23 Facts About Chaim Sztajer

Chaim Sztajer was a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor known for his participation in the Treblinka uprising.

In secret communications with Jankiel Wiernek, who was held in Treblinka I, Chaim Sztajer assisted in coordinating the uprising between the two camps.

Chaim Sztajer was among many survivors who volunteered to give evidence in the trial of John Demanjuk, a Ukrainian-American man accused of being the notorious Treblinka guard known as Ivan the Terrible.

Chaim Sztajer claimed that during the uprising, he struck Ivan the Terrible on the back, causing him to fall over.

Chaim Sztajer travelled to Jerusalem for the trial he was eventually asked by the prosecution not to testify.

Chaim Sztajer is known for his miniature model of the Treblinka camp, which is on display at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum in Melbourne, Australia.

Chaim Sztajer was born on 15 July 1909 in Czestochowa, Poland to Wolf Yossif and Blima Chaim Sztajer.

In 1920, Chaim Sztajer was conscripted into the Polish army, where he served only six months of his mandatory two years of conscripted duty after his father bribed officials for an early discharge.

Chaim Sztajer married Hela Majorczyk, a dressmaker from Wilno, on 10 July 1939.

The liquidation of the ghetto began on 22 September 1942 and Chaim Sztajer was deported with his wife and daughter to the Treblinka extermination camp on 3 October 1942.

Chaim Sztajer, like others, believed the chamber was a shower and he had been ordered to remove his clothes and wait in line with his wife and daughter.

Chaim Sztajer was pulled from the group awaiting the gas chambers after he was recognised by another prisoner, a former neighbour from Czestochowa who was working as a Sonderkommando, who told an SS guard that Chaim Sztajer was a good worker.

Chaim Sztajer was immediately put to work sorting the clothes and possessions of the murdered victims.

Chaim Sztajer was forced to remove the heads from the decaying bodies and hand them over to the Nazi guards, who wanted to count the skulls and find out how many people they had actually killed.

Chaim Sztajer claimed that he personally hit Ivan the Terrible in the lower back with a spade, slicing his back open and knocking him over.

Chaim Sztajer survived hiding together with two other Jewish refugees, a man named Uryn Glatt and a fifteen-year-old boy named Joel Pandrik.

Chaim Sztajer encountered the group in the forest near Treblinka not long after he escaped.

Chaim Sztajer married Chana Sztal in 1945, and together they had two children: Malka and Zev.

The family moved to Israel in April 1949, where Chaim Sztajer served in the Israel Defence Forces as a reserve soldier.

Chaim Sztajer constructed this model entirely from memory over the course of three and a half years, completing it in 1986.

Chaim Sztajer donated the model to the Jewish Holocaust Centre, where it remains on display.

In 1987, Chaim Sztajer travelled back to Israel to give evidence in the trial of John Demanjuk who was accused of being the notorious Treblinka Guard known as 'Ivan the Terrible'.

Chaim Sztajer died on 16 February 2008, at the age of 98.