Sobibór extermination camp - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sobibor was a Nazi German

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...

; the official German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

name was SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

-Sonderkommando
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...

Sobibor. Jews from Poland, France, Germany, Holland, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

prisoners of war (POWs) (many of them Jewish), were transported to Sobibor by rail, and suffocated in gas chamber

Gas chamber

A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...

s that were fed with the exhaust of a petrol engine

Four-stroke cycle

A four-stroke engine, also known as four-cycle, is an internal combustion engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes—intake, compression, power, and exhaust—during two separate revolutions of the engine's crankshaft, and one single thermodynamic cycle.There are two...

. One source states that up to 200,000 people were killed at Sobibor. Thomas Blatt

Thomas Blatt

Thomas "Toivi" Blatt was one of the few survivors who successfully escaped Sobibor extermination camp. While fleeing the SS he was betrayed by a farmer who was hiding him resulting in a gunshot injury to the jaw. The bullet remains there to this day...

claims that "In the Hagen court proceedings against former Sobibor Nazis, Professor Wolfgang Scheffler, who served as an expert, estimated the total figure of murdered Jews at a minimum of 250,000."

After a successful revolt on about half of the 600 prisoners in Sobibor escaped; the camp was closed, bulldozed, and planted-over with pine trees to conceal its location days afterwards. A memorial

Memorial

A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

and museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

are at the site today.

The camp

Beginning in 1940, the Nazis established 16 forced labor camp

Labor camp

A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...

s in the Lublin

Lublin

Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...

district of Poland. The Lublin district was intended to become an agricultural center. Except for Krychów forced labor camp, the camps used existing structures such as abandoned schools, factories, or farms to imprison the laborers. Krychów was the largest of the 16 camps and had been built before World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

as a detention camp for Polish prisoners.

In 1942, Sobibor extermination camp was built near the forced labor camps. Construction began in March 1942, at the same time that Belzec

Belzec

Bełżec is a village in Tomaszów Lubelski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Bełżec. It lies approximately south of Tomaszów Lubelski and south-east of the regional capital Lublin.During World War II it was the site of the Nazi Bełżec...

became operational for extermination. Workers employed for building the camp were local people from neighboring villages and towns, but the camp was primarily built by a Sonderkommando

Sonderkommando

Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...

under the command of Richard Thomalla

Richard Thomalla

Richard Wolfgang Thomalla was an SS-Hauptsturmführer and a civil engineer by profession who was head of the SS Central Building Administration in Lublin and was in charge of construction of the Operation Reinhard death camps Bełżec, Sobibor and Treblinka during The Holocaust in Occupied...

. The Sonderkommando was a group of about eighty Jews from ghettos within the vicinity of the camp. A squad of Ukrainians trained at Trawniki concentration camp

Trawniki concentration camp

Trawniki concentration camp, in the village of Trawniki about 40 km southeast of Lublin in Poland, was an SS labour camp which provided forced labourers for a nearby industrial plant to work in appalling conditions with little food...

guarded the Sonderkommando. Upon completion of construction, these Jews were shot. In mid-April 1942, when the camp was nearly completed, experimental gassings took place. About twenty-five Jews from Krychów were brought there for this purpose. Christian Wirth

Christian Wirth

Christian Wirth was a German police and SS officer who was one of the leading contributors to the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard....

, the commander of Bełżec and Inspector of Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...

, arrived in Sobibor to witness these gassings.

Reichsführer-SS
Reichsführer-SS
was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

appointed SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

-Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

Franz Stangl

Franz Stangl

Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...

as the first commandant of Sobibor. Stangl was Sobibor's commandant from April 28 to the end of August of 1942. According to Stangl, Odilo Globocnik

Odilo Globocnik

Odilo Lotario Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. He was an acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the extermination of Jews and others during the Holocaust...

initially suggested that Sobibor was merely a supply camp for the army, and that the true nature of the camp became known to Stangl only when he discovered a gas chamber

Gas chamber

hidden in the woods. Globocnik told him that if the Jews "were not working hard enough" he was fully permitted to kill them and that Globocnik would send "new ones".

Stangl first studied the camp operations and management of Bełżec, which had already commenced extermination activity. He then accelerated the completion of Sobibor.

