BELZEC Extermination Camp part 1

PROLOGUE
The first considerations for the establishment of an extermination camp at Belzec in southeastern Poland were considered in connection with the decision of the Reichs Leader(Reichsführer der) SS Himmler, dated 20 July 1941,  to have the District of Lublin Germanized and later the entire General Government. To accomplish this project as a "clean up"  it necessitated to remove the entire population of the Jewish and Polish communities.Thus began the planning by  the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District, SS Brigadier Odilo Globocnik with  the Germanization of the region. At the same  time Globocnik worked during the summer of 1941 on a concept for the effective mass killing of Jews, not only in Lublin area, but for the entire General Government which came under his jurisdiction.

 FOUNDATION AND STRUCTURE
The decision to make Auschwitz  the place(Schauplatz)of the mass murder of European Jews was not  made later than  February 1942 while Belzec was already completed for the reception of the first transports. Although the Germans had already in the summer of 1941 in Auschwitz done experiments on the use of gas as a means of killing, however, the German-Polish historian Bogdan Musial argues that both, the decision to implement the mass murder in stationary gas chambers and the decision on the site of Belzec as a place of execution for the "Final Solution"(Endlösung)" was made at the same time, between July and October 1941. What influenced this decision making, while at that time mass shootings of Jews in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union had been in full swing, was, that  this method of slaughter required a large staffing and took a long time. Moreover, the participation in the executions of the perpetrators took a great toll on them psychologically. [Those Einsatztruppen that refused(Befehlsverweigerung) to shoot women and children were court marshaled, sentenced and as a rule finished up at Dachau KZ, very little has been written about their emotional feelings and distress.sic]  This method of murder was therefore not intended for the rapid killing of millions of Polish and European Jews. At the same time, it became clear that logistical reasons and because of the war situation it was hopeless to deport  the Jews from the General Government, let alone to transport them en mases from all over Europe, only to be shot in the Soviet Union was out of question.
In Western Europe, this method of killing was already out of deference to public opinion not an issue of debate . The use of mobile gas vans in the opinion of the murderers turned out to be too time consuming. The establishment of extermination camps in the General Government allowed first and foremost for secrecy of the crime. This appeared to the National Socialists political administration(Parteiverwaltung) particularly important and necessary in relation to the Deportation of German Jews. [Hitler did finally gave the green light to deport Reichs-Juden to the East after lengthly delays and dithering.sic] Another reason for the establishment of an extermination camp in the General Government was that the Germans were able to prevail here with impunity an occupation regime without any recall to the law,  furthermore people in the occupied countries of Western Europe, were neither exposed nor aware to the extent of the terror that existed.
Belzec was the first camp where the Nazis installed stationary gas chambers. The decision to build this extermination camp was probably already taken in September 1941, or as early as mid-October with SS lieutenant Gottfried Schwarz, SS Sergeant Josef Oberhauser and SS lieutenant Josef Niemann, the first who had been involved in"Aktion T4"  who arrived in Lublin, and who later became members of the camp's team (5) at  the end of October they were already in Belzec. Further plans for the building were probably held at a meeting on 13 October, at which Himmler, Globocnik were present as well as higher ranking SS and Police Leaders of the General Government including Hans Krüger. Ref.: (5) Statement, Josef Oberhauser 12/04/1961 in StA Munich Stan33033 / 6, Process against Josef Oberhauser, page 1194..Oberhauser testified that he arrived already in the summer of 1941 in Lublin shortly after the completion of the euthanasia program,his claim that he was ordered to Lublin, in order to establish a Ukrainian division at Belzec with the aim to collect only the Russian abandoned war material, is not true.[The researcher might be wrong as the name of the Police Chief at that time was Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger, not Hans, sic]

Joseph Oberhauser at his trial

The choice of location as a site of Belzec as  the first death camp with gas chambers was mainly for logistical reasons. Belzec was situated on the railway line Warsaw-Lublin-Lemberg(then Lwów, now Lwiw  in Ukraine). 14 km from Belzec away was the railway hub Rawa Ruska, the region with the southern part of Poland during the occupation was part of the"Cracow District," from here it was planned the deportations to Belzec to be carried out as well, and were joined to the northern part of the occupied eastern territories.Through  Rawa Ruska on the Bug River you can reach Brzesc, today it is Brest in Belarus and Vilnius. The good rail link guaranteed a proportionate rapid arrival of transports to the extermination camp. A second and possibly decisive factor for the location of the camp at Belzec would have been the "Kozielsk Hill" (7)  the fact that at the foot of the hill was a railway ramp. This one belonged to the "Upper Silesia wood-industrial society"(Oberschlesischen Holz-Industrieanlagen)  and was before the First World War used for the removal of timber from the forests of the area around it. Belzec was at that time the most northernly border station of the Austrian territory since the division  (8) The ramp, after modernization was able to handle about  20 railway freight cars. The front of the ramp had sufficient space for the deportees. (9)
Ref: (7) This expressionn was used by the inhabitants of Belzec and other surrounding villages like Cieszanow about 20 km away the death camp known as "camp on the "Kozielsk"
Ref: (8) In the years 1918-1939 Belzec belonged to the district of the county of Rawa Ruska, Lemberg.Aftter the German invasion of 1939, the largest part of the village was under German occupation and thus added to the Lublin district. The boundary between German and the Soviet occupation zone, the so-called Molotov-line ran exactly on the site of the later extermination camp. You can recognize the remains of a bunker built by the Soviets as well as a German anti-tank ditch from 1940, which are each about 100 meters from the camp grounds. On the history of the place during the 1st World War and immediately afterwards, see Pavel Sygowsky, Belzec, woj. zamojskie.Historia i Rozwoj przestrzenny, Lublin 1990
Ref: (9) statement Scluch Karl, 11.10.1961, in StA Munich, StanW 33033/11, Process against Josef Oberhauser page 1161

WIRTH, Christian SS-Sturmbannführer
Inspector of all Aktion Reinhard death camps and in charge of DAW (Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke) at Lublin Airfield.
SERVICE AT BELZEC, SOBIBOR AND TREBLINKA:
After the official cessation of the euthanasia programme (September 1941) he was ordered to join the staff of SS- und Polizeiführer im Distrikt Lublin Odilo Globocnik. The experience gained by Wirth in the euthanasia institutions, his enthusiasm for National Socialism, as well as his innate cruelty were all put to use when he assumed command of Belzec and later was appointed inspector of the Aktion Reinhard death camps. Not only was he the inspector of the death camps and, in this capacity, the actual commander, but also it was he who developed the entire system of the extermination machine in these camps. It was Wirth who introduced the regime of terror and death in the Aktion Reinhard camps and influenced the daily life and sufferings of the Jewish prisoners there more than any other commander. Because of his cruelty he became known as "Christian the Terrible" by his subordinates. The killing system, as developed by Wirth, enabled the murder of tens of thousands of Jews every day in the three death camps under his jurisdiction.

