Lieutenant from Sobibor. Escape from the death camp

On the eve of the Victory Day of the Red Army and the Soviet people over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War, the Russian film is released with the title role. The film tells about the feat of Soviet prisoners in the German death camp.

Konstantin Khabensky in the film "Sobibor", Khabensky's official website

In the autumn of 1943, a prisoner riot took place in the Sobibor death camp, located near the Polish village of the same name, which eventually became the only successful uprising in a concentration camp in World War II. The rebellion was led by an officer, and many articles on the topic of the uprising in Sobibor are based on his memoirs.

Sobibor was called the "conveyor of death." Jews and prisoners of war were brought there literally by "cars" and on the same day they were killed in specially equipped "shower cabins", where instead of water, gas was released from the walls.

People were brought there under the pretext of “disinfection”, however, according to the recollections of the survivors, after a quarter of an hour the bodies of prisoners were taken out of there. Fastidious Nazis could not personally take out, inspect and destroy the bodies, for these purposes they kept “labor force” in Sobibor.

Suvorovski.ru

The uprising in Sobibor took place on October 14, 1943. The prisoners one by one killed 11 SS men and several Ukrainian guards who helped the Nazis. There were 550 people in the camp, 130 of whom refused to participate in the rebellion, 80 died during the uprising, 170 were later found in the forests and killed, some were missing. Until the end of the war, 53 of the rebels survived.

However, historians find a number of dubious points in the accounts of witnesses. About some of them - in the material.

The number of deaths in the camp

News of Kyiv "

In his memoirs, published in Moscow in 1946, Alexander Pechersky claims that at the time of his arrival at the death camp, about 500 thousand people died there, which differs from the official historical point of view. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 250,000 Jews died in Sobibor.

However, none of these points of view can be considered reliable. To date, no documents and records have been preserved that can name the exact number of deaths. Historians call figures far from each other - from 30-35 thousand dead to 2 million.

Echelons with people

Classmates "

In the book “Sobibor. Myth and Reality” calls into question Alexander Pechersky’s assertion that trains full of people arrived in Sobibor every other day. Pechersky assured that for 4.5 days he was traveling in a car full of people, and his comrades in misfortune did not receive any food or water.

In addition, the book calls into question the very process of extermination of the arrived prisoners. Alexander Pechersky claimed that the extermination chambers were disguised as a bathhouse, where there were taps for hot and cold water and washbasins, but “black thick liquid instead of water” poured out of the holes in the ceiling instead of water. This description does not correspond to the officially confirmed version, according to which the prisoners were killed with the help of exhaust gases.

Mystery of Sobibor

Gas chambers found during excavations in Sobibor

It is known that “Sobibor” is a “conveyor of death” disguised as a transit camp. If we believe the reports of witnesses and prisoners, the prisoners were assured that they would undergo disinfection, put themselves in order, and then go to Ukraine. Even those working on the territory of the neighboring camp did not know what was happening in Sobibor.

However, some sources claim that the Poles who lived in the village of Sobibor knew about what was happening in the camp and even tried to warn the prisoners as they were being led through the streets. This was recalled by the former prisoner of Sobibor Yitzhak Lichtman. These two versions contradict each other.

Another witness - Dov Freiberg, a prisoner who got to Sobibor on one of the first echelons, worked a couple of hundred meters from the alleged gas chambers and for two weeks did not notice any evidence of massacres. In addition, Freiberg noted that some of the prisoners still received clean clothes and went to Ukraine. This led the authors of the above book to the idea that Sobibor really was a transit camp, and reports of the mass murder of Jews using a gas chamber were fiction.

One way or another, immediately after the riot, the Nazis destroyed the camp and planted vegetable gardens in its place. If we start from the idea that thousands of people were really killed in Sobibor, the uprising led by Alexander Pechersky saved many lives, because it is not known how many more innocent Jews would have become victims of Nazi arbitrariness.

The story of the uprising of prisoners in the Sobibor death camp in October 1943 is much better known in the West than in Russia.

In Western Europe and Israel about the uprising itself and its leader Alexander Pechersky write books, make films.

In Russian military historiography, this episode was not only hushed up, but they did not attach much importance to it either.

The Nazi death camp Sobibor was established in southeastern Poland in the spring of 1942 as part of a program to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe.

The camp existed for a little less than a year and a half, and during this time about 250 thousand Jews from Poland and other European countries were destroyed in it.

The technology of his work was extremely simple - a small railway led to the camp located in the forest, along which suicide bombers were brought. They were immediately sent to the so-called "bath" - a gas chamber, where newcomers were killed for 15 minutes. After that, part of the prisoners, left alive, brought the corpses for burial in a special ditch near the camp.

In addition to those who were killed immediately, there were about 500 more prisoners who were engaged in household work in the camp. In fact, the "conveyor of death" was serviced by those people who were soon to become its victims themselves. From the point of view of the Nazis, this approach was more economically beneficial.

