Liquidation of the Camp After the uprising, on August 18 and 19, 1943, another two transports slated for extermination arrived in Treblinka, bringing Jews from Bialystok. Shortly afterward the Germans destroyed the gas chambers and the other installations that remained after therevolt, and with that put an end to the camp.

While the liquidation of the camp was no doubt in accord with a plan that predated the uprising, its timing was probably moved up in wake of the revolt. On October 20 most of the remaining Jewish prisoners were transferred to Sobibor, where they were killed. Another 25-30 prisoners remained in Treblinka and were shot there a few days later. In order to cover up the crime, a farm-house was built on the site of the camp, trees were planted, and a Ukrainian peasant was employed to guard the deserted place.

(Sereny, op. cit., pp. 249-250; Franciszck Zabecki, 'Rozbicie obozu w Treblince', Warsaw, 1977, pp. 94-95)

The Treblinka Revolt in Polish Sources

The idea of the uprising, its organization and implementation were entirely the fruit of prisoner initiative. No assistance nor encouragement whatsoever was received from the outside. In a number of Polish sources, which appeared for the first time in 1969, mention is made of a plan by the Armia Krajowa (Fatherland Army) to attack Treblinka and free its prisoners. According to what is written, this was in coordination with the Jewish underground in the camp. It is also stated in these publications that on August 2 the camp was in fact attacked from the outside.

(Ibid., pp. 96-99; Tedyslaw Razmowski, "Akcja Treblinki," 'Dzieje Najnowsze', Vol. I, 1969,, pp. 167-172)

It should, however, be noted that these accounts are filled with imprecisions, contradictions and a lack of clarity and confused information about the labor and penal camp -- Treblinka 1, where most of the prisoners were Poles -- and about the Treblinka annihilation camp. It is more reasonable to suppose that the Armia Krajowa's planned attack had to do with Treblinka 1. In not a single testimony by survivors of Treblinka is there any mention of a link with the Polish underground or with any other underground outside the camp, or any hint whatever of assistance received from outside.

Nor is Polish assistance in the revolt mentioned in the reports of the Polish underground written during the war and dealing with the Jews' uprising in Treblinka. The same holds for the German sources, and for the two Treblinka trials, where no Polish attack on Treblinka is mentioned. It is certain that had such an attack occurred it would have aroused responses on a wide front, including reprisal measures, and would have appeared in the German reports. It thus can be stated with absolute certainty that the Polish underground did not extend any aid whatever to the revolt in Treblinka.

The Polish underground did not attack German camps in which Polish prisoners were held in detention, even though ihose Poles were themselves members of the underground. Moreover, it is known that the Armia Krajowa was not distinguished by its sympathy for the Jews, and it is difficult to suppose that its forces would have carried out an offensive operation against a camp within which, with the exception of some 2,000 Gypsies, only Jews were imprisoned and annihilated. Furthermore, survivors of Treblinka tell of many instances in which Armia Krajowa people conspired against them after their escape from the camp.

(For testimonies of escapees from the camp who were given a hostile reception by the surrounding population, see Abram Krzepicki, "Relacje dwoch zbiegow z Treblinki II," BZIH, No. 40, 1961, pp. 78-88. Sereny, op. cit., pp. 244-245;testimony of Goldfarb, op cit., pp. 28-29)

Infuence of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the Treblinka Uprising

The idea of an uprising and the formation of the underground in Treblinka occurred before the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In the testimonies of Treblinka survivors, we find conflicting views on the effect information about the Warsaw ghetto uprising and its outcome had on the prisoners and members of the underground in Treblinka.

On the one hand is the claim that word of the Jewish fighting lifted morale and fostered a fighting spirit in Treblinka. On the other hand, the view has been put forward that the remnants of Warsaw Jewry who were brought to Treblinka had given up on the possibility of rescue by means of revolt or escape; this discouraged the prisoners in Treblinka and cast a cloud of pessimism over the camp.

(Wilenberg, op. cit., pp. 52-53; Kon, op. cit., p. 536; testimony of Strawczynski, op. cit., p. 50)

C. Acts of Resistance and the Organization of the Revolt in Sobibor

The effort to preserve the secrecy of the Sobibor annihilation camp was more successful than for other annihilation camps, including Belzec (from which only one man managed to escape).

