Escape From Sobibor - The True Story (Episode 1)

[Music] the small group of jewish prisoners inside the camp's tailor shop exchanged fearful glances as the sound of hooves grew louder outside one of them quickly peeked out one of the hut's small windows he's arrived he muttered get ready a few seconds later and the hat door opened and instep ss understand fura johan niman the 30 year old deputy commandant of the zombie ball extermination camp outside another prisoner held the bridle of niman's chestnut horse that he used to ride imperiously around the camp niman tucked his riding crop under one armpit and began to slowly remove his gloves his hard eyes moving around the room and settling momentarily on each of the jewish faces before him the prisoners took in niman's uniform and shuddered the devil walked among them the ss death's head badge grinning at them from niman's cap band and from his right collar patch as a concentration camp officer in the notorious ss totten cop febunder the sstv niemann did not wear the twin lightning flash runes of the waffen ss on his collar his rank was indicated by three silver pips arranged in the diagonal line on his left collar patch and army style silver shoulder straps the prisoners glanced at his waist where his black belt with its silver ss buckles supported a leather holster inside sat niman's luger pistol ready for instant use against any problem prisoners one of the tailors brought out an unfinished officer's uniform ready for niman to try on after removing his belt and tunic the prisoners were helping him into the new jacket when niemann sensed movement behind him he turned his head to one side and managed to mata thus before soviet prisoner of war alexander shubayov buried a homemade hatchet in his skull neiman didn't scream just grunt it at the impact which killed him instantly he collapsed onto the hutt's wooden floor dark rivulets of blood running across its dusty surface from the gaping wound in his head one prisoner picked up niman's heavy gun belt and drew the luger from its holster it felt solid and cold in his grasp he looked at his comrades and nodded slowly the zombie boar revolt had commenced beginning in 1940 the nazis had established 16 labor camps in the lublin region near the village of sobibor it was intended that the jews sent to these camps would work as agricultural labourers under german colonial overseers over 95 000 jews expelled from warsaw and vienna were shipped in for this task and paid for their labor they were housed in a network of sub-camps based on the concentration camp at kraichov savibore camp was constructed by halp stone fuhrer richard tomala between march and april 1942 using jewish zonda commando labor after german policy towards the jews had dramatically changed the location marshy woodland with a sparse population was chosen because it was close to the rail line that rang between helm and vladava connecting the general government as the german-occupied territory of poland was now called with reich's commissariat ukraine the garrison would consist of a german commandant initially obersten fura franz stangle 29 ss non-commission officers and between 90 and 120 ukrainian ss auxiliaries known as travnikis after the camp where they were trained at the end of august 1942 a new commandant was appointed after shtangle was moved to take commander treblinka he was ss hobstone fuhrer franz reichleitner an austrian reisch leitner had been born in 1906 and was another action t4 veteran at the hartheim institute reisch leitner had worked alongside stangle under the command of christian viet the prisoners at zobibo regarded reichleitner as an austere figure who was always immaculately turned out in his uniform and always wore gloves he had very little to do with the jews relying on his trusted second in command niman and a coach of efficient sstv sergeants and corporals but it was obvious that reich leitner was feared and respected by the other ss sobibor was small compared with auschwitz or dachau consisting of three camps surrounded by a barbed wire fence into which tree branches had been woven trees had also been planted around the camp's perimeter to further shield it from public view camp one under the command of ss oberscharfura karl frenzel consisted of the main administration offices housing for the german ss and travniki auxiliaries and barracks for a large detachment of jewish zonda commandos here also was the prisoner's kitchen thirty-two-year-old frenzo had been active with the nazis since 1930 when he had enlisted in the sa the stormtroopers when war broke out in 1939 frenzel had been drafted into the reich labor service but soon after released to help take care of his five children desperate to take part in the war effort frenzel volunteered through his sa connections was recruited into the sstv and was assigned to the highly secret action t4 the t4 euthanasia program that was partly based at schloss hartheim in austria was the bloody prelude to the industrialized murders that were to follow in places like treblinka and sobibor the mentally [ __ ] and physically disabled were murdered on the recommendations of doctors as the nazis attempted to remove all what they called defectives from their population over seventy thousand patients were to die during the course of the program which continued in operation until just after the war ended in 1945 told that the killings were the responsibility of doctors friendzo shtangle reich leitner and the other sstv men had set aside their moral reservations and done their duty as they conceived of it frenzel's primary job was removing bodies from the small gas chambers wrenching out any gold teeth and then burning the bodies in the crematoria on the 20th of april 1942 frenzel was assigned to zobibor where he was widely detested and