Regina Zielinski, b. 1925, Siediszeze, district Chelm, province Lublin, Poland. Immigrated to Australia 1949. Extracts from "With a Guitar to Sobibor" by Dunya Breur, which was first published in Dutch in Het Vrije Volk (The Free People) newspaper, March 26 1983

Since November last year (1982), in the German city of Hagen in the Ruhr area, there has been a trial in process about Sobibor Death Camp, which lay in eastern Poland on the Russian border. About 250 000 people were killed there, almost all Jews. Less than fifty people survived Sobibor, the revolt (there on 14th October 1943) and the war years thereafter. Not one of them still lives in Western Europe; all have migrated - to Australia, the United States, Brazil, Israel or they returned to the USSR.

Regina Zielinski today

In 1966 Karl Frenzel, one of the commanding officers at Sobibor, was sentenced to life imprisonment. In Hagen we eventually discovered the reason for this trial. Frenzel has served a prison sentence in excess of fifteen years. In the course of years, however, prisoners (of Sobibor) have given explanations that did not always agree in all details - and which were even conflicting. At the request of the Counsel for Defense of Frenzel, the Hagen court decided to reopen the case. And a few dozen people, scattered around the earth, now, towards the end of their lives, received a letter from Hagen with the request of whether they would like to make their way to Germany, all expenses paid by the Court, in order to relate the happenings of 40 years ago at Sobibor….

There was a small woman from Australia appearing as a witness: Regina Zielinski. She had her son and daughter-in-law with her. She spoke English, Polish and German. In the same Court room and on the same chair in which the man had sat who had possibly been the murderer of her mother sat Regina, small and fragile and tensed in expectation of the questions which were to come.

Regina started in German. Diagonally across from her sat Frenzel, who looked at her continuously. In answer to a question by the Judge, she began to tell how all the Jews were forced to leave their ghetto to go on a journey by horse and cart to an unknown destination. Her mother, father, sister and brothers. It was 20th December, 1942. On arriving at the camp there was a German who asked the people whether there were any girls who could knit well. "You can knit," her mother said at once, and Regina, who had wanted to stay with her family, was pushed forward by her mother and left standing. She was then 17 years old. She ended up with a group of girls in a barrack and the following morning they had to start to knit. At one stage (when the girls had to sort clothes), Regina had her mother's jacket in her hands. When the others did not want to believe her, she tore open the seam of the breast pocket and displayed her mother's wedding ring which was hidden there. Others brought her shoes which she would wear for the time she was to be in the camp…but they were her sister's shoes.

From December 1942 to 14th October 1943 - when the revolt broke out - Regina worked in Sobibor. At the revolt she escaped. During their flight (escape) they were shot at. The Judge asked: "Who was shooting?" "When you're running for your life," said Regina, "and you're being shot at, you don't stop to look behind who's shooting at you." A small, slight woman, who works as a seamstress in Australia, but who actually experienced the things spoken of in the Court and did not only read about them. There was no moment which made that clearer. The truth wins over all - and Regina spoke the truth.

When Regina Zielinski spoke, she told of the murder of 'Caruso', a Dutch boy who could sing very beautifully, was very young and very popular amongst the prisoners. She did not know his real name. Frenzel "at ihm ausgepeischt", flogged to death. All had been made to look on. Regina suddenly became very emotional; whilst the staring gaze of the man across the room from her (Frenzel) did not show any emotion. "Indeed, as God exists! Indeed, as I'm sitting here!" said Regina, "he bashed him to death!"

It does make sense, this trial. The boy, whose name we do not know - suddenly by the jerking sound of Regina's voice, and the fact that she stayed behind with her shoulders sagging when all went to drink coffee (during the court recess) - we now know that he existed.