Samuel Willenberg (1923–2016)

Samuel Willenberg was born to a Jewish family in Częstochowa, Poland that later settled in Warsaw. He was 16 years old when the Germans invaded his homeland in World War II. He volunteered for the Polish Army and was severely wounded and captured. He escaped from the hospital and was reunited with his parents in Opatów, southern Poland. In 1942, the Opatów Ghetto was liquidated and Willenberg, along with all 6,000 other Jews, was deported to the Nazi death camp at Treblinka. There he posed as an experienced bricklayer and escaped death in the gas chambers. Both of his sisters, Ita and Tamara, died in the camp. On August 2, 1943, he participated in the extraordinary revolt at Treblinka with about 200–300 other prisoners. He was one of the few to escape. Although wounded in the leg, he managed to get to Warsaw, where he joined the resistance and fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the fall of the city, he escaped from a prisoner train in Pruszków and hid himself until the arrival of the Red Army. In 1950, after serving as an officer in the Polish Army, he emigrated with his wife Ada and mother Maniefa to Israel. There he became a surveyor for the Ministry of Construction.

After he retired, he studied sculpture in Jerusalem and quickly became known for his works in clay and bronze that focused on the Holocaust. He also produced several detailed maps and drawings of Treblinka for use by Holocaust historians, which were exhibited internationally. In 1986, he published his memoir Revolt in Treblinka, which appeared in eight languages, including English, Polish and Hebrew. He was the subject of several documentaries, including the 2014 film by Alan Tomlinson entitled Treblinka's Last Witness. He received many awards, including Poland's Virtuti Militari, the nation's highest military honor.