The camp was guarded by SS men and members of collaborationist formations. In Sobibor, they were mostly Ukrainians, in particular, the infamous Ivan Demjanjuk.

Survivor at someone else's expense: Demjanjuk convicted.

During the existence of the camp, several attempts were made to escape, but almost all of them ended in failure. Until the fall of 1943, a group of Soviet Jewish prisoners of war, among whom was Alexander Pechersky, was transferred to Sobibor.

Alexander Pechersky. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

Lieutenant from Rostov

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky was born into a Jewish family in Kremenchug in 1909. His father was a lawyer. In 1915, the family moved to Rostov-on-Don, where Alexander would live most of his life.

After school, he worked as an electrician at a factory, graduated from the university, and just before the war became the head of amateur art.

On June 22, 1941, 32-year-old Alexander Pechersky was drafted into the army. He, as having a higher education, was awarded the rank of junior lieutenant, then he was certified as a quartermaster technician of the 2nd rank, which is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant.

Alexander Pechersky fought near Smolensk as part of the 596th artillery regiment of the 19th army.

Near Vyazma, part of it was surrounded. The sidelong glances that are usually thrown at the quartermasters in the army ceased after Pechersky, together with other soldiers, undertook to carry the wounded regimental commissar out of the encirclement.

They wandered through the swamps for a long time, engaging in skirmishes with the enemy, until they ran out of ammunition and fell into the hands of the enemy.

Lieutenant Pechersky was transferred from camp to camp, because he did not want to submit and did not leave plans to escape.

The Nazis did not immediately find out that Pechersky was a Jew, and when they found out, they were immediately sent to Sobibor - for destruction.

On September 23, 1943, the first batch of Soviet prisoners of war arrived in Sobibor. Of the 600 people, about 520 were immediately executed. 80 people were selected for household work. This number included Pechersky, whom a friend persuaded to call himself a carpenter.

Memorial on the territory of the former Sobibor concentration camp. Photo: wikipedia.org / Jacques Lahitte

Pechersky's plan

Lieutenant Pechersky had no illusions - it was obvious that those who were not killed immediately would be killed a little later. But he decided to use the granted respite in order to try to give the Nazis the last battle.

By that time, an underground group existed in Sobibor, headed by Leon Feldhendler.

However, the purely civilians who were part of it lacked experience and determination. Therefore, they entrusted leadership to Alexander Pechersky.

Lieutenant Pechersky suggested abandoning the idea of ​​single escapes and raising an uprising. Pechersky insisted that everyone should run, since the remaining Nazis would be killed anyway.

The officer did not hide - many will die, but some will get a chance to break free.

Most of the prisoners supported Lieutenant Pechersky's plan.

His plan was as follows - the rebels one by one should kill the camp leadership and part of the guards, seize weapons and get out to freedom.

But how can this be done? To help the prisoners was the craving of the SS for personal benefits. The guards did not disdain the services of prisoners who sewed clothes for them, and also performed other work not for the “needs of great Germany”, but for the personal needs of specific SS officers.

On the appointed day, October 14, 1943, the Nazis began to be lured one by one to the workshops under plausible pretexts like trying on a uniform. Here they were strangled or killed with hatchet blows.

Basically, Pechersky entrusted this task to his comrades from among the prisoners of war - they had hand-to-hand combat skills, so it was easier for them to cope with the guards.

Plan of the Sobibor concentration camp. Photo: Public Domain

Salvation beyond the Bug

Pechersky stayed in Sobibor for only three weeks, but his will and determination made it possible to turn the prisoners into a detachment capable of acting smoothly and clearly.

On October 14, the rebels managed to deal with 11 SS men and a number of Ukrainian policemen almost without noise. However, the surviving guards then raised the alarm. After that, the prisoners of Sobibor went on a breakthrough.

A machine gun fired from the tower. The prisoners of war, who seized the weapons, entered into battle with the guards. People rushed to the barbed wire, tearing it with their bodies. The rebels died under bullets, were blown up in the minefields surrounding the camp, but nothing could stop them. Breaking down the gate, they managed to break free.

Of the 550 prisoners who were in the camp, 130 did not take part in the uprising. Someone was sick or simply physically exhausted so much that he was unable to join the fighting. Someone hoped that absolute obedience would help to survive.

She did not help - the enraged Nazis shot all the prisoners who remained in the camp the next day.

About 80 more people died in Sobibor during the breakthrough. More than 300 prisoners were released.

Over the next two weeks, the fugitives were a real hunt. The Nazis managed to detect and destroy about 170 people.

The fate of many was predetermined by the choice they made after the flight - to follow Lieutenant Pechersky, who called for them to leave Poland beyond the Bug, to Belarus, or hide in Poland.

Most of those who left with Lieutenant Pechersky (and these were mostly Soviet prisoners of war) escaped. Most of those who remained in Poland died. Moreover, many died not at the hands of the Nazis, but at the hands of the Poles - almost 90 prisoners of Sobibor, who escaped the Nazi raids, became victims of collaborators, as well as ordinary anti-Semitic local residents.

