Överlevande från Treblinka

Businessman and philanthropist Fred Kort, 80, one of only nine people known to have survived the Treblinka death camp, died recently in Los Angeles.

Born Manfred Kort in Leipzig, Germany, he was deported with his Polish-born parents after Kristallnacht. In Poland, the family was separated by the Germans when they invaded. After spending time in the Warsaw Ghetto and a labor camp, Kort ended up in Treblinka in July 1943. On arrival, he was assigned to be among those to be gassed. But from among the huddle he declared in German that he was an electrician, and he was sent to work detail.

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Kort testified at the Nuremberg Trials, drawing from memory a detailed map of Treblinka that served as a reference throughout the trial.

"Fred had a photographic memory for the Holocaust from his experience," said Ron Solomon, executive director of West Coast Friends of Bar-Ilan University. "The only map that exists of Treblinka [burned down by the Nazis before the war’s end] is one that he drew from memory for a Nazi war crimes trial in Chicago that he testified in. And that map was used throughout the trial. He also testified at Nuremberg."

Since the war, Kort has testified in four war-crimes trials and has sketched, from memory, a detailed map of Treblinka 1 that is now at Washington's Holocaust museum. But Kort is in no way locked into the memories of the past. Deeply aware that America has been good to him, he is instead propelled by the thought that he'd just better bounce out there and "do more."

By July 1943, Kort was living in a labor camp near Warsaw when German soldiers packed him and about 2,000 other Jews into cattle cars on a train bound for Treblinka. Many perished inside the cramped cattle cars even before they arrived at their destination two days later. Kort, who testified at the Nuremberg war tribunal and whose hand-drawn map of Treblinka served as a reference throughout the proceedings, later recalled that an SS colonel made a chilling announcement as they arrived at the camp. "We want you to know this is Treblinka," Kort quoted the colonel as saying, "and if you don't know what Treblinka is, then smell it." It was the unmistakable stench of burnt flesh, Kort testified in the 1997 federal court trial in Chicago of Bronislaw Hajda, a retired machinist accused of working beside the SS as a guard at the camp. The U.S. was attempting to strip him of his citizenship for lying to immigration officials about his wartime activities.

After arriving at the camp, about 300 of the strongest prisoners were chosen to go to the work camp known as Treblinka 1; the others were sent to the gas chambers of Treblinka 2. During the selection process, Kort recalled in his Times interview, one man sitting next to him defied the order to remain seated and was immediately shot to death. But that didn't stop Kort from jumping to his feet and quickly saying in German, "I'm young. I'm an electrician. And I can do all this work." A German soldier raised his gun at Kort, then waved him over to the worker group. Kort spent the next year working as a water carrier, which enabled him to obtain leftover food from the guards' kitchen.

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Between 750,000 and 870,000 Jews were killed in Treblinka. Peter Black, senior historian for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has said that Kort was one of only about 15 people from the camp who survived the war.

Upon arriving at Treblinca, 90 percent of the individuals were immediately exterminated. Remarkably, Mr. Kort managed to survive in the camp for over a year. Eventually, Fred managed to escape from Treblinca, and joined the Polish underground.

Im Buch von Paul Sauer "Die Schicksale der jüdischen Bürger Baden-Württembergs während der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgungszeit 1933-1945" (herausgegeben von der Archivdirektion Stuttgart) ist auf Seite 255 geschrieben, dass Familie Kort mit den Juden polnischer Abstammung am 27. Oktober 1938 aus Reichsdeutschland ausgewiesen wurde.

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Jonas und Richard Kort, Vater und Bruder, sind im "Gedenkbuch" als Opfer der nationalsozialistischen Judenverfolgung in Baden-Württemberg (Herausgeber Archivdirektion Stuttgart 1969) eingeschrieben.

As he stood in a Florida synagogue last month eulogizing an old friend, Fred Kort, a Holocaust survivor and Los Angeles businessman, was struck with thoughts about his own mortality for one of the few times in his life.
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Both Kort, 77, and the man he eulogized escaped from Treblinka in 1944. Only about 15 people from the camp survived the war, said Peter Black, senior historian for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

As a major supporter of the Shoah Foundation and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Kort was one of the first to preserve his story on film.

Kort also testified during the Nuremberg war tribunal. In 1946, he drew a detailed map of Treblinka that served as a reference throughout the proceedings. But after the trials concluded, Kort stopped telling his story.

He was reluctant to talk about his experience, Kort said. "I didn't proceed because my story is such . . . it sounds unbelievable, and I don't want to be thought of as telling fairy tales." In the last decade, as public awareness of the Holocaust grew, Kort became more comfortable sharing the details of his past.