Erich Fuchs, who spent time at the three Reinhard

Operation Reinhard

Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...

death camps of Sobibor, Treblinka and Bełżec, explained how the gassing operation at Sobibor began:
On either 16 or 18 of May 1942, Sobibor became fully operational and began mass gassing operations. Trains entered the railway station, and the Jews onboard were told they were in a transit camp, and were forced to undress and hand over their valuables. They were then led along the 100 meter long "Road to Heaven" (Himmelstrasse) which led to the gas chambers, where they were killed using carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...

released from the exhaust pipes of tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

engines. SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

Kurt Bolender

Kurt Bolender

Heinz Kurt Bolender was an SS-Oberscharführer during the Second World War. In 1942 Bolender operated the gas chambers at Sobibor extermination camp, thereby directly perpetrating acts of genocide against Jews and Gypsies during the Nazi operation known as Operation Reinhard.After the war,...

described the way the gassing operations ran during his trial:

Victims included 18-year-old Helga Deen

Helga Deen

Helga Deen was the author of a diary, discovered in 2004, which describes her stay in a Dutch prison camp, Kamp Vught, where she was brought during World War II at the age of 18....

, whose diary was discovered in 2004, writer Else Feldmann

Else Feldmann

Else Feldmann was an Austrian writer, playwright, poet, socialist journalist, and victim of the Holocaust....

, gymnasts Helena Nordheim

Helena Nordheim

Helena "Lea" Nordheim was a Jewish Dutch gymnast. She won the gold medal as member of the Dutch gymnastics team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in her native Amsterdam....

, Ans Polak and Jud Simons

Jud Simons

Judikje "Jud" Simons was a Dutch gymnast who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics.In 1928 she won the gold medal as member of the Dutch gymnastics team....

, Gym Coach Gerrit Kleerekoper

Gerrit Kleerekoper

Gerrit Kleerekoper was a Jewish - Dutch gymnastics coach. He was married with two children and worked as a diamond cutter....

and magician Michel Velleman

Michel Velleman

Ben Ali Libi was a Jewish magician who was killed in World War II. He is notable for Dutch poet Willem Wilmink's poem about him being killed by the Nazis.-External links:...

.

Female prisoners were sometimes sexually abused and later murdered. For instance, two women from Austria who were film or theater actresses were used by the SS men for orgies before being shot. Erich Bauer

Erich Bauer

Hermann Erich Bauer , sometimes referred to as "Gasmeister", was a SS-Oberscharführer . He participated in Nazi Germany's Action T4 program and later in Operation Reinhard, serving as a gas chamber operator at Sobibor extermination camp...

testified about this:
The camp was split into four sections:

Garrison Area: This included the main entrance gates and the railway platform where the victims were taken off the trains. The Commander's lodge was opposite the platform and was on the right side to the Guardhouse and on the left by the armoury.

Lager (Camp) I: This was built directly west and behind the Garrison Area. It was made escape proof by extra barbed wire fences and a deep trench filled with water. The only opening was a gate leading into the area. This camp was the living barracks for Jewish prisoners and included a prisoner's kitchen. Each prisoner was given about 12 square feet (1.1 square meters) of sleeping space.

Lager (Camp) II: This was a larger section and included an assortment of vital services for both the killing process and the everyday operation of the camp. 400 prisoners, including women, worked here. Lager II contained the warehouses used for storing the objects taken from the dead victims, including hair, clothes, food, gold and all other valuables. This Lager also housed the main administration office. It was at Lager II that the Jews were prepared for their death. Here they undressed, women's hair was shaved, clothing searched and sorted, and documents destroyed in the nearby furnace. The victims' final steps were taken on a path framed by barbed wire. It was called the "Road to Heaven" and led directly to the gas chambers.

Lager (Camp) III: This was where the victims met their end. Located in the north-western part of the camp, there were only two ways to enter the camp from Lager II. The camp staff and personnel entered through a small plain gate. The entrance for the victims descended immediately into the gas chambers and was decorated with flowers and a Star of David

Star of David

The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...

Camp guards

While the camp officers were German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

and Austrian

Austrians

Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....

SS members, the camp guards under their command were Ukrainian (Volksdeutsche

Volksdeutsche

Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...

) as well as Soviet POWs primarily from Ukraine.

Before they were sent as guards to the concentration camps, most of the Soviet POWs underwent special training in Trawniki

Trawniki

Trawniki is a village in Świdnik County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Trawniki. It lies approximately south-east of Świdnik and south-east of the regional capital Lublin....