Christian Wirth

Christian Wirth's driver at Belzec

LIFE AFTER:
Wirth was posted to Trieste (Italy) in September 1943 and commanded the SS-Einsatzkommando R, which was composed of former Aktion Reinhard members. On 26 May 1944 partisans killed Wirth near Trieste. His grave (no 716) is marked by a great cross in the German Military Cemetery at Costermano, near Verona (Italy).
THOMALLA, Richard SS-Hauptsturmführer, the Camp Belzec "Architect"
Service at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka:
"Architect" of all three Aktion Reinhard death camps and their temporary commander.Richard Thomalla was the "architect" of Belzec. On 1 November 1941 the construction of Belzec started. It ended in March 1942. At first Polish workers were used, later they were replaced by Jews from the surrounding ghettos.
LIFE AFTER:
Thomalla was executed by NKWD (Russian Secret Service) in Jicin, Czechoslovakia on 12 May 1945.
FRIEDRICH-WILHELM KRÜGER
was a Nazi official and high-ranking member of the SA and SS. Between 1939 and 1943 he was SS and Police Leader in the General Government in German-occupied Poland and in that capacity he organized and supervised numerous acts of war crimes.On 4 October 1939, because of his ambition and his loyalty to the party, Heinrich Himmler, appointed him to as Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF East) (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer) in the part of German-occupied Poland called the General Government. Krüger thus became one of the most powerful men in occupied Poland. Among other things he was responsible for: crushing rebellion in the extermination camps, setting up forced labor camps, the employment of police and SS in the evacuations of people from Warsaw ghettos, the execution Aktion Erntefest, the so-called "anti-partisan" fighting in the General Government, and the driving out of over 100.000 Polish farmers from the area around Zamosc. Authority quarrels with Governor General Hans Frank led to his dismissal on 9 November 1943. He was replaced by Wilhelm Koppe. The Polish Secret State ordered his death, but an assassination attempt on 20 April 1943 in Kraków failed when two bombs hurled at his car missed the target. Half a year later, he wrote in a letter, "I have lost honour and reputation due to my four year struggle in the GG (General Government) (Ich habe für meinen vierjährigen Kampf im GG Ehre und Reputation verloren.).
 LATER CAREER AND DEATH:
From November 1943 until April 1944 Krüger served with the 7th SS mountain infantry "Prince Eugen" division in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. While ostensibly engaged in anti-partisan actions in Yugoslavia, this unit became notorious for committing atrocities against the civilian population.
Later from June to August Krüger took over the command over the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord in northern Finland. From August 1944 until February 1945 Krüger was commanding general of the Fifth SS Mountain Infantry Corps. In February 1945 he was Himmler's representative at the German southeast front and in April and May 1945 he was commander of a combat unit of the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) at Army Group South (known as Army Group Ostmark after 1 May 1945). At the end of the war Krüger committed suicide in upper Austria
On October 31, 1941 Josef Oberhauser and Gottfried Schwarz went, accompanied by SS Captain Richard Thomalla of the SS Central Construction Office in Lublin and recruited about 30 Polish residents for the construction of the extermination camp. Most volunteered and were paid for their work. Of course the Germans did not inform them of the purpose of the camp. (11) They had been under the impression that another camp would be erected in the vicinity of Belzec as previously was the case, another labor camp for Jews, as it had been done in 1940 in the town. (12) The Polish workers had to level and pave the Kozelsk hill and set up the first primitive barracks, and the gas chambers.
Ref: (11) The research of Michael Tregenza, including interviews with inhabitants of Belzec and the surrounding area who were employed in the construction of the extermination camp suggests that the people were fully aware of the purpose of the camp. However, these discussions were led by Tregenza in the early '90s, when the mass murder at Belzec was generally known. Yet, if one analyzes the statements of the same people from the years 1945 and 1946, it seems that the Polish workers were not aware for what purpose they set up the barracks. Only during the camps activities did it become clear that this was an extermination camp. Ibid, pg 170f. Compare this statement of Stanilaw Kozak on 14/10/1945 and Jan Gib on 16/10/1945 in: OKBZH Lublin, ref.:1604/45, investigations of crimes in the death camp at Belzec.
Ref: (12) In addition there were Jews, Polish and German Sinti and Roma as well as some Polish farmers who had been arrested from the area for not delivering their mandatory quotas. The former prisoners had to build a tank ditch(Panzergraben) along the German-Soviet border.
The whole camp area measured about seven hectares From the beginning the Belzec extermination camp was divided into two sections, known as Camp I and II, some former SS-men referred to the section in which the ramp was a "Reception Area(Vorlager)". Also properties outside the fence of the camp, like two houses that came from the 1920s  in Lwowska Street, which had been originally built for the families of the workers at the railway station of Belzec become objects of "interest" to the SS for good reasons. In December 1941, when the first commander of the camp, Christian Wirth arrived in Belzec, they seized them for residential and administrative purposes. Until then, the SS men who supervised the construction of the camp, lodged in private homes of the Belzec population. During the occupation these properties now belonged to the German Eastern Railway, which was responsible and came under the administration of the General Government. Another object outside the camp's fence was the locomotive shed which led to the warehouses of the belongings of the victims. All these buildings were located 400 to 500 meters from the camp, as well the railway station Belzec, where the Transports arrived.
Inside the camp, across the ramp there were two undressing barracks, one for men and one for women and children. In another large shed the clothes were collected. From the undressing barracks to the gas chambers led  a kind of corridor, the Germans called the (Schlauch) "tube" and through which the victim walked or run naked towards the chambers. It was protected on both sides with a high wooden fence, behind which were the mass graves. This fence camouflaged the site and prevented the victims from knowing  that they would be gassed.

Two photos showing the construction of the Belzec camp

The first gas chambers were made of wood and very primitive. The Polish worker Stanislaw Kozak from Belzec, who was involved in the construction, described it:.. "On 1 November 1941 we started to work with the construction of the barracks on the part that bordered on the siding of the railway line, a hut, which was 50 meters long and 12.5 meters wide, which was located directly next to the track, that was the waiting room for the Jews who would be working in the camp. A second hut about 25 meters long and 12.5 meters wide was intended for the Jews, who were to go into the showers, in addition to this hut we built a third one of 12 Meters long and 8 meters wide, this was divided into three parts with wooden walls, so that each part was four Meters wide and eight Meters long the height was two Meters, the inner walls of these barracks we done like this:.. we nailed two boards together and filled the space with sand. These walls were then covered with cardboard, also the floors and walls up to a height of 1,10 meter were then lined with galvanized steel sheets. [...]
From the second to the third hut that lead to a covered corridor, two meters high, two meters wide and some ten meters long.  This corridor led through into the hall of the third hut. From there three doors leading into the three-part of barrack. Each part of the hut had a door on the north side, which is about 1.80 meters high and 1.10 meters wide. These doors, as well as the doors of the Corridor were sealed with rubber gaskets. All these doors opened outward. They were built of massive wooden beams and interlocked by wooden cross bars so that they could not be broken from the inside. These wooden bars were placed into two iron brackets that had been mounted there for this purpose [...] Along the northern side of the hut as mentioned was a ramp made ​​of wooden planks at a height of 1 meter and placed along the ramp on a narrow gage railway track, that led into the pit that was dug out by the "blacks" (15) and was located in the northeastern corner of the camp".
Ref: (15) The Trawniki men that were at Belzec were known as "blacks"(Schwarze) or "askaris"by the local population,(at that stage they did wear black uniforms). The Germans called them "Hiwis"(Hilfswillige)="willing to help"

In order to introduce gas into the gas chambers pipes may have been installed that were connected to an engine that came from a Soviet tank and probably was sent from Lemberg.  The gas supply was probably not installed until after December 1941 when the Polish workers were no longer employed at the site of the future camp None of them remembers a motor.
Outwardly, the camp was fenced with barbed wire, only at the level of the ramp was a three-meter high wooden fence set up and camouflaged  with branches. This was meant to shield the camp from the looks of the passengers on trains that were running by as the regular train line ran parallel to the ramp. In the vicinity of the gas chamber, a watchtower with machine gun position and a spotlight was erected, illuminating the whole camp site. Four other towers stood at the corners of the camp, a fifth was at the camp gate, which guarded the entrance while fright cars went through with the deportees on their way to the ramp.
Just behind the gate and the guard-hut in the so-called camp area I there were three barracks for the Trawniki guards. The barrack located closest to the camp gate was used as accommodation, the one in the center as a kitchen and dining room. In the third, there was a barbershop, a clinic and a dental treatment room for the guards, where Jewish prisoners were working. The roll call square located in front of the barracks was used for both the guards and for the Jewish inmates of the camp.
The barrack accommodation and the kitchen for Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando were in the area of the extermination part of the camp, near the gas chambers and mass graves. The second group of Jewish prisoners who worked in different functions within the commandos and had to perform outside of the camp was, however, in the vicinity of camp I, and located at the end of the ramp. This was to prevent the prisoners from the Sonderkommando could come in contact  with the inmates of the labor detachments. Initially, the Jewish prisoners were exchanged frequently, often they were shot after a few days. The most common rotation took place in the Sonderkommando. It is probable that camp commandant Wirth decided to copy the example of Sobibor in late May 1942, that a group of Jewish prisoners would be more valuable alive then to teach new arrivals from scratch. About the Jewish Sonderkommando there is little known because only two reports from former prisoners have been handed down, but they came later into the camp. As the prisoner treatment was designed along the lines of that at Sobibor, comparison can only be gained from the statements of those survivors.
All camp sections: the extermination area with gas chambers and mass graves, the area for the Trawniki men, and the area of the Jewish prisoners were fenced off with barbed wire from each other, which was also camouflaged. A fence was also erected for reason of concealment​​ between the area of the undressing barracks and the area of the gas chambers.
The members of the German staff lived outside the camp grounds.The properties near the railway station which were  taken over by the SS during 1941was used by the camp commandant as his private residence as well as the Camp's Administration Office(Lagerkommandantur).

