We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
![A group portrait of some of the participants in the uprising at the Sobibor killing center. [LCID: 10625]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/aa0189cc-81e0-45c3-a1a1-eb70ad9f1bee.jpg)
Under the most adverse conditions, Jewish prisoners initiated resistance and uprisings in some Nazi camps. On October 14, 1943, prisoners in Sobibor killed 11 members of the camp's SS staff, including the camp’s deputy commandant Johann Niemann. While close to 300 prisoners escaped, breaking through the barbed wire and risking their lives in the minefield surrounding the camp, only about 50 would survive the war.
![Women survivors huddled in a prisoner barracks shortly after Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz camp. [LCID: 31450b]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/8fdec1b8-47fa-40f1-9a27-06e7262bad5e.jpg)
Learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust
![Blanka Rothschild holds one of her prewar family photographs. [LCID: athbr039]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/11721704-922d-4af9-8e09-16ab9e4123c5.jpg)
Explore a timeline of events that occurred before, during, and after the Holocaust.
How and why was the Holocaust possible?
