The Sobibor Death Camp    

Globocnik at Sobibor

The Sobibor extermination camp was located near Sobibor village, in the eastern part of the Lublin district of Poland, close to the Chelm - Wlodawa railway line. The Bug River (5 km away) today forms the border with the Ukraine.

In 1942 it was the border between the Generalgouvernement and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The area was swampy and is today as densely wooded as it was then.

The camp was the second death camp to be constructed as part of the Aktion Reinhard programme, and was built on similar lines to Belzec (the first Aktion Reinhard camp), following the lessons learned there.

In the early months of 1942 after a visit by a small aircraft that circled over the village, a train arrived at Sobibor. Two SS officers disembarked, construction engineers from the SS-Zentralbauleitung in Zamosc. They were Richard Thomalla, the construction expert for Aktion Reinhard, and construction supervisor Moser from Chelm.

They walked around the station, took measurements and finally made their way into the forest opposite the station.    In March 1942 a new spur was built, which ended at an earthen ramp. The ramp is opposite the station building.

The camp fence (with interwoven branches) was built in a manner which ensured that the special spur and the ramp were located inside the camp, thus preventing passengers at the station from seeing what happened behind the fence. The deportation trains entered the ramp through a gate and disappeared behind the "green wall". In the station area three larger buildings existed - the station, the forester's house, and a two-storey post office. There was also a saw mill and several houses forworkers.        

As construction work progressed (by 80 Jews from nearby ghettos, mainly Wlodawa and Wola Uhruska), the site was inspected by a commission led by SS-Hauptsturmführer Neumann, head of the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police in Lublin. Once the Jews had completed the initial construction phase, they were gassed during the experimental gassing. Two or three of them escaped at that time to Wlodawa and informed the Hassidic rabbi there what was happening in Sobibor. This rabbi even proclaimed a fasting in memory of the first victims and also as a kind of act of resistance. Both the escapees and the rabbi were denounced by a Jewish policeman and all of them were executed.
 

Sobibor Camp

In front of the Station

Click image descriptions for full view

Dismantling the Camp

The camp was in the form of a 400 x 600 m rectangle, surrounded by a 3 m high double barbed wire fence, partially intertwined with pine branches to prevent observation from the outside (e.g. at the station area). Along the fence and in the corners of the camp were wooden watchtowers.
Each of the four camp areas was individually fenced in: the SS administration area (Vorlager), housing and workshops of the Jewish command (Camp I), the "reception" area (Camp II) and the real extermination site (Camp III).

The Vorlager included the ramp, with space for 20 railway cars, as well as the living quarters for the SS staff, both German and Ukrainian (Trawniki men / "Trawnikis"). The Vorlager also included the main gate. On top of the main gate was a wooden sign about 0.60 x 2.40 m, with the words `SS-Sonderkommando', painted in Gothic letters. Unlike Belzec the SS men lived inside the camp.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/sobibor.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009