Belzec Kommandantur

In the neighboring house lived most of the SS team. Even an old mill which had belonged before the war to the Jewish family Kessler, was used to accommodate staff members. Near the railway houses an additional hut was erected,  which was furnished as an apartment for one SS man. In another part of this hut Jewish women were housed who worked in the camp as laundresses. Along the road between the German-occupied houses and the railway tracks was a small wooded area with a bunker that was used as a detention block for Trawniki men.

An Ukrainian Guard on the staff of the Belzec camp, posing in front of the flour mill used as an assembly place for Jews deported to the camp.

Some of the SS-men mentioned in this narrative:
OBERHAUSER, Josef SS-Untersturmführer
SERVICE AT BELZEC:
From November 1941 until 1 August 1942 in Belzec as contact to the Lublin office without a special task but leader of guard platoon. On 1 August 1942 ordered to Wirth's office. He became chief of the Ukrainian guards in Lublin. Accompanied Wirth on his inspection tours of the three camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka).
Promoted SS-Untersturmführer on 20 April 1943 because of his "merits" in the course of Aktion Reinhard.
LIFE AFTER:
In Autumn 1943 ordered to Italy where he was promoted SS-Obersturmführer on 30 January 1945. Captured by British troops in May 1945 in Bad Gastein (Austria).
Sentenced to 15 years in prison by Landgericht Magdeburg. Amnesty on 28 April 1956. Casual labourer and waiter in Munich. Then sentenced to 4 years and 6 months by Landgericht München in 1965.
NIEMANN, Johann SS-Untersturmführer
SERVICE AT BELZEC:
Served in Belzec as SS-Hauptscharführer before he was permanently posted to Sobibor.
SERVICE AT SOBIBOR:
As a soldier in the Waffen-SS, he served several times in 1942 as acting commander in this camp. From early 1943 he occupied the post of camp commander permanently. He was responsible for the events in Camp III. Promoted SS-Untersturmführer after Himmler's visit to the camp on 12 February 1943.
LIFE AFTER:
During the Sobibor revolt he was the first SS-officer to be killed at the dressmaking barrack.
SCHWARZ, Gottfried SS-Hauptscharführer, promoted to SS-Untersturmführer after Aktion Reinhardt
SERVICE AT BELZEC:
Deputy commander and head of the gassing squad from Winter 1941. Himmler praised him as one of the most meritful men of Aktion Reinhard.
SERVICE AT SOBIBOR:
According to Erich Fuchs he served also at Sobibor.
LIFE AFTER:
After Belzec / Sobibor commander of the Dorohucza labour camp, then ordered to Trieste in Italy (Einsatz R). He was killed in San Pietro (Istria / Italy) in 1944. Buried at the German military cemetery at Costermano near Verona (grave no. 666)
.SCHLUCH, Karl Alfred SS-Unterscharführer
SERVICE AT BELZEC:
Schluch was in Belzec from June 1942 until early summer 1943. He served as a guard at the ramp, and accompanied the naked Jews through the Schleuse (sluice) to the gas chambers.
LIFE AFTER:
After Belzec to Poniatowa labour camp. In autumn 1943 to Italy, where he fought against partisans, probably in the frame of "Aktion R".
At the end of war he was arrested by US troops, but released on 6 July 1945. Until 1948 agricultural worker, from 1948 - 1952 construction worker. From 1952 male nurse again, at the hospital in Bedburg-Hau.

  Equivalent Ranks of the SS compared withe the Wehrmacht, which seems to be confusing to some readers:   
Reichsführer-SS / RFSS     =     General of the army
SS-Oberstgruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS / Ostgruf     =     General
SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS / Ogruf     =     Lt General
SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS / Gruf     =     Major General
SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS / Brigaf     =     Brigadier General
SS-Oberführer / Obf     =     Senior Colonel
SS-Standartenführer / Staf     =     Colonel
SS-Obersturmbannführer / Ostubaf     =     Lt Colonel
SS-Sturmbannführer / Stubaf     =     Major
SS-Hauptsturmführer / Hstuf     =     Captain
SS-Obersturmführer / Ostuf     =     1st Lieutenant
SS-Untersturmführer / Ustuf     =     2nd Lieutenant
SS-Sturmscharführer / Stuscha     =     Sergeant Major
SS-Hauptscharführer / Hscha     =     Master Sergeant
SS-Oberscharführer / Oscha     =     Technical Sergeant
SS-Scharführer / Schaf     =     Staff Sergeant
SS-Unterscharführer / Uscha     =     Sergeant
SS-Rottenführer / Rttf     =     Corporal
SS-Sturmmann / Strmm     =     Lance Corporal
SS-Oberschütze     =     Private 1st class
SS-Schütze= Private

Aerial photo and surroundings of Extermination Camp Belzec 

                                                                     
                                                                   Continued under Part Two

Sobibor Part 4

THE UPRISING OCTOBER 14, 1943

From the various traditional writings about the revolt of October 14, 1943, with only slight variations, the uprising can be reconstructed: On this morning, each of the present SS men was asked in the course of the afternoon at a specified time to come into a workshop a warehouse or an office. They may want a new suit or a leather coat or to try on a jacket or a pair of shoes that belonged to a murdered inmate, come and take a closer look and examine the newly-built shelves. At first everything went according to plan. Leon Feldhendler supervised Camp II, Alexander Petcherchersky watching over Camp I. The exchange of information between the two concerned was done by young boys called "Putzer", which were able to move as servants of the SS within the camps quite freely. Stanislaw Szmajzner pretended to have to repair something on the roof of the armoury. From there he could get inside, and take three rifles and ammunition and have them smuggled out. A Czech electrician cut off all connections to the outside. Hidden money and valuables which should help them move forward after a successful escape were distributed to the insurgents.

Scale model of Sobibor marking a few of the sites.

The killing of the SS men initially worked quickly and smoothly as planned. Greed and punctuality were found to be a reliable constant of the plan. After SS Sergeant Josef Wolf was killed first in a warehouse building of Camp II while trying on a leather jacket with a blow with an axe, there was no turning back. The rebellion had begun. In Camp I  the 16-year old Yehuda Lerner struck SS Sergeant Siegfried Graetschuss down with a hatchet, who was commander of the Ukrainian guards. Lerner had, after his parents were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka, previously fled from eight camps before, he was brought together with Russian prisoners of war from Minsk to Sobibor. Also Untersturmführer Niemann deputy to commander of the day, met on his horse one time in front of the assembly hall (Lagerhalle), where he was liquidated. At 16.45 o'clock in Camp II four SS-men had been killed. But SS Sergeant Karl Frenzel did not come as planned into the carpentry and Walter Ryba arrived unexpectedly in the garage and surprised one of the rebels who stabbed him to death. Because the danger was that his body could be discovered there, Petchersky decided to give the signal for the evening roll call a little earlier than usual.

This unfortunately  was the beginning of the scheduled  rebellion slowly spiralling out of control. Among the prisoners there was ​​wide unrest, and they began to diverge and ran in all directions. As an ethnic German(Volksdeutscher) tried to stand in their way, he was trapped by the crowd and killed.[This statement by the researcher is wrong, the killer was the 16 year old Yehuda Lerner, who emigrated later on to Israel.sic] They all crowded towards the main entrance. Some ran to the armoury. There was an SS man, Karl Dubois severely injured by a blow with an axe and a gunshot wound and had lost consciousness. Erich Bauer, who described himself as " Gas Meister of Sobibor", arrived unexpectedly with a truck at the gate, and when he saw the confusion, he immediately opened fire on the prisoners. The Ukrainian guards started to shoot from their watchtowers onto the fugitives. Frenzel, startled by the noise rushed forward with a machine gun and also began to shoot into the crowd. 60 prisoners who returned from Camp IV at the usual time for roll call came too late to join the fugitives. Their captors held them back when they heard the shots. They were taken to a barrack and shot during the night.

