Sobibor: The Revolt (Part 3 of 4)
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October 14
The day had come. Excitement among the prisoners was so high that no matter what happened, the revolt could not be postponed, for the SS were sure to notice the change in mood in the prisoners. The few weapons that had been made were already handed out to those doing the killing. In the morning, they all had to try to look and act normal while waiting for the afternoon to come.
Noon
- All battle team commanders (the prisoners who were to actively participate in the revolt were broken up into battle teams of two to three persons each) had each individually met with Sasha for final instructions.
- Frenzel enters the carpentry shop and notices one prisoner is wearing especially nice clothing. The inmate was wearing nice clothes in preparation for the revolt. Many other prisoners were wearing extra clothes as well as carrying extra food and valuables. Frenzel asks the prisoner if he's going to a wedding.10 Did the new clothes make Frenzel suspicious?
2:00 p.m.
- Something unusual happened. SS Unterscharführer Walter Ryba, armed with a submachine gun, comes into Lager I and took four prisoners away with him. SS don't usually carry such heavy weapons. Could he know about the planned revolt?
- Sasha finds out that SS Ryba was only carrying the submachine gun because a Ukrainian guard had not also accompanied the prisoners.
- Many of the battle teams take their positions.
My assignment was to liquidate Scharführer Greischutz, who was in charge of the Ukrainian guard. I was happy for the opportunity given to me to kill a German. We had prepared axes, which we had sharpened in the smithy. We took up our position an hour earlier. At four o'clock we were sitting in the rooms and waited.11
The killings began. (Though there are discrepancies in the accounts as to which SS officer was killed at what location, the following is a summary of the SS deaths.)
VorlagerAfter 5:00 p.m.Leon Feldhendler was stationed here to help orchestrate the revolt in this section of the camp.
Lager I
- Unterscharführer Josef Wulf
Wulf was the first SS man killed during the revolt.When he entered the storeroom, everything looked normal. There were some prisoners piling the clothes in bins. One of them approached Wulf with a coat, another prisoner stood behind him to help him into it. At that moment, Tsibulsky and another prisoner of war stepped out of their hiding place behind a bin and cracked Wulf's head with their axes. Wulf fell without a sound. The dead body was dragged into a bin and covered with clothes. The blood on the floor was covered with sand. Wulf's pistol was taken by Tsibulsky.12
- Steubel
Steubel was also lured into the storeroom and killed there.
- Scharführer Vallaster
Killed during revolt; circumstances of death not known.
- Scharführer Kurt Beckman
Though they attempted to lure Beckman to the storeroom for a new leather coat and though he at first appeared to be going to the storeroom, he abruptly turned around and went to his office. A little later, three prisoners went to Beckman's office where they surprised him and stabbed him with daggers. They did not have time to hide his body or clean up the blood, so they left the body behind the desk.
- Unterscharführer Walter Ryba
Not part of the planned killings, Ryba entered the SS garage and was killed by a prisoner working there. This killing worried Sasha because he was afraid that Ryba's body, which was very close to the SS and Ukrainian living quarters, would be discovered.
Sasha Pechersky was stationed here to orchestrate the revolt in this section of the camp.
- Untersturmführer Josef Niemann
The acting commander of the camp rode up to the tailor shop on his chestnut horse, dismounted, and went inside. As he was being fitted for a new uniform, prisoners hit him on the back of the head with an axe. His body was then dragged to the back room and his horse taken back to the stables.
- Oberscharführer Goettinger
Head of Lager III, Goettinger was asked to try on a new pair of boots in the shoemaker's shop. While talking to the shoemaker, Goettinger's head was smashed with an axe.
- Scharführer Siegfried Greischutz
Head of the Ukrainian guard, Greischutz entered the Ukrainian tailor shop.
[T]he German entered that I and my friend awaited. He said that he hoped his winter overcoat was ready. The tailor brought the coat and started to fit it on him. It turned out that the German was closer to me than to my friend. I was sitting and sewing a button on a coat for a Ukrainian and the axe was between my legs. I got up, keeping the coat over the axe, approaching the SS man from behind and split his head. . . . We put the body beneath the table the tailors were working at.13
- Klat
Klat, a Ukrainian guard, entered the tailor's shop looking for his boss, Greischutz (who had just been killed there). The tailors maneuvered Klat so that his back was to the back room. He was then attacked and killed.
