Chaim Sztajer

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

In 1987, 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'.

In 1982, he began constructing a miniature model of the Treblinka extermination camp. He constructed this model entirely from memory over the course of three and a half years, completing it in 1986. He donated the model to the Jewish Holocaust Centre, where it remains on display. Sztajer also volunteered at the museum as a survivor-guide.

In 1955 the family moved to Melbourne, Australia, where they became naturalised citizens in December 1961. Chana died on 8 July 1971.

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

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

After his escape from Treblinka, Sztajer hid in the forest in Poland for almost twelve months until being liberated by the Soviet Red Army 1st Belorussian Front during the Lublin-Brest Offensive in July 1944. Sztajer survived hiding together with two other Jewish refugees, a man named Uryn Glatt and a fifteen-year-old boy named Joel Pandrik. Sztajer encountered the group in the forest near Treblinka not long after he escaped. The group crossed the Bug River together and hid in a burrow that they dug out under a tree. They often stole food to survive, and sometimes farmers and peasants would share small amounts of food with them.

In the lead up to the uprising, Sztajer exchanged secret communications with Jankiel Wiernek, who was detained in Treblinka I. Sztajer and the other organisers in Treblinka II were told to listen out for a gunshot in Treblinka I at 4:00 pm on 3 August 1943; however the shot rang out early after guards in Treblinka I caught two prisoners in possession of valuables. Some members of the group had stolen weapons from the guards' armoury, and others attacked guards with improvised weapons including shears and shovels.

Sztajer married Hela Majorczyk, a dressmaker from Wilno, on 10 July 1939. The couple had a daughter in 1940, whom they named Blima after Sztajer's mother.

On 3 September 1939, the city of Częstochowa was annexed by Nazi Germany. The Częstochowa Ghetto was established on 9 April 1941. When the ghetto was established, Sztajer's apartment fell within the perimeter of the ghetto, and he was not forced to relocate. The liquidation of the ghetto began on 22 September 1942 and Sztajer was deported with his wife and daughter to the Treblinka extermination camp on 3 October 1942.

In 1920, 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 (15 July 1909 – 16 February 2008) was a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor known for his participation in the Treblinka uprising. Sztajer was detained as a Sonderkommando in the Treblinka extermination camp for ten months, from early October 1942 until 2 August 1943, when he managed to escape during the uprising. Sztajer was held in Treblinka II, known as the 'death camp', in the final months of his detention. In secret communications with Jankiel Wiernek, who was held in Treblinka I, Sztajer assisted in coordinating the uprising between the two camps.

Sztajer was born on 15 July 1909 in Częstochowa, Poland to Wolf Yossif and Blima Sztajer. He had four brothers. As a child, Sztajer loved to play soccer, and he would often sneak out to play with a local team on Saturdays while his family observed Shabbat.