Nazi genocide in Eastern Poland is not the focus of this article. The following short summary, with one exception drawn entirely from non-revisionist sources, is provided by way of background.
Set up in April 1942, Sobibor interned Jews, Communists, partisans, and some Russian soldiers. It was disbanded in the Fall of 1943 after a prisoner revolt during which the German officers were killed and 300 inmates escaped.
Officially designated as an "auxiliary" camp, Sobibor, at a minimum, served as a transfer terminal within a complex of agricultural labor camps set up in this marshy area of eastern Poland. The Nazi plan, at least at first, was to use Jewish and prisoner of war labor to drain the marshes and convert the area into productive farm land. Jews were conscripted (and minimally paid) from nearby ghettos. After the German invasion of Russia, they (as well as Russian and Ukrainian prisoners) were concentrated in a cluster of work camps. Just about the time Sobibor was set up, the reclamation project “melded” with or transmuted into a program of ethnic resettlement & cleansing whereby Jews were emptied out of the ghettos, dispossessed and reconcentrated in labor / death camps. (the so-called Aktion Reinhard[t])
While in existence Sobibor was divided into four separate sub-camps: a reception area, an administration area, inmate workshop facilities and a killing section. The sections were constructed in such a way (it is said) so to block the view into the extermination section (Camp III).
Mass killings are reported to have taken place from May 1942 to July 1942, at which time they ceased because of the reconstruction of the Lublin-Chelm railway line. From October 1942 to May 1943 “deportations” to Sobibor continued at a slow pace. (The source relied on here distinguishes deportations from killings. ) Beginning in October 1942 the facility underwent reconstruction. The capacity of the diesel operated, carbon monoxide [sic] gas chamber was increased from 600 to 1300. Whereas before “the dead and the invalids” were transferred to burial pits in prisoner pushed or horse drawn carts, a “railway trolley” now ran from the chamber to the pits. Other sources say that at this time, the bodies previously buried in the pits were exhumed and burned. Whatever the case, mass killings did not resume until March 1943, although some sources say they resumed haltingly.
The German SS staff at the camp, amounting to about 30 individuals, was reportedly drawn from "technicians" who had worked in Germany's previous
euthanasia program. [
here] An auxiliary detachment of about 200 Ukrainians was assigned to the camp and was divided into three platoons which were assigned to various guard duties. At his trial in the 1950's
SS-Oberscharfuehrer Kurt Bolender, stated (without specifying a time frame) that the diesel engine was worked by a Ukrainian named Emil and by a fellow SS man, called Bauer from Berlin. Most testimonies note the presence of Ukrainians as guards, along the camp perimeter, at the station, or bringing up the rear as columns of new arrivals were led to the gassing facility / chambers. The hair cutting, which some accounts say took place before gassing was done by Jewish barbers under the supervision of an SS officer. By all accounts corpse disposal and removal of valuables was done entirely by Jewish prisoners under the supervision of club wielding Jewish kapos under intermediate direction of a Jewish Camp Elder. Some accounts refer to a camp orchestra at the gassing center, others to a flock of geese kept by the Germans to “mask” the screams and still others to Polish peasants bringing sick people to tthe camp in carts and hearing the screams outside while they waited for the return of their carts. Still other accounts refer to one or more mass shootings at the infirmary.
There are no (or very paltry) records and estimates of the dead include a total of 100,000 or 100,000 in 1942 and 150,000 in 1943. All of these casualties are said to have been buried and or burned in immense pits which revisionists historians say could be but have not been confirmed through geological forensic studies.
Per his identification card, Demjanjuk arrived on 27 March 1943. Himmler also arrived in March 1943, and is said to have witnessed “a gassing action," although his travel itinerary merely lists arrivals, departures and whether lunch was served. On 5 July 1943 Himmler ordered a restructuring of the camp. Some accounts relate that he ordered “that Sobibor be transformed from a death camp into a concentration camp.” Others that Himmler "propos[ed] the conversion of the transit camp Sobibor into a concentration camp." One account states that upon hearing of the proposed conversion, the inmates realized they were "doomed" -- a curious realization if the camp had previously been function as a killing center. .
In all events, as a result of Himmler's order the camp itself and its railway connections were enlarged. In the same time period about 34,000 Jews arrived from Holland. Also in July, the “Forest Brigade” composed of Jewish and Soviet prisoners, mutinied allowing some to escape. A greater revolt took place in October 1943 which began with the surreptitious murder of various Germans and Ukrainians. In the wake of the uprising the Germans closed the camp and “the extermination area was immediately destroyed.”
The only account to the effect that "everyone" was involved in the killing process was the testimony of SS Oberscharfuehrer Erich Bauer who stated " I also led certain groups through the tube to the gas chambers. After all no member of the permanent staff in Sobibor could exempt himself over the course of time from having to perform this and all other functions occuring during the destruction process." However, SS Nurse Arthur Mathes claimed just such an exemption stating "I was not required to participate in the executions but from my place of work I could hear the shots of the execution squad in Camp III". Whatever the case, the Ukrainians were not permanent staff.
There are hundreds of links on the internet to information about Sobibor, including the following.
http://www.actionreinhardcamps.org/sobibor/labourcamps.html
http://www.deathcamps.org/sobibor/sobibor.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/reinhard.html
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/sobibortrial.html
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The critical issue in Demjanjuk's first trial (1987) was the genuineness of his "SS" identification card, sometimes called the Trawniki Certificate because it was issued at Camp Trawniki, a sort of recruit depot for Ukrainian "volunteers".
