Brutal Killer of Nazi Criminals -Polish Teenager Stanisław Szmajzner & His Great Escape from SOBIBOR

Stanisław Szmajzner, one of 3 children of Jewish parents, was born on the 13 March 1927 in the town of Puławy, Poland.
Prior to World War II, antisemitism in Poland had been growing, and Polish authorities had taken various measures to exclude Jews from key sectors of society. Some Polish politicians even pressed for the mass emigration of Poland’s Jewish population.
Stanisław’s parents were religious and they spoke Yiddish and Hebrew at home. 3,600 Jews lived in Pulawy out of an overall population of approximately 12,000 and Stanisław Szmajzner who lived in the town together with his brother, sister and parents would later recall that he felt strong antisemitism in Puławy since he was a kid.
The Second World War began on the 1st of September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Warsaw suffered heavy air attacks and artillery bombardment and German troops entered the capital on the 29th of September, shortly after its surrender.
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[@TheDigitalApple]

Respect to those who escaped from the Nazi camps especially those who fought against the Nazi’s and communists!

[@robertomeneghetti6215]

At that time you were the one or the other one...

[@KohalaLover]

Communists?! You mean fascists, don’t you?

[@ole5539]

In Europe? In the world? In the camps? obviously not.@@robertomeneghetti6215

[@jiritichy7967]

Two Slovak Jews escaped (Walter Rosenberg/Rudolf Vrba and another) and their report on mass exterminations at Sobibor/Auschwitz, in spite of delays due to the facts that nobody wanted to believe it, saved many lives.

[@BorisSpinoza]

With out Red army would be no victory over Nazis! Also communist weren’t angels, but they were most and best resistance fighters in every occupied country!

[@TheeDavidDee]

"There were many tears shed for Stanisław Szmajzner."

[@roaropgard8575]

Rest in peace😭😭

[@diaquallo]

Rip

[@AndriyValdensius-wi8gw]

Remember Szmajzner's warning about fascism.

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

@@AndriyValdensius-wi8gw I watched this brief interview that Szmajzner was saying that the SS administrators and the SS death’s head units didn’t even know who was Jewish or who was Jewish as they were coming off those cattle wagon train carts arriving at Sobibor everyday. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if American Citizens that were Jewish or Poles or Czech Americans were murdered in the gas chambers at Sobibor or Auschwitz Birkenau

[@microdesigns2000]

There still are.😢

[@calvinmcfarlandsr.707]

I never heard of this young, amazing hero. He will be remembered and blessed forever. RIP, brother 🙏.

[@douglaslamb7267]

There is an amazing documentary about him done by DW German television and it covers his life and how he confronted his tormentor in Brazil.

[@maryannelizbeth5768]

Watch the movie Escape from Sobibor

[@StephenLuke]

RIP Stanisław Szmajzner (1927-1989)

[@WendyQallab]

It is very hard to listen and see this. What a nightmare and it makes me so angry.

[@TheMatrixxandRhodesShow]

I shed many tears for Stanislaw Szukalski.

[@KohalaLover]

Thank you World History and to your narrator. Your episodes are exceptional.

[@Asger21]

I have read his full Survival story. It is a must read mind blowing one. R.I.P. Stanislaw!

[@Tomy_Yon]

My grandparents hid English soldiers. ❤

[@user-gj5gb7fd6n]

👍❤️

[@a.h.7788]

Thank you to your grandparents, my grandfather could have been one of the soldiers your grandparents hid.

[@Thomas-yr9ln]

My mother's ancestors hide escaped slaves during the Civil War. Almost the same thing.

[@davewilson9738]

He would not be happy or proud of the world we are creating at present.

[@ole5539]

Because we have built it, in a major part, on the failed ideologies of the past. Friedrich Hölderlin was right; "What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it heaven.”

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

I can only imagine what Szlomo is witnessing with the antisemitism happening in Israel, Gaza, Palestine regions and also in the WOKE US Universities. He’d be GREATLY disappointed 😡

[@davewilson9738]

@@ole5539 so true. Whilst applying false values to people in society they do not represent themselves.

[@ole5539]

Exactly...the royal scam.@@davewilson9738

[@lukelee7967]

Honestly, you should really do a lot more videos on people like this guy. A survivor who helped identify the war criminals. Instead of videos about the war criminals.

