Mordechaï Podchlebnik
{{Short description|Holocaust survivor}}
File:Michal Podchlebnik (cropped).jpg]]
Mordechaï Podchlebnik or Michał Podchlebnik (1907 – 1985){{cite book|title = Polen: Generalgouvernement August 1941 – 1945|publisher = Walter de Gruyter|volume = 9|date = 2014-01-01|location = Berlin|page = 227|language = de|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uUrpBQAAQBAJ&q=%22Micha%C5%82+Podchlebnik+%22&pg=PA227|isbn = 978-3486735987}} was a Polish Jew who managed to survive the Holocaust. He was a member of the Sonderkommando work detail for nearly two weeks at the Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland.{{Cite web |url=http://www.muzeum.com.pl/en/chelmno.htm |title=Museum of the former Extermination Camp in Chełmno-on-Ner |access-date=2010-02-08 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120903221914/http://www.muzeum.com.pl/en/chelmno.htm |archive-date=2012-09-03 |url-status=dead }} Podchlebnik was one of three who escaped into the surrounding forest from the mass burial zone out of a population of 400,000 prisoners.[https://archive.today/20130416095052/http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/main.php?search=simple&dquery=Claude+Lanzmann+Shoah+Collection,+Interview+with+Mordechai+(Michael)+Podchlebnik&cache_file=uia_eFIizq&total_recs=2&page_len=25&page=1&rec=1&file_num=5088 Shoah outtake footage] at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Life
He was born to a family of Jacob Podchlebnik and Sosia (Zosia) née Widawska from Koło, known also by the Polish equivalent of his first name, Michał. He witnessed the deportation of his father, mother, sister with her five children, and brother with his own wife and three children.[http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/podchlebnik.html Michal Podchlebnik, 1945 Chelmno Survivor Testimony.] Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team, 2008. See also: [http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=5088 Mordechai (Michael) Podchlebnik] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130826174406/http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=5088 |date=2013-08-26 }} at Steven Spielberg Archive. Podchlebnik became a key witness in 1945 at the Chełmno Trials of the former SS men from the SS Special Detachment Kulmhof.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WvBRA0iGUjgC&q=Wladyslaw+Bednarz+1945&pg=PA177 | title=Epilogue (Judge Władysław Bednarz) | publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press | work=Chelmno and the Holocaust: The History of Hitler's First Death Camp | date=Mar 15, 2012 | accessdate=2013-05-14 | author=Patrick Montague | page=177 | isbn=978-0807869413}} Decades later in 1961 he gave testimony at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.[http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203134.pdf Yad Vashem "Diaries", footnote 12]According to [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203134.pdf Yad Vashem Diaries] the Grojanowski Report is available at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (copy in YVA, JM/2713), and it was also translated into Hebrew by Elisheva Shaul, "Taking of Testimony from the Forced Undertaker Jakob Grojanowski, Izbice-Kolo-Chelmno," Yalkut Moreshet 35 (April 1983), pp. 101-122. Podchlebnik was also interviewed by Claude Lanzmann for the documentary film Shoah.
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
- [http://www.ushmm.org/online/film/display/detail.php?file_num=5088 Mordechai (Michael) Podchlebnik - Chelmno] at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
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Category:People from Piotrków County
Category:People from Piotrków Governorate
Category:Chełmno extermination camp survivors
Category:Jews from the Russian Empire
Category:20th-century Polish Jews
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