The Liquidation of the Camps
The Revolt - October 14, 1943
Up until the hour that had been set for the outbreak of the revolt,
life in the camp continued as usual. Except for the underground
members, the vast majority of the prisoners in the camp did not know
what was about to happen. The first stage of the revolt was also
carried out as planned: between 16:00 and 16:30 hours, eleven SS men
who had been called to the workshops were killed, among them the
commander of the camp, Untersturmfu"hrer Niemann. These were all the
SS people in the camp that day, save for one--Frantzel--who was
called to the workshops but did not come. The operation in Camp 1
was run by Pechorsky, while Feldhendler commanded the operation in
Camp 2. The telephone and electric lines were cut, and the motor
vehicles immobilized. The blacksmiths' group removed six rifles from
the Ukrainian guard room, and these were handed over to the
underground. (Pechowsky, op. cit., p. 54; testimony of Blat, op.
cit., p. 81; Rutkowski, p. 35; Stanislaw Shmeizner, "Me-Opole
le-Sobibor," Sobibor, op. cit., p. 65.) All of these activities
were carried out without the Ukrainians at their posts or in the
guard towers being aware of what was happening.
At 16:45 Positzka and Czepik began assembling all the prisoners into
roll-call formation. At that point the rest of the prisoners sensed
that something was afoot, but they still did not know what.
According to the plan, the prisoners of war and the members of the
underground, some of them armed, took up position in the front rows.
The opera- tion plan was now disrupted. A truck that had arrived
from outside the camp appeared in Camp 2 and came to a halt near the
building of the carmp headquarters. The driver, Oberscharführer
Bauer, spotted a dead SS man Iying there and then saw a prisoner
running from the building. He immediately opened fire on him.
(Testimony of Biskowitz, Eichmann's Trial.) At the same time the
commander of the Ukrainian guard, a Volksdeutsche from the Volga
area, appeared at the roll-call square. The insurgents attacked him
and killed him with ax blows. The rest of the prisoners became
panic-stricken. The Ukrainian guards, who now realized what was
happening, opened fire. At that point Pechorsky decided not to wait
until all the prisoners were assembled, as planned, and instead began
stage two of the revolt. With cries of Come on! Hurrah! the
insurgents broke toward the gate and the fences, and from that moment
on there was no control over what happened. Some of the insurgents
broke open the main gate and escaped from there southwest toward the
woods. Another group broke through the fences north of the gate.
The first of this group triggered the mines, were wounded and killed,
but the others who crossed the area where the mines had already
exploded, managed to flee, as they stepped over the bodies of their
comrades.
The planned takeover of the arms store was not carried out, but the
insurgents did succeed in killing the guard and taking his rifle.
Those who were armed with rifles opened fire on the Ukrainians and
killed four of them. The only SS men remaining in the camp, Bauer
and Frantzel, and the other Ukrainian guards returned fire. Another
group of insurgents, headed by Pechorsky, broke through the fences
near the SS living quarters, where, as they had correctly assumed,
mines had not been laid. Other prisoners who were still in the area
of Camp 2 now fled toward Camp 4. (Ibid.; Pechorsky, op. cit., p.
56; Jacob Biskowitz, 'Mi-Hrubieszow le-Sobibor," Sobibor, op. cit.,
p. 110; testimony of Goldfarb, op. cit., p. 26.)
Of the 600 prisoners who were in the camp on the day of the up-
rising, 300 managed to escape. About 150 were killed by the guards'
gunfire or by the mine explosions. Approximately 150 sick prisoners
and those from Western Europe and Germany, who had not been let in on
the preparations for the revolt, and those who did not manage to
escape, remained in the camp area. Some of them got hold of weapons
and continued to fight until they were killed. Some of those who
were caught on camp grounds were shot that very same day. The
others, including the prisoners in Camp 3 (the area of the gas
chambers) who had taken no part in the uprising, were shot on the
following day when the chief of staff of Operation Reinhard, Hermann
Hofle, arrived in the camp from Lublin. (Rutkowski, op. cit., pp.
