Arkady Waispapir

From the DW:

"Last known survivor of Sobibor death camp dies, aged 96

Arkady Waispapir, who survived the notorious Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, has died in Ukraine, aged 96. More than 160,000 people are thought to have died in the camp from 1942 to 1943. Waispapir died on January 11 in Kyiv, the Berlin-based Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe announced on Monday.Born in southern Ukraine in 1921, Waispapir was taken prisoner by the Germans while serving in the Soviet Red Army. When it was discovered that he was Jewish, he was taken to the Sobibor concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1943. Unlike most prisoners, he was spared from immediate death in the camp's gas chambers and given a job in maintenance.  He then became one of eight main organizers of a resistance group that planned an uprising in October 1943 in which nearly a dozen guards were killed. About half of the camp's 600 prisoners managed to escape from the camp, of whom 100 were recaptured almost immediately. Two hundred managed to make it further, but only 47 of them, including Waispapir, survived the war. Following the uprising, the other prisoners in the camp were shot dead by the Nazi guards and the complex was razed. Waispapir lost his entire family during the German occupation of Ukraine. He married after the war and had two sons, according to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  

^ Every day we loose more and more Holocaust survivors due to old age. We need to make sure that not only are their stories recorded for future generations, but also that they live the rest of their lives as peacefully and comfortably as they can. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/last-known-survivor-of-sobibor-death-camp-dies-aged-96/a-42359702