Monument in Sobibor. Photo: wikipedia.org / Jacques Lahitte

Unrecognized hero

The Germans were furious with the uprising in Sobibor. The camp was immediately demolished, the land was plowed up, and the Nazis planted cabbage and potatoes at the site of the massacre of people.

The leader of the uprising, Alexander Pechersky, fought in a partisan detachment in Belarus, and after it was liberated from German troops, he was checked by the SMERSH counterintelligence agencies.

Further is described by different sources and witnesses extremely contradictory. The person of the Soviet officer, who was in captivity for two years, aroused doubts among the counterintelligence officers.

According to some reports, Lieutenant Pechersky ended up in a penal battalion, where he was wounded in the very first battle and rehabilitated as "redeemed with blood." According to others, they managed to sort out the “Pechersky case” right away, and he was already wounded in battle as a full-fledged officer.

One way or another, but Alexander Pechersky met the Victory in the rank of captain.

He wrote a book about the uprising in Sobibor, but he was not among the most famous heroes of the war in the USSR. The Motherland did not shower him with awards either - Alexander Pechersky had only medals "For the Victory over Germany" and "For Military Merit".

There were several reasons for the cool attitude towards Sobibor. In the Soviet Union, it was not customary to focus on mono-ethnic exploits during the war, and the uprising in Sobibor was the work of the Jews. In addition, the deteriorated relations between the USSR and Israel also affected - in the Promised Land, the history of the uprising in Sobibor was revered at the state level, which caused rejection from the Soviet leadership.

There was another important aspect - the story of the death of escaped prisoners at the hands of the Poles threatened to spoil relations between the USSR and socialist Poland, so they tried not to remember Sobibor.

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky lived his entire post-war life in Rostov-on-Don, where he died in January 1990. Three years before his death, the film "Escape from Sobibor" was filmed in Hollywood, where the role of Pechersky was played by Rutger Hauer. Pechersky himself was invited to the premiere of the film, but he did not come to the USA.

Several times, public figures made attempts to ensure that the feat of Alexander Pechersky was noted in Russia at the state level, but this was not achieved.

True, in 2007, a memorial plaque appeared on the house where Alexander Pechersky lived in Rostov-on-Don.

The uprising in the Warsaw ghetto served as a signal for an uprising of prisoners in other ghettos and death camps. Many of the rebels understood that they had no chance against the vastly outnumbered Nazis, but preferred to die with weapons in their hands.

After the last Jews deported to Treblinka were gassed in May 1943, about 1,000 Jewish captives remained in the camp. Realizing that they, too, will soon die, they conceive of an uprising. On August 2, armed with spades, picks and a few weapons stolen from the arsenal, they set fire to part of the camp and break through the barbed wire fence. About 300 prisoners managed to escape, and about a third of them managed to escape from the Germans who were looking for them.

A similar uprising in 1943 was planned by two Sobibor prisoners - Alexander Pechersky and Leon Feldgendler. On October 14, the prisoners killed eleven guards and set fire to the camp. About 300 prisoners escaped, but many were killed in the roundup that followed. Fifty people survived until the end of the war.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners involved in the Sonderkommando - a special detachment for burning the corpses of murdered prisoners - learned that they were doomed to death. On October 7, 1944, some of them rebelled, killing three guards and blowing up the crematorium. Several hundred prisoners escaped, but most were caught and destroyed. Four girls accused of giving explosives to the prisoners were hanged to intimidate the remaining prisoners. One of the girls, 23-year-old Rosa Robota, called out "Be strong and brave" as the floor of the scaffold opened.

KEY DATES

AUGUST 2, 1943
UPRISING IN TREBLINKA
At the beginning of 1943, deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp ceased. In March, the Germans begin to implement "Operation 1005" in Treblinka. "Operation 1005" is the code name for the German plan to destroy all evidence of mass executions. The prisoners are forced to dig up common graves and burn the corpses. As the "Operation 1005" is completed, the prisoners begin to fear that they will suffer the fate of their dead comrades, and the camp will be liquidated. The leaders of the camp underground decide to raise an uprising. On August 2, 1943, prisoners secretly seize weapons from the camp arsenal, but their plan is discovered before they can take over the camp. Hundreds of prisoners storm the main gate, hoping to escape. Many of them die under machine-gun fire. More than 300 people successfully hide, but most are again captured and soon destroyed by the Nazi police and troops. During the uprising, the prisoners burn most of the camp. The survivors are forced to eliminate all traces of the camp's existence. Later they are shot. Treblinka was finally liquidated in the fall of 1943. In total, from 870,000 to 925,000 people were killed here.