After the revolt, the bodies of SS and Ukrainian casualties were buried in Lublin.

An estimated 365 people managed to escape from the camp, about 200 of them did manage to reach the woods. Only 47 prisoners of the Sobibor camp, however, survived  the end of the war. About 150 refugees became victims and were hunted down by  German trackers or had been denounced by anti-Semitic Poles or murdered by them. The 47 prisoners had to go through  another odyssey of fear, hunger, cold and privation before they could crawl out of their hiding places or leave partisan groups until the withdrawal of German troops from Poland in the summer of 1944, often pass false identities to start a new life.

LUKA

[Prior to the above events took place, Petchersky's girlfriend Luka came to the carpentry workshop. Petchersky told her what was happening, to be ready for escape within half an hour, and to change into men's clothes. Although she had been very close to Petchersky, he had never revealed to her the preparations until that very last minute. Luka was surprised about the uprising and expressed fears for the outcome. She embraced Petchersky, burst into tears, and left. After a short time, she returned dressed in men's clothes.
Petchersky clandestinely met with Feldhendler under the guise of meeting Luka, a woman he was supposedly involved with. Luka is often described as an 18 year old woman from Holland, but records indicate she was 28 and from Germany, her real name was Gertrude Poppert–Schonborn. After the war, Petchersky insisted that the relationship was platonic. Her fate after the escape was never factually established and she was never seen alive again. During an interview with Thomas Blatt, Petchersky said the following regarding Luka: "Although I knew her only about two weeks, I will never forget her. I informed her minutes before the escape of the plan. She has given me a shirt. She said, 'it's a good luck shirt, put it on right now', and I did. It's now in the museum. I lost her in the turmoil of the revolt and never saw her again."
Luka's shirt still exists and is described on May 3, 2010 by Petchersky's daughter as:
" It is very well preserved. Light gray. Has dark-gray stripes. A little worn from wear and being often washed. Long sleeves. The shirt collar has some blurred letters of the Latin alphabet which are no longer readable".sic]
[PS: Although during their brief relationship there must have been difficulties in communications, he did not speak Yiddish, or Polish, unless he spoke German,as a number of Russians did, here is a brief extract what Petchersky wrote about Luka, who told him about her feelings and thoughts:

      "Do you know where I work? In the yard where the rabbits are. It is fenced off with a wooden fence. Through the cracks you can see the naked men, women, and children as they are led to Camp III. I look and shake as in fever, but cannot turn my eyes from the sight. At times some call out, "where are they taking us"? As though they knew that someone was listening and could answer their question. I tremble and remain silent. Cry out? Tell them they are being led to their death? Will it be any help to them? On the contrary, like this, at least, they go without crying, without screaming, without humiliating themselves before their murderers. But it is so horrible, Sasha, so horrible"! sic]  

THE END OF SOBIBOR

After the escape of the prisoners there were still five SS men in the camp. Two of them were in hiding, one was seriously injured. With the help of the Ukrainian guards Frenzel and Bauer were searching for the SS-men killed and took them  into a barrack. Of the 29 SS members who were at that time the staff of Sobibor, twelve were absent that day, and  twelve were dead on the evening of October 14th, Frenzel and Bauer succeeded around 20.00 hours to restore the broken links and requested support of the border guards who were stationed about 40 kilometres in the southern city of Chelm. In the camp there were probably still another 150 inmates. The following day, a police task force arrived together with the Border Police Commissioner of Chelm, and a group of members of the armed forces(Wehrmacht) and police protection in order to pursue the fugitives, and to secure the camp grounds. In the afternoon, appeared SS-group leader Jokob Sporrenberg, the successor of Odilo Globocnik  acting now as SS and Police Leader of the Lublin district, and ordered the execution of all remaining prisoners, including the able-bodied out of camp III, by Ukrainian guards. (Globocnik had left Lublin in September 1943 together with a group SS men and a group of Ukrainian guards in the direction of Istria in Italy). Teams with a total of 400-500 men searched now the surroundings of Sobibor systematically with dogs, and even air-planes were used. About 100 escapees were killed in the course of these searches.

Himmler ordered the camp to be levelled to the ground and ensure to destroy all traces. The ammunition stored there was to be taken away. A group of about 300 prisoners from Treblinka came to Sobibor to the site and to destroy and conceal the traces of the crime. In November 1943, these last prisoners were murdered, the last SS men and Ukrainians leaving Sobibor in December 1944.

Globocnik, who continued after his transfer to Trieste was still responsible for "Aktion Reinhardt" and sent, on 4 November 1943 a message as to the completion and the resolution of the three death camps to Himmler. He in turn  thanked him on 30 November 1943: "I speak to you for your great and unique contribution which you have done in implementing the Action Reinhardt and receive from the entire German people, my thanks and my appreciation."