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

I can almost guarantee that he murdered Gustav Wagner bc he had a knife in his back at his villa/house and the police investigators want to say that Wagner committed suicide. I don’t buy it one but. Szlomo said he wanted to Gustav Wagner during the revolt but wasn’t at Sobibor as was Reichlightner was in Berlin meeting with SS Reichsfuhrer Himmler and possibly Hitler himself

[@SynthoidSounds]

Thanks for posting this story. I've never understood anti-Semitism, probably never will. Kudos and respect to this fellow and all the others who fought against the Nazis. Can't help but wonder why the Polish freedom fighters shot and killed the escapees rather than letting them join, maybe they thought they were some sort of spies or something?

[@philipskalla4312]

Because of the widespread Nazi hunts for escaped Jews, and centuries-old antisemitism among some locals, many Polish Jewish partisans sought affiliation with Polish partisan groups. This was a difficult and dangerous task-a Jewish partisan could be robbed of his weapon or killed for approaching a partisan unit. However, numerous Polish partisan units welcomed Jews, such as the People's Guard. (Jewish Partisans in Occupied Poland)

[@tomskonieczka2385]

@@philipskalla4312 you have no understanding of the complex situation in Poland during the war.

[@philipskalla4312]

@@tomskonieczka2385 I quoted from an article from the 'Facing History & Ourselves' educational website. If you think that the authors lack understanding, I suggest you take it up with them - not me.

[@marcleblanc3602]

Really not so hard to understand, least you understand all other hates? For as Arabs go I dont think it has been that strong. Far as I gather it was mostly caused by the Elites and their ways. Best is to study in Israel, how they receive non "semites" immigrants, people are tribal and a growing numbers & power is not appreciated.

[@WielkaStopa-qh1rr]

The practice of frightening each other, complaining about goyim, and exaggerating stories was common among Jews. The forest is usual not a place for war survivalists. There were just some compromised conspirators and there was always a big risk to others. The partisans were irregular secret soldiers fed and sheltered by local villagers. So the escapees were also had to be sheltered by the people which was extremely dangerous, not mentioning 90% of jews didn't even speak polish. people were starving and surrounded by non-loyal minorities and gestapo agents, including jewish ones. asking for help was common trick, betrayals of hosts were also very common. i doubt if today you would help some chased murder and at that time help to escapees was much more difficult and dangerous. many jews started to be a thieves and robbers so polish soldiers were asked for help by a local communities. Before, Jews were commonly seen as an unloyal and dangerous element. Some of them helped bolsheviks and deserted in 1920. However, later some welcomed and collaborated with the Soviets in 1939 which means mass persecusions. Many of them were in communist groups, which were obviously enemies of the Polish underground state. You can't think that it is enough to just go to the forest to survive. That is not a movie. So there are plenty conditions on which depends when help may be gained and still no guarantee. And people fighting for survival may be very nasty.

[@ladycplum]

Schlomo! He was beautifully portrayed in "Escape From Sobibor".

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

Yes he was 👍🏽 as for the 2018 Sobibor reboot “Szlomo” wasn’t really in the movie that much only Alexander Perchesky aka Sasha from his viewpoint of the movie. The reboot was GREAT as it was portrayed in German & Russian instead of English as it was in the 1987 film. The gas chamber gassing scene was horrid and just cringing to watch the women being gassed 😬🫣

[@blancabulgrin5560]

And this happened in my life time,such a brave young man. His family would have been proud of him n so good looking RIP

[@vaughnmojado8637]

It breaks my heart for what they went through. Rest easy

[@johnthomson6507]

1983 there's a itv tv film called escape from sobibor which is quite good. Probably on KZbin. Might be partly based on his memoirs. Incredibly brave people.

[@05KAR]

1:13 Antisemitism was not growing in 1927, it was already in Poland and the whole Europe, except that in Poland it was never official and the government never did nothing to supress the Polish Jews. The only exception is allowing universities to segregate the students and it was because a one university of Lviv wanted that. There was antisemitism and violence but it was always criminalized and punished by the law and the Polish authorities. To say that "some politicians" pressed for something is like saying nothing, there were also Jewish , German and Ukrainian parties in the Polish parliament and politicians "pressing" for plenty other things.

[@philipskalla4312]

It was not just the University of Lwow: University of Warsaw students remember pre-WWII segregation of Jews This is the second year in a row that University of Warsaw students have commemorated the victims of such discrimination. By KATARZYNA MARKUSZ / JTA OCTOBER 8, 2019 04:03 Ghetto benches, as they were called, were an official form of discrimination against Jews in prewar Poland. Jewish students were required to sit on designated benches in specific sections in lecture halls or to stand for some classes. In Warsaw, Christian students who wanted to show solidarity with their Jewish colleagues and sat on the same benches with them were beaten by nationalists.