OCTOBER 14, 1943
UPRISING IN SOBIBOR
"Operation 1005" is put into action in the Sobibor death camp in the autumn of 1942, at the peak of the actions to destroy the prisoners held there. At the beginning of 1943, deportations to Sobibor were suspended, and the prisoners began to suspect that they would soon be destroyed and the camp liquidated. During this time, they form an underground group, planning an uprising and a mass escape from the camp. On October 14, 1943, the prisoners raised an uprising and, without attracting general attention, killed part of the German and Ukrainian guards. The guards open fire and prevent the prisoners from entering the main exit, forcing them to flee through the minefield. About 300 people manage to escape; about 100 are caught and shot. After the uprising, Sobibor is closed and liquidated. In total, 167,000 people were killed in Sobibor.

OCTOBER 7, 1944
REBELLION OF THE SONDERKOMANDA IN AOSCHWIM
In the summer of 1944, gassing operations at Auschwitz intensify as more than 440,000 Hungarian Jews arrive at the camp. To cope with the increased number of executions, the administration is increasing the number of prisoners involved in Sonderkommandos - special units working in crematoria. However, by the autumn of 1944, the number of personnel in these teams is being reduced again. Anticipating the liquidation of the camp and their own destruction, the members of the Sonderkommandos plan an uprising and escape. The uprising is supported by captive women who secretly bring explosives from nearby factories to members of the Sonderkommando. On October 7, 1944, prisoners employed by the Sonderkommandos revolt, blowing up Crematorium IV and killing several SS guards. The camp guards quickly put down the uprising. All members of the Sonderkommando are killed. Four women who smuggled explosives from factories are executed by hanging on January 6, 1945, mere weeks before the camp is liberated.

JANUARY 17, 1945
HELMNO
Initially Chełmno was closed in March 1943, but in June 1944 the camp was reopened to speed up the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto. The exterminations take place until mid-July 1944. Beginning in September 1944, the German command put into effect the "Operation 1005" plan aimed at destroying all evidence of massacres: a group of Jewish prisoners were forced to exhume and burn the bodies from mass graves in Chełmno. On the night when the Soviet army approaches the Chelmno death camp, the Nazis decide to leave the camp. Before leaving, they kill the surviving Jewish prisoners. Some prisoners manage to resist and escape. Three prisoners survive. At Chełmno, at least 152,000 people were massacred.

Nesterova I.A. Sobibor camp // Encyclopedia of the Nesterovs

In the light of recent events related to the desire of Poland to exclude Russia from cooperation in the framework of museum reconstruction and exhibition in the infamous Sobibor Memorial Museum, a former concentration camp, one should turn to its history and Russia's role in the liberation of Sobibor prisoners.

The Second World War claimed millions of lives. It was attended by 62 states out of 73 that existed at that time. On September 1, 1939, at 4:00 am, German troops invaded Poland. Most of the European countries that were captured in the shortest possible time by the Nazis have terrible skeletons hidden in the closet. The elites and local residents did not want to fight the invaders, but preferred to adapt to new conditions. Of course, it cannot be said that everyone supported the Nazis. However, the number of those who resisted is incomparable with the number of those who supported.

The Second World War left many questions, the answers to which are disadvantageous to many. So, until now, historians argue about the role of the United States in supporting Nazi Germany. It is known for certain that Ford supplied the Nazis with the products of his factories. The United States at the beginning of the war openly financed the German army.

One of the most brutal manifestations of fascism is the creation concentration camps, in which they kept not just objectionable, but those who did not correspond to the ideals of the Aryan race. They were mostly Jews, Russians and representatives of other countries that resisted the oppression of the Nazis.

After the capture by the Nazis, Poland became the site of concentration camps. Together with the Nazis, both Polish and Ukrainian supporters of the Nazis worked in the camps. It was believed that it was the Ukrainian collaborators who allowed themselves the most incredible atrocities against the prisoners.

Sobibor concentration camp

At the time when Hitler got into the taste of war and treacherously attacked the USSR, Poland was already occupied. Camp Sobibor located in the southeast of Poland near the village of Sobibur. Despite the fact that an attempt is currently being made to revise history and reduce the role of the USSR in the Second World War, the facts of atrocities on the territory of Poland have not yet been erased from memory. So, when and why was the Sobibor concentration camp created.

Road to Sobibor

The construction of the Sobibor concentration camp began in 1942. Operated from May 15, 1942 to October 15, 1943.

From April 1942, SS-Obersturmführer Franz Stangl was the camp commandant. His staff consisted of 30 SS non-commissioned officers, many of whom had experience in the euthanasia program. Ukrainian Nazis and collaborators from the territory of Western Ukraine and Poland worked in the Sobibor concentration camp. They acted as guards and supervisors. The most famous traitor working for the Nazis in Sobibor was Okhra, a former Red Army soldier Ivan Demjanjuk from Vinnytsia, the same one whom a German court found guilty of complicity in the massacres. He got lucky. When an uprising broke out in the camp in 1943 and his colleagues were killed, Demjanjuk was at the SS training center in Travniki. However, the punishment overtook the traitor.

