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
Considering that during its existence, which lasted from March 1942 to the end of 1943, about 250 thousand people were killed 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 every 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 new arrivals. 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 prisoners retained at least some illusory hope of survival, in the death camps there was such a “turnover” 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 World War II, 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 unremarkable 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 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 the 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
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, pickaxes 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 the 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.
There were few escapes from Nazi concentration camps, there were even fewer group escapes, uprisings can be counted on the fingers. There was only one successful uprising in the death camp in World War II.
On October 14, 1943, the prisoners of the Sobibor camp swept away the fence, broke free and scattered around the neighborhood. When Himmler was informed about this, he ordered the camp to be razed to the ground: the buildings were blown up, the ground was plowed up and planted with cabbage. The uprising was organized by a Soviet officer, Lieutenant Alexander Aronovich Pechersky.
How is a "death camp" different from a concentration camp?
Immediately after coming to power, the Nazis began to create concentration camps, where they sent opponents of the regime for "re-education". In 1938, the SS decided that the hands of tens of thousands of prisoners could and should be used for the good of the state. The camps became correctional labor camps.
The prisoners worked at construction sites in Berlin and Nuremberg, at military enterprises, quarries, and mines. The average life span in a concentration camp was 9 months. Someone could live longer, and someone only a few weeks.
In 1942, the creation of special camps (Sonderlager) began, designed exclusively for destruction. The arrivals were announced that they had arrived at the transit camp, from which they would proceed to the labor camp. Everyone was undressed and sent for “disinfection” in the showers. However, instead of water jets, puffs of deadly gas escaped from the atomizers. After 20 minutes it was all over.
The “shower rooms” were opened, the corpses were pulled out, each mouth was opened with special tongs - they were looking for golden crowns, if they found it, they pulled it out. The bodies were taken out for destruction, the "showers" were washed and prepared to receive a new batch of the doomed.
If a prisoner could live in a concentration camp from several weeks to several months, then in a special camp three hours later, from a train of several thousand people, no one was left alive. There were only four such "death factories": Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec and Sobibor.
Sobibor
This camp was located in the south-east of Poland and was a 600x400m area in the forest, surrounded by 3 rows of barbed wire, between which there were double patrols. Around the camp - minefields and towers with machine guns. Although Sobibor was an extermination camp, not everyone arriving in it had only one way - to the gas chamber. The camp had a contingent of prisoners.
The SS men were not going to personally carry the corpses from the gas chambers and engage in their "disposal". They disdained to personally inspect the mouths of the dead and were not going to clean up the “showers” after each “action”. All these works were carried out by the Sonderkommando, recruited from those who arrived for destruction, the composition of which was periodically updated.
On the territory of the camp there were carpentry, locksmith, furniture, shoe and tailor workshops that served the administration and security of the camp - prisoners also worked in them. The camp was expanding, a branch was being built, so each time, having lined up new arrivals, an SS officer walked along the line and called: “Joiners, carpenters, glaziers - come out.”
In total, there were about 500 prisoners in the camp. None of them had any illusions about their fate - sooner or later they would all go to the gas chamber. Everyone dreamed of escaping. The combustible mixture lacked only a detonator. In September 1943, a group of Soviet prisoners of war appeared in the camp for the first time.
There were only 9 of them, but they were Soviet people, front-line soldiers, many of them were in captivity for more than one year. They went through fire and water, kept in a separate group and walked in formation. Upon learning that one of the guards had been under Soviet bombardment and was wounded, every time they passed by him, they sang the song of Stalin's falcons "We were born to make a fairy tale come true." The leader of the group was Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky.
simple soviet man
The biography of this man is amazing. There is nothing heroic about her before or after. Born in 1909, secondary education, worked in some economic positions, supervised amateur art activities.
He was also a conditional officer: called up in 1941, as a literate man, he received the rank of quartermaster of the II rank (lieutenant) and served in the artillery regiment as a clerk - he was responsible for maintaining and storing documentation. What a military experience! But apparently there was something in him that allowed him to accomplish a feat that no one could repeat.
In October 1941, Pechersky was taken prisoner. For a long time he managed to hide the fact that he was a Jew, when it became clear in the spring of 1943, there was only one way left for him - to the extermination camp. But death overtook him. He was sent to a work team formed from Jewish prisoners of war. When the need for a team disappeared, she, along with Jews from the Minsk ghetto, was sent to an extermination camp.
When, upon arrival in Sobibor, they offered to leave with working specialties, Pechersky took a step forward. All his comrades followed him. They were separated from the rest and taken to a separate barrack. In the evening, Pechersky learned that of the 2,000 people who arrived in the echelon, only he and his team survived.