42-43; Ruckerl, op. cit., pp. 196 197.)
The Escape to the Forests and the Pursuit
Word of the revolt of the Jewish prisoners in Sobibor, which reached
Chelmno and Lublin after some delay because of the cut telephone
lines, caused a good deal of panic at German headquarters. According
to the report a revolt had broken out in Sobibor during which the
Jewish prisoners had killed almost all of the SS, had seized the arms
store, and, as a result, all of the security people still in the camp
were in danger. The report also stated that 300 prisoners had fled
in the direction of the Bug River, and there was the danger that they
might link up with the partisans. The few SS remaining in the camp
were in shock, and some of the Ukrainian guards had exploited the
commotion to flee from the camp. (Testimony of Liskowitz, Eichmann's
Trial.)
Following the alarm that same night a large pursuit force was sent to
the camp. The force consisted of a company of mounted police, a
company of Wehrmacht soldiers, police and SS forces from Wlodawa and
Lublin and about 120 Ukrainians from Sobibor. It numbered some 400
men. The search itself began only at dawn. In addition, two or
three surveillance planes were employed to follow the escapees in the
fields and forests. The uprising on the grounds of the camp itself
was quickly put down. But the search in the surrounding area under
the command of Hauptsturmfu"hrer Wilbrandt, which was to prevent the
escapees from joining the partisans on the other side of the Bug and
to prevent them from spreading the word about the mass exterminations
in Sobibor, lasted for more than a week. After that time only the
company of mounted police continued to comb the area.
The escapees had split into a number of groups. (one of them, headed
by Pechorsky and numbering a few dozen fugitives, assembled in the
forest. They had four pistols and a rifle. At night they met up
with another group and together numbered about seventy-five men.
(Pechorsky, op. cit., pp. 59-60; testimony of Blat, op. cit., pp.
82-83.) On October 15, the day after the escape, the men in the group
hid in a small wood near the railroad track. The German surveillance
planes that circled overhead did not notice anything. In the evening
the group continued north, but on the way encountered two other
escapees who reported that the Bug River crossings were heavily
guarded by the Germans. Under these circumstances Pechorsky decided
that a group that large had no chance of eluding the pursuit force.
He argued that they must break up into smaller groups, each of which
would try to get past the Germans on its own. He himself chose
another eight men from among the prisoners of war and set out. This
created some opposition on the part of the other fugitives, who
feared being left without leadership, but, as they had no choice in
the matter, they, too, broke up into small groups that tried to get
through the danger area. (A particularly striking accusation raised
against Pechorsky is that of Blat who claims that Pechorsky chose all
the men equipped with arms, and that only one of them, Shlomo
Shmeizner, remained with the others. Blat also claims that Pechorsky
told the men that he was going to investigate the area and would then
return, and it was only after it became clear that he was not coming
back that the rest of the escapees decided to split up into small
groups and try to find their way alone. (Testimony of Blat, op.
cit., pp. 83-86.) It must be emphasized, however, that Pechorsky's
basic concept was justified and that partisans always used this
method when facing large enemy forces. (See description of events in
the forest in Pechorsky, op. cit., p. 62.)
Pechorsky and his men managed to get across the Bug on the night of
October 19. Three days later they met Soviet partisans from the
Brest region and joined up with them. (Ibid, p. 69.) Other groups
of escaped prisoners also managed to link up with Soviet partisan
units.
Feldhendler, together with another dozen or so escaped prisoners, hid
in the forest for a number of weeks. He himself found shelter for
two months at a Polish friend's in his town of Zolkiew. Later he.
too, joined the partisans. (Testimony of Feldhendler's wife, op.
cit., pp. 21-22.)