Most of all, the prisoners were not afraid of the SS, but Ukrainian traitors. While the Nazis committed atrocities according to instructions, the Ukrainians were creative in the process and mocked with unimaginable cruelty and pleasure. There is evidence that the old and the infirm were the first to be killed by Ukrainian guards.

This concentration camp was under the personal control of Heinrich Himmler.

Heinrich Himmler is one of the main figures of the Third Reich, the Nazi Party and the Reichsführer SS. He held positions from Chief of the RSHA 1942 to 1943 and Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany 1943 to 1945. Himmler is one of the main organizers of the Holocaust. After unsuccessful attempts to escape from prison in 1945, he hanged himself in his cell.

AT Sobibor concentration camp It was over 250,000 Jews killed. The camp was considered an impregnable fortress. It was surrounded by three rows of three-metre-high wire fences. Behind the third row of barbed wire was a mined strip fifteen meters wide, which was surrounded by wire with inscriptions in German, Polish and Ukrainian: "Attention! Mined!". Further - a ditch filled with water, and another row of wire fences. Every fifty meters there were towers with machine guns, and armed sentries walked between the rows of barbed wire.

Captured Jews were brought on trains. There was a railroad nearby. Most of those brought to Sobibor were killed within the first two hours after arrival in the gas chambers. Small groups of the most healthy and hardy prisoners were left alive for internal work in the camp.

A feature of the Sobibor camp was that it looked like a settlement with cozy houses. The prisoners did not understand that they were going to their death. They were told that they would work in Ukraine. The book by Semyon Velensky, Grigory Grobovitsky and Leonid Terushkin "Sobibor. Uprising in the death camp" indicates the fact that SS Oberscharführer Herman Mikhel liked to talk with newly arrived prisoners. He promised them work and new clothes after visiting the bathhouse, to which they would now be taken. All this Michel said knowing that in an hour they would be dead.

Sometimes the captives were told that they had come here to work and needed to be sanitized. In order for the arrivals to believe that they were in a work camp, the prisoners of the camp were dressed in urban costumes.

Those prisoners who worked in Sobibor could not warn the new arrivals about what awaited them. They could only watch helplessly from afar. However, the arrival of the Russian prisoner of war Alexander Pechersky changed everything.

Uprising in the Sobibor camp

Hell Sobibor would have continued until the end of the war, if not for the only successful escape in the history of concentration camps. The historical tragedy that took place in Sobibor is reinforced by the almost complete historical oblivion in Russia. In Russian military historiography, this episode was not only hushed up, but they did not attach much importance to it either. At the same time, an incredible human feat takes place here. The triumph of strength, will and steadfastness. Now directly about uprising in the Sobibor camp.

The uprising in the concentration camp was organized and led by an officer of the Red Army, Alexander Aronovich Pechersky, who was captured near Vyazma. Lieutenant Pechersky was transferred from camp to camp, because he did not want to submit and did not leave plans to escape. When the Nazis found out that he was a Jew, he was immediately sent to Sobibor.

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky was born on February 22, 1909 in Kremenchug. Grew up in Rostov-on-Don. Graduated from music school. He worked at a locomotive repair plant. Dreamed of playing in the theater. In June 41, he was drafted into the army, they gave two dice in the buttonholes of the rank, that is, lieutenant

Once in Sobibor, A.A. Pechersky was among those who were not immediately sent to death, but were forced to work for the Nazis. However, like none of those who were not killed immediately, but worked in the camp, he had no illusions that he would be left alive. Death loomed on the horizon every day. He decided to take fate into his own hands and organize an uprising and escape. He immediately warned that not everyone would survive. More than half of the Sobibor prisoners supported the Soviet officer, but there were also those who did not want to participate and preferred not to anger the Nazis. About their fate will be a few words later.

October 14, 1943 the rebels managed to deal with 11 SS men and a number of Ukrainian policemen almost without noise. However, the surviving guards then raised the alarm. After that, the prisoners of Sobibor went on a breakthrough.

Separately, it should be told about how the SS men were lured in order to kill them. All the Nazis and their Ukrainian and Polish collaborators were very greedy. They robbed the corpses themselves, or forced prisoners to do it. This worked into the hands of the rebels. So the SS officer Josef Wolf was told by the prisoners that among the things of the newcomers they found an excellent leather coat, which would clearly suit him. He ran to look at the new thing, and was killed by the rebels. They also acted with several SS men.

420 prisoners took part in the riot. 80 were killed while breaking through the minefield. The Nazis were horrified by the fact that starving and exhausted people carried the gate with their chests and fled through the minefield without fear. 170 fugitives were killed during a roundup organized by the Nazis. A terrible fate awaited those who caught the eye of the local Poles. They killed the prisoners without remorse. Today's Poland prefers to remain silent about these crimes.

Almost 90 prisoners of Sobibor, who escaped the Nazi raids, became victims of collaborators, as well as ordinary anti-Semitic local residents.

After what happened in the Sobibor camp, all the prisoners who could not or did not want to escape were shot. Then the camp was razed to the ground, potatoes were sown there and cabbages were planted for the needs of the German army.