feared by the prisoners and was known for using his whip on them frequently in one notorious incident in spring 1943 two jews from helm were caught trying to escape from soviborn frenzel decided in consultation with the other ss senior ncos that an example should be made at roll call every 10th jew was taken out of the line to be shot 20 being murdered in this way following this escape attempt a minefield was laid around the outside of the camp's perimeter as a further deterrent camp 2 or the 4 lager consisted of the railway platform where evacuation trains were offloaded a ramp the undressing barracks and warehouses where 400 the jewish zonda commandos worked they sorted and stored property confiscated from jews who arrived by train at the camp platform there was also a building where the newly arrived jews had their heads shaved and their valuables taken from them before they proceeded into camp iii and the gas chambers cam 3 contained a furthers on the commando units barracks these men tasked with the open-air cremation of the bodies of the dead and the disposal of these bones and ashes in large pits the evacuation trains that brought the jews to sobibor consisted of between 40 and 60 freight cars the platform at camp 2 was large enough to permit the unloading of 20 cars at a time on arrival the ss told the jews that the facility was a transit camp where they would be disinfected for lice and process through to working parties in labor camps elsewhere i helped jews out of the trains with all their baggage said zonder commando philip bialovitz my heart was bleeding knowing that in half an hour they would all be reduced to ashes i couldn't tell them i wasn't allowed to speak even if i told them they wouldn't believe they were going to die fresh arrivals were met by ss ncos whose welcome speech was designed to make the jews cooperate in their own destruction the jews of warsaw your attention one of the ss would shout along the length of the platform you are in a transit camp from which you will be sent to a labor camp as a safeguard against epidemics you must immediately hand over your clothing and parcels for disinfection gold silver foreign currency and jewellery must be placed with the cashier in exchange for a receipt these will be returned to you at a later time upon presentation of the receipt for bodily washing before continuing with the journey all arrivals must attend the bath house some of the new arrivals would be hived off into the ranks of the zonda commandos to replace those who had died from disease exhaustion or been murdered in this way tens of thousands of people arrived at the railway platform in front of the camp with no idea of what awaited them the main deportations to sobibor were made between may 1942 and autumn 1943. the jews came primarily from the ghettos of the general government with others from the soviet union germany austria slovakia bohemia and moravia the netherlands and france altogether upwards of 170 000 people entered sobibor the events that led to a zonder commando rising at sobibor had their roots elsewhere rumors arrived in sobibor that most of the 600 sonder commando workers would soon become surplus to requirements and that the germans planned to kill them the reason for this was that another action reinhard death camp at belzek had been closed and dismantled the germans shooting the remaining zonder commandos the zonder commandos realized that the same thing would probably happen at sobibor as the number of evacuation transports had noticeably slowed the jews needed a plan of action to save themselves we started organizing and talking and it gave us something to live for again said esther raab a female prisoner the idea that maybe we'll be able to take revenge for all those who can't the leader of the jews in zobibo was leon feldhendler the 33 year old son of a polish rabbi he had been the head of the udenrat or the nazi enforced jewish council in his home village of zolkeefka in lublin with a hardcore of conspirators feldhendler considered several possible avenues of escape the initial plan was to poison the ss and seize their weapons but vigilant ss guards discovered a secret batch of poison and five jews were shot in retaliation another plan was to set fire to the camp and try to escape from the subsequent confusion but the mining of the camp perimeter by army engineers following the attempted escape of two jews made such a plan extremely risky the plan was eventually rejected as impractical what feldhendler and his fellow plotters lacked was organizational ability and who better to possess those skills than soldiers the answer to feldhendler's problems was the arrival at sobibor on the 23rd of september 1943 of a man called sasha lieutenant quartermaster class 2 alexander or sasha pacheski was a 34 year old jewish red army officer who had been captured in the battle for moscow in 1941. the son of a loya sasha was born in ukraine gained a degree in music and literature in rostov and was working as an accountant and manager of a small music school when he was conscripted into the red army as a junior lieutenant on the 22nd of june 1941 the day the germans launched operation barbarossa promoted to lieutenant in september sasha was captured in october the city of vyasana he suffered seven months of typhus before escaping with four other prisoners of war in may 1942. recaptured the very same day sasha was sent to a penal camp in belarussia and then to another harsh camp near minsk during the routine medical examination it was revealed that he was circumcised and sasha immediately admitted to being a jew on the 20th of august 1942 he was separated from non-jewish prisoners of war and sent to an arbeitzlager or work camp in minsk on the 18th of september 1943 2000 minsk jews including 100 jewish red army soldiers