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Poland’s president eulogizes the last survivor of Sobibor

Polish president Andrzej Duda published a eulogy honoring Filip Bialowicz, the last survivor of Sobibor. (Mateusz Wlodarczyk/Getty)

Polish president Andrzej Duda published a eulogy honoring Filip Bialowicz, the last survivor of Sobibor. (Mateusz Wlodarczyk/Getty)

WARSAW — In an unusual gesture, the president of Poland published a long statement eulogizing a Holocaust survivor who was among a handful of people to have escaped the Sobibor death camp in the country’s east.

Andrzej Duda published his 650-word eulogy of Filip Bialowicz on the president’s official website on Aug. 12.

“We are saying goodbye to an ardent advocate of mutual friendship and respect among nations, religions and world views,” Duda wrote about Bialowicz, who died Aug. 6 in Florida, where he lived, at 90.

His death, Duda added, marks the passing of a “person who did much to ensure that the crime of the Holocaust forever remains a closed chapter of history. So that nobody, under no circumstances, experiences it ever again.”

Bialowicz and his older brother, Symcha, escaped from Sobibor along with 300 other Jewish prisoners after staging a well-planned rebellion in which the death camp’s German guards were killed.

Most if the prisoners were recaptured and killed, but the brothers Bialowicz were among a few dozen who got away. Symcha Bialowicz died in Israel in 2014.

Filip Bailowicz spoke frequently about the Nazi death machine and in 2010 published a memoir titled A Promise at Sobibor.

Duda added in his passionate eulogy, which was unusual both in length and tone:

“It is with utmost reverence that I reflect upon his involvement in the community, his lectures, meetings with the youth, his multiple visits to Poland. I admired his deeply wise and balanced view of the past and present of Jews, Poles, Germans, Americans, and last but not least, of the entire humanity who, until today, dwells on the tragedy of the Holocaust.”

Jonny Daniels, founder of the From the Depths Holocaust commemoration group in Poland, said the eulogy, addressed to Bialowicz’s family, is “symbolic of President Duda’s continued efforts to bring the Jewish and Polish nations closer.”



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