, which originally was a holding center for those refugees and Soviet POWs, whom the Sipo

Sicherheitspolizei

The Sicherheitspolizei , often abbreviated as SiPo, was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe the state political and criminal investigation security agencies. It was made up by the combined forces of the Gestapo and the Kripo between 1936 and 1939...

security police and the SD

Sicherheitsdienst

Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...

had designated either as potential collaborators or as dangerous persons. The Stroop Report

Stroop Report

The Stroop Report was an official 75-page report prepared in May 1943 by Jürgen Stroop of the Waffen SS, commander of the German forces which liquidated the Warsaw ghetto, to Heinrich Himmler. It documented the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising...

listed a Trawniki Guard Battalion assisting in the suppression of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....

.

John Demjanjuk

John Demjanjuk

John Demjanjuk is a retired Ukrainian-American auto worker who gained notoriety after being accused numerous times of Holocaust-related war crimes....

, a former Soviet POW, worked as a watchguard at Sobibor. On May 12, 2011, Demjanjuk, then 91 years old, was convicted by a German court of complicity in the murder of over 28,000 Jews whilst serving at Sobibor, and was sentenced to 5 years in jail.

The uprising

Sobibor was the site of one of two successful uprisings by Jewish prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp — there was a similar revolt at Treblinka on August 2, 1943. A revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

on led to one of the crematoria being blown up, however nearly all the escapees were killed. Among the few who survived the Auschwitz revolt was Henryk Mandelbaum

Henryk Mandelbaum

Henryk Mandelbaum was a survivor of the Holocaust. He was one of the prisoners in the Sonderkommando KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory...

, who served as a tourist guide at the camp after the war.

On October 14, 1943, members of the Sobibor underground, led by Polish-Jewish prisoner Leon Feldhendler and Soviet-Jewish POW Alexander Pechersky

Alexander Pechersky

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky was the chief organizer and leader of the most successful uprising and mass-escape of Jews from a Nazi extermination camp during World War II; this occurred at the Sobibor extermination camp on 14 October 1943.-Early life:...

, succeeded in covertly killing eleven German SS officers and a number of camp guards. Although their plan was to kill all the SS and walk out of the main gate of the camp, the killings were discovered and the inmates ran for their lives under fire. About 300 out of the 600 prisoners in the camp escaped into the forests.

Only 50 to 70 escapees survived the war, however. Some died on the mine fields surrounding the site, and some were recaptured in a dragnet and executed by the Germans in the next few days. Most of those who did survive were hidden from the Germans by other Poles, at the risk of their own and their families' lives.

The revolt was dramatized in the 1987 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

TV film Escape from Sobibor
Escape from Sobibor
Escape from Sobibor is a 1987 British made-for-TV film which aired on CBS. It deals with the extermination camp at Sobibor, the site of the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps...

, directed by Jack Gold

Jack Gold

Jack Gold is a British film and television director. He was part of the British Realist Tradition that followed Free Cinema.-Career:...

. An award-winning documentary about the escape was made by Claude Lanzmann

Claude Lanzmann

Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...

, entitled Sobibor, 14 Octobre 1943, 16 Heures

Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m.

Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. is a 2001 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann. It was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. The title and date refer to the Sobibor revolt, one of only two successful uprisings at a Nazi extermination camp during the Second...

(Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m.).

