History, definition and facts about Sobibor
Purpose and scale of the camp
Sobibor was a Nazi extermination camp, not a concentration camp. Established as part of Operation Reinhard, its sole purpose was the mass murder of Jews. Unlike concentration camps, Sobibor had no long-term detention function: the overwhelming majority of those deported there were murdered within hours of arrival. Between 170.000 and 250.000 people, all of them Jew, were killed at Sobibor. This makes it the fourth-deadliest Nazi killing center, after Bełżec, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Only a small number of prisoners were temporarily spared from immediate death. These individuals were forced into labor roles essential to the camp’s operation, such as sorting victims’ belongings, cutting hair, maintaining facilities and removing bodies from the gas chambers. Survival beyond a few months was rare.
Establishment and killing operations (1942–1943)
Sobibor became fully operational in May 1942 (most sources cite 16 - 18 May). Deportation trains entered a specially constructed railway siding that ended at an unloading platform within the camp. Upon arrival, Jews were told they were in a transit camp and that they would be sent onward to labor. The deception continued through every stage of the process. Prisoners were forced to surrender valuables, separated by sex and ordered to undress. Women and girls had their hair cut by Jewish prisoner-workers known as Friseure (barbers); among them was Toivi (Thomas) Blatt, who was 15 years old at the time.
Victims were then driven in groups along a narrow, fenced passage approximately 100 meters long, euphemistically called the “Road to Heaven” (Himmelfahrtsstraße), leading directly to the gas chambers. There they were murdered using carbon monoxide, produced by a gasoline engine whose exhaust was piped into the chambers.
Before the Jews undressed, SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Michel made a speech to them. On these occasions, he wore a white coat to give the impression that he was a physician. Michel told the Jews they were going to work, but first had to bathe and be disinfected to prevent disease. After undressing, the Jews were taken through the “Tube,” with an SS man in front and five or six Ukrainians behind, driving them forward. Once inside the gas chambers, the doors were closed. The motor was started by Emil Kostenko, a former Soviet soldier and by Erich Bauer, a German driver from Berlin. After the gassing, the doors were opened and the corpses removed by Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners.
Treatment during deportation varied. Local Jews from occupied Poland often arrived in states of extreme terror, while deportees from Western Europe, such as the Netherlands, were subjected to more elaborate deception. Transports from Westerbork traveled in relatively orderly conditions, sometimes with Jewish doctors and nurses on board, adequate food and medical supplies. For many, Sobibor did not initially appear to be a place of immediate death.
The Sobibor Revolt (14 October 1943)
On 14 October 1943, prisoners staged one of the most significant armed uprisings in the history of Nazi camps. The revolt was organized by Jewish prisoners, including Leon Feldhendler and Alexander Pechersky, a Soviet Jewish POW.
The plan had two phases:
- Assassination phase: Small teams of prisoners would lure SS officers into workshops and kill them silently.
- Escape phase: All prisoners, 550 people, would assemble for evening roll call and march out through the camp’s main gate.
The plan unraveled when the killings were discovered prematurely. By that point, 12 German SS men had been killed. With no chance of an orderly departure, prisoners fled in chaos, climbing fences and running through a minefield while under machine-gun fire.
Approximately 320 prisoners escaped the camp. Many were later captured or killed, but the revolt succeeded in fatally disrupting Sobibor’s operation.
The Sobibor Revolt in numbers
Jewish prisoners
- Prisoners in the camp at the time of the revolt: 550
- Unable or unwilling to escape (including 30 in Lager I): 150
- Killed during escape (combat or mines): 80
- Initial escapees: 320
- Captured during German manhunt and executed: 170
- Prisoners who evaded recapture: 150
- Killed later as partisans or soldiers: 5
- Killed in hiding, often by hostile locals: 92
- Liberated at war’s end: 53
- Additionally, 9 Jews survived from earlier individual escapes, bringing the total number of Sobibor survivors to 62.
German and auxiliary forces
- Germans and Ukrainian guards on duty: 137
- Germans killed (including 2 Volksdeutsche guard leaders): 12
- Germans wounded: 1
- Ukrainian guards killed: 8
- Ukrainian guards wounded: 12
- Ukrainian guards unaccounted for (likely fled): 28
(Statistics compiled with the assistance of Thomas Blatt, Sobibor survivor and his daughter Rena.)
Closure and destruction of the camp
In the aftermath of the revolt, Sobibor effectively ceased functioning. On 19 October 1943, SS leader Heinrich Himmler formally ordered the camp’s closure.
Jewish forced laborers were transferred from Treblinka to dismantle Sobibor. They destroyed the gas chambers and most camp buildings, leaving only a few barracks for potential use by the Baudienst forced labor service. This work was completed by the end of October. Between 1 and 10 November 1943, all of these Jewish laborers were murdered to eliminate witnesses. The camp site was then plowed over and planted with pine trees in an attempt to erase all traces of its existence.
Postwar neglect and rediscovery
For decades after World War II, Sobibor remained largely neglected, both physically and in Holocaust scholarship. The site lay in the Soviet Union and public commemoration was minimal. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, renewed attention was given to Sobibor. The Sobibor Museum was established at the site and systematic archaeological excavations began, continuing into the 21st century. These excavations uncovered foundations of the gas chambers, personal belongings of victims and other crucial evidence.
In 2020, the first known photographs of Sobibor during its operation were published as part of the so-called Sobibor perpetrator album, further deepening historical understanding of the camp.
