German Nazi death camp SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor was created at the turn of April and May 1942 as the second, after Bełżec, facility of extermination of Jews established within the framework of operation “Reinhardt”. The decision regarding its establishment was given in late October 1941 in the light of the planned Nazi programme of eliminating all Jews residing in the General Government and deporting thousands of Slovak Jews to the Lublin district.
Preparations for the camp construction began in late autumn of 1942, but the proper works were initiated in the spring of 1942 and conducted by forced labourers. The compound was established near a train station building in Sobibór and inside a dense forest, which isolated the site from potential witnesses.
The camp was located directly near the railway line connecting Lublin, Chełm, and Włodawa, which provided convenient conditions for the transports reception. The area was divided into three zones (Lager I-III), where various structures were erected: barracks for SS-men, watchmen from the SS-Wachmannschaften trained in Trawniki, and for prisoners; as well as the warehouses for the possessions stolen from the Jewish deportees. Lager III was completely isolated from the other zones. There the gas chambers were located, where – just like in SS-Sonderkommando Belzec – the perpetrators murdered their victims with carbon monoxide generated by a petrol engine.
The highest authority in the camp was held by its commandant, who had a garrison of SS functionaries at his disposal. In total a group of 30 German and Austrian SS-men, and a sentry unit of 120-150 watchmen (former Soviet POWs) served in Sobibór. Franz Stangl was the first camp commandant, who held this post between April and August 1942. Then, he was replaced by Franz Reichleitner who was stationed in the camp until its final liquidation.
Due to the maintenance works on the Lublin-Chełm railway line, the camp received a limited number of transports in the summer of 1942. Many victims were brought by trucks or were herded into the camp on foot at that time. The railway transports began arriving in greater numbers from September 1942. They mostly came from around the Lublin district. Apart from the Polish Jews, also the Austrian, Czech, German and Slovak Jews, who had first been displaced into the so-called transit ghettos, were then deported. Following the shutdown of the extermination camp in Bełżec, the transports from the Kraków and Galicia districts were sent to Sobibór from early 1943. The last remaining Jews from the Lublin region were also murdered at that time. 19 transports from the Netherlands carrying 34,313 victims arrived in Sobibór between March and late July 1943. Additional four transports came from France in March. The last trains with the victims came in early autumn of 1943 with the Jews from the ghettos in Vilnius and Lida, and from the labour camp in Minsk.
Some prisoners (around 500 men and 100 women) were selected for labour upon their arrival at the camp. They were forced to bury the victims’ bodies, sort the plundered belongings, and serve the SS-men and watchmen from the camp garrison. The prisoner-workers were sometimes subjected to additional selections with some being sentenced to death and replaced with newcomers.
In Sobibór the Germans began the mass killings in early May 1942. The first gas chambers were built on the basis of design applied earlier at the death camp in Bełżec. A wooden barracks erected on concrete-and-stone foundations housed three chambers. It also had a wooden annex with an engine, which generated exhaust fumes used to murder the victims. Between June and September 192, the gas chambers were remodelled. The existing structure was expanded with additional four red-brick chambers placed on concrete-and-brick foundations. Both parts were joined with a corridor, the annex was converted into additional killing room, and the whole building reached the number of 8 gas chambers. According to a testimony of one of the SS-men, up to two fumes-generating engines were connected to the building. The killing process took approximately 20 minutes.
Initially, the victims' bodies were buried in mass graves located within the Lager III area. In late spring of 1942, the process of burning the corpses began, which continued to the very end of the camp’s operations. Bodies were burned in the open air on stakes, built on grates made of railway parts.
The first escape attempts were made already in 1942. Five prisoners managed to break free on the night of 25/26 December. Another successful attempt was made on 23 July 1943, when 28 inmates escaped from the woodcutting labour team working in the forest.
Not all attempts were successful, and any signs of resistance were punished, also in the form of collective responsibility. A group of Dutch Jews working in Sonderkommando were plotting an escape, but their plan was discovered by the SS-men, who murdered 120 prisoners in retaliation.
A resistance group among the prisoners was formed in the summer of 1943. Their efforts to oppose the SS and escape from the camp accelerated after the arrival of transports from Minsk in September 1943. From among those deportees, the Germans selected a group of Soviet POWs for labour. Their military experience proved invaluable in the planning of an armed revolt. The resistance had two leaders – Lejba (Leon) Felhendler, who was from among the so-called “old” prisoners (mostly Polish Jews), and Alexander Pechersky who led the Soviet POWs.
Prisoner uprising took place on 14 October 1943. The inmates eliminated several SS-men and guards, and then managed to break out of the camp. Many Jews were killed with bullets and on the minefield surrounding the camp. A full-scale manhunt was organised, within the course of which most prisoners were caught and killed. Around 50 insurgents survived until the end of World War II.
In the aftermath of the successful revolt, the Germans made a decision about the final liquidation of the camp. A group of prisoners were brought from Treblinka to dismantle its infrastructure. The materials that could have been reused were shipped away. Gas chambers were demolished with explosives. The camp grounds were ploughed over and planted with trees. When the liquidation works were accomplished, the prisoners from Treblinka were murdered.
It is estimated that 180,000 Jews were murdered in the extermination camp in Sobibór. The Polish Jews constituted over a half of the victims. The remaining ones were the deportees of various German-occupied countries of Europe. While the Jews deported from Western Europe were registered on transport lists, the Jews deported from the occupied territories of Poland or Belarus were never registered, and they mostly remain anonymous.