As for the fate of Alexander Aronovich Pechersky, he ended the war with the rank of captain. He wrote a book about the events in the Sobibor camp. However, he did not receive much popularity, since the Soviet leadership preferred to remain silent about a number of events in Sobibor. Then it was not customary to talk about Ukrainian collaborators and fascists. But in vain. Perhaps, if the events in Sobibor had received wider publicity, it would not have been so easy for rabid Russophobes and fascists to live in Poland and Ukraine. In addition, relations with Israel deteriorated shortly after World War II. In this regard, it has become completely unacceptable to talk about the feat of the Jews.

Alexander Aronovich Pechersky lived his entire post-war life in Rostov-on-Don, where he died in January 1990. Three years before his death, the film "Escape from Sobibor" was filmed in Hollywood, where the role of Pechersky was played by Rutger Hauer. Pechersky himself was invited to the premiere of the film, but he did not come to the USA.

History lesson not learned

The fate of the memorial museum Sobibor is very controversial. This is due to the fact that the Poles are reluctant to recall this page of their history. In 2011, the museum was closed due to lack of funds for maintenance. However, in 2013, Russia was invited to participate in the restoration of the Sobibor Museum. Russia agreed.

The difficult geopolitical situation that has developed since 2014 and the wave of Russophobia in Europe, especially Poland and the Baltic states, led to the fact that Russia was removed from work on the restoration of the museum. At present, an attempt is clearly being made to erase Russia and the USSR not only as the main victorious country of fascism from history, but also as a country whose hero liberated the prisoners of Sobibor.

Such behavior threatens to result in a triumphant return of fascism to Europe. We watch with horror the free sale of Mein Kamph in Germany, the Nazi marches in the Ukraine and the Baltic states. Nationalism is developing in the USA. Now a number of countries are trying to justify fascism instead of feeling shame for the deeds of their collaborators who worked for the fascists and participated in their atrocities. They must pay and repent.

Flirting with fascism for the sake of political and geopolitical goals can lead to unimaginable consequences. But modern politicians think little about it. For them, momentary profit and a good reason to serve their current geopolitical masters, namely the United States, are important. They don't care: let millions of refugees into the Old World or revive fascism in Europe.

Literature

1. Viktor Zhuk Forgotten uprising of the Jews in the death camp Sobibor. Moscow Salon of Writers
2. Semyon Velensky, Grigory Grobovitsky, Leonid Terushkin Notes on Jewish History Sobibor. Uprising in the death camp (detail) // URL: http://berkovich-zametki.com/2012/Zametki/Nomer3/Gorbovicky1.php
3. Lieutenant Pechersky from Sobibor. // URL: http://www.istpravda.ru/digest/5581/
4. Andrei Sidorchik Riot in Sobibor. How Lieutenant Pechersky raised an uprising in the "death camp" // URL:

Sobibor was one of three camps (the other two were Majdanek and Treblinka) created for the complete physical extermination of the civilian Jewish population from the expanding territory of the Third Reich. The history of its foundation, functioning and liquidation. The uprising, led by Alexander Pechersky, thanks to which several prisoners doomed to death managed to escape.

It was 1942. Poland was under the rule of Germany for the fourth year and was officially called the General Government. The centers of resistance that were plowed up in places were quickly and brutally suppressed. The local population began to, if not get used to, then gradually put up with the new established order.

In such conditions, in the woods near the village of Sobibur, with the beginning of spring, the Germans began the construction of a marmalade factory. So it was announced to the local population. Taught not to ask unnecessary questions, the law-abiding Poles did not interfere in the affairs of the German gentlemen. In the meantime, the work went smoothly. Not far from the railway line, a relatively small piece of land was cleared - 600 x 400 meters. And they fenced it with barbed wire, into which, for greater disguise, they woven branches of trees growing nearby. Behind this row of wire, at a distance of fifteen meters from the first, a second row of a three-meter wire fence was placed. And mines were laid between them. True, the local population did not know these details.

Sobibor concentration camp

So the foundation of the Sobibor concentration camp (Poland) was laid. A concentration camp created for the sole purpose of the physical destruction of elements objectionable to the Third Reich. Himmler ordered the preparation of the Sobibor camp in Poland for the extermination of Polish Jews. He also had to be ready to accept transports with people doomed to death from some European countries.

Camp history

As with other camps, questions about why the authorities call this concentration camp Sobibor never arose. The camps were named after the nearest settlement. This facilitated the task of logistics, and the camps were initially temporary. They had to fulfill their task and quietly disappear from the face of the earth, burying all their secrets.

The Sobibor concentration camp began functioning in March 1942. It was built as part of the large-scale Reinhard program, as a result of which not a single Jew was to remain alive on the territory of the Polish General Government. The Majdanek and Treblinka death camps were also included in this program. Sobibor was well staffed. Among the guards were from 20 to 30 qualified SS soldiers, many of whom participated in Operation Euthanasia (then they had to kill their own fellow citizens - mentally retarded, disabled, those whose illness lasted more than five years).