- Scharführer Friedrich Gaulstich
Gaulstich was killed in the carpentry workshop.
The prisoners had gathered as usual in the roll call area. At 5:10 p.m. - twenty minutes early for roll call - the roll call whistle was blown according to Sasha's signal. Though Sasha was surprised at how well the plan had gone thus far, he realized that there could not be an orderly march through the front gate. Sasha stood up and addressed the assembled prisoners, saying something similar to "Our day has come. Most of the Germans are dead. Let's die with honor. Remember, if anyone survives, he must tell the world what has happened here."14
A Ukrainian guard discovers the body of Scharführer Beckman behind his desk and runs outside where SS men hear him yell, "A German is dead!" This alerts the rest of the camp to the uprising.
The prisoners at the roll call square yell, "Hurrah!" Then it is every man and woman for themselves.
Prisoners were running to the fences. Some were trying to cut threw them, others just climbed over. Yet, in most places, the minefield was still fully in place.
Suddenly we heard shots. In the beginning only a few shots, and then it turned into heavy shooting, including machine-gun fire. We heard shouting, and I could see a group of prisoners running with axes, knives, scissors, cutting the fences and crossing them. Mines started to explode. Riot and confusion prevailed, everything was thundering around. The doors of the workshop were opened, and everyone rushed through. . . . We ran out of the workshop. All around were the bodies of the killed and wounded. Near the armory were some of our boys with weapons. Some of them were exchanging fire with the Ukrainians, others were running toward the gate or through the fences. My coat caught on the fence. I took off the coat, freed myself and ran further behind the fences into the minefield. A mine exploded nearby, and I could see a body being lifted into the air and then falling down. I did not recognize who it was.15As the remaining SS were alerted to the revolt, they grabbed machine guns and began shooting into the mass of people. The guards in the towers were also firing into the crowd.
The prisoners were running through the minefield, over an open area, and then into the forest. It is estimated that about half the prisoners (approximately 300) made it to the forests.
The Forest
Once in the forests, the escapees tried to quickly find relatives and friends. Though they started off in large groups of prisoners, they eventually broke into smaller and smaller groups in order to be able to find food and to hide.Sasha had been leading one large group of about 50 prisoners. On October 17, the group stopped. Sasha chose several men, which included all the rifles of the group except one, and passed around a hat to collect money from the group to buy food. He told the group that he and the others he had chosen were going to do some reconnaissance. The others protested, but Sasha promised he'd come back. He never did. After waiting for a long time, the group realized that Sasha was not going to come back, thus they split into smaller groups and headed off in different directions.
After the war, Sasha explained his leaving by saying that it would have been impossible to hide and feed such a large group. But no matter how truthful this statement, the remaining members of the group felt bitter and betrayed by Sasha.
Within four days of the escape, 100 of the 300 escapees were caught. The remaining 200 continued to flee and hide. Most were shot by local Poles or by partisans. Only 50 to 70 survived the war.16 Though this number is small, it is still much larger than if the prisoners had not revolted, for surely, the entire camp population would have been liquidated by the Nazis.
Part 4 of this series provides an overview of the memorial that now stands at Sobibor.
1. Alexander Pechersky as quoted in Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987) 307.
2. Alexander Pechersky as quoted in Ibid 307.
3. Alexander Pechersky as quoted in Ibid 307.
4. Alexander Pechersky as quoted in Ibid 307.
5. Ibid 308.
6. Thomas Toivi Blatt, From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1997) 144.
7. Ibid 141.
8. Ibid 139.
9. Arad, Belzec 321.
10. Ibid 324.
11. Yehuda Lerner as quoted in Ibid 327.
12. Ibid 325.
13. Yehuda Lerner as quoted in Ibid 327.
14. Richard Rashke, Escape From Sobibor (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995) 229.
15. Ada Lichtman as quoted in Arad, Belzec 331.
16. Ibid 364.
Bibliography
Blatt, Thomas Toivi. From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1997.
Novitch, Miriam. Sobibor: Martyrdom and Revolt. New York: Holocaust Library, 1980.
Rashke, Richard. Escape From Sobibor. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