The security arrange ments in Sobibor wcre very tight and severe from the earliest stages, and the number of those who escaped en route to the camp and from the camp itself was small compared to Treblinka. In the first period of the camp's operation--May to July 1942--approximately 100,000 Jews were murdered in Sobibor. But fewer transports were sent there than to Treblinka, and the total number of Jews murdered in Sobibor came to about 250,000, whereas in Treblinka the number reached 875,000.

(The figure quoted here is based on research that will shortly be published in my book Treblinka--Ovdan ve-Mered, Tel Aviv, 1983)

The relatively smaller number of transports enabled better security of the camp area and prevention of escapes from it, thereby forestalling the filtering out of information about what was taking place there. Rumors about the existence of the Sobibor extermination camp only reached the nearest communities, Wlodawa and Chelm. We have very little information about escapes from Sobibor, and what there is is not based on direct testimony of escapees nor even on the testimony of people who met the escapees.

We know, for example, that on Christmas in 1943, five Jewish prisoners (two of them women), along with two Ukrainian guards, escaped from the extermination area in Sobibor (called Camp 3). But a Polish farmer informed on them and in the pursuit carried out by the "Blue [Polish] Police" they managed to shoot and kill the two Ukrairuans and one of the women. As reprisal for the escape, several hundred prisoners were shot to death in the camp.

(Tatiana Berenstein, "Obozy pracy przymusowej dla Zydow w Dystrykcie Lubelskirn," BZIH, No. 24, 1957, p. 16. The Blue Police --the Polish police force that worked for the Germans.)

In another instance known to us, a prisoner escaped from the main camp (called in Sobibor--Camp 1) by hiding in a freight car among piles of clothing being sent from Sobibor to Germany; he made his way to Chelm. It appears that he is the person who spread the word in Chelm about what was happening in Sobibor. When the last transport of Jews from Chelm was en route to Sobibor, toward the end of February 1943, there were indeed a number of escape attempts

(Ilya Ehrenburg, ed., 'Merder fun Felker--Materyalen vegen di Retsikhes fun di Daytshishe farkhaper in die Tsyvaylik okupirte sovyetishe raiyonen', Moscow, 1944-1945. According to the testimony of Haim Poroznik [in the book byEhrenburg, p. 15],

the escape took place in February 1943.) made from the train. A transport of people from Wlodawa, which arrived in Sobibor on April 30, 1943, also resisted when ordered to get off the train at the Sobibor platform. Another such instance occurred on October 11, 1943, when the people resisted going to the gas chambers and broke out in flight. Some were killed near the fences, and the others were caught and brought to the gas chambers.

(Alexander Pechorsky, 'Der Oifstand in Sobibor', Moscow, 1946, pp. 40-41. Ehrenburg, op. cit., p. 14; group testimony by survivors of Sobibor, YVA, 0-3/2352, p. 62; Ruckerl, op. cit., p. 168)

Talk about the possibility of resistance and escape began to circulate at the end of 1942 or beginning of 1943. One of the ideas raised was poisoning the SS people.

(Ibid., p. 186. Adam Rutkowski, "Ruch oporu w hitlerowskim obozie stracen Sobibor," BZIH, No. 65-66, 1968, pp. 14-15)

But all of this early talk did not lead to concrete results, and for the period until the middle of 1943 we have no reliable information on organizing for escape. In late June 1943, after the liquidation of the camp at Belzec, the 600 prisoners who still remained in the camp were brought to Sobibor. They were told that they were being brought to Germany to work, but when they arrived at Sobibor they were removed, in groups of ten, and shot on the spot.

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!

(There are several different versions of the exact wording of the note; possibly there was more than one. Testimony of Leon Feldhendler, 'Dokumenty', Vol. I, 'Obozy', p. 207)

The Sobibor prisoners now understood with greater certainty what fate awaited them. The slowed-down tempo of transports at the end of July--because of the cessation of the transports from Holland-- added to the feeling that the end was approaching. All this led to more intensive organization by the underground and more attempts to escape from the camp.

