🌟 #OTD 80 years ago, the only successful mass uprising in a Nazi death camp commenced in Sobibor. Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky led this heroic fight for freedom.

Sobibor, which was created exclusively to exterminate Jews and prisoners of war, operated from May 15, 1942, to October 15, 1943.

Up to six echelons carrying up to 2,000 people each, including adults, the elderly and children, arrived at the camp every day. Brutal death expected all of them.

One of the most efficient human extermination systems developed by the Nazis was put in place at the camp. The gas chamber, which the prisoners called "the baths", could take up to 800 people.

🕯 Over the period of the camp’s existence, the Nazis brutally murdered up to 250,000 people, according to different data.

Of the 550 prisoners who were at the camp during the uprising, more than a hundred refused to take part in it, hoping that the Nazis would show them mercy. All of these prisoners were exterminated by the Nazi on the following day.

In the next few weeks after the escape, the Nazis staged a real hunt for the fugitives.

On hearing the news of the uprising in Sobibor, SS-Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler became enraged and gave the order to liquidate the camp. The Nazis ploughed the ground on the camp site and planted cabbage with potatoes there, thus not only trying to hide their crimes but also destroy the memory of the prisoners’ heroic feat. But their efforts were in vain.

The history of Sobibor became part of the charges at the Nuremberg trials and the stories told by witnesses and participants in the uprising formed the basis of a number of books and several feature films.

🏅 For many years, the liberated prