The Revolt at Sobibór

By Paul R. Bartrop, Professor Emeritus of History, Florida Gulf Coast University

Eighty years ago this month, a prisoner revolt – entirely undertaken by Jews – erupted at Sobibór, one of six dedicated death camps operated by the Germans in occupied Poland. Deservedly, much discussion of resistance focuses on the ghettos and the forests, but this prisoner uprising, together with others in Treblinka (August 2, 1943) and Auschwitz (October 7, 1944), also deserves to be remembered with respect and reverence.

Sobibór was established as part of Aktion Reinhard, the Nazi plan to murder all Polish Jews in the General Government (Generalgouvernement) of occupied Poland. It was operational from April 1942 until November 1943.

The killing center was established near the village of Sobibór, situated some three miles west of the Bug (Buh) River, in what is eastern Poland today, about 50 miles east of Lublin and 24 miles north of the town of Chełm.

Like all the death camps, Sobibór was positioned in a sparsely populated, remote area. At its largest extent, the camp covered an area 1,969 feet long and 1,312 feet wide. Surrounded by a high wire fence, the camp was concealed by a dense forest of pine and birch trees planted along its perimeter to shield the site from view. Beyond the fence and trees, a 50-foot-wide minefield surrounded the camp to thwart escape attempts.

The camp was built along the LublinChełm-Włodawa train line, just west of the train station. A nearby spur connected the railway to the camp and was used to expedite the delivery of prisoners.

Sobibór was administered by around 50 Austrian and German personnel, of whom some 20 to 30 were SS and security officials. The German staff were derived almost exclusively from personnel originating from the T-4 or "euthanasia" program. The guard force numbered 90 to 120 men, some of whom were Polish or Ukrainian civilians and Soviet prisoners of war.

The camp’s first commandant, former Austrian policeman Franz Stangl, initially served as deputy administrative director of the Hartheim killing center. He was charged with security and similar tasks at Bernburg before his transfer to the Lublin District. Stangl ran the facility between April and August 1942 until replaced by SS Captain Franz Reichleitner, who commanded Sobibór until it was decommissioned in November 1943.

Sobibór was divided into three sections consisting of an administration area, a reception area and a killing area. Camp I, the administration area, comprised the site’s entrance gate, railway ramp and living quarters for the SS men and the guards. It also housed a very small number of Jewish prisoners who labored in workshops there. Camp II, the reception area, was where prisoners entered after disembarking transports. It housed the undressing barracks and the storehouses for the clothes and belongings of those sent to the gas chambers. Camp III consisted of gas chambers and burial pits.

Most of the Jews sent to Sobibór were from eastern and northern parts of the Generalgouvernement’s Lublin District, including the Chełm ghetto, although Jews were also transported there from Austria, Germany, Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, France and the Netherlands. In early May 1942, Sobibór officials began systematically sending arriving Jews to the gas chambers. As trainloads pulled into the reception area, they were driven onto platforms and met by Sonderkommandos, prisoners forced to work in the camps.

New arrivals had their valuables appropriated and were forced to undress. They were then steered by the Sonderkommandos into the “tube,” a leafy and wooded tunnel that the Germans told the prisoners would lead to the “showers.” Instead, it led them to the gas chambers.

The Sobibór killing system could “process” prisoners from as many as 20 freight cars at a time. Once the victims were inside the gas chambers, the doors were sealed and they were killed with carbon monoxide. Sonderkommandos then emptied the bodies from the gas chambers and extracted any jewelry or gold fillings from the corpses before they were buried in mass graves. It has been calculated that the Germans and their auxiliaries killed up to 250,000 Jews at Sobibór.

In 1943, the Sonderkommandos and prisoners in the labor force at Sobibór saw that killing operations in the facility were winding down and learned there were no surviving prisoners at another death camp, Bełżec.

When the approximately 600 prisoners remaining at Sobibór learned they would likely be deported to other camps and almost certain death, an uprising took place. On Oct. 14, 1943, the uprising was led by Leon Feldhendler, the son of a rabbi, and was augmented in both numbers and military skill by the arrival of some Jewish Red Army prisoners commanded by Alexander Pechersky. Eleven German personnel were killed, including camp deputy commandant, Johann Niemann, and a few guards. At least 300 prisoners broke out of the camp that day. Around 100 were caught but nearly 60 escaped Sobibór and survived the war.

The prisoner revolt at Sobibór was a shock to the Germans. In November 1943, SS officials resolved to close the camp. The remaining prison guards shot any surviving prisoners, dismantled the gas chambers, and bulldozed what remained of the camp buildings.

By March 1944, when the last of the guards left the area, trees were planted over the site to mask its existence as though it had never existed. But we remember.

Paul R. Bartrop is Professor Emeritus of History and the former Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Research at Florida Gulf Coast University.