Media Essay
Killing Center Revolts
Participants in the Sobibor uprising
A group portrait of some of the participants in the uprising at the Sobibor killing center. Poland, August 1944.
Item ViewJewish armed resistance in ghettos and camps, 1941-1944
Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements developed in about 100 Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe. Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans. The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join with partisans. Still, Jews made the decision to resist. Further, under the most adverse conditions, Jewish prisoners succeeded in initiating resistance and uprisings in some Nazi concentration camps, and even in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz. Other camp uprisings took place in camps such as Kruszyna (1942), Minsk Mazowiecki (1943), and Janowska (1943). In several dozen camps, prisoners organized escapes to join partisan units.
Item ViewAn Auschwitz-Birkenau crematorium under construction
Crematorium 4 under construction. This crematorium was later destroyed during an uprising in the camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, winter 1942-1943.
Item ViewPrewar portrait of Ala Gertner
Prewar photo of Ala Gertner. Bedzin, Poland, 1930s.
After being deported to Auschwitz, Ala Gertner took fate into her own hands. Upon arrival, she was assigned to forced labor at a nearby armaments factory. After learning that they were going to be killed, Gertner, along with fellow female prisoners, began smuggling gunpowder and explosives from the factory with plans to destroy one of the crematoriums.
During the uprising in October 1944, the prisoners killed three guards. They also set fire to Crematorium 4, making it inoperable.
The guards crushed the revolt and killed almost all of the prisoners involved in the rebellion. The Jewish women, including Gertner, who had smuggled the explosives into the camp were publicly hanged in early January 1945.
Esther Raab describes planning for the uprising in Sobibor
Esther was born to a middle-class Jewish family in Chelm, Poland. In December 1942, she was deported from a work camp to the Sobibor killing center in occupied Poland. Upon arrival at Sobibor, Esther was selected to work in a sorting shed. She sorted clothing and the possessions of the people killed at the camp. During the summer and fall of 1943, Esther was among a group of prisoners in the Sobibor camp who planned an uprising and escape. Leon Feldhendler and Aleksandr (Sasha) Pechersky were the leaders of the group. The revolt took place on October 14, 1943. German and Ukrainian guards opened fire on the prisoners, who were unable to reach the main gate and thus had to try and escape through the minefield around the camp; about 300 escaped. Over 100 of them were recaptured and shot. Esther was among those who escaped and survived.
Item ViewChaim Engel recalls the Sobibor uprising and his escape
In 1939, as Chaim's tour in the Polish army was nearing its scheduled end, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans captured Chaim and sent him to Germany for forced labor. As a Jewish prisoner of war, Chaim later was returned to Poland. Ultimately, he was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation by Soviet forces in June 1944.
Item ViewChaim Engel describes plans for the Sobibor uprising
The Germans captured Chaim, a soldier in the Polish army, as they invaded Poland in 1939. They first sent Chaim to Germany for forced labor, but as a Jewish prisoner of war, he was returned to Poland. Ultimately, Chaim was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation in June 1944.
In this clip, Chaim refers to [Gustav] Wagner, Sobibor's deputy commandant.
Item ViewChaim Engel
Chaim's family came from a small town where his father owned a textile store. When antisemitic pogroms broke out in Brudzew, the Engels moved to the industrial city of Lodz. Chaim was then 5 years old. In Lodz he attended a Jewish school that also provided a secular education. After finishing middle school, Chaim went to work at his uncle's textile factory.
1933-39: Chaim's neighborhood in Lodz was predominantly Jewish, so most of his friends were Jews. As a young adult he began his compulsory army service. On September 1, 1939, only two weeks before his tour of duty was scheduled to end, the Germans invaded Poland. After a few weeks he was taken as a POW. One German captor learned Chaim was Jewish, but he didn't shoot him. Chaim was taken to Germany for forced labor.
1940-44: In March 1940 all Jewish POWs were returned to Poland. Chaim was deported to the Sobibor killing center in the summer of 1942. In October 1943 a small group of prisoners revolted. Chaim stabbed their overseer to death. With each jab Chaim cried, "This is for my father, for my mother, for all the Jews you killed." The knife slipped, cutting Chaim, covering him with blood. Chaos took over; many prisoners ran out the main gate. Some stepped on mines. Some gave up and didn't run at all. Chaim grabbed his girlfriend and they ran into the woods.
Chaim hid in the Polish woods with his girlfriend, Selma. After the war they married and lived in Europe and Israel. The Engels settled in the United States in 1957.
Item ViewTomasz (Toivi) Blatt
Tomasz was born to a Jewish family in Izbica, a Polish town whose largely religious Jewish community comprised more than 90 percent of the population. Tomasz's father owned a liquor store.
1933-39: In September 1939, a drum sounded in the marketplace, calling the town to assemble for a news report. Germany had invaded Poland. More news arrived shortly; the Soviet Union was invading from the east. Tomasz and his family didn't know what to do. Some people said to run to the Soviet side; many, including his parents, decided to stay in Izbica. His father explained his decision by saying, "The Germans are antisemites but they're still people."
1940-43: By 1943 Tomasz had been deported to the Sobibor killing center, and was in the uprising there that year. During the revolt prisoners streamed to one of the holes cut in the barbed-wire fence. They weren't about to wait in line; there were machine guns shooting at them. They climbed on the fence and just as Tomasz was half way through, it collapsed, trapping him underneath. This saved him. The first ones through hit mines. When most were through, Tomasz slid out of his coat, which was hooked on the fence, and ran till he reached the forest.
Tomasz went into hiding, and then worked as a courier in the Polish underground. After the war, he remained in Poland, and then moved to the United States in 1959.
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