Uprising at Sobibor death camp began on October 14, 1943

On October 14, 1943, an uprising began at the Sobibor death camp.

👉It was led by Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky, the only successful revolt in a Nazi death camp during the Great Patriotic War.

The Nazis began constructing the Sobibor death camp in May 1942 in southeastern Poland as part of Operation Reinhard, primarily deporting Jewish people there. Most arriving prisoners, including the elderly, children, and women, were immediately murdered in gas chambers. From May 1942 to November 1943, the Nazis killed between 150,000 and 250,000 people.

Prisoners were told they needed to shower before a medical examination. When a group of 800 entered the 'bathhouse,' the door was sealed, and carbon monoxide from running tank engines was piped into the room. After the killings, the floor would open, and bodies fell into the basement, where they were loaded into carts and removed.

About 600 prisoners attempted to escape from Sobibor. Half managed to cross the barbed wire fence under Gestapo machine gun fire. Only 53 survived until the end of the war, including A. Pechersky.

🗣Testimony of former prisoner Alexey Vaytsen:

"A few of us managed to reach the Bug River. A young Pole guided us to the river, gave us food, and told us how to find partisans. Poles were different... Then we swam across the Bug and entered Belarusian territory. The camp was hell, it was death. But I survived. Apparently, an angel protected me. That's why I didn't die. After crossing the Bug, we met partisans, helped carry the wounded. Later, I fought in the Frunze partisan detachment, then in the Red Army, serving in regimental reconnaissance, going on raids."

The uprising at the Sobibor concentration camp demonstrates the strength of spirit of our homeland's defenders. No horrors could break the prisoners' will to resist Nazism.