[@05KAR]

@@philipskalla4312 I wrote that it was because a one university, polytechnic actually in Lviv wanted that, several followed in 1937, including the Warsaw University. Government and parliament were against it but at the end allowed it to minimize the antisemitic violence of nationalists organizations, which was the real problem. It was "official" only in this way that universities were allowed to do it, it was the policy of them, not of the state.

[@philipskalla4312]

@@05KAR Thank you for the extra information. Do you have any sources for the attitude of the government and parliament at the time?

[@05KAR]

@@philipskalla4312 Sure, it's all in the wiki article of Ghetto Benches. There was a coup d etat in 1926 against the only nationalist government that ever ruled in Poland. In general the governments later were not completely democratic but it has nothing to do with antisemitism. They weren't democratic because of supressing the opposition of different kinds, but especially the extremists, both communists and fascists / ultranationalists, no matter if Polish, Ukrainian or the soviet. Some of those Ukrainians later became German collaborators, some were responsible for several Jewish pogroms and a huge ethnic cleansing of Poles in present day western Ukraine. The leader of a one of these organizations, Stepan Bandera was imprisoned in Poland before the war for assassination of a one minister, he was also imprisoned by Germans for most of the war but for the other reasons and his organization was still active.

[@greyberet1]

Antisemitism is EVERYWHERE on this planet and is experiencing a revival in north america today… Why try to deny/hide it? You bunch of effing hypocrites!!

[@gilbertvega4012]

RIP His words moved me let there never again be fascist or another Holocaust because of race and or religions but yet again its happening in 2023/2024 History again unfortunately beautiful documentary thank you.

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

There will be another Nuremberg trial and other war crimes trial I’m sure of it

[@donnadoriand7324]

Holocausts have never ceased.

[@WielkaStopa-qh1rr]

mussolini's fascist protected italian jews as long as they can

[@alanaldpal950]

You would think that after the lessons of WW2, there would never be another holocaust, but there have been multiple holocausts since then.

[@davidweyant9356]

If people don't learn from history, they are bound to repeat it.

[@jrpanciotti8863]

another great video, thank you. You bring to life the stories of people and places that not much is known about. I would really appreciate it if you did some videos about the poles who were murdered by the nazi's after the occupation. I was appalled by the number of artist's that were murdered in 1940 when i visited museums in Krakow last year. I am also interested in the doctors who were killed then as well. Killing doctors during a war is such a stupid thing to do.

[@rodolfo5022]

Poles we're killed by germans as well as by soviets. Let's not forget Katyn.

[@alexandergaus493]

I really love this series! It just shows and let us feel the atrocities my ancestors did commit and shows perfectly that and why we should never stop to tell everyone about these crimes and those who fell victim to them! ❤❤ Never forget!

[@beverlyreiner-baillargeon6205]

A very sad story, I'm so very sorry for all you had to go through 😢😢😢😢

[@thescarecrow.8581]

We all live in the shadows of the people that went before use. All we can do to honour & remember them is not to repeat these atrocities. This we are failing them.

[@HandyMan657]

Many tears. Thank you

[@MegaDonzee]

Heart breaking!

[@user-qm2li8zx2d]

I'm just waiting for the not see sympathizers to enter the comments, 3,2,1...

[@TheDigitalApple]

Ehh for the past few months it’s mainly been Palestine and Hamas supporters leaving awful comments.

[@user-qm2li8zx2d]

@@TheDigitalApple I'm sure those misguided people made themselves heard. That whole situation is a crying shame.

[@antonibertolacci7030]

ALL WAR IS SHIT ! Young people fighting old cun$ wars !

[@cathyheston3029]

Now watching history repeating. What a legacy never to learn.....😳😖😡

[@fedorpravov5372]

As an escaped POW, Pechersky was conscripted into a special penal battalions and was sent to the front to fight German forces in some of the toughest engagements of the war. After the war, Pechersky returned to Rostov-on-Don, where he lived before the war. The mass murder of Jews at the Sobibor death camp became part of the charges against leading Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. The International Tribunal at Nuremberg wanted to call Pechersky as a witness but the Soviet government would not allow him to travel to Germany to testify. The Soviet government prevented Pechersky from testifying at the Eichmann Trial in Israel. In 1963, he appeared as a witness during the Soviet trial of eleven former Ukrainian guards at Sobibor, all of whom were convicted and ten of whom were executed. According to his daughter in an interview, Pechersky was prevented by the Soviet government from testifying in international trials related to Sobibor. The final time Pechersky was refused permission to leave the country and testify was in 1987 for a trial in Poland and according to his daughter, this refusal "just crippled my father.