PETCHERSKY (The spelling of his name differs in some documents.sic)
At Sobibor
On 18 September 1943, Pechersky, along with 2,000 Jews from Minsk including about 100 Soviet Jewish POWs, was placed in a train cattle car which arrived at the Sobibor extermination camp on September 23, 1943. Eighty prisoners from the train, including Pechersky, were selected for work in Lager II. The remaining 1,920 Jews were immediately led to the gas chambers. Pechersky later recalled his thoughts as the train pulled up to Sobibor, "How many circles of hell were there in Dante's Inferno? It seems there were nine. How many have already passed? Being surrounded, being captured, camps in Vyazma, Smolensk, Borisov, Minsk... And finally I am here. What's next?" The appearance of Soviet POW's produced an enormous impression on Sobibor prisoners: "hungry hope-filled eyes following their every move".
Pechersky wrote about his first day in Sobibor:
 I was sitting outside on a pile of logs in the evening with Solomon (Shlomo) Leitman, who subsequently became my top commander in the uprising. I asked him about the huge, strange fire burning 500 meters away from us behind some trees and about the unpleasant smell throughout the camp. He warned me that the guards forbade looking there, and told me that they are burning the corpses of my murdered comrades who arrived with me that day. I did not believe him, but he continued: He told me that the camp existed for more than a year and that almost every day a train came with two thousand new victims who are all murdered within a few hours. He said around 500 Jewish prisoners – Polish, French, German, Dutch and Czechoslovak work here and that my transport was the first one to bring Russian Jews. He said that on this tiny plot of land, no more than 10 hectares, (24.7 acres or .1 square kilometre) hundreds of thousands of Jewish women, children and men were murdered. I thought about the future. Should I try to escape alone or with a small group? Should I leave the rest of the prisoners to be tortured and murdered? I rejected this thought.
During his third day at Sobibor, Alexander Pechersky earned the respect of fellow prisoners by standing up to Karl Frenzel, an SS senior officer,(he was SS-Oberscharführer,which is  a Technical Sergeant an NCO,not an officer,sic) as the incident was recalled by Leon Feldhendler.
Pechersky, still wearing his Soviet Army uniform, was assigned to dig up tree stumps in the North Camp. Frenzel was in charge because an underling was elsewhere and was in a bad mood. Frenzel was waiting for an excuse to pick on someone since he considered himself an officer and a gentleman and waited for some reason to begin his sadistic games. One Dutch Jew was too weak to chop a stump so Frenzel began beating him with his whip.
Pechersky stopped chopping and watched the whipping while resting on his axe. Kapo Porzyczki translated when Frenzel asked Pechersky if he didn’t like what he saw. Pechersky didn't bow down, shake or cower in fear but answered, Yes Oberscharfuhrer. Franzel told Pechersky that he had 5 minutes to split a large tree stump in two. If Pechersky beat the time he would receive a pack of cigarettes, if he lost, he would be whipped 25 times. Franzel looked at his watch, and said: Begin.
Pechersky split the stump in four and a half minutes and Frenzel held out a pack of cigarettes and announced that he always does as he promises. Pechersky replied that he doesn’t smoke, turned around and got back to chopping down new tree stumps. Frenzel came back twenty minutes later with fresh bread and butter and offered it to Pechersky. Pechersky replied that the rations at the concentration camp were more than adequate and that he wasn’t hungry. Frenzel turned around and left, leaving Kapo Porzyczki in charge. That evening, this episode of defiance spread throughout Sobibor. This episode influenced the leadership of the Polish Jews to approach Pechersky about ideas for an escape plan.
Pechersky's plan merged the idea of a mass escape with vengeance: to help as many prisoners as possible to escape while executing SS officers and guards. His final goal was to join up with the partisans and continue fighting the Nazis.
Five days after arriving at Sobibor, Pechersky was again approached by Solomon Leitman on behalf of Leon Feldhendler, the leader of the camp's Polish Jews Leitman was one of the few prisoners who understood Russian and Pechersky didn't speak either Yiddish or Polish. Pechersky was invited to talk with a group of Jewish prisoner leaders from Poland, to whom he spoke about the Red Army victory in the Battle of Stalingrad and partisan victories. When one of the prisoners asked him why the partisans won't rescue them from Sobibor, Pechersky allegedly replied: "What for? To free us all? The partisans have their hands full already. Nobody will do our job for us."
The Jewish prisoners who had worked at the Bełżec extermination camp were sent to Sobibor to be exterminated when Bełżec closed. From a note found among the clothing of the murdered, the Sobibor prisoners learned that those who had been killed were from work groups in the Belzec camp. The note said: "We worked for a year in Belzec. I don't know where they're taking us now. They say to Germany. In the freight cars there are dining tables. We received bread for three days, and tins and liquor. If all this is a lie, then know that death awaits you too. Don't trust the Germans. Avenge our blood!"
The leadership of the Polish Jews was aware that Belzec and Treblinka had been closed, dismantled and all remaining prisoners had been sent to the gas-chambers and they suspected that Sobibor would be next. There was a great urgency in coming up with a good escape plan, and Pechersky, with his army experience, was their best hope. The escape had to also coincide with the time when the Sobibor's deputy commandant Gustav Wagner went on vacation, since the prisoners felt that he was sharp enough to uncover the escape plan.
AFTER THE ESCAPE
Immediately after the escape, in the forest, a group of 50 prisoners followed Pechersky. After some time, Pechersky informed the Polish Jews that he along with a few Soviet Jewish soldiers would enter the nearby village and then shortly return with food. They collected all the money and weapons except one rifle but never came back. In 1980, Thomas Blatt asked Perchensky why he abandoned the other survivors. Pechersky answered:
My job was done. You were Polish Jews in your own terrain. I belonged in the Soviet Union and still considered myself a soldier. In my opinion, the chances for survival were better in smaller units. To tell the people straight forward: "we must part" would not have worked. You have seen, they followed every step of mine, we all would perish. [...] what can I say? You were there. We were only people. The basic instincts came into play. It was still a fight for survival. This is the first time I hear about money collection. It was a turmoil, it was difficult to control everything. I admit, I have seen the imbalance in the distribution of the weaponry, but you must understand, they would rather die than to give up their arms.
Pechersky, along with two other escapees, wandered the forests until they ran into Yakov Biskowitz, and another Sobibor escapee. Biskowitz testified at the Eichmann Trial regarding the meeting:
The two of us wandered through the forests, until we met Sasha Pechersky. There were three of them whom I came across. One had weak legs. They wore white clothes made of hand-woven material. They had sunk into mud after escaping. After that, we met together. There were now five of us – we walked to the Skrodnitze forests. There we met the first Jewish partisans called Yehiel's Group (under Yehiel Grynszpan) – it was a group of Jews who had undertaken action. We engaged in sabotaging railway lines, cutting telephone wires, hit-and-run attacks on German army units."
The two Russian Jewish soldiers who Yahov Biskowitz met with Pechersky were Alexander Shubayev (who was responsible for executing SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann; was later killed fighting the Germans) and Arkady Moishejwicz Wajspapier (who was responsible for executing SS-Oberscharführer Siegfried Graetschus and Volksdeutscher Ivan Klatt; survived the war). For over a year Pechersky fought with the Yehiel's Group partisans as a demolition expert and later with the Soviet group of Voroshilov Partisans, until the Red Army drove out the Germans from Belarus.
AFTER THE WAR
As an escaped POW, Pechersky was conscripted into a special penal battalions, conforming to Stalin's Order No. 270 and was sent to the front to fight German forces in some of the toughest engagements of the war. Pechersky's battalion commander, Major Andreev, was so shocked by his description of Sobibor that he permitted Pechersky to go to Moscow and speak to the Commission of Inquiry of the Crimes of Fascist-German Aggressors and their Accomplices. The Commission listened to Pechersky and published the report Uprising in Sobibor based on his testimony. This report was included in the Black Book, one of the first comprehensive compilations about the Holocaust, written by Vasily Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg.
For fighting the Germans as part of the penal battalions, Pechersky was promoted to the rank of captain and received a medal for bravery. He was eventually discharged after a serious foot injury. In a hospital in Moscow, he was introduced to his future wife, Olga Kotova.
AFTER THE WAR
After the end of World War II, Pechersky returned to Rostov-on-Don, where he lived before the war, and started working as administrator in an Operetta theatre. The mass murder of Jews at the Sobibor death camp became part of the charges against leading Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. The International Tribunal at Nuremberg wanted to call Pechersky as a witness, but the Soviet government wouldn't allow him to travel to Germany to testify.
In 1948, during the Soviet persecution of Jews known as 'Rootless cosmopolitan' campaign, explained as the removal of subversives who lacked full allegiance to the Soviet Union, Pechersky was fired from his job and imprisoned along with his brother. Only after Stalin's death in 1953 and mounting international pressure for his release, was Pechersky freed. His brother however succumbed to a diabetic coma while in prison. Pechersky was permitted to resume working at a small amateur musical theatre but this time at a demoted position.
The Soviet government prevented Pechersky from testifying at the Eichmann Trial in Israel, only allowing a short deposition in Moscow which was controlled by the KGB. In 1963, he appeared as a witness during the Soviet trial of 11 former Ukrainian guards at Sobibor; all of whom were convicted and 10 of whom were executed. According to his daughter in an interview, Pechersky was prevented by the Soviet Union government from testifying in multiple international trials related to Sobibor. The final time Pechersky was refused to leave the country and testify was in 1987 at a trial in Poland, and according to his daughter, this refusal "just crippled my father. He almost stopped getting out of bed and instantly aged."
Alexander Pechersky died on January 19, 1990, and was buried at the northern cemetery in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. As of 2009, Pechersky's daughter, granddaughter and two great-grandsons live in Rostov-on-Don (his niece, her son and their descendants live in the United States).sic]

Alexander Pechersky (third from left) and other members of his group, former Soviet prisoners of war, Jews who were in Sobibor and who lived in the Soviet Union. A gathering in memory of the uprising.

EPILOGUE

The main instigators for the murder of European Jews, Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Heydrich were dead at the end of the war, or had avoided responsibility by suicide for their actions. Even the most responsible for the Planning and Organization of "Aktion Reinhardt" could not be brought to justice: Odilo Globocnik had after his arrest by the British military personnel on May 31 1945 committed  suicide in Italy, his deputy, Christian Wirth was killed in May 1944 by Italian partisans. Only a small proportion of men who killed in the Sobibor , were indicted by German courts. Franz Stangl, the commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, who had succeeded to escape from Italy to Brazil and lived there until its discovery in 1967.  He was sentenced after his extradition to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1970 by the District Court of Düsseldorf to life imprisonment and died shortly afterwards in his jail cell. Also Gustav Wagner, his deputy at Sobibor, escaped to Brazil. When he was discovered his extradition to Germany was likely, he committed suicide. However, there were rumours that he had not taken his own life.

In Kiev in the 1960s Ukrainian guards were indicted in two trials for crimes in the camps of "Aktion Reinhardt" by Soviet courts. Alexander Petchersky appeared there as a witness. The court imposed 13 death sentences and one life imprisonment.