The arrival of the prisoners in the camp

They were assisted by 90 to 120 volunteers from the local population, who completed a course in the Travniki concentration camp. It was the only experimental Polish concentration camp of its kind, in which prisoners were offered special training and subsequently worked for the German government. Most of the cadets were Soviet prisoners of war of different nationalities - Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Latvians, and even Germans and Jews. However, there is evidence that some collaborators voluntarily agreed to undergo such training without being prisoners of the camp. After that, graduates were sent to serve as guards in other concentration camps.

concentration camp guards

Given that during its existence, which lasted from March 1942 to the end of 1943, about 250 thousand people were destroyed in the Sobibor concentration camp, the number of guards out of one and a half hundred people (and in reality only half of them were on duty per shift) cannot but surprise. However, do not forget that the true purpose of the camp was carefully hidden.. The Germans were afraid of an uprising of prisoners who were in concentration camps. Therefore, they did everything so that people doomed to death did not guess about their fate until the very last minute.

Upon arrival at the station, they were told that it was just a transit camp. People were greeted with loudspeaker announcements that they had arrived in their new homeland. The sorting (in which those who were immediately sent to the gas chamber were selected) was explained by the fact that the weaker ones would be assigned to light work. And the need to proceed to the cell itself was masked by the promise of a shower and mandatory disinfection. Everyone even received a receipt for things that they handed over before the “disinfection”.

Sorting of captured Jews

And yet, one of the prisoners managed to escape from Sobibor. He was able to get out by hiding in a freight car that was taking valuables of murdered Jews out of the camp to Germany. This was far from the first attempt to escape. But he was the only one able to elude the guards and get to the city of Helm alive. Apparently, the former prisoner told the locals about the true purpose of Sobibor. When transports were sent from that area to the camp in February 1943, there were several attempts to escape directly from the train (which did not happen when the Jews were sure that they were simply being moved to a new place of residence). On April 30, people who arrived from Vlodava refused to voluntarily get out of the cars. On October 11, the problem arose when another batch of prisoners refused to go to the bathhouse. The veil of secrecy thinned.

True, for people doomed to death, this did not change much. The mass escape from the Sobiborne concentration camp was successful, among other things, because for each escape attempt, the German leadership shot randomly selected innocent prisoners. Therefore, clinging to their own lives, the prisoners themselves stopped any attempts to make an escape plan.

Destruction of prisoners

They did not live long in the death camp. Most of the arriving people were immediately sent to the gas chambers. But, to some extent, the death camp was an economy with an industrial scale. And the economy needs workers. These were selected from the newcomers. However, the work extended their life by no more than a few months.

Selection of prisoners for work

Sobibor consisted of three sections. In the first there were workshops in which they worked with shoes, clothes and made furniture. In the next part, there were warehouses filled with the sorted belongings of the dead. There were suitcases, purses, glasses, shoes, clothes, jewelry, hair cut from women before death. Each thread was supposed to go to the benefit of the economy of the Third Reich. Before burial, human fat was rendered from the corpses. He, too, was a valuable resource going to Germany.

The third section consisted of gas chambers disguised as harmless bathhouses. There were no crematoria in Sobibor, so the corpses were dumped into large trenches previously dug, located behind the gas chambers.

Disguised harmless baths.

Immediately after the arrival of the railway train at the half-station, people were taken to the station and separated. They were reassured and assured that the division into men and women was temporary, and was only needed for organized showering. Some were selected for work. The rest were sent to the baths. Men were cut straight away, while women were cut beforehand, because hair was a valuable resource, carefully preserved and shipped regularly to Germany.

160-180 naked people were driven into each cell. After that, the tank engine was turned on, and asphyxiating carbon monoxide gas began to flow through the pipes. A German officer watched the execution through the only window in the roof of the building. He made sure that all the people inside were killed, and after that he signaled to stop the engine.

Sobibor gas chambers

In order to drown out the screams of the dying, a large herd of three hundred geese was specially bred and kept in the camp. When disturbed, these birds make a loud piercing noise, cackling and flapping their wings. When the engine was turned on and gas was supplied to the chambers, specially assigned guards began to tease the geese and drive them around the buildings. But even this could not completely mask the screams of hundreds of people dying in agony.

Two or three hours after the sorting began, it was all over. People are killed. The gas chambers have been cleared of corpses. They drove the next 20 cars, and everything started anew.

Destruction of concentration camp prisoners

Resistance attempts

Unlike labor concentration camps, where the captives retained at least some illusory hope of survival, in the death camps the “turnover” was such that everyone understood their doom. The struggle here was not for the opportunity to live and wait until the end of the war. And just for the extra months, weeks and even days, albeit a slave, camp, but still life.

On the other hand, it was this doom that pushed people to attempts to resist. They just had nothing to lose. True, most of them failed due to poor organization and the small number of prisoners who decided to resist. History has preserved several such incidents, and even their dates. So, on December 31, 1942, five prisoners escaped. However, they were all caught, exponentially executed, and at the same time, without any system, a couple of hundred more prisoners were randomly selected and shot on the spot as a warning to the rest.

Escape attempt

Another incident occurred in the summer of 1943. Two prisoners under the escort of one guard were supposed to bring water for the work brigade. On the way, they killed the escort, seized his weapons and hid in the forest. Taking advantage of the fortunate opportunity and the disoriented state of the guards who learned about the murder and the escape, the rest of the working Jews also began to scatter. Ten of them were shot. However, eight successfully escaped.

Insurrection

The uprising in Sobibor took place on October 14, 1943. A combination of several factors contributed to its success. The organization of a serious uprising in the death camps has always been difficult because the prisoners who were there simply did not have enough time to draw up a resistance plan and prepare it. People lived too little. However, in this regard, the situation in Sobibor has changed. Himmler decided to use the people imprisoned there to remake captured Soviet weapons and ammunition. And for this, masters with experience were required, who were left to live longer than others.

In September 1943, together with other Jews from Minsk, Pechersky arrived in the camp. Sobibor was not the first concentration camp that a Soviet officer had to visit. Fate did not particularly favor the Red Army lieutenant. He never dreamed of a military career, he was called to serve with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, during his service there were not enough stars from the sky, he did not differ in any particular organizational talents or leadership qualities. In the battles for Moscow, he was captured, from which he unsuccessfully tried to escape. After that, he was transferred to a concentration camp in Minsk, from where Pechersky was sent to Sobibor, as soon as it was found out that he was an ethnic Jew.

Workshop work teams

Alexander Pechersky called himself a carpenter during the sorting (although he had nothing to do with him), so he was selected for the work team and sent to the workshop. From the local "old-timer", the same worker, he quickly found out where he really got to. And when everything was on the map, this previously inconspicuous person was able to take on the role of inspirer and leader of the only successful Jewish revolt in the Sobibor camp.

The camp was like a heavily guarded fortress. Four rows of a barbed wire fence three meters high, a patrol that was between the second and third fences, a fifteen-meter minefield, machine-gun towers. In addition, the constant fear that kapos collaborating with the Germans from among the prisoners themselves would inform on the conspirators created an atmosphere of distrust and prevented the detailed development of the plan.

With the arrival of Alexander Pechersky in Sobibor, the situation changed somewhat. First, he immediately decided that he had to run and began to leave a plan for how to do it. Secondly, along with Pechersky, other prisoners arrived from Minsk, whom he knew from the previous camp and could trust them. Thirdly, in Sobibor itself, preparations for an uprising had been going on for some time. These conspirators were united by Leon Feldhndler, but he gladly entrusted the main role in the uprising to Pechersky, who had real combat experience.

History of the Sobibor camp

Sobibor in cinema

The story of the uprising organized by Alexander Pechersky was filmed in a feature film directed by Khabensky. The main roles in it were played by Konstantin Khabensky himself, Christopher Lambert and Maria Kozhevnikova. This military drama was Khabensky's debut in the director's chair. The details of the uprising itself are displayed, as far as possible, historically accurate, according to the documents available today and the memories of the escaped prisoners. In the rest, artistic liberties were allowed, since the film Sobibor was never positioned as strictly historical. However, the story of Pechersky (the main character played by Khabensky) is depicted according to memoirs written by Alexander Pechersky himself. So I can recommend watching the movie to anyone who loves history.

Konstantin Khabensky as Pechersky

The events of this film begin with the arrival of the protagonist in Sobibor. Pechersky, who led the uprising, understood that it would be impossible to simply escape, breaking through such a dense barrier, and hiding in the forest. The option of a hidden escape also fell away. Therefore, it was decided, first of all, to neutralize the main officers of the German guard. After that, capture the armory and take possession of the camp with weapons in hand. The first part of the plan was successfully implemented. Under the pretext of trying on new tunics (which were sewn right there, in the camp), the officers were lured at the same time, but in different places, and were able to kill without too much noise.

Escape of the prisoners of Sobibor

But on the way to the armory, the guards immediately suspected something was wrong, and began to shoot the attackers. The prisoners had to flee through the fence. Few managed to escape. Of the 250 participants in the uprising, only 170 managed to break out of the camp, of which another 90 people were found by the Germans, who staged a full-scale roundup of the fugitives. The local population, which gave the fugitives to the pursuers, contributed a lot to such good results. However, others, at the risk of their lives, hid fugitive Jews and helped them join the partisans. 130 prisoners who did not join the uprising (they did not speak Polish and therefore were afraid that it would be difficult for them to dissolve among the local population) were shot the very next day after the uprising. After that, the camp was hastily liquidated, and the place where the buildings were located was plowed up and planted with plants. Thus, the German command planned to cover up the traces of their crimes. And they could have succeeded if not for the daring escape of several dozen eyewitnesses, some of whom managed to survive the war and tell about what happened in the death camp