When I was growing up in our house on Yuma Trail in Bisbee, Arizona, my father was the storyteller in the family. He could tell a mean Three Billy Goats Gruff—“Who’s that tripping across my bridge?”
I’ve since learned, however, that not all trolls live under bridges in fairy tales or even under bridges at all. I hear from them occasionally. I suspect some of them have their search engines set to track down key words, and the name Thomas Blatt is probably one of them. Another might be the word Sobibor. Within minutes of this post appearing on line, I expect I’ll start hearing from some of those folks. They will come out of the woodwork in order to assure me that a: the holocaust never happened; b: Sobibor didn’t exist; and c: Thomas Blatt was a liar.
Let the comments come as they will. I’m writing this post anyway.
Thomas Blatt died last week at age 88, after years of dementia. Given his past, I’m sure the images that haunted his tortured mind in those final years were unthinkable to the rest of us, and I can only say that I trust he rests in peace. He was a Jewish boy growing up in Poland when his family was rounded up and shipped off to Sobibor. You hear about still living survivors from some of the concentration camps, but Sobibor was a death camp. People went in through the gates and died in gas chambers. A few prisoners were kept alive for a while and used as worker bees to remove the dead bodies; to sort their clothing and shoes; and to remove the silver fillings from their mouths. Thomas was one of the workers assigned to do those terrible tasks, and in sorting the clothing, he found the ones that had belonged to members of his own family.
Thomas survived because he was part of 300 inmates of Sobibor who overpowered their guards and escaped. You can read the whole story in his book, Sobibor: The Forgotten Revolt. He and a fellow inmate were hidden by a farmer who later turned on them and shot them, killing the one. Shot in the face and with a bullet lodged in his jaw, Thomas played dead. He spent the remainder of the war hiding out in the forest.
He later immigrated to Israel where he married an American woman. They moved to the US but divorced in 1986. She said she didn’t want to live in Sobibor because she had lived there for “30 years” as Thomas struggled with his memories of what had happened there. As for the camp itself? It was razed at the end of the war. Trees were planted. All records were destroyed. It was as though, by destroying the camp, they could wipe all knowledge of it from the face of planet.
Thomas Blatt begged to disagree. He spent the remainder of his working years, traveling the country and telling his story in hopes that Sobibor and what happened there would not be forgotten. He returned to Sobibor time and again, searching for the bones of gas chamber victims in the newly growing forest and making sure that those bones were given a proper burial.
I had the honor of meeting Thomas Blatt in the late eighties or maybe the early nineties. We sat drinking coffee together in a Seattle restaurant that no longer exists. He told me his story. I listened and stored it away in my heart for future reference. When it came time to write Lying in Wait, I used much of what he told me that day as the background for my fictional story.
Yes, I write mystery fiction—the kinds of books you can buy in better bus depots everywhere. But in writing Lying in Wait, I felt as though I was helping in Thomas Blatt in carrying out his lifelong mission.
I was born in 1944. I was a babe in arms when he , a traumatized, wounded young man, was fighting to stay alive in the forest outside Sobibor. Until that day over a cup of coffee, a woman who had grown up as a member of the Warren Community Church in Bisbee, Arizona, had never heard of Sobibor.
Thomas Blatt’s passion in life was to make sure the people who died there were not forgotten. I hope that by writing Lying in Wait I somehow did my small part.
RIP, Thomas. You were and are an inspiration.13
Thank you for reminding all of us we must never forget there was and is true evil around us. I had a troubled mind after finishing Lying in Wait. I had to set it aside. I still have not reread it as I have all your other books. I am shaking even as I write this. I cannot comprehend the mindset of the small group of people that were just destroyers. I am glad that you passed on Thomas Blatt’s life story. I also wish him peace. Connie Diaz
Thank you for yet another example of your admirable strength and perseverance in sharing the truth with your loyal readers.
I also want to express my appreciation for your sharing your experience in making an exercise program an important part of your life. It has motivated me to give it a higher priority in my own life.
Keep on keeping on. I had never heard of pet hoarders until I read one of your novels and you explained your “inspiration”. So much goes on in the world that we need to remember. I lived among Japanese farmers when small and went to high school with their children. Hard to believe that they weren’t treated as well in their incarceration as the POWs from Germany and Italy while in camps in the Midwest. How anyone can deny madness existed amazes me.
I am ashamed to say that I hadn’t heard of it before this, but I will be discussing it with my husband and son….both of whom have much more knowledge of such topics than I…. tonight. I just spent a few minutes looking it up and just reading about it literally made me feel ill.
A really sad but hopefully story. I get so sad at how humans can hurt other humans. By writing and asking questions we can keep history alive. You can not pick and choose what part of history you want to keep.
Thank you for keeping this story and this man’s history alive. Fiction or non fiction you write a story with such a feeling for the subject. I enjoy every book you have written. Thank you again for the HOURS of pure Reading Pleasure you have given me.. Jan
Thank you for keeping his story alive both in this post and in your book. It is important that we never forget…
We often miss a lot of what goes on in the world. If you watch any of the episodes of Who Do You Think You Are UK, there are several episodes that deals with decedents of people who had escaped to the UK. In fact, did you know England had concentration camps? Did you know that? I did not. Tamzin Outhwaite’s grandfather had come from Italy to start a business and had that business for years before being thrown into a detention center on the Isle of Man just because he was Italian.
I’m reading this after spending the last few hours hearing about the senseless violence in Paris tonight. Thank you for remembering a hero. A person who fought for the forgotten. There are so many lights in the world we never hear about. Thank you for keeping Thomas Blatt’s name and memory alive as one of those lights. People like that keep–and have kept–this world from being so dark.
My dad was a WWII veteran. One of the things he always told us even up until a couple of weeks before his passing was that he didn’t want that war to be forgotten. He had a great fear that people would forget it and quit talking about the horrible things that happened. My prayer is that we will continue to tell those stories and not to let it be forgotten.
Thank you for this blog. I have “Lying in Wait” and will start re-reading it this afternoon. I spent some time this morning reading about Sobibor on Wiki. I am speechless concerning what happened there.
I have had a few uneasy moments this morning as one of my granddaughters is France studying art. She is in Paris every weekend. She’s ok and was not near the concert hall where most of the killing took place. She texted that she is never going outside again. If only—-
In my career I had the privilege of meeting and learning from several who bore the numbers tattooed on their arms. Their courage and character impressed me and to this day their memory is a source of strength and reminds me of the necessity for tolerance and understanding. Especially in light of the horror committed in Paris yesterday.
Thank you for reminding us of the horror of the NAZI reign.
It is ironic that my tribute to Thomas Blatt would be published on the very day of the Paris atrocities. And yet, even on that very dark night, there were pieces of incredible human kindness–like the woman who held a stranger’s hand so she wouldn’t be alone when she died. I’m grateful that in the face of all that hour, she was able to reach out to comfort someone else. Let’s all be thankful for tiny points of light in the darkness.
Although the Soviet Russia and Maoist China killed more, no other nation has set out to exterminate an entire “race” of people as did Nazi Germany. We need to never let it be forgotten.
It is sad that there are people in the world whose only pleasure seems to be that of “trolls” writing nasty rants on the internet.
Thank you for not being intimidated by such mentally disturbed folk.
My father was a Polish Jew who fled Poland at nine and this story makes my heart hurt. A good friend from Poland has confirmed this to all be true and that we all need to stop wearing rose colored glasses as these situations of genaside are still happening today. Thank you for telling the story and writing Lying in Wait…Thomas Blatt is truly a hero.