APPENDIX

The following is a brief extract from another source for which I did not receive permission to use as background material, or publish:

October 14 was a clear, sunny autumn day. It began as any routine day-with morning roll call and the prisoners dispersing to their workplaces. The atmosphere was tense, however. Many felt that something unusual was going on that day. A sharp eye would have noticed that some of the prisoners had put on their best clothes and boots. Those who were privy to the secret of impending uprising removed money and valuables from their hiding places in the hope that this would increase their chances for survival once they were outside the camp. The Underground Committee even directed the members of the Underground to remove any valuables in the workshops or warehouses and distribute them among the trustworthy prisoners.

   Pechersky was at his command post in th carpentry workshop from the morning hours. Through the window he had a good view of the square in Camp I. With him was another prisoner of war, Simon Rosenfeld. The main group of about twenty Underground members, mainly prisoners of war, were working in the nearby barrack, under command of Leitman, preparing wooden bunks. These prisoners had been selected by Pechersky. Leitman and Yanek to carry out the liquidation of the SS-men and the breakout from the camp. Among them were Boris Tsibulsky, Alexander Shubayev, and Arkady Vaipapir. Feldhendler , who was to command the action in Camp II, had taken up his position in the warehouse in that part of the camp from the morning hours. Communications between Pechersky and Feldhendler were handled by some young "putzers" who were able able to move freely between Camp I and II. Yanek was in charge of coordinating the "invitations" of the SS-men to workshops in Camp I. According to the plan, this was scheduled between 16:00 and 16:30 hours.

   At ten o'clock in the morning, at a short meeting of Pechersky, Yanek and Leitman, Yanek informed the others that the SS-men had been asked to the workshops. Untersturmführer Josef Niemann, the acting commander of the camp, was scheduled to come to the tailor workshop at four o'clock to be measured for a suit. At the same time, Oberschaführer Göttinger, the commander of Camp III, was to come to the shoe makers shop. Frenzel would be coming to the carpentry between 16:00 and 16:30 to check on a new cupboard. Other SS-men were asked to come to the workshop at intervals of fifteen to thirty minutes later.

   Pechersky was satisfied, everything seemed to be under control. He asked Leitman to send him the commanders of the battle teams one by one so that he could brief them about their assignments. The first to arrive was Shubajev.  Pechersky told him that at three o'clock he, together with another prisoner of war called Senia would go to the tailor shop armed with axes. Their task was to kill the Germans who would come there. When Tsibulsky came, Pechersky explained to him that his task was the most important. He, together with two other prisoners would be taken by Capo Pozyczka to Felhendler in Camp II. They were to liquidate the Germans there. Pechersky stressed that Tsibulsky would be the first to start the whole operation. The first blow that he would inflict, the first murder of an SS-man, would raise the prisoners' spirit and symbolize the point of no return. Once the liquidation of the SS-men began, only one way remained for the prisoners-to go ahead with the uprising and escape. The alternative was death in immediate reprisal for the killings. Tsibulsky assured Pechersky he would carry out his assignment.

   Arkady Vaispapir was next. Pechersky told him that he and Yehuda Lerner, a Polish Jew who had come to Sobibor with the Minsk transport, would take up a position inside the shoemaker shop. They had to eliminate the three SS-men who had been asked to the workshop. Nachum Plonicky and Alexey Vaitsen's assignment was to command a group of Underground members at the head of the prisoners' columns while they were marching from the evening roll call toward the gate at the last stage of the uprising. They also had to command the take-over of the SS arms store, distribute the captured weapons to the Underground members, and fight the camp guards, until the unarmed prisoners could reach the forest. Only then would they, too, retreat to the forest. Two other prisoners of war, Jefim Liwinov and Boris Tabarinsky, were put in charge of a battle team that was to cut the barbed wire fence near the camp commander's house, in case the escape through the gate would be impossible and prisoners would have to use this route from the camp.

   All the briefings were complete by noon. Zero hour was approaching. Everything seemed to be ready.

In the afternoon there was an unexpected development. At two o'clock Unterscharführer Walter Ryba came to Camp I and took  Capo Pozyczka and three other prisoners and led them away.  Ryba was armed with a sub-machine gun, which was peculiar because usually the SS men carried only pistols. This raised Pechersky's suspicion that the Germans suspected that something was going on in the camp. He connected this with Frenzel's visit to the carpentry workshop at noontime, when his attention was drawn to Yanek's new clothes. Frenzel mockingly asked Yanek whether he was preparing for a wedding. He left without further questions. The fact that Pozyczka was taken away also endangered an important part of the uprising plan. It was he that had to take Tsibusky's battle team to Camp II. Extremely disturbed about the whole matter, Perchersky asked Yanek to find out where Pozyczka had been taken. Pechersky passed an hour of nerve wracking tension until Capo Czepik came and informed him that Pzycska and the other prisoners with him had been taken to Camp IV to pile up wood. Since Ryba was not accompanied by an Ukrainian guard, he had taken a submachine gun. This calmed Pechersky's suspicions, but the problem who would take Tsibulsky's team to Camp II remained.

Pechersky asked Czepik to take Tsibulsky and his men to Camp II. Czepik answered that he was not authorized to leave Camp I, and proposed that the uprising be postponed until the next day, when Pozyczka would return to his usual post.Pechersky rejected this proposal, things had already gone to far and any delay would gravely endanger the entire plan. Too many prisoners already knew abut the planned uprising and about its leaders, and it could leak out to the German camp authorities at any moment.
                                                           FINAL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Source:
Der Ort des Terrors, Vol. 8 'SOBIBOR', Publisher: C.H.Beck oHG, München 2008. Researcher/Author: Barbara Distel. Translated from German by: Herbert Stolpmann. Sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Krupp von Bohlen Foundation.