Other groups of escapees who roamed in the Parczew forest north- west
of Sobibor encountered, after several weeks of searching. Polish
partisans of the Armia Ludowa (People's Army) and a group of Ychiel
Grynspan's Jewish partisan unit. An instance is also known in which
six fugitives from Sobibor were murdered by a local gang that posed
as a partisan unit. (Testimony of Goldfarb, op. cit., pp. 30-31;
testimony of Biskowitz, Eichmann's Trial; Rutkowski, op. cit., pp.
45 46.)
In the week following the escape, 100 of the 300 escapees were
captured or shot to death. (Rutkowski, op. ail., p. 43.) It was a
great achievement on the part of the insurgents that 200 of them did
manage to get away. several factors contributed to their success.
The searches, which began only in the morning hours, allowed enough
time for many of the prisoners to slip away from the camp area. The
many woods in I he region also ham- pered the searches, even from the
planes. Furthermore, the Germans were mistaken in supposing that
most of the escaped prisoners would head east to the Bug and
therefore in stationing most of their forces at the Bug crossing
points. In fact, most of the fugitives, especially the Polish Jews,
headed north to the Parczew forest.
The attitude of the local population to the escapees was not uniform.
Some have told of the assistance they received from the local
population, whereas others stress a hostile attitude and instances of
farmers trying to rob or kill the fugitives. There were also
instances in which they succeeded. (Testimony of Blat, op. cit.,
pp. 94, 97-98, 107-108)
However, despite the relative success, the vast majority of the
escaped prisoners did not live to witness the day of liberation.
Some were caught and killed at later stages of the escape, and others
died as fighters in the ranks of the partisans. It is estimated that
from all the escapees from Sobibor, only about fifty survived until
the day of liberation. Some of them, however, including Feldhendler,
were killed _after the liberation_, on April 2, by right-wing Poles.
(On Feldhendler's death, see Nathan Eck, "Sho'at ha-Am ha-Yehudi
be-Eropa," Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, 1976, p. 255. We have in our
possession thirty-seven recorded testimonies of which thirty appear
in "Sobibor," op. cit. Another six survivors, apart from Pechorsky,
now live in the Soviet Union, and there are reports of additional
prisoners who survived (two at present live in Holland). It may
therefore be assumed that the number of survivors was as least
fifty.)
Three days after the outbreak of the revolt, on October 20, 1943, the
last Jews of Treblinka were brought to the camp for extermination.
Afterward the camp was liquidated, its buildings dismantled, and on
its ploughed-up soil trees were planted.
The Sobibor revolt and the fear of similar revolts apparently
influenced Himmler in his decision to order Friedrich Kru"ger, the
supreme commander of the SS and police in the General-Governmnet, to
hasten the elimination of all the Jews still remaining in camps in
the Lublin district. In an operation the Germans called 'Erntefest'
("harvest holiday"), at the beginning of November 1943, 42,000 Jews
in the Majdanek, Trawniki and Poniatowa camps were killed.
(According to various reports in our possession, 15,000 Jews were
murdered in Poniatowa, 10,000 in Trawniki, and the rest in Majdanek.
See Nachmann Blumental and Joseph Kermish, eds., 'Ha-Meri ve-ha-Mered
be-Getto Varsha - Sefer Mismachim,' Jerusalem, 1965, pp. 451-453.)
Although the uprisings in Treblinka and Sobibor did not take place
according to plan, in the end they were successful. Many scores of
prisoners did escape, and some of them did survive. By their act of
revolt, they not only wrote an important page in the history of
Jewish fighting during World War II, but also succeeded in bringing
to the world, during the days of the war itself, the terrifying truth
of what had been done in the extermination camps. They have also
furnished detailed first-hand accounts of these two camps and have
thus contributed to the history of the Holocaust period.
YITZHAK ARAD
This completes the Operation Reinhard section of the Yad Vashem Studies
(IV). While this volume is now out of print, others are available from the
distributor, Rubin Mass Ltd. P.O.B. 990, Jerusalem 91009, Israel.
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