A short time after the murder of the people from Belzec, two prisoners cut the camp fences one night and succeeded in getting away. On the following day at the roll-call, twenty arbitrarily selected prisoners were shot to death in reprisal. The SS men announced that this method of collective punishment--for each prisoner to es- cape ten would be shot--would be used in reprisal for all instances of escape.

(Testimony of Tomasz (Tuvia) Blat, YVA, 0-3/713, pp. 69-70; Moshe Bahir, "Ha-Mered ha-Gadol be-Sobibor," 'Pirsume Museum ha-Lohamim ve-ha-Partizanim', April 1944, p. 12)

Previous to that event, one night in June 1943, the prisoners were suddenly taken from their barracks and kept for a number of hours under heavy guard by the Ukrainians; then shots were heard from the area of the camp's fences. On the next day the prisoners learned from the Ukrainians that Soviet partisans had tried to get near the camp.

(Testimony of Z. Ida Matz, Dokumenty, Vol. I, Obozy, p. 213. It should be noted that in the various sources concerning partisan activity in the Sobibor area, no mention is made of any outside attempts to attack the camp.)

It should be noted that in that same period there were several instances of Ukrainian guards fleeing and joining the partisans.

As a precaution against escape by both prisoners and guards alike, and against partisan activity in the area around Sobibor (especially east of the Bug), in July 1943 Wehrmacht soldiers laid a minefield 15 meters wide around the camp. In addition, west of Camp 1 a water channel was dug between the prisoners' barracks and the conifer thicket in the camp. In direct response to the escapes by the Ukrainians, the camp commanders decided to arm only those guards actually doing guard duty, and they were each given only five bullets. When they learned of the escapes, the prisoners tried to establish contact with the partisans via the Ukrainians.

(Rutkowski, op. cit., pp. 16-17; testimony of Blat, op. elf., pp. 69-70) They were unsuccessful.

On July 5, 1943, Himmler ordered that Sobibor be converted into a concentration camp whose installations would serve as a depot for captured Soviet ammunition, which would be reprocessed by the camp's prisoners. According to this order the camp was to be placed under the concentration-camp administration in the head office of the SS. (Ruckerl, op. Cit., p. 176)

Following the order construction work for storing the captured ammunition was begun in the northern part of the camp (called in Sobibor--Camp 4). At the same time, a work group that came to be called the Wald-Kommando ("forest commando"), numbering forty people (half of them Jews from Poland, and half Jews from Holland), began to work cutting down trees in a forest several kilometers from Sobibor. The wood was needed for construction of the new installations. A squad of seven Ukrainians and two SS men was assigned to guard the work group.

One day two of the prisoners (Shlomo Pudhalebnik and Yosef Kurz, both of them from Poland), accompanied by a Ukrainian guard, were sent to gel water from the nearby village. on the way there, the two killed the guard, took his gun and fled. When the incident was discovered, work was immediately stopped, and the men of the Wald-Kommando were taken back to the camp. Suddenly, at an agreed-upon signal, the Polish Jews in the group broke out into a general flight.

Ten of them were caught, some were shot while fleeing, and only eight managed to get away. The Dutch Jews in the Wald-Kommando decided not to join in the escape attempt, fearing that their lack of knowledge of the language and unfamiliarity with the region would grearly diminish their chances of finding refuge. The ten prisoners who were caught, among them the Capo, were brought to the camp and were shot in full view of all the prisoners.

(Testimony of Blat,, op. cit., pp. 74-75; Matz, op. cit., p. 212; testimony of Abraham Wang, who was one of the members of the forest commando who succeeded in escaping, YVA, 0-3/4139, pp. 6-7)

Underground Organization and Preparations for Revolt

From the second half of July until the middle of August 1943, an underground group was formed in the carnp under the leadership of Leon Feldhendler, who had been the chairman of the Judenrat in Zolkiew. The group was made up mostly of the heads of workshop work groups. In light of the method of collective punishment that the Germans instituted and the presence of a minefield around the camp, the underground group reached the conclusion that it was necessary to plan a large, organized escape during the course of which most of the camp's prisoners would flee. According to one of the early plans, the boys who worked as servants in the SS living quarters were to kill the SS while they slept, take their weapons and hand them over to the members of the underground. According to this plan, after the killing, of the Germans the Ukrainian guardswere supposed to join the insurgents and escape with them to the forest and the partisans. This plan, however, was quickly shelved because it was feared that the boys, aged 14-16, would not be up to the task, and because the plan would have to be carried out in the early morning hours and that would give the Germans a full day for pursuit. (Testimony of Feldhendler's wife, YVA, 0-16/464; Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 16; testimony of Blat. op. cit., p. 77; Matz, op. cit., p. 213)