[@donnadees1971]

It is one of my favorite passtimes to research the horrors of concentration camps of the Nazis . HWEVER it hurts still.

[@darnellmitchell9357]

I am so glad to see this History channel and this young man and I'm not ashamed to say I am an African-American but that young man should have got the the the medal of Honor and he should be in the history❤❤❤❤❤

[@Thomas-yr9ln]

He still died young he was only 61.

[@oldbaldfatman2766]

eb. 8, 2924---My uncle (now long dead) came from Poland, His folks didn't like what they saw happenb-ing in Germany before it invaded Poland.

[@Swellington_]

Hey, I just finished the audiobook “Escape From Sobibor” and this guy was one of the main characters or whatever, I think he was a “goldsmith” and actually one or two of those SS guards kinda saved his life on more than one occasion but it wasn’t for humanitarian reasons,pure greed but what a hell of a story, I highly recommend everyone interested in the holocaust and survival in its most basic form to read or listen to it,absolutely fantastic

[@fedorpravov5372]

Out of approximately 550 Jewish prisoners at the Sobibor death camp, 130 chose not to participate in the uprising and remained in the camp; about 80 were killed during the escape either by machine gun fire from watchtowers or while running through a mine field in the camp's outer perimeter; 170 more were recaptured by the Nazis during searches. All who remained in the camp or caught after the escape were executed. 53 Sobibor escapees survived the war.[5] Within days after the uprising, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the camp closed, dismantled and planted with trees. In 1945 after the end of WWII the organizer and the leader of the unique prisoners upraising in the Nazi extermination camp Sobibor soviet army POW Jewish Aleksandr Pecherski published in the Soviet Union small book about this event. Then for decades this heroic upraising and escape from was not mention in Soviet Union. In 2018 Russians produced a movie "Sobibor" about the prisoners uprising and escape from this camp.

[@abrahammorrison6374]

Do a video on Janusz Korczak, the King of Children. Only man to.have a free pass out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

[@nikf.8741]

Anyone notice at 4:10 you can see a tall young boy standing taller than adults? He is in the right hand corner. Maybe he is sitting on someone's shoulders?

[@georgiamoyse1857]

I have the movie Escape From Sobibor. Excellent movie.

[@harryshriver6223]

RIP Stansilaw 🙏 🪦 vaya con Dios y en paz descansen. 🙏 😢

[@MrFiftymill]

Geez I hope they aren’t in sorbibor now

[@nielsjunker1487]

😢🙏 R.I.P 🌹🇩🇰

[@seviwolfowicz4110]

😢 RIP

[@johnm249]

You got it wrong. The city is Goiania. In the state of Goias. My wife is from Goiania. I been there and its pretty nice.

[@stevelewis7263]

Sounds like "Lord Haw Haw"..... JARMANY CALLING JARMANY CALLING

[@jayduke8554]

😢

[@chrisfrost8456]

RiP and GoD Bless All those Brave Men and Women and Children who Suffered so much Horror 🙏 ❤ God bless everyone one of TheM❤

[@paranoidandroid6095]

10:40 hmmm

[@paranoidandroid6095]

10:38 hmmmm

[@marcleblanc3602]

News to me, will there be anything true in here? I heard the first invasion of Poland all let it go.

[@bobbybates2614]

I saw the movie escape from sobibor

[@janlindtner305]

👍👍👍

[@damirbajramovic5416]

MOLIM PORTAL AKO NIJE PROBLEM TITLOVE NA JEDAN OD OVA TRI NAVEDENA JEZIKA AKO MOŽE DA SE TO NAPRAVI BOSANSKI HRVATSKI SRPSKI !! UNAPRIJED HVALA !! POZDRAV IZ SARAJEVA 🇧🇦 BOSNE 🤚

[@pamtnman1515]

Germany did not suffer enough for her crimes. And how sad the entire situation, all because Adolf was a lunatic and he destroyed Germany from within.

[@darked89]

The "Opole" is not a right name for the town. It should be "Opole Lubelskie".

[@3746463]

4:45 The city is a german city and is called Oppeln.

[@garymittelstadt7821]

What's a jummin?