A few days later, a man approached Pechersky and took him aside. “We know you Soviets are thinking of escaping. Don't answer, everyone is thinking about him. It is impossible to escape from the camp. But even if your attempt succeeds, many of those left here will be killed. Think about it". Pechersky hesitated: the speaker could very well be a provocateur. But then he decided that he had nothing to lose in the death camp and replied: “So it’s necessary to prepare not an escape, but an uprising so that everyone can leave.”
Pechersky's plan
In late-night conversations, a crazy idea began to take shape: “Look, the camp is guarded by about 130 people. But only 20 of them are German SS men, and the watchmen, former Soviet prisoners of war who agreed to cooperate with the Nazis, are guarding the perimeter.
Without officers, the watchmen, accustomed to unquestioning obedience, will not be able to organize a worthy rebuff to the uprising. It is only necessary to destroy the leadership of the camp. At the same time, under various pretexts, we lure the SS men into various secluded places and kill them all one by one.
Then the camp is built and goes to the central gate as if to work. On the way we attack the armory. If we manage to capture it, we enter the battle. If not, let's go ahead. There are minefields around the camp, but most likely there are no mines in the area of the officer's house, so we will break through here. Everything must be done quickly, for everything we have half an hour, an hour at most.
60 people knew about the preparation of the uprising, less than 10 were devoted to the essence of the plan. The rest prepared knives, axes to kill SS men, sharpened shovels to cut wire and waited for a signal.
In the morning, one of the prisoners told Pechersky: the camp commandant and one of his deputies had gone on vacation. After listening, Alexander replied: "Tell everyone: today at 4 o'clock." By 4 o’clock one SS man was invited to a shoemaker’s shop to try on boots, another to a tailor’s shop to try on a tunic sewn for him, cabinets were made for a third in a carpentry workshop, he was invited to come for them also at 4.
Two SS men were invited to the warehouse where the things confiscated from those sent to the gas chamber were stored: “There is a leather coat, right for you!”, One was invited to 4, the other to 4:30.
At the beginning of the fifth, one of the combat group sent to the tailor's workshop ran to the carpentry workshop where Pechersky was located. Glancing around, he pulled out the pistol of the murdered SS man from under the floor and laid it on the table in front of Pechersky. "Well," said Alexander, "now we have no way back."
One after another, messengers came running and reported: “four were killed in the ware-house”, “two in the shoe shop”, “one in the carpentry shop”, “telephone wires were cut”. SS men were cut with knives, strangled, chopped with axes. Of the 17 German officers who were in the camp, 12 were killed.
In the hands of the rebels were 11 pistols and 6 rifles. At half past four, Pechersky gave the order to line up the people and bring them out to the main gate. People began to gather in the center of the camp. Most did not know anything, but something disturbing was in the air, many were crying, saying goodbye.
Rush to freedom
There was a shot. It was one of the watchmen who found the corpse of the murdered SS man and raised the alarm. One of the organizers of the uprising shouted: “The SS men have been killed! Now or never!" The assigned group rushed to the armory. They opened fire from machine-gun towers, making it impossible to break through to. Some people rushed to the central gate, some ran to the fence behind the officers' house.
People crushed the sentries, cut the watchmen with prepared knives, strangled them with their bare hands, ran to the barbed wire and chopped it with axes and sharpened shovels.
The prisoners broke through the fence in several places and rushed through the minefield towards the forest. There were explosions. But those who died by their own death cleared the way for the running trail. Of the 550 prisoners, more than 300 broke free.
Over the next two weeks, the Nazis were looking for fugitives. Many were caught and shot. Many have disappeared without a trace. But 53 participants in the uprising in Sobibor survived until the end of the war. Among them was Alexander Pechersky. He fought, was wounded, commissioned. The last years of his life he lived in Rostov-on-Don and died in 1990.
In Soviet times, A. Pechersky was not marked for his feat in any way, although in the West monuments were erected to him, streets were named after him, films were made about him. The fact of the only successful uprising in the death camp did not find its way into the pages of the history textbook.
It was not until 2013 that the conspiracy of silence broke. The name of the hero was given to one of the streets in his native Rostov-on-Don, and the President of Russia signed a decree on awarding Pechersky the Order of Courage (posthumously).
I watched the movie "Sobibor" in the cinema on May 5th. I was shocked by the fact that in Tambov only 8 people were interested in the international bestseller, who, together with me, came to the film by Konstantin Khabensky. For comparison, in the next hall there was a film "The Avengers", on which there were 87 people. But then I thought that not every normal person would want to watch a film about the horrors of concentration camps. I will not write my impressions of the film. Too heavy topic. And upon arrival home, I read so much conflicting information about the film that supposedly its plot contained a lie about the only escape from the concentration camp. This was noted by many users of the film resource kino-teatr.ru. But when I asked them to give other examples of organized uprisings in concentration camps, no one answered. Relatives of Pechersky liked the picture, but you will never please everyone.
I suggest watching documentaries about the Sobibor camp and the Pozner program, whose guest was Konstantin Khabensky.