Timeline of Sobibor

Timeline of Sobibor
March 1942 – May 1942	Under the supervision of Richard Thomalla Richard Thomalla Richard Wolfgang Thomalla was an SS-Hauptsturmführer and a civil engineer by profession who was head of the SS Central Building Administration in Lublin and was in charge of construction of the Operation Reinhard death camps Bełżec, Sobibor and Treblinka during The Holocaust in Occupied... , SS and police authorities construct Sobibor extermination camp in the spring of 1942 in an isolated area not far from the local Chelm-Wlodawa rail line.
early April 1942	The first test subjects for the gas chambers at Sobibor: The SS deports 2,400 Jews from Rejowiec, Lublin Voivodeship Rejowiec, Lublin Voivodeship Rejowiec is a village in Chełm County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Rejowiec. It lies approximately south-west of Chełm and east of the regional capital Lublin.... in early April 1942, the first deportation to Sobibor, and murders almost all of them upon arrival.
April 28, 1942	Franz Stangl Franz Stangl Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty... arrives in Sobibor to take up the position of camp commandant. Stangl had been the deputy supervisor of the "euthanasia" institution at Hartheim, near Linz, Austria. As the purpose of the "euthanasia" operation was to murder institutionalized persons with physical and mental disabilities in gas chambers at facilities like Hartheim, Stangl was familiar with using carbon monoxide gas for killing large numbers of people.
May 3, 1942	Regular transports to Sobibor begin. The first transport consists of 200 Jews from Zamość Zamosc Zamość ukr. Замостя is a town in southeastern Poland with 66,633 inhabitants , situated in the south-western part of Lublin Voivodeship , about from Lublin, from Warsaw and from the border with Ukraine... . The camp staff conducts gassing operations in three gas chambers located in one brick building. Some 400 prisoners are selected to survive, temporarily, to supply manual labor necessary to support the mass murder function of the killing center. During this first phase of deportations, from early May until the end of July 1942, the Sobibor killing center authorities kill at least 61,400 Jews. Many of them were deported from cities and towns in the north and east of Lublin District; the majority were Jews deported from the German Reich, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia either directly or via the transit camp-ghetto in Izbica.
end of July 1942	The SS halts deportations to Sobibor in order to modernize the railway spur into the camp.
October 8, 1942	Camp authorities resume mass murder operations in the gas chambers of Sobibor with the arrival of more than 24,000 Slovak Jews between October 8 and October 20 from the transit camp-ghetto Izbica in the Lublin District of the General Government. The camp authorities kill virtually all of the deportees upon arrival in reconstructed and newly added gas chambers, completed during the two month lull in transports to Sobibor. The improvements in capacity enable the camp authorities to kill up to 1,300 people at a time. Newly constructed as well was a narrow railway trolley from the reception platform to the burial pits in order to facilitate the transfer of the sick, the dead, and those unable to walk directly to the open ovens. Those still alive after this journey are shot by the SS staff or the Trawniki-trained guards.
February 12, 1943	Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo... visits Sobibor to inspect operations. Several SS officers at the camp are promoted as a result.
March 5, 1943	Deportations from the Netherlands. German SS and Police authorities begin deportations of Dutch Jews from the police transit camp at Westerbork in the Netherlands to Sobibor. In 19 transports from this date until July 1943, SS authorities in Westerbork deport over 34,000 Jews to Sobibor. Camp staff and guards kill almost all of them in the gas chambers or by shooting on arrival in the camp.
April 1943	Deportations from France. Two transports containing a total of 2,000 Jews from France arrive at Sobibor from the police transit camp Drancy, outside Paris. Deportations from France to camps in the east, primarily Auschwitz, began in March 1942 and continue until August 1944.
July – October 1943	Deportations from the Soviet Union. Following Himmler's order of July 1943 to liquidate the ghettos in Reichskommissariat Ostland, SS and police units liquidate ghettos in Minsk, Lida, and Wilno (Vilnius, Vilne) and deported those who survived to Sobibor. The first transports from Minsk and Lida leave for Sobibor on September 18. Included in the first deportation from Minsk (arrived September 22) is Alexander "Sasha" Pechersky Alexander Pechersky Alexander Aronovich Pechersky was the chief organizer and leader of the most successful uprising and mass-escape of Jews from a Nazi extermination camp during World War II; this occurred at the Sobibor extermination camp on 14 October 1943.-Early life:... , a Soviet-Jewish prisoner of war, who, because of his military training, came to play a central role in the resistance movement in Sobibor. In September 1943 alone, SS and police authorities transported at least 13,700 Jews from ghettos in the occupied Soviet Union to Sobibor. The camp authorities gas or shoot most of them upon arrival.
October 14, 1943	Sobibor revolt. Prisoners carry out a revolt in Sobibor, killing nearly a dozen German staff and Trawniki-trained guards. Of 600 prisoners left in Sobibor on this day, 300 escape during the uprising. Among the survivors is Alexander Pechersky, the Soviet prisoner of war who played a key role in planning the revolt. Of those prisoners who escape, SS and police personnel from Lublin district recapture and shoot some 100. Some of the prisoners selected for temporary survival in Sobibor organized an underground resistance organization in early summer of 1943 as it became apparent that gassing operations at Sobibor were slowing. Once the gassing operations were finished, the SS planned to dismantle the killing center and reconfigure the facility first as a holding pen for women and children deported from villages in Belarus, which had been destroyed in the course of so-called anti-partisan operations, and, later, as an ammunition depot. Though no further prisoners arrived after the killing center was remodeled, the facility was guarded by a small Trawniki-trained detachment until at least the end of March 1944. During the year and a half in which the Sobibor killing center operated, camp authorities and the Trawniki-trained guards murdered at least 167,000 people. Virtually all of the victims were Jews.
October 17, 1943	Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo... orders that Sobibor be closed and all evidence of the camp's existence be removed.

