Thomas Toivi Blatt dies at 88; survivor of Nazi death camp escape

Candles burn at the monument of the Sobibor death camp in Poland.

A plaque in the woods commemorates the Jewish victims who died in the successful uprising at the Sobibor Nazi extermination camp during World War II.

Residents of Israel, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands gather at the monument of the Sobibor in 2013. In the 1943 uprising at the camp in Poland, most of the Nazis were killed and 300 prisoners escaped.

Thomas Blatt, a survivor of the Sobibor concentration camp in Poland, holds his book in 2009 in Munich.

Thomas Blatt, joint plaintiff in the trial against Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk, and lawyer Stefan Schuenemann wait for the defendant’s arrival in a Munich courtroom in 2009. Demjanjuk was found complicit in the deaths of more than 28,000 people.

Sobibor concentration camp survivors Philip Bialowitz, left, and Thomas Blatt attend the Munich trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk. The retired Ohio autoworker was convicted of serving as a guard at the Nazi camp.

Polish-born Thomas Toivi Blatt waits in a courtroom in Munich, Germany, before trial of John Demjanjuk on Jan. 20, 2010.