[@jackblack9959]

Escape from Sorbibor

[@lorenzbroll0101]

You must have to be mentally tough to survive that and then live a normal life afterwards whilst not going insane?

[@user-gs5rb6jq3r]

I STILL DONT KNOW WHY THESE JEWS DID NOT LEAVE POLAND AND OTHER PARTS OF EUROPE

[@WielkaStopa-qh1rr]

step-by-step nazi policy with rounding up, deception and secret. many jews were escaped anyway especially to soviets

[@zawiszaczarny7876]

A lot of lies as expected, there was no state sponsored exlusion of Jews. But as in any country in europe at that time, there were pepole calling for that and there were few localised exceptions. Poland itself was a country, that regained freedom just 19 years before so not everything was stable yet. But state founded discrimination is just one big lie.

[@enjoyingend1939]

If you could provide a timestamp where they explicitly said that the polish government actually did anything, they did say that some politicians were calling for it, but that's about it

[@normabrien8331]

In this times we should all heed his advice: never let authoritarianism flourish because all human beings have the right to live free of fear. I can imagine the pain he experienced when he lost all his family. We are living in perilous times. Pay attention to the words that both putin and trump have spoken where the poor, the immigrants and the women are being pushed to the limit. We must think of what kind of world we desire to live in, oppression is never the answer. Hate has no place in a healthy society. Vote blue all across.

[@bigdog4273]

The ones pushing hate is Biden and his intolerant woke agenda. DEI, has made honest and moral individuals afraid to speak out. Na se brain washing turning boys into girls and girls into boys. Discrimination and persecution toward those who have built society, tearing down statues of famous and great men and trying to blot out history and rewrite to go along with the new political correctness. Just what the third reightReigh did. Don't vote blue, they are the enemy of Free Thought, Speech, personal freedoms and liberty. THEY DEMAND CONFORMITY AND OBEDIENCE TO THEIR AGENDA OR PUNISHMENT SOON FOLLOWS. See what the blue Na se are doing to Trump and 19 others in Georgia and their massive illegal effort to keep Americans from voting for the Republican candidate. MUCH MORE THEY HAVE PLANNED FOR US!

[@kevmcgoey8201]

Bull

[@shawntailor5485]

How soon mankind forgets. God bless Isreal.

[@bellaadamowicz8380]

What a horrible ton of the one who narrates the videos, he has zero feelings in his reading , very unpleasant

[@bobdollaz3391]

This guy is 🏳️‍🌈!

[@Semper_Iratus]

Every censored word is a vote for Trump. 😊

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

WTH does this have to do with Trump 🧐

[@enjoyingend1939]

​@@ChairmanPaulieD no clue, people trying to make a documentary about historical figures into a modern political statement are insanely annoying.

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

@@enjoyingend1939 don’t get me wrong but with what’s happening RIGHT NOW in the USA like with this surge of migrants breaching the US border and being put into “sanctuary cities” these city officials are even asking home owners with spare bedrooms even space in their garages, sheds to help these people occupy whatever space they have bc they’re stashing these people at airports, bus stations, community buildings that have stadiums and LARGE parking garages with access to public restrooms. They even had healthcare services FREE OF CHARGE if these people wanted sex change operations to become transgendered people. This is just SICKENING and they are starting to say that when Trump gets put back in office in 2024-2025 that he’ll be ordering up the roundups of these migrants IF they have clean criminal backgrounds, career driven skills like construction skills, manual labor skills. They keep referring that Trump is going to do the SAME THING Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did to the communist Jews put them in internment camps and jail facilities when truthfully they shouldn’t have been here in the FIRST PLACE illegally 🚫

[@sharky7002]

@@ChairmanPaulieDI know this comment is 2 months old but basically this guy is saying this in attempt to appear more intelligent and wiser than he actually is because in his eyes bashing trump equals being smart

[@ChairmanPaulieD]

@@sharky7002 pfft 😒 he must be a biden maniac then 👎🏽

[@JanKowalski-vj9py]

This person in completely unknown in Poland. Are You 100% sure You're not producing a fake story?

[@peterharris38]

Are you supporting a the NAZI party????!! Because the evidence for horrific war crimes far outweigh whatever lame bubble you want to push 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@laydown6]

He was real

[@123sssfddd]

Learning history from Hollywood movies. They slandered Poles and said they saved few Jews and didn't even lift a finger.

[@trevorbamforth95]

What awful diction from.thevcommentator!!Total wayne Kerr!