were herded onto a cattle train and sent to sobibor arriving on the 23rd of september sasha was among 80 jews selected to join the zonda commando in camp ii the sudden and unexpected arrival of prisoners who were trained soldiers provided the conspirators with a considerable morale boost perhaps these soviets could help sasha also made an impression on the ss quite early on he was clearly a man who commanded respect among his peers and also a proud military officer and no mere slave three days after his arrival sasha was outside the camp on a working party that was chopping up tree stumps in command of the party which was guarded by a detachment of ss travnikis was ss oberschalfura frenzo impatient at the exhausted manner in which the jews were tending to their tasks frenzel had decided to punish certain workers with 25 lashes from his whip frenzel noticed that sasha had stopped work during one of these punishments russian soldier shouted frenzel you don't like the way i punish this fool i give you exactly five minutes to split this stump frenzel kicked a large tree stump with the toe of his black jack boot if you make it you get a pack of cigarettes if you miss by as much as one second you get 25 lashes said frenzel a cruel smile creasing his face sasha attacked the stump with his axe like a madman friendzol timing him with his watch he finished in four and a half minutes frenzel his face a mask of anger profit a pack of cigarettes thanks i don't smoke said sasha frenzel muttering under his breath stalked off while the other prisoners continued chopping astonishment drawn across their sweaty faces they were even more surprised when frenzel returned with a lump of bread and some margarine and offered them to sasha the big red army officer shook his head slowly and said thank you the rations we are getting satisfy me fully frenzel's face turned beetroot red his fist tightening around his whip handle he stared at sasha for a moment clearly debating in his mind what he should do while sasha ignored him and returned to chopping wood frenzel once again stalked off the incident deeply impressed the other members of the working party and that night the proud defiance of the soviet officer was the talk of the zonda commando barracks in camp 1. it was obvious that the resistance organization desperately needed someone like sasha and feldhendler reached out to him on the 29th of september he hoped that sasha might be able to contact the partisans many of whom were escaped soviet pows to enlist their aid in liberating the soviet board jews but sasha was unequivocal in his response the partisans have their own tasks he replied to feldhindler and no one can do our work for us the meaning was clear if the jews wanted out of sobibor they would have to do all the work themselves some of sasha's fellow soviet prisoners were already exploring an escape from the camp but only for themselves they were reluctant to let untrained and disorderly foreign civilians join them but feldhendler countered that if the soviet pows managed to escape the ss would retaliate against the innocent jewish civilians left behind in the camp he managed to convince sasha that any escape should include everybody it was decided that it would be better from a security standpoint if the germans did not see sasha and feldhendler constantly meeting instead a young jew named [ __ ] lightman would act as a go-between for the two leaders sutter and his men carefully gathered intelligence on the layout of the camp the number of guards their personalities routines and armament as well as the all-important perimeter defenses in this the civilian jewish members of the zonda commando proved invaluable having been imprisoned in sauvigbo for much longer than the soviets the first plan proposed by sasha was a tunnel digging began in early october 1943 beneath the carpenter's workshops in camp 2. the 7th of october sasha became very concerned it was clear that there weren't enough hours of darkness for all of the camp's prisoners to successfully pass through the long tunnel to freedom and he knew that the non-military backgrounds of the civilian workers would probably lead to arguments and fights breaking out amongst those waiting to go before sasha was forced to call off the tunnel break the diggings were destroyed by two days of very heavy rain the 8th and 9th of october it was back to the drawing board the second plan was a much more dangerous proposition a revolt this would involve attacking and overpowering the guards and seizing the camp though this appeared to be a tall order sasha believed that the key to the plan's success was to remove the german brain from the larger ss body that was to kill the small number of german sstv officers and ncos who administered the camp it was the same conclusion that was reached by the desperate resistors at treblinka 2. sasha believed that if the prisoners succeeded the remaining ukrainian ss guards would be confused and possibly open to negotiations if all else failed the prisoners could fight them with weapons captured off the dead guards or they could try to storm and capture the camp's armory it was known that the travnikis were not completely trusted by the regular ss and only issued with limited ammunition for their weapons the gravity of what the prisoners were planning to do was not lost on any of them for a second we had no dreams of liberation said thomas toivy blatt we hope merely to destroy the camp and to die from bullets rather than from gas we would not make it easy for the germans the travnikis who provided the bulk of the guards and the camp were armed with five shot bolt action rifles the guard towers also contained mg42 machine guns extremely rapid firing and highly effective belt-fed weapons the sstv men were routinely armed with luger or volta p38 