Posner - Guest Konstantin Khabensky. Issue dated 04/23/2018
It should be noted that Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner corresponded with the Pechersky family, as described below by the hero's granddaughter.
Documentaries about "Sobibor"
A lot has been written about the only case in history when all the prisoners fled from the concentration camp, and a lot has been written about Alexander Pechersky, a Rostovite who organized it, but far from all the information is reliable. The relatives of Alexander Pechersky, who live in Rostov, told about how this happened in reality. Here are the memoirs of the only daughter of Alexander Aronovich, Eleonora Alexandrovna:
In 1941, dad went to war, was surrounded, was taken prisoner. In 1943, along with some other prisoners, he was sent to the Sobibor concentration camp. Now everyone knows about the horrors of Buchenwald and Auschwitz, but in the 40s the Nazis claimed that these were work camps where prisoners worked for the good of Germany. Sobibor was classified because it was originally intended for the extermination of Jews. The world did not yet know about the gas chambers. But even such a camp needed attendants. The Nazis chose from the arrived prisoners tailors, shoemakers, carpenters - those who would sew uniforms for the guards, make furniture ...
They, too, were doomed to death, but they had a short time left. A friend persuaded dad to call himself a master and buy time. An underground committee was created in Sobibor. A small group of people from those who were not yet broken in spirit decided to escape from the concentration camp.The Pope immediately said: “Everyone must run, otherwise those who remain will be destroyed immediately after the escape.” He became the organizer of the escape. The history of the uprising in Sobibor has been included in many encyclopedias.
REFERENCE:
On October 14, 1943, the prisoners of Sobibor raised an uprising. According to Pechersky's plan, they were supposed to secretly, one by one, eliminate the camp staff, and then, having taken possession of the weapons that were in the warehouse, kill the guards. The prisoners, among whom were citizens of various countries, agreed that at the appointed hour, the SS personnel of the camp would be called to various workshops, allegedly on business, and they would be attacked there.
The plan was only partially successful - the rebels were able to kill several SS men and guards, but they failed to take possession of the armory. The guards opened fire on the prisoners, and they were forced to break out of the camp through minefields. They managed to crush the guards and escape into the forest.
It was the only successful uprising in a concentration camp during World War II. It is said that after Himmler found out about what had happened, he ordered the Sobibor camp to be razed to the ground.
Uprising in Sobibor
In the fall of 1943, the prisoners of the Sobibor death camp did the impossible: they raised an uprising, killed almost all the SS guards and broke free. The uprising in Sobibor is one of the most heroic pages in the history of the Resistance during the Second World War, the only case in all this time when the uprising of the prisoners ended in victory. It is unique in terms of plan, execution and short duration of preparation. In the West, many books have been published about him and several films have been made. But in Russia, few people know it, although the uprising was led by a Soviet officer, Lieutenant Alexander Aronovich Pechersky, and the core of the rebels were Soviet Jewish prisoners of war. While preparing this article, I called many of my acquaintances, but almost none of them, including Jews, could answer my extremely simple question: “What do you know about Sobibor?”. The memory of Pechersky in his homeland in Rostov-on-Don is also covered in oblivion: no street or square named after him, no monument on his grave. He was also not awarded with any state award ...
In March 1942, by special order of Himmler, head of the SS and chief of the Gestapo, near the small town of Sobibor in the Lublin Voivodeship, a death camp was built in the strictest secrecy exclusively for the destruction of Jews. His existence was shrouded in an impenetrable veil of secrecy. This region is located in the wilderness, far from the main routes and cities, almost at the very Bug, where at the beginning of the war the border with the USSR passed.
On September 22, 1943, a convoy arrived in Sobibor, bringing two thousand Jews, including women and children, from the Minsk SS labor camp. Most of them were residents of the Minsk ghetto, which exactly a month later, on October 23, the Germans liquidated. Its last inhabitants were shot in Maly Trostyanets. Among the new arrivals was a group of six hundred Jewish prisoners of war, and among them the only officer - Lieutenant Alexander Aronovich Pechersky.
There was an underground committee in the camp that planned to organize an uprising and escape. The committee was chaired by Leon Feldgendler. But both Leon himself and his associates were deeply civilians and, of course, they could not carry out the uprising. But then a train arrived from Minsk. Among the prisoners of war, Pechersky stood out for his height, and article, and confidence in his behavior, and the prisoners of war themselves turned to him as a commander. Feldgendler approached Pechersky and spoke to him in Yiddish, but he did not understand him. However, Leon, like most Polish Jews, could speak Russian, so the language barrier was overcome. As for the other old residents of Sobibor, Pechersky's communication with them took place with the help of Shlomo Leitman, who also arrived from Minsk.
