Customer Reviews

From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival (Jewish Lives)

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Among the most common questions asked of Holocaust survivors are why the Jews didn't fight back: Why, it is wondered, did they let their families go to their death so easily? The recollections of Blatt, a survivor of the extermination camp Sobibor, in Poland, where Jews staged a successful revolt, addresses these questions in a frank and gripping narrative. Blatt's account demonstrates how the Germans kept Jews in Poland subjugated through random terror combined with promises that the status quo would be maintained if the Jews cooperated. By the time Blatt reached Sobibor with his family, it was too late for resistance. Perhaps the most frightening, and dispiriting, part of Blatt's account is how Christian Poles at times robbed, terrorized, or even murdered Jewish fugitives, such as the Sobibor escapees. A chilling narrative; highly recommended for Judaica collections and Holocaust specialists as well as general readers.

Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt gives us a chilling look into what it was like to live and just survive under a barbaric system; one where one's neighbors and friends became their enemies and pursuers in the aim to please the occupation forces of Nazism. Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt and others like him survived against incredible odds to their survival. It makes one reflect on and cherish each and every day that we live in freedom without the tremendous tyranny that Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt, his family, and many others endured on a day to day basis for several years. Thank you Mr. Thomas Toivi Blatt for your sincere and honest reflections.

I thought this book was amazing. My history teacher recommended this to me after i read 'man's search for meaning'.
It's an incredibly honest and gripping book on the life of a young man survivng sobibor and the activies around it.
It will definately make you be thankful for what you have and not to take anything for granted. A truly inspirational book.

This book is phenomenal. I could not put it down until I finished it. I was expecting the worst part of the book to be about what was done in Sobibor. But to me, it wasn't. What was even worse to me, was what happened after the escape. I thought people would be honoring him as a hero for escaping. Instead, people were STILL trying to turn him in to the Nazis--after everything he had been through. And still a kid, for crying out loud. But nothing else compared, to me, to what happened at the very end of the book. The Germans were overthrown, and the Russians in control, so he should have been safe. But no, that is STILL not enough for some people. Now the Polish townspeople are ready to finish off what the Nazis started. Absolutely unbelievable! There were also parts in it that were very touching. When the German took Stefan out in the woods to shoot him, and then told him to run, while he shot in the air. And lots of people risked their lives to help. But then others would rather turn you in than look at you. What horrible psychological warfare for people, not knowing who they could trust, when they asked for help. This war was so brutal for so many different peoples.

This book is totally riveting. I'm reminded of one of the interviews for the movie "Uprising." Where one of the survivors asked the director of the movie if he thinks this same kind of thing could happen again, and the director said, ''I hope not.'' And the survivor said that he thought it could. After reading books like this on what DID happen in WW2, I believe he is right. This COULD happen again. When you read about all the people who turned on others, and some of the atrocities committed. And Stalin and Hitler were NOT the only people committing them. People's neighbors were committing them.

And as has been said by other reviewers, you will not look at your life in the same way after reading this. You will be so much more thankful for so many things. I'm so glad the author lived to tell his story to us.

My favorite subject, This is a great look at the Germans inhumanities to man. And still the world learned nothing.

Until I read this book, "Holocaust" to me was just one of those small sparks of a big firework called "World War II". It was briefly mentioned in a very short paragrah in one of the World War II chapters in my history class in high school. But after reading this book, the word "Holocaust" gives me goose bumps. This book is a great revelation of one of the darkest time in human history. I had never read any thriller that is as thrilling as this real story. I had never read any page turner that enthralled me like this book did. I just couldn't put the book down while I was journeying with the author through one near-death experience to another. (it seemed as if those incidents were never ending...)

The book not only taught me a very important piece of history that my history book failed to show me. It also helped me understand an aweful lot about the Jewish culture, the Jewish people and their lives before World War II. (and after WWII, since the book got me curious enough to research more on Israel and the Jewish people). This book showed me in great detail why, how and what had happened during the Jewish extermination campaigns, and finally understand why such appalling schemes were so successful and unstoppable.

Besides being an excellent history book, it's also a very compelling book that shows all human weaknesses there are. (greed, cowardice, prejudice, ignorance, fear, lack of faith, lack of ethnical conviction, group thinking, etc...) Sometimes I wonder, if only we didn't have all these flaws and weaknesses in us, the Nazzi wouldn't have a chance to execute their plan, and the entire history of war and atrocity wouldn't keep repeating itself. The sad part is, history always repeats because we are still what we are, we are all so afraid of death that our fear often stops us from doing the right thing, and we are greedy and materialistic still, yet we don't have faith that the world has enough for us to propser altogether......

But the bright side is, as this book demonstrated, even in the most hopeless situation, there is still a chance that one can survive and thrive. I highly recommend this book because it helps me appreciate my family and loved ones a lot more. Now, whenever I start to have the slightest complaint about my life, my mind flashes me with the story of this book, holds my temper back and makes me realize I literally have nothing I should be unhappy about.

I hope more people can read this book and remember not to let the Holocaust victims perish in vain by living our life with gratitude, appreciation and compassion. I think people in this world should recognize that any regime that promotes hatred or destruction of any race or religion is dangerous.

This book is an important document of the successful rebellion and escape by Jewish inmates from the Nazi death camp known as Sobibor. The book also describes what life was like before the war in a typical Jewish village in Poland. It is compelling reading; I could not put it down, I read it all night. Most satisfying for me was the account of how, during their uprising, the camp inmates killed their evil SS guards one by one. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand the Holocaust.

I met the author over 10 years ago and had the privilege of hearing him share about his experiences. I bought the book that day and have read it multiple times since. I have borrowed my copy to many others, who have shed their fair share of tears as well. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested!!

Being an amateur historian, the Holocaust is one of the things that fascinates & scares me. 60 years have pasted & my mind still can't wrap around the facts of the Holocaust, that humans could inflict such pain & horror on other animals, let alone on other humans.

My main thought throughout the book was how incredibly lucky Blatt was. Repeatedly, throughout the book, in sections on every page, he chose left or right, up or down, go or stay, raise his hand or not, steal some bread or not, and every time he chose the right path. In each one of those cases, in every single case, if he had chosen wrong, he would have been dead. I'm not being melodramtic; Blatt illustrated over & over again that with his recreations of past events.

As always, I'm a little skeptic, but even if half of his choices are true, then my God, how did this person survive? How did anyone survive? As so many people have asked before, why did the Jews not fight back? I think Blatt in his autobiography/memoirs, explain this better then any book I've read before.

I thought this book was okay, but for some reason I was not as enthralled by it as "Escape from Sobibor". Maybe this was because I found it difficult to relate to the author of this book so much. It is definitely worth reading, though, for anybody who is interested in knowing about the resistance to the Nazis.