has removed toilet seat covers and bath mats that featured photos of sacred Sikh temples or Islamic calligraphy and verses from the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

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More than seven decades later, Dey is going on trial Thursday on 5,230 counts of accessory to murder in Hamburg state court. Prosecutors argue that by standing guard at the camp from August 1944 to April 1945, the 93-year-old helped Stutthof function and was thus "a small wheel in the machinery of murder."

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"The accused was no ardent worshipper of Nazi ideology," prosecutors say in the indictment, reviewed by The Associated Press. "But there is also no doubt that he never actively challenged the persecutions of the Nazi regime."

Dey, a baker by training, told prosecutors he was deemed unfit for the front at age 17 in 1944 because of a heart problem, so instead was sent as a guard to Stutthof, and suggested that with or without him the killing would have taken place.

If he hadn't been there, "they would have just found someone else," he said.

Dey's attorney, Stefan Waterkamp, said his client stood by his statements to police and prosecutors. But he noted that the indictment did not link him to any specific killing and that it would be up to the court to decide whether standing guard in a watchtower alone is enough to convict him.

"Many people were killed in many ways at Stutthof," Waterkamp said. "Some were directly killed, some were killed by starvation, some were killed by typhus – the question is who is immediately responsible?"

In recent years, prosecutors have successfully convicted former death camp guards using the argument that by helping camps like Auschwitz and Sobibor function, they were accessories to the murders there even without evidence of involvement in a specific killing.

The 2015 conviction of former Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening on such reasoning was upheld by a German federal court, solidifying the precedent.

In Dey's case, the reasoning is being applied to a concentration camp rather than a death camp. Still, prosecutors have expressed confidence it still pertains, since tens of thousands of people were killed in Stutthof even though – unlike at the death camps – the site's sole purpose wasn't murder.

Stutthof was established by Nazi Germany in 1939 east of Danzig, which is today the Polish city of Gdansk, and was initially used as the main collection point for Jews and non-Jewish Poles removed from the city.

From about 1940, it was used as a so-called "work education camp" where forced laborers, primarily Polish and Soviet citizens, were sent to serve sentences and often died. Others incarcerated there included criminals, political prisoners, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

From mid-1944, when Dey was posted there, it was filled with tens of thousands of Jews from ghettos being cleared by the Nazis in the Baltics as well as from Auschwitz, and thousands of Polish civilians swept up in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw uprising.

In the end, more than 60,000 people were killed there by being given lethal injections of gasoline or phenol directly to their hearts, shot or starved. Others were forced outside in winter without clothes until they died of exposure, or put to death in a gas chamber.

Asked if he knew who was being killed, Dey told prosecutors his SS comrades talked of the "extermination of the Jews" and said he had "done people wrong" by serving there.

"I did not know why they were there," Dey told prosecutors. "I knew well that they were Jews who had committed no crime, that they were only there because they were Jews. And they have the same right to live and to work like any other person. But it was just that Hitler or his party were against that, who had something against the Jews."

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Austria's APA news agency reported Friday that Feingold died on Thursday, citing a notification distributed by the Jewish Community of Vienna to its members.

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Feingold was born in 1913 in what is today Slovakia and grew up in Vienna. He fled after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 to avoid persecution as a Jew, but was arrested by the Gestapo in Prague in 1939.

He was imprisoned in Auschwitz, Neuengamme, Dachau and Buchenwald until liberated by US troops in 1945.

"I told myself, 'If I get out alive, I must tell my story.' No one can imagine what happened there," Feingold would later say.

At the end of World War II, Feingold led 100,000 Holocaust survivors to Israel.

Feingold, along with Jewish Brigade fighters Asher Ben-Natan and Abba Geffen, served as a third prong to a movement to bring Holocaust survivors to Mandate Palestine at the end of the war, when the British embargo against Jewish immigration was still in place.

Former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called Feingold an "unbelievably impressive personality" whose experiences "show clearly it is our responsibility never to forget the Nazi atrocities."

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