Another plan proposed in August spoke of setting the camp on fire in the afternoon hours (or, according to another version, in the middle of the night), and, in the ensuing commotion, when the SS and Ukrainians would be called to extinguish the fire, the prisoners would burst through the gates and flee. But when word of this plan was conveyed to other groups of prisoners, they rejected it.
(Testimony of Feldhendleis wife, op. cit., p. 13; Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 15; Matz, op. cit., p. 213; testimony of Dov Freiberg, The Attorney-General of the Government of Israel v. Adolf Eichmann, Minutes of Session No. 64, Jerusalem, 1961 [hereafter, Eichmann's Trial])

Another plan proposed digging a tunnel, but nothing came of it. One of the major shortcomings of the underground group was the absence of someone with leadership ability and military training who would be able to work out a complex escape plan. Finally Feldhendler found a suitable person: a Dutch Jew named Joseph Jacobs, a former naval officer, who had been brought to Sobibor on May 21, 1943. (The exact name of the Dutch Jew is not certain, and there is no proof that his name was, in fact, Jacobs. According to another version, he was a journalist and fought in the International Brigade in Spain:

Louis de Jong, 'Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden--In de Tweede wereldoortog', Vol. VIII--'Gevangenen en Gedeporteerden', The Hague, 1918, p. 818.)

Jacobs took it upon himself to organize the uprising together with his Dutch friends, in conjunction with the underground group. According to the new plan that was formulated, the insurgents, assisted by several Ukrainian guards who had agreed to collaborate, would steal into the arms shed in the afternoon, when the SS people were in the dining hall.

The insurgents would arm themselves, burst through the main gate and escape to the forests. However, one of the Ukrainians informed, and the escape plan became known. Jacobs was seized and Interrogated about his partners in the plot. In spite of continued blows and torture Jacobs did not break and adhered to his claim that he alone planned to escape. Still, in reprisal for the escape attempt, seventy-two Dutch Jews were murdered along with him.

(Testimony of Feldhendler's wife, op. cit., pp. 11-12;Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 22 (according to Rutkowski, it is possible that the escape took place in July and not in August.); testimony of Freiberg, Eichmann's Trial, op. cit.)

Another escape was planned in the first half of September 1943 by six Capos, headed by the Oberkapo Moshe Sturm. But one of the prisoners, called Berliner, informed, and the six were caught and shot in full view of all the prisoners. As a reward the Germans appointed Berliner Oberkapo, but shortly afterward the prisoners also "rewarded" him, and Berliner was poisoned. (In the camp, Moshe Slurm was called "Moshe the Governor."

On this, see Blat, op. cit., pp. 71-72; Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 21; testimony of Izak Rotenberg, YVA, 0-3/4141, p. 3. According toBahir, op. cit., p. 12, a Capo by the name of Positzka was involved in Berliner's poisoning.)

Another escape attempt was made in mid-September. Prisoners kept in the extermination area (Camp 3) dug a tunnel that began in their barracks and was supposed to reach beyond the fences and the minefield. The work of burrowing the tunnel was almost finished when it was discovered by the camp guards. The prisoners of Camp 3, who then numbered betwen 100 and 150 men, were shot as punishment. When the Camp 3 prisoners were being taken to be executed, the prisoners in the other part of the camp were kept in roll-call formation under heavy guardas a preventive measure. Afterward, a new group of men was transferred to Camp 3.

(Testimony of Blat, op. cit., p. 76. Testimony of Jacob Biskowitz, Eichmann's Trial; Matz, op. cit., p. 213; Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 16.)