Aftermath

Within days after the uprising, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

ordered the camp closed, dismantled and planted with trees.

Karl Frenzel

Karl Frenzel

SS-Oberscharführer Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel was the commandant of Sobibor extermination camp's Lager I section, which was the section for the Sonderkommando forced-labor prisoner-workers, who also herded victims into the gas chambers...

, commandant of Sobibor's Lager I, was convicted of war crime

War crime

War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...

s in 1966 and sentenced to life, but ultimately released on health grounds in 1982. In a 1983 interview, Frenzel — who was at the camp from its inception to its closure — admitted the following about Sobibor:
Frenzel's testimony contrasts greatly with a memorial plaque at the site today, which reads "HERE THE NAZIS KILLED 250,000 RUSSIAN PRISONERS OF WAR, JEWS, POLES AND GYPSIES."

Franz Stangl

Franz Stangl

, chief commandant of Sobibor and later of Treblinka fled to Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. Following problems with his employer taking too much interest in his adolescent daughter, Stangl went to Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

in the 1950s. He worked in a car factory and was registered with the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n consulate under his own name. He was eventually caught, arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

. In 1971 he died in prison in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, a few hours after concluding a series of interviews with British

United Kingdom

historian Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny

Gitta Sereny is an Austrian-born biographer, historian and investigative journalist whose writing focuses mainly on the Holocaust and child abuse. She is the stepdaughter of the economist Ludwig von Mises....

.

Gustav Wagner

Gustav Wagner

Gustav Franz Wagner was an SS-Oberscharführer from Vienna, Austria. Wagner was a starter deputy commander of the Sobibor extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, where more than 200,000 Jews were gassed during Operation Reinhard...

, the deputy Sobibor commander, was on leave on the day of uprising (survivors such as Thomas Blatt

Thomas Blatt

say that the revolt would not have succeeded had he been present). Wagner was arrested in 1978 in Brazil. He was identified by Sobibor escapee Stanisław Szmajzner, who greeted him with the words "Hallo Gustl"; Wagner replied that he remembered Szmajzner and that he had saved him and his three brothers. The court of first instance agreed to his extradition

Extradition

Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...

to Germany but on appeal

Appeal

An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....

this extradition was overturned. In 1980, Wagner committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

John Demjanjuk

John Demjanjuk

John Demjanjuk is a retired Ukrainian-American auto worker who gained notoriety after being accused numerous times of Holocaust-related war crimes....

, one of the guards was sentenced to 5 years in prison on May 12, 2011. He was convicted as an accessory

Accessory (legal term)

An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal...

to the murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

of 27,900 Jews.

Erich Bauer

Erich Bauer

, commander of Camp III and gas chamber executioner, explained the perpetrators' sense of teamwork in order to reach an atrocious result:

Memorial

Following the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the revolt in 2003, the grounds of the former death camp received a grant largely funded by the Dutch government to improve the site. New walkways were introduced with signs indicating points of interest, but close to the burial pits, bone fragments still litter the area. In the forest outside the camp is a statue honoring the fighters of Sobibor.

Organizers of the camp

Odilo Lotario Globocnik
Odilo Globocnik
Odilo Lotario Globocnik was a prominent Austrian Nazi and later an SS leader. He was an acquaintance of Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the extermination of Jews and others during the Holocaust...

, SS-Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...

(Captain) and SS-Polizeiführer (SS Police Chief), Head of Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
Hermann Julius Höfle
Hermann Höfle
Hermann Julius "Hans" Höfle was an Austrian-born SS-Sturmbannführer . He was deputy to Odilo Globocnik in the Aktion Reinhard program, serving as his main deportation and extermination expert...

