Selma Engel-Wijnberg

From Wikipedia:

"Selma Engel-Wijnberg"

Selma Engel-Wijnberg (born Saartje (Selme) Wijnberg; 15 May 1922 – 4 December 2018) was a Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivor who successfully escaped from Sobibor extermination camp and survived the war. Engel-Wijnberg immigrated to the United States from Israel with her family in 1957, settling in Branford, Connecticut. She returned to Europe only to testify against the war criminals of Sobibor. Wijnberg was born in Groningen, Netherlands, and raised in Zwolle, where her parents owned and managed the Hotel Wijnberg. When Wijnberg was a teenager, the Germans rolled into the Netherlands in May 1940. In September 1942 she first hid in Utrecht, and later in De Bilt. While hiding she used the name "Greetje van den Berg". She was rounded up on 18 December 1942, and two months later transferred to Camp Vught, then to Camp Westerbork and finally to Sobibor on 9 April 1943. She survived the selection and was assigned to the Sonderkommando unit in Lager II sorting clothes of the victims of gassing. In the sorting barracks Wijnberg met her future husband, Chaim Engel (10 January 1916 – 4 July 2003), a Polish Jew from Brudzew. During the Sonderkommando revolt in Sobibor on 14 October 1943, she escaped with Engel. Armed with a knife, the couple fled under gunfire through the main gate and the forest. They were rescued by Poles and hidden for nine months in the attic of a farm until the retreat of Nazi Germany from occupied Poland in July 1944 during the Red Army counter-offensive. The couple married, and she became pregnant. They journeyed through Poland via Chełm and Parczew, where their son Emiel was born, then to Lublin. They crossed the Ukraine by train to Chernivtsi and to Odessa and soon left by boat for Marseille, France. During the journey, Emiel died and his body was buried at sea near Greece. From Marseille they traveled by train to Zwolle and returned to Selma's parents' home, Hotel Wijnberg.  In the Netherlands Chaim and Selma married again on 18 September 1945. The police of Zwolle concluded that Selma, by marrying Engel, a Pole, had become a Polish citizen. They would not be returned to Poland because Poland had been taken over by the Soviet Union.  It was decided not to intern them in a DP camp for foreigners near Valkenswaard because the holding centre was full and Selma was of Dutch origin. In Zwolle, Selma gave birth to two more children, a son and a daughter. They set up a velvet and fashion store  After moving to various locations in Israel, Chaim did not feel comfortable there, so in 1957 they decided to move to the United States where they settled in Branford, Connecticut. They returned to Europe on some occasions to testify against the war criminals of Sobibor.  On 12 April 2010, Minister Ab Klink apologized during the Westerbork remembrance ceremony on behalf of the Dutch government. Despite rejecting the apology, she was decorated with the grade of Knight in the Order of Oranje-Nassau. It was the first time since she had left in 1951 that she returned to the Netherlands. Wijnberg died in Branford, Connecticut on 4 December 2018 at the age of 96.

^ Selma Engel-Wijnberg witnessed two infamous events the world has ever known: the Holocaust and the Revolt at the Sobibor Death Camp. The fact that she lived to be 96 years old (73 years after the Holocaust and World War 2 ended) reaffirms that Hitler and all of those that supported him did not win. She had a life and a family after suffering the horrors she did. ^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_Engel-Wijnberg