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Sobibor: The Memorial (Part 4 of 4)To Part 1: An Overview and MapTo Part 2: Life and Death To Part 3: The Revolt
 Standing at the Sobibor death camp caused a turmoil of emotions within me. The first was a great sense of sorrow. At this one camp, 250,000 people died. They were brought in by train and then almost immediately gassed. There was no forced labor camp here. There were just a very select few who were culled from the transports to work in the death process. Most had no Selektion opportunity. Thus, whether strong or weak, man or woman, young or old, all were sent to die.
Next PagePhotographs and Map © Jennifer Rosenberg, 1999
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The first thing I saw after stepping out of the car was this sign. The four different plaques have the same message written in four different languages. The plaque on the left is in English. It reads, "At this site, between the years 1942 and 1943, there existed a Nazi death camp where 250,000 Jews and approximately 1000 Poles were murdered. On October 14th, 1943, during the revolt by the Jewish prisoners the Nazis were overpowered and several hundred prisoners escaped to freedom. Following the revolt the death camp ceased to function. 'Earth conceal not my blood.' (Job)"
The case on the right holds shoes and hair that had been collected from those that were killed here. On the left is a display case of ashes and bone fragments from the victims. Of course, seeing the ashes and bones created a turmoil of emotions, especially grief. But my anger also grew. The container that holds these ashes is just styrofoam. What I found most disturbing though, were the dead flies in the case. There were so many in the small case that I actually counted them. There were eleven visible, dead flies. I felt that those who had died here were being forgotten and neglected. If anyone cared about the preservation of their memory, they would at leas remove the eleven dead flies from the case with the ashes.
These are the train tracks that the transports came in on. One set had been there during the duration of the camp, another has been added since. The people who had arrived in those transports might have seen the sign that says, "Sobibor" but very few had ever heard of this death camp.
This is the Sobibor train station. It is on the opposite side of the tracks than the camp. I was standing now where the victims had been taken off the trains. Where they had been fooled to the gas chambers. Now only some sort of lumber company occupies the space across from the Sobibor train station.
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