, SS-Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...

(Captain), Coordinator of Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
Richard Wolfgang Thomalla
Richard Thomalla
Richard Wolfgang Thomalla was an SS-Hauptsturmführer and a civil engineer by profession who was head of the SS Central Building Administration in Lublin and was in charge of construction of the Operation Reinhard death camps Bełżec, Sobibor and Treblinka during The Holocaust in Occupied...

, SS-Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

(First Lieutenant), Head of death camp construction during Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
Erwin Hermann Lambert
Erwin Lambert
Erwin Hermann Lambert was a perpetrator of the Holocaust. In profession, he was a master mason, building trades foreman, Nazi Party member and member of the Schutzstaffel with the rank of SS-Unterscharführer...

, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal), Head of gas chamber construction during Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
Karl Steubl, SS-Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...

(Major), Commander of transportation units during Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth
Christian Wirth was a German police and SS officer who was one of the leading contributors to the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard....

, SS-Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...

(Captain), Inspector of Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...

Commandant

Franz Paul Stangl
Franz Stangl
Franz Paul Stangl was an Austrian-born SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during the Operation Reinhard phase of the Holocaust. He was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited and tried in West Germany for the mass murder of 900,000 people, and in 1970 was found guilty...

, SS-Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

(First Lieutenant), — (transferred to Commandant of Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...

)
Franz Karl Reichleitner
Franz Reichleitner
Franz Karl Reichleitner was an Austrian SS-Hauptsturmführer who served in Operation Reinhard during the Holocaust. Reichleitner served as the second and last commandant of Sobibor extermination camp from 1 September 1942 until the camp's closure on or about 17 October 1943...

, SS-Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer
Obersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi party that was used by the SS and also as a rank of the SA. Translated as “Senior Assault Leader”, the rank of Obersturmführer was first created in 1932 as the result of an expansion of the Sturmabteilung and the need for an additional rank in...

(First Lieutenant), —; promoted to Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...

(Captain) after Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

's visit on

Deputy commanders

Gustav Franz Wagner
Gustav Wagner
Gustav Franz Wagner was an SS-Oberscharführer from Vienna, Austria. Wagner was a starter deputy commander of the Sobibor extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, where more than 200,000 Jews were gassed during Operation Reinhard...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), Deputy commandant (Quartermaster-sergeant of the camp)
Johann Niemann
Johann Niemann
Johann Niemann was an SS-Untersturmführer and deputy commandant of Sobibor extermination camp...

, SS-Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

(Second Lieutenant), Deputy commandant — killed in revolt
Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel
Karl Frenzel
SS-Oberscharführer Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel was the commandant of Sobibor extermination camp's Lager I section, which was the section for the Sonderkommando forced-labor prisoner-workers, who also herded victims into the gas chambers...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), Commandant of Camp I (forced labor camp)
Hermann Michel
Hermann Michel
Hermann Michel, sometimes referred to as "Preacher" , was a Nazi and SS-Oberscharführer . During World War II, he participated in the extermination of Jews at the Sobibor extermination camp during the Nazi operation known as Aktion Reinhard...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), Deputy commandant, gave speeches to trick prisoners into entering gas chambers

Executioners

Hermann Erich Bauer
Erich Bauer
Hermann Erich Bauer , sometimes referred to as "Gasmeister", was a SS-Oberscharführer . He participated in Nazi Germany's Action T4 program and later in Operation Reinhard, serving as a gas chamber operator at Sobibor extermination camp...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), operated gas chambers
Heinz Kurt Bolender
Kurt Bolender
Heinz Kurt Bolender was an SS-Oberscharführer during the Second World War. In 1942 Bolender operated the gas chambers at Sobibor extermination camp, thereby directly perpetrating acts of genocide against Jews and Gypsies during the Nazi operation known as Operation Reinhard.After the war,...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), operated gas chambers

Other officers

Ernst Bauch
Rudolf Beckmann, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Gerhardt Börner, SS-Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

(Second Lieutenant)
Paul Bredow, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)
Max Bree — killed in revolt
Arthur Dachsel
Werner Karl Dubois, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant)
Herbert Floss, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant)
Erich Fritz Erhard Fuchs, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant)
Friedrich Gaulstich, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Anton Getzinger
Hubert Gomerski, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)
Siegfried Graetschus
Siegfried Graetschus
Siegfried Graetschus was an SS-Oberscharführer at Sobibor extermination camp. In the process, Graetschus aided with the genocide of Jews and other peoples at Sobibor during Operation Reinhard of The Holocaust.Gratschus joined the SS in 1935 and the Nazi Party in 1936...

, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant), Head of Ukrainian Guard — killed in revolt
Ferdinand "Ferdl" Grömer
Paul Johannes Groth
Lorenz Hackenholt
Lorenz Hackenholt
Lorenz Marie Hackenholt built and operated the gas chamber at the Bełżec extermination camp...

, SS-Hauptscharführer
Hauptscharführer
Hauptscharführer was a Nazi paramilitary rank which was used by the Schutzstaffel between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank was the highest enlisted rank of the SS, with the exception of the special Waffen-SS rank of Sturmscharführer....

(First Sergeant)
Josef "Sepp" Hirtreiter, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant)
Franz Hödl
Jakob Alfred Ittner, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant)
Robert Emil Franz Xaver Jührs, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)
Aleks Kaizer
Rudolf "Rudi" Kamm
Johann Klier, SS-Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

(Second Lieutenant)
Fritz Konrad, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Erich Gustav Willie Lachmann
Erich Lachmann
Erich Gustav Willie Lachmann was a police auxiliary and SS-Scharführer who participated in the "Operation Reinhard" in the Sobibor extermination camp.Lachmann was born in Liegnitz on November 6, 1909...

, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant), Head of Ukrainian Guard
Karl Emil Ludwig
Willi Mentz, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)
Adolf Müller
Walter Anton Nowak, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Wenzel Fritz Rehwald
Karl Richter
Paul Rost, SS-Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer
Untersturmführer was a paramilitary rank of the German Schutzstaffel first created in July 1934. The rank can trace its origins to the older SA rank of Sturmführer which had existed since the founding of the SA in 1921...

(Second Lieutenant)
Walter "Ryba" (real name: Hochberg), SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal) — killed in revolt
Klaus Schreiber
Hans-Heinz Friedrich Karl Schütt, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant)
Thomas Steffl, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Ernst Stengelin — killed in revolt
Heinrich Unverhau, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)
Josef Vallaster, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Otto Weiss
Wilhelm "Willie" Wendland
Franz Wolf, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...

(Staff Sergeant)
Josef Wolf, SS-Scharführer
Scharführer
Scharführer was a Nazi Party title that was used by several paramilitary organizations from 1925 to 1945. Translated as “Squad Leader”, the title of Scharführer can trace its origins to the First World War, where a Scharführer was often a Sergeant or Corporal who commanded special action or shock...

(Sergeant) — killed in revolt
Ernst Zierke
Ernst Zierke
Ernst Zierke was an SS-Unterscharführer who took part in Nazi Germany's Action T4 program and later worked at Bełżec and Sobibor extermination camps during Operation Reinhard. Zierke helped to perpetrate the Holocaust....

, SS-Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer
Unterscharführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the Schutzstaffel between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives...

(Corporal)

Ukrainians

B. Bielakow
Ivan Demjanjuk
John Demjanjuk
John Demjanjuk is a retired Ukrainian-American auto worker who gained notoriety after being accused numerous times of Holocaust-related war crimes....
Ivan Klatt
M. Matwiejenko
Ivan Nikiforow
W. Podienko
Mikhail Affanaseivitch Razgonayev
Emanuel Schultz
Fiodor Tichonowski
Libodenko Wartownick
J. Zajcew
other Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...

and prisoners of war (up to 200)

External links

Sobibor - The Forgotten Revolt website of Thomas Blatt
Thomas Blatt
Thomas "Toivi" Blatt was one of the few survivors who successfully escaped Sobibor extermination camp. While fleeing the SS he was betrayed by a farmer who was hiding him resulting in a gunshot injury to the jaw. The bullet remains there to this day...

, one of the few survivors
SOBIBOR United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
The Sobibor Death Camp
Sobibor Archaeological Project
My Trip to Sobibor

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

The camp

Camp guards

The uprising

Timeline of Sobibor

Aftermath

Memorial

Organizers of the camp

Commandant

Deputy commanders

Executioners

Other officers

Ukrainians

See also

Further reading

External links