page_title: Rudolf Reder
hierarchical_section_title: Rudolf Reder
caption_attribution_description: English: A photo of Holocaust survivor Rudolf Reder vel Roman Robak in the collections of the Museum in Bełżec
context_page_description: Rudolf Reder a.k.a. Roman Robak was one of only two Holocaust survivors of the Bełżec extermination camp who testified about his experience after the war. He submitted a deposition to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in January 1946 in Kraków. In terms of the number of Polish Jews who perished in its gas chambers, Bełżec had the third highest death toll among the six Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland, estimated between 500,000 and 600,000 men, women and children. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka had more victims.
  The postwar testimony of Reder was of special significance, because Chaim Hirszman who also survived Bełżec, joined the new communist militia in Stalinist Poland tasked with the crushing of Polish underground, torture, makeshift executions, and mass deportation to Siberia of over 50,000 political undesirables. Hirszman was shot in March 1946 at his residence by the Cursed soldiers from TOW, in the course of an anti-communist insurrection against the new regime, before he was able to give a full account of his camp experience.
context_section_description: Rudolf Reder a.k.a. Roman Robak (April 4, 1881 in Dębica – October 6, 1977 in Toronto) was one of only two Holocaust survivors of the Bełżec extermination camp who testified about his experience after the war. He submitted a deposition to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in January 1946 in Kraków. In terms of the number of Polish Jews who perished in its gas chambers, Bełżec had the third highest death toll among the six Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland, estimated between 500,000 and 600,000 men, women and children. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka had more victims.
  The postwar testimony of Reder was of special significance, because Chaim Hirszman who also survived Bełżec, joined the new communist militia in Stalinist Poland tasked with the crushing of Polish underground, torture, makeshift executions, and mass deportation to Siberia of over 50,000 political undesirables. Hirszman was shot in March 1946 at his residence by the Cursed soldiers from TOW, in the course of an anti-communist insurrection against the new regime, before he was able to give a full account of his camp experience.
caption: A photo of Rudolf Reder 
  in the collections of the Museum in Bełżec
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