Szymon Srebrnik

Simon Srebnik was one of two people to survive the Nazi death camp of Chelmno. He survived along with Mordechaï Podchlebnik.

Camp life

During his time in the camp, Srebnik participated in the disposal of bodies by carrying bones that hadn't been burned, and then rowing a flat-bottomed boat down the river every day to dump sacks of crushed bone into the Narew River. While rowing, Srebnik entertained the Nazi SS guards by singing Prussian military songs that the guards had taught him. Some of the bones were also bones who had not yet been buried. These bones were from people who had been gassed.

On January 18, 1945, two days before Soviet troops arrived and liberated the camp, all prisoners who remained in the camp--including Srebnik--were executed by being shot in the head. Srebnik somehow survived, however; according to a caption in the documentary Shoah, the bullet "missed his vital brain centers."

Death

He was interviewed by French film maker Claude Lanzmann for the epic documentary film Shoah made by Claude Lanzmann in 1985. He and Podchlebnik were the only two survivors of the camp. According to British Holocaust researcher Alan Heath Simon Srebnik died in 2005 at age 75.