Samuel Willenberg, last survivor of the Treblinka death camp revolt, dies at 93

Samuel Willenberg.
(Image credit: Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)

The last known survivor of the Treblinka death camp revolt, Samuel Willenberg, has died. He was 93.

Willenberg was one of only 67 people known to have survived the Nazi concentration camp in Poland, making his escape in August 1943 by climbing over bodies piled up by a fence during a mass breakout, the BBC reports. He was 19 when he arrived at the camp in October 1942, and because he worked as a bricklayer, Willenberg was assigned manual labor duties. One of his tasks was to go through the belongings of people sent to the gas chamber.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.