semi-automatic pistols and had access to mp40 machine pistols in response sasha asked the prisoners to begin manufacturing large knives and small hatchets these would be used to dispose of as many of the german ss ncos as possible in a series of carefully planned ambushes the travnikes were even more strongly despised than the germans we were terrified of the ukrainian guards at sobibor said blatt they were worse than the germans they mistreated us they shot the old and the sick newer who couldn't walk anymore and they were the ones who drove the naked people into the gas chambers with their bayonets blatt's job involved cleaning ss boots they would come back with splashes of blood on their boots i often had to work a few feet away if the jews refused to go on they hit them and fired shots i can still remember their shout of eresweda which means come here cam commandant hobstone fiora left on leave shortly before the revolt the 12th of october the hated and feared senior ss tv nco in the camp obershafira gustav wagner also departed on leave wagner was known to be exceptionally cunning and unrelenting in his efforts to uncover subversive activity among the zonda commandos wagner's departure gave us a tremendous morale boost said conspirator thomas toivy blatt while cruel he was also very intelligent always on the go he could suddenly show up in the most unexpected places always suspicious and snooping he was difficult to fool besides his colossal stature and strength would make it very difficult for us to overcome him with our primitive weapons with reischleitner and his chief guard dog wagner gone sasha ordered that the final revolt plan be ready by the end of the 12th of october the soviet pows were dispatched singly to each of the huts where an ambush killing was to be perpetrated in order to stiffen the resolve of the resistors and to do the actual killing if necessary each hut had organized a combat team consisting of about three men with their knives and hatchets carefully concealed the targeted german officers and ncos would be lured singly into the huts and then dispatched lures included appointments for uniform or boot fittings or to peruse expensive coats taken from recent transports the planning took into consideration the german brashness and power-hungry mistreatment of the seemingly subdued jews said blatt their consistent and systematic daily routine their unfaltering punctuality and their greed the targets were carefully selected the most important was deputy commandant understand fuhrer johann in the absence on leave of reichschleitner niman was acting common down to the camp born in 1913 niman had joined the nazi party in 1931 and the ss in 1934. he had served at another action reinhard camp belzek transferred to sobibor niman was commissioned as an officer after heinrich himmler's visit to the camp on the 12th of february 1943. according to carl frenzel niman was a brutal officer a polish capo a jewish worker appointed to oversee other jews told me that some dutch jews were organizing an escape so i relayed it to deputy commandant niman he ordered the 72 jews to be executed the jews were also aided by the fact that almost a dozen ss ncos were away from camp on leave when the revolt was launched the method for killing the ss was to be as quiet as possible they were to be axed in the skull or stabbed to death and their bodies quickly hidden next day the day the revolt would be launched was set for the 13th of october then in the morning sasha and the rest of the plotters were disconcerted by the sudden arrival in the camp of a company of ss men there was much confusion among the prisoners who initially feared that their plots had been discovered and the extra manpower brought in to deal with them but instead the ss piled out of their trucks and started eating and drinking with the zombie boar sstv men in the main canteen as the extra ss was still in the camp at lunchtime sasha decided to postpone the revolt until following day later in the afternoon the visiting ss company packed up and drove away on the 14th of october everyone was ready it was now or never at noon each battle team commander secretly met with sasha for final instructions there was one nasty moment when frenzel marched into the carpentry shop and noticed that one of the prisoners was dressed in his best clothing the prisoners had gathered their few possessions ready for the revolt unlike wagner who would undoubtedly have become suspicious frenzel instead sarcastically asked the man whether he was off to a wedding at 2 p.m under shafira falter who was not on the target list to be killed suddenly entered camp 1 armed with an mp40 machine pistol this was unusual as the sstv men rarely carried such firepower hochberg took away four prisoners sasha discovered that hochberg was so armed because he hadn't had with him a ukrainian trav nikki as backup because all of those recently on leave by 4 pm the battle teams were ready and in position the first to die was acting commandant niman once he was dead his body was quickly dragged into a hiding place and the blood cleaned up the officer's loaded luger pistol was added to the resistor's meagre stash of weapons another prisoner led niman's horse back to the camp stables to complete the illusion of normality now would begin the grim task of murdering the ss and launching the breakout tune in next time for the concluding episode of escape from sobibor thanks for listening please visit my video channel mark felton productions you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below

Channel: War Stories with Mark Felton

Views: 295,341

Rating: 4.9065623 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton, Escape from Sobibor

Id: R2DQDV1RA1k

Length: 26min 32sec (1592 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021