Sobibor Part 3

Sobibor Part 3     

THE PERPETRATORS 
25-30 German Nationals had been transferred to Sobibor, on average there were 18 of them present at any time. The memories of the survivors of their tormentors were precise and agonizing. Once after they were only for a short  time involved in the work process, they knew every detail of the habits of each SS men, with whom they came in contact. They knew who beat and tortured without restraint, and if it was fun and even pleasure, which one was prepared to kill with his own hand.
"Every SS officer had his own way to kill". Ada Lichtman testified. "They were all waiting for the arrival of the transports. Bredow had his eyes on the lookout for very young girls  which  he whipped always in a sadistic manner.Gomerski killed the prisoner with a stick, which had nails embedded in it. Groth and Bolender came with their dogs. If they said to a prisoner, "Ah, you do not want to work?", The dog would pull the victim to pieces". (25) The prisoners watched every day, as this small group of SS men without scruples or inhibitions tormented individual victims, monitored and organized the murder of hundreds and thousands of innocent victims.
Reference (25) From Mielec to Sobibor.Testimony of Eda Lichtman in: Novitch, Sobibor, page 56
What memories do the men of "Aktion Reinhardt" still have of their crimes,in their brief encounters with tens of thousands of people whom they drove to their deaths, or to the individual men and women, of whom they chose to do some work for them and then terrorized or killed them,  is not known. There are data and CVs=Curriculum Vitae(Lebensläufe) of the perpetrators and statements of a few that were taken after the war before the German courts and held accountable for their deeds. There, they did not dispute the facts of mass murder. But all the perpetrators of Sobibor refused to take or accept responsibility for their actions, and sought to deny or play down their own participation. Karl Frenzel, who was feared for his ferocity in particular, but also because he had repeatedly sent some prisoners to Camp III to be gassed, said in 1962 in Göttingen during his court hearing: "I mean even to say that I was popular under the Jews".(Ich meine sogar sagen zu können, dass ich bei den Juden beliebt war)
Odilo Globocnik had appointed in April 1942 -SS Colonel Franz Stangl, a former lieutenant colonel in the Austrian police, the commander of the Sobibor extermination camp. His first task was to supervise the completion of the of the Commandants accommodation(Lagerhaus) . Then he took over the responsibility for the management of the extermination camp. Franz Stangl came officially under the reporting responsibility of Odilo Globocnik and the inspector of camps Christian Wirth. Stangl came with 20-30 German SS men to Sobibor, which, like himself, were previously participating in the "elimination" of the physically and mentally disabled people and had been involved in the "euthanasia" program. .After protests, especially by the Church against this type of disposal of the sick,  Adolf Hitler had on 24 August 1941 ordered the official closure of all, known as "T4" killing facilities. The staff. had already performed the killing of 70,000 sick people smoothly with poison gas and with utmost secrecy and had now drafted the same use to the murder of Jews during "Aktion Reinhardt". The men had to sign a declaration that they neither provide written information on the "Aktion Reinhardt", nor were they allowed to pass on word of mouth what had expired and  that photography in the camps was strictly prohibited, and this obligation was  to maintain confidential and valid and continued even after retirement from their services.
In late August, Franz Stangl was transferred to Treblinka, His successor in Sobibor was the SS- Colonel Franz Reichleitner, who as commander at castle Hartheim had also played a key part in the murder of patients. For the smooth running of everyday life in the death camp the deputy commander was Gustav Wagner and in his absence  Karl Franzel as his deputy for the running of the camp. Both were feared by the prisoners as brutal thugs and ruthless killers.  
In addition to the order of murder, SS men were responsible for the collection of gold, precious items, and property of the victims still usable and to ensure to have it forwarded to the German Reich. They received in addition to their wages,(Sold) which depended on their military rank, a daily compensation in the form of money (Zusatzvergütung). Every three months they were entitled to two or three weeks' leave.
The Germans were supported by an average of 120 Ukrainian guards, who had previously undergone a training course at Trawniki near Lublin. They were mostly Soviet prisoners of war who were more or less voluntarily recruited to assist  the Germans mainly as guards as well as Hiwis(Hilfswillige). They were led by ethnic Germans(Volksdeutsche), who spoke both German and Russian and Ukrainian. At Sobibor they guarded the camp at the gates, the guard towers and patrolled around the perimeter. They supervised the prisoner details that had to work outside of the fence. And they did take part in executions by order of the German camp administration. "If Jews committed a crime," said one of the Ukrainians after the war before a Soviet court,  "They were shot by the officers themselves, or gave us such an order and then they were shot by us. The emaciated arrivals, the sick and infirm were shot at once, a special order for each different Transport did not exist,  the execution of such prisoners by firing squad was an ordinary procedure".(29) Often the cruelty of the "Trawnikis"  towards the Jewish victims exceeded that of their German masters. They were armed with whips and Russian rifles. However, they received very little ammunition, as the SS men did not trust them.
Reference(29)Businnij on August 8,1975 in Kiew,in Sta.Do-WZ-V610,by Schelvis,Vernichtungslager,page 47.

SHORT SUMMARY OF  FEW LOW RANKING PERPETRATORS
BOLENDER, Kurt, SS-Oberscharführer
SERVICE AT SOBIBOR:
Arrived on 22 April 1942 at Sobibor together with Stangl, Frenzel, Gomerski and others. He testified: "I was during my service in Sobibor constantly in Camp III and was there among others also supervisor of the Jewish working command. It is correct that Jews were gassed there. I sorted the Arbeitshäftlinge (working prisoners) into groups. After the gassings took place, a group of them had to empty the gas chambers. Another group took the corpses to the mass graves."
In July 1942 he was arrested for perjury during his divorce case. He was punished by an SS-court in Krakow on 19 December 1942 and sent to the SS-penal camp Matzkau near Danzig. Shortly after the revolt in Sobibor he was called back to help dismantling the camp.
For his services he was awarded the Iron Cross second class on 18 January 1945.
Life after:
Sent to Italy. After the war his wife declared him as dead. As he had a number of criminal offenses to his name, he found it better to disappear off the records. He lived under the false name "Heinz Brenner", the name he went by at Schloss-Hartheim. The justice department came to know of him and arrested him in May 1961.
Instead of a notorious mass murderer he professed to be a "fighter against partisans in the Lublin area".
During his trial he constantly maintained that there were no sick and crippled people executed in Sobibor - only when he was cross examined he admitted that everything was true.During the first Hagen trial, he committed suicide shortly before his judgment was pronounced.

Kurt Bolander, to all appearances "an ordinary man" 

Bolander's Ausweis (identity card), signed by Himmler 

BREDOW, Paul SS-Unterscharführer

SERVICE AT SOBIBOR
Came to Sobibor with the first group of T4 men together with Stangl. He was a real killer and was known amongst the prisoners as a bully who did not hesitate to mistreat them. During the arrival of transports he waited upon the invalids, whom he, directly after arrival on the ramp, took to the chapel. Here they were executed by him and a platoon of Ukrainians at the Lazarett, of which he was in charge and where his "hobby", fully approved of by Wirth, was "target-shooting". He had set himself a daily quota: shooting fifty Jews a day with his pistol.Served here until spring 1943.
Life after:
Served at San Sabba, Trieste in Italy. Was killed in an accident in Göttingen, Germany.
GROTH, Paul SS-Unterscharführer
SERVICE AT SOBIBOR:
For the first months he supervised the sorting of clothes at Camp II and he regularly came to Camp III as well. Survivors called him one of the worst sadists. Witness Margulies: "Every day he killed someone!". He had an affair with a Jewish girl.
Life after:
In order to obtain a widows pension, declared dead by his wife in 1951. In 1962 he was still missing. No further details known.
GOMERSKI, Hubert SS-Unterscharführer
SERVICE AT SOBIBOR:
Came to Sobibor end of April 1942 together with the first group of T4-men and stayed there until a few days before the revolt, which he missed due to being on leave.
After he initially was in charge of a group of Ukrainians, he together with Bolender supervised Camp III. During incoming transports on the ramp he selected the sick and invalids and took them to the place of execution. He made a point of it to place a bottle on the head of an inmate and shot him with a carbine in the head instead.
He was regarded next to Wagner and Frenzel as very dangerous. He was also very stupid, however due to his performance in Sobibor he was promoted Christmas 1942 to SS-Unterscharführer.
Life after:
Shortly before his arrest on 23 August 1949 he attested before the Landgericht Frankfurt/Main, after survivor Klier was able to turn him in, "I can only declare that to me a place with this name (Sobibor), is unknown to me".
Sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 August 1950 on account of the murder of an undisclosed number of people.
Appeal and second trial in 1972. Released because of bad health. Witnessed in the Frenzel trial 1983, apparently in good health.

HIMMLER'S VISIT
On 12 February 1943, when the majority of the murder program of "Aktion Reinhardt" had been almost completed,  the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler visited Sobibor, to take a look at the Death Installations himself. At this time the construction of four large crematoria at Auschwitz were ready for completion, and taken between March and June 1943 into operation. Since on the day of the visit by Himmler to Sobibor, no transports were expected, they brought several hundred girls and young women from Lublin to Sobibor, Himmler and  his entourage, would watch the efficiency of a murder performance in operation. Ada Lichtman recalls this visit. "After they had visited camps I and II, they arrived into Camp III, where they watched the execution of a group of young people. On the same day in honor of the visit a banquet was given and I had to decorate the tables. Himmler was excited about this visit. As he drove away, some of our killers carried new decorations".(30)[this is almost incredible to believe, but is apparently true.sic]
Reference (30) From Mielec to Sobibor in Novitch, Sobibor, page 59

