Tomorrow, 30 October 2019, at 13:30, Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, will host a memorial ceremony commemorating the 76th anniversary of the Jewish revolt at the former German Nazi death camp, Sobibór. The event will take place in the Yad Vashem Synagogue and will include remarks from Yael Frieberg Atzmoni, representative of second generation Sobibór survivors, and Yossi Gevir, Director of the Governmental and External Affairs Department at Yad Vashem. There will also be a lecture by Naama Galil from Yad Vashem's Commemoration and Community Relations Division on the history of the camp and the revolt at Sobibór.
The Revolt and Escape from Sobibór
In October 1943, two Jewish prisoners, Leon Feldhendler and Lieutenant Aleksander (Sasha) Pechersky, planned and led the mass revolt and escape of the some 300 Jews incarcerated and awaiting extermination at Sobibór. Nearly half of the inmates were killed while escaping, and many others were caught in the manhunt that followed the escape. Approximately 50 survived by hiding in the nearby forests.
One of three "Operation Reinhard" extermination camps, Sobibór began operations in April 1942. Historians have estimated that between 170,000 and 250,000 Jews were murdered at Sobibór by the time the camp closed in 1943 following the uprising. The Germans destroyed the camp in an attempt to erase all evidence of its existence.