Franz Stangl, the commandant of Sobibor (and later the commandant of Treblinka), during his trial, answered the question of how many people could be killed in one day: “On the question of the number of people passed through the gas chambers in one day, I can tell that, according to my estimate, a transport of thirty freight cars with three thousand people was liquidated in three hours. When the work lasted about fourteen hours, twelve to fifteen thousand people were killed. There were many days when work went on from early morning until evening.
In total, during the existence of the camp, more than 250 thousand Jews were destroyed in it, of which about forty thousand children. As for the 600 prisoners of war who arrived from Minsk, only 83 of them remained alive by the day of the uprising. on the same day would have been destroyed. But the traitor was not found ...
Pechersky, having become accustomed to the situation, developed a plan for the uprising: to destroy the German officers one by one and quickly, within one hour, so that they would not have time to discover their disappearances and raise the alarm. The main task was to organize everything secretly so as not to attract the attention of the SS men and guards for as long as possible.
The uprising was scheduled for 14 October. Here is what Semyon Rosenfeld, one of the Soviet prisoners of war, tells about this: “At noon, Pechersky called me and said:“ Frenzel, the commandant of the first camp, should come here after dinner. Pick up a good hatchet, sharpen it. Calculate where Frenzel will stand. You must kill him. “Of course I got ready. I was twenty years old, and I was not such a hero, but I can manage to kill Frenzel ”... Fate would have it so that Semyon Rosenfeld stormed Berlin and left an inscription on the Reichstag: “Minsk - Sobibor - Berlin” ...
Rostov-on-Don hosted the all-Russian premiere of Konstantin Khabensky's film "Sobibor". The tape is dedicated to the uprising of prisoners of the Nazi death camp. The city for the premiere was not chosen by chance, because the organizer of the uprising Alexander Pechersky lived here and now his descendants live. They shared their impressions with the RG journalist.
I am not a teacher. Neither literally nor figuratively. I can only tell a story from the screen and convey the emotions of a person. A man who once lived for real, who accomplished a feat, who walked the streets here. Premieres of such films should be not only in Moscow. To open the rental of "Sobibor" in Rostov is the fairest thing, in my opinion, that could happen, - director and leading actor Konstantin Khabensky said before the show.
To demonstrate the film in one of the major entertainment centers of the city, eight cinema halls had to be used. The tape was seen by 1048 people. The show was held in complete silence. The dramatic events of the autumn of 1943 were watched by the relatives of the protagonist of the film, daughter Eleonora Grinevich, granddaughter Natalya Ladychenko, great-granddaughter Alina Popova and other relatives. They shared their impressions with the RG journalist immediately after the film.
We understood that the film would be difficult. We were warned that it would be hard to watch the suffering of the prisoners. Moreover, the employees of the Pechersky Memorial Foundation who worked on the script of the film said: the film will be as reliable as possible from a historical point of view, - says Alina Popova.
According to her, the tape turned out to be shocking.
To be honest, I am not a very impressionable person, but I could not watch the scene when the concentration camp guards begin to mock the prisoners, and closed my eyes. And then, when the forcing music began to sound, I, like a little one, also closed my eyes. I couldn’t see it, but in several places I cried, ”the woman admitted.
She especially remembered the play of the main actors - Konstantin Khabensky and Christopher Lambert.
The internal resistance of the Soviet prisoner of war and the commandant of the concentration camp was constantly felt. It was felt even when they silently looked at each other. The whole film keeps in suspense, but the brightest flash is the uprising and the mass breakthrough of the prisoners, - said Alina Popova.
The movie is great, but very difficult to understand. We even stocked up on medicines in advance, in case mom becomes ill. After all, she is 84 years old, but, fortunately, everything worked out. At least at some moments they cried, - says Natalya Ladychenko, granddaughter of Alexander Pechersky. - And you know, even though outwardly Konstantin Khabensky did not look like a grandfather and he was not made up for a portrait, but at some moments it seemed to me and my mother: they were showing grandfather on the screen. It seemed that this is how he behaved in the concentration camp all these terrible 22 days, when he was preparing an uprising, Konstantin Khabensky very harmoniously conveyed the image of his grandfather ...
She also admitted that although the film came out true, she is surprised why the "lucky shirt" episode was not shown in the film.
On the night before the uprising, the Belgian girl Luca gave her grandfather her father's lucky shirt - an ordinary robe with vertical blue stripes. Indeed, the shirt brought good luck, and grandfather kept it all his life: in the partisan detachment, in the assault battalion and at home, we always had it in a place of honor. Before the start of filming, we gave it to Moscow for a while, but this story was not included in the film. However, we are not offended, because we were warned that the film would not be documentary, but artistic. Probably, this was the director's decision, - says Natalya Ladychenko.
When the light came on in the hall, Konstantin Khabensky approached Eleonora Alexandrovna Grinevich and asked if the film was a success. The daughter of Alexander Pechersky replied: "Very."