In spite of the repeated failures in organizing an escape and in spite of the heavy collective punishments--the killing of hundreds of prisoners in the camp, which caused terrible damage to the self-confidence of the organizers--the underground group headed by Feldhendler continued its tireless search for a new person able to lead the revolt and escape. This leader was now found in the person of a Jewish officer, a former lieutenant in the Soviet army, named Alexander Pechorsky. Pechorsky arrived at the camp with a group of 100 Jewish war prisoners who had served in the Red Army and had been kept at the SS labor camp in Minsk.

When the Minsk ghetto was liquidated, this group. together with a large transport of 2,000 Jews, was brought to Sobibor. Most of the Minsk Jews were sent direcrly to the gas chambers, save for a group of eighty men--most of them skilled workers or prisoners of war--who were kept in the camp in order to work on the construction of Camp 4 in place of the group of Dutch Jews who had been murdered and the prisoners of Camp 1 who had been transferred to the extermination area.

The arrival of the prisoners of war, a cohesive group with battle experience and bearing the glory of the Soviet army, lifted the morale of the Sobibor prisoners. The outstanding leader of this group was Lieutenant Pechorsky.

Contact between him and Feldhendler was established by Shlomo Litman, a Polish Jew and carpenter by trade who had been in the SS camp at Minsk together with the Soviet prisoners and had arrived with them at Sobibor. Feldhendler was impressed by Pechorsky's personality, and at their first meeting, which took place on the evening of October 29, already suggested to him that he organize a mass escape from the camp. In subsequent talks conducted between the two, a group was established; Pechorsky at its head and Feldhendler as his deputy.

The other members of the group were four people from Feldendler's group and three from the Minsk group. (The members of the Feldhendler group were the heads of the various groups of artisans: Janek headed the carpenters; Josef, the tailors; Jacob, the cobblers, and Munik, the youth group. Members of the Minsk group were Lipman, Tziebulski and Shubayev.

See Pechorsky, op. cit., pp. 26-27, 41.)

The cooperation between the two groups, with Feldhendler's group contributing theirexperience in the camp and familiarity with its conditions and Pechorsky's people eontributing military know how and experience, led to the formulation of two plans that were supposed to make possible the escape of all 600 prisoners from the camp, including the 150 women in Camp 1. (In the Sobibor Camp there were also Jewish women prisoners. The first group was brought to the camp as soon as it was established to work in the kitchen for the SS personnel. Later, when it was decided to keep a permanent group of prisoners in the camp, women were included among them. They were working in the kitchen, laundry and in other services and were lodged next to the blocks of the Jewish male prisoners.)

The prisoners in the extermination area, who at that time numbered a few dozen, were not informed of the plans, because of the inability to establish contact with them. In light of the lessons of the past and in order to prevent treason it was decided this time not to bring the Ukrainians in on the plan.

The first plan worked out by the new leadership was based on digging a tunnel 35 meters long from the carpentry shed, which was located near the carnp fence, to a point beyond the fences and the minefield. According to the plan all the prisGners in the camp were to escape, at night, through the tunnel.

Pechorsky was well aware that digging a tunnel was a complicated matter that would take two or three weeks, and even if the work were completed, the attempt to get 600 people out on one night might well fail. He also was told of the discovery of the tunnel in Camp 3, and therefore an alternate plan was also worked out. It involved killing the SS people, seizing their arms, and escaping in an organized flight. And so along with the work of burrowing the tunnel, which began on October 5

(Valentin Tomin and A. Sinelnikov, Vozvrash.henie me..helatelno, Moscow, 1964.) and was carried out only at night, preparations were begun for the alternative plan.

Two of the Capos--Positzka and Czepik--who sensed that secret work was going on, realized that there was an underground organization and that plans for an escape were being made. They asked Pechorsky to allow them to join the underground. Their request was granted, for it was clear how much the Capos could help in the preparations for the revolt. And, indeed, on October 8, with Positzka's assistance, two of the leaders of the underground, Pechorsky and Litman, were transferred to work in the carpentry shop, whose location enabled them to supervise the preparations for the revolt.

(Pechorsky,, op. cit., pp. 31-32; Rutkowski, op. cit., p. 31.)

On October 8 and 9 heavy rains fell on the camp. The strearning water penetrated the tunnel and utterly wrecked it. It was clear that the tunnel escape plan had to be abandoned. At this stage eight of the prisoners of war decided to escape from the camp. Pechorsky learned of their plan and managed to talk them out of it by stressing the heavy punishment that would be meted out to the other prisoners in reprisal for their escape.