ESCAPE, RESISTANCE, PREPARATION OF REVOLT
The deception of the organizers of the exterminations was so successful that there have been few attempts to escape from the transport trains to Sobibor. At the camp everything was done to maintain strict confidentiality and to establish a security and surveillance system that would make escapes impossible. Nevertheless, it was at the end of the year 1942 and in the first half of 1943 a number of successful escapes from the camp were accomplished. Thus, in memoirs the escape of a young man is several times mentioned, who probably escaped at the end of 1942 in a shipment that left Sobibor and he did hide in a load of clothes, and could found temporarily refuge in the ghetto of Chelm. Successful escapes were retaliated by the SS with the murder of an arbitrary fixed number of working inmates. Ber Freiberg, who was on May 15. 1942 brought from  Zolkiewka to Sobibor, reported: "There was an officer with the Dutch Jews, and a Ukrainian guard who promised to help him during a mass escape, but the security guard revealed the plan, although the officer accepted full  responsibility, the SS liquidated the entire group in camp III. To save bullets, the victims were beheaded".
On July 20, 1943,  two prisoners succeeded from a 40-member "Forest Commando", which should have brought water from a nearby village, to kill  the accompanying Ukrainian guard and get away with his rifle. The Polish Jews took advantage during the confusion of the guards and also tried to flee. Two were shot and 13 recaptured, another three of them managed to escape. The Dutch Jews who were aware that without knowledge of the Polish language had no chance to survive, and had not joined the escape attempt. The Polish prisoners who had been brought back to Sobibor were shot thereafter in the presence of all other prisoners: "When we were called for a roll call, we knew already what had happened. We trembled, thinking about what would happen to us. As we stood in the roll call, we decided among ourselves that we would not go to the gas chambers alive. We would defend ourselves by all means. Time passed, and our tension rose. We bid farewell to one another and to life. Some Germans arrived, opened the gate, and we were ordered to march to Camp II. There we stopped and were arranged in a semicircle. On the square lay, tied, the remaining members of the "Walkommando". one by one they were lashed and, at an order of a German, shot by a guardsman. The Germans were strolling among us. We had to watch all these cruelties without moving our eyes or turning our heads. After the execution we were taken back to Camp I. Wagner and Frenzel announced to us that next time all of us would be responsible for one escapee". (33).
Reference(33) Ada Lichtman,in Arad,Belzec,page 268.
The prisoners knew that escape was the only way to get out alive from Sobibor. "I constantly thought of escape," wrote Thomas Blatt in his memoirs. He tried to be included in work details, which were used outside the camp and volunteered for the "forest commando". "The group consisted of twenty Polish and twenty Dutch Jews:" Every morning we walked into a wooded area, which was three miles away from the camp. As it turned out, we were guarded at every step and  turn, the ratio was 1:2 one guard was able to watch two prisoners. Although we had our own "weapons"-Axes, Saws etc to fell trees, but the Ukrainians had a particularly effective security method, they kept a relatively large distance from  all of us and always had their weapons at firing position. The work was sheer torture and with permission of the foreman, I soon as was replaced by a prisoner from another working group".
To make an escape from the camp area was almost impossible and also to avoid partisans who were fighting  against the German occupiers would came near the camp, a ring of explosive mines around the entire area had been placed. At the end of the war apart from those that took part in the revolt on 14 October and lived, only three refugees survived Sobibor.
Resistance, in the face overwhelming superiority of the guards, as well as the tthought of "running away" was impossible. Nevertheless, there were at Sobibor desperate(Verzweiflungstaten) individuals who have berated in  face of impending death in the gas chamber and cursed the killer or threw themselves with their bare hands at the guards. In the spring of 1943, fewer and fewer transports came to Sobibor. The Working Prisoners knew that this would be followed by the closure of the camp and the killing of them all. This assessment (Einschätzung) was confirmed later in June 1943, after the closure of Belzec camp brought the last 600 working Jews from there to Sobibor for their extermination. In the clothing of the victims, prisoners found several notes.(Zettel) One read the following: "We worked for a year in Belzec. I don't know where they are taking us now. They say to Germany. In the freight cars there are dining tables. We received bread for three days, and tins and liquor. If all this is a lie, then know that death awaits you, too. Don't trust the Germans. Avenge our blood!' Ref (35) The text of the note is quoted differently in various memoirs, this one: Arad, Sobibor, page 299
Consequently in the spring of 1943 a secret resistance movement was established in Sobibor, considering a number of plans for an uprising. The leader of the group of ten to twelve people was Leon Felhendler, a son of a rabbi and a former chairman of the Jew's Council(Judenrat) in the ghetto of Zolkiewka. They took various plans into consideration, such as to bring about a mass escape. They did discuss whether there was a chance to poison the SS men, set fire to the camp or to dig several escape tunnels. It was also considered whether Ukrainian guards who had been identified as members of the Communist Party could be taken into confidence and ask for their assistance. In the summer of 1943 and independently of the efforts of the inmates of the camp areas in I and II, the prisoners of Camp III, had started to dig an escape tunnel. The plan, before the completion of the tunnel was betrayed and nearly killed all the prisoners from Camp III.

 Leon Felhendler, one of two leaders of the revolt of 14 October 1943 

Alexander Petchersky, commander of the uprising in Sobibor. 

The prisoners did not know that Heinrich Himmler, had proposed to Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office in a letter of 5 July 1943,  that Sobibor be converted into a concentration camp to store and prepare and should simultaneously develop a manufacturing facility for captured ammunition. Pohl replied, after consulting with Globocnik, on that Himmler project, as both concepts could be realized, the De-commissioning and manufacture of Munition even without the creation of a new concentration camp. Himmler concurred with this assessment in a letter dated 24 July 1943.
September 23rd 1943 brought the turning point with the arrival of a transport of 2,000 Jews that arrived in Sobibor from Minsk, with them were 80 Soviet prisoners of war who had been selected for the construction of the emerging camp IV. Now the preparations for the revolt entered into a concrete phase. Without the knowledge and  experience of the former Red Army soldiers, their knowledge of weapons and skills in dealing with the planning and conduct of military actions, the project would never have been realized. Alexander Petchersky, a Red Army lieutenant, was at 34 the oldest of the group. He received quickly due to his bold approach and military tactics the respect of others. Leon Feldhendler got in touch with Petchersky and founded with him an "underground committee," with four men from the Feldhendler's group and four prisoners of war were included.. They met at night in the women's barracks and exchanged information with the aim to prepare the mass exodus of all prisoners. However, they were out of touch with the prisoners in Camp III for which any contact was not possible and were not included in their plans. They knew that not much time was left for them to carry out a rebellion. They also began first with the construction of an escape tunnel. When this project quickly proved to be a failure because water had entered  the tunnel,  Petchersky developed a new strategy. 
First, all present SS men were to be killed at different locations within the camp during the course of just one hour, quickly and silently. They should be individually lured into the work barracks or be killed in their own offices with a knife or axe. It was the greed of the SS men who would not resist the prospect of an attractive piece of stolen goods, an important factor in the planning. Moreover Petchersky relied on the proverbial punctuality of the Germans to appear exactly at the agreed time. After elimination of the SS, all prisoners who gathered at the usual hour during the evening roll call would be taken to the Main Gate of Camp I where no mines were laid. The leaders wanted to use and appear in captured SS uniforms in order to deceive the Ukrainians on the guard towers, at least in the short term. After they were neutralized and the gate was opened, the leaders of the uprising told the prisoners to escape into the surrounding woods. Until that time, darkness would have had already fallen which would facilitate an easier escape. If there should be any problems with the march through the camp it was arranged for the Russian prisoners of war to cut the barbed wire fence and by stone and rock throwing bring the mines to detonation so that the prisoners would be able to reach the forest unharmed. There was no plan, "AFTER" everyone would have to find their own way to freedom.
The greatest uncertainty was the behavior of the Ukrainian guards. But Petchersky hoped that they would join the insurgents once the SS were out of the way. The fighters needed weapons, knives, hatchets and axes that should be made ​​in the workshops. It was also foreseen that firearms from the guarded armory could be stolen. The telephones lines and telegraphs, and the entire electricity system had to be shut down. A small militia unit of a total of only 30 to 40 people was formed and was part of the plan. Strict secrecy was impossible. The majority of the prisoners would probably panic which would not remain hidden from the SS nor the Ukrainian guards and they would have realized that a major action was in preparation.  Petchersky reserved the right to self-select those who will kill the SS men. Finally, the day of the revolt was set on the 13 October 1943. The prisoners had learned that on that day commander Reichleitner, camp director Gustav Wagner and the dreaded SS-men Hubert Gumerski, Bolender and  Klier would be absent . Most important  was Wagner's absence, he controlled  the prisoners had a keen eye and a remarkable observer and therefore difficult to deceive was seen as a hopeful sign.
On October 13, however, a group of SS men from Ossowo from a nearby forced labor camp arrived in Sobibor, and the insurgents feared that their plan had been betrayed. However, it was only a friendly visit by other SS men, the group stayed so long in the Sobibor that the uprising was forced to be postponed by 24 hours. 

                                                              continued under Part 4