Sobibor Extermination Camp

Key Points

• Location: Sobibór is situated near the village of Sobibór in the Lublin Voivodeship, approximately 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) from Lublin, Poland.  The camp was built along the Lublin-Chelm-Wlodawa railway line just west of the Sobibór railway station. A nearby spur connected the railway to the camp and was used to offload prisoners from incoming transports. Branches woven into the barbed-wire fence and a dense forest of pine and birch shielded the site from view.    A 50-feet-wide minefield surrounded the camp. 

• Establishment: The camp was established in May 1942 as part of Operation Reinhard, the Nazis' plan for the systematic extermination of Jews in occupied Poland. German SS and police officials deported Jews to Sobibór primarily from the ghettos of the northern and eastern regions of Lublin District.  The Germans also deported Jews to Sobibór from German-occupied Soviet territory, Germany itself, Austria, Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, the Netherlands, and France. In all, the Germans and their auxiliaries killed at least 167,000 people at Sobibór. 

• Mass Extermination: Sobibór was designed primarily for the mass murder of Jews. . The first commandant of the camp was Franz Stangl, who, like many of his staff of 30 SS was a veteran of the T4 Program to murder the disabled. They were assisted by Ukrainians, former prisoners of war trained by the Nazis for their new assignments. The gas chambers’ victims at Sobibór were killed with carbon monoxide. An estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people were killed there. Victims arrived at Sobibór, believing they were being resettled. Upon arrival, they were taken to gas chambers disguised as showers, where they were murdered using carbon monoxide gas. The camp was designed for rapid extermination, with a focus on efficiency. 

• Prisoner Revolt: In early 1943, the Jewish prisoners became concerned as they sensed that killing operations in Sobibór were winding down. They also learned that Bełżec had been dismantled and all surviving prisoners murdered. In response, the prisoners organized a resistance group in the late spring of 1943. In late September, this group was augmented in numbers and military training skills by the arrival of some Jewish Red Army  POWs from the Minsk ghetto. The group's plan was to kill the SS soldiers, take their weapons, and fight their way out of the camp. The uprising took place on October 14, 1943.  Approximately 300 inmates escaped. Although many were recaptured or killed in the aftermath, about 50 prisoners succeeded and  survived the war. The uprising highlights the resistance and resilience of those held in the camp. 

• Destruction of Evidence: Following the revolt and the waning of the war, the Nazis dismantled the camp in late 1943. They buried bodies and burned buildings in an attempt to erase evidence of the mass murders committed there.