(Pechorsky, op. cit., pp. 32-34.)

Now the only remaining plan was the alternate plan; it was very complicated and required precise planning, and the prisoners had very little time left. October 13 was set as a possible date for the outbreak of the revolt, for according to the information that the prisoners had, a group of SS men, among them two of the most dangerous--Wagner and Gomerski--would then be on homeland leave in Germany. On October 10, the eve of Yom Kippur, the camp authorities allowed the prisoners to assemble in the women's barracks. The underground leadership used this opportunity to confer, and it was decided to begin the armed uprising very soon.

(Tomin-Sinelnikov, op. cit., pp. 153-155; Ruckerl, op. cit., p. 195.)

On October 12, at 21:00 hours, the leadership of the underground met in the carpentry shed. Ten people took part in this meeting. (The ten included Capo Positzka. On that day, eighteen sick prisoners were taken to Camp 3 (death camp), and this seriously affected the morale of the other prisoners.

(Pechorsky, op. cit., p. 43; testimony of Blat, op. cit., p. 78.) Pechorsky presented the plan of the revolt that was to take place the following day. The plan was divided into three stages.

Stage A: Between 15:30 and 16:45

The quiet liquidation of some of the SS men who would be asked to come, each separately, to the workshops for clothing or shoe measurements, for inspecting carpentry work, etc. Feldhendler was put in charge of asking the SS men to the workshops. At the same time, the rest of the SS people would be killed inside the buildings at the various places of work. These activities would be carried out in utmost secrecy in order that they not be discovered by the other prisoners or the Ukrainian guards. This operation was assigned to special groups of two or three men each, comprised of prisoners of war and long-time prisoners.

Each group had its own special task. Two other men were assigned to cut the telephone line that ran from the camp's headquarters, across Camp 2, to the security forces in Wlodawa, and to cut off the electricity in the camp. Another group was to sabotage the camp vehicles.

The boys and young girls who worked in the SS living quarters were given the job of removing the ammunition and grenades they found there and delivering them to the insurgents. It was also decided to try to break in secretly to the Ukrainians' guard room and remove rifles from there. Positzka was supposed to take a group from Camp 1 to Camp 2 (the central part of Sobibor was called Camp 2), where the housing of some of the SS people was located, to help eliminate the four SS men who were there.

The time for the outbreak of the revolt was fixed on the assumption that the separate elimination of the SS people could only take place during work hours. Also, the hour had to be close to nightfall, in order to facilitate escape.

Stage B: 16:45

The Capos Positzka and Czepik would get the prisoners into roll-call formation in the center of Camp 1, as was done every day. The prisoners of war and the underground people were to occupy the front rows and then the Capos would lead the men toward the exit gate. On the way to the gate the insurgents would seize the arms shed. When the Ukrainian guards would become aware of what was happening and open fire, the insurgents would return fire, and the quiet operation would turn into an armed revolt. The insurgents would break open the gate and break through the southern fence, near the SS quarters, on the assumption that mines were not laid in that area.

Stage C

Escape to the forests and joining up with the partisans. This stage was not worked out in any detail, and each of the escapees would have to find his own way to refuge.

(Pechorsky, op. cit., p. 43; Rutkowski, op. cit., pp. 31-32.)

About forty prisoners and POWs were privy to the secret of the revolt.

October 13, the day set for the uprising, arrived. But on that day an unexpected German inspection committee arrived at the camp, and the heads of the underground therefore decided to postpone the revolt. That even,ing another meeting was held at which it was decided to carry out the plan the following day. The implements that would serve as weapons--knives, axes, specially sharpened shovels and other tools--were distributed to the members of the underground.

(Testimony of Blat, op. cit., p. 78; Rutkowski, op. cit., pp. 30-31; Abraham Margolis, "Mi-Varsha le-Sobibor," 'Sobibor--Mahane ha-Avadon ve-ha- Mered, Tel Aviv, 1979, p. 72 [hereafter, Sobibor])

RESISTANCE (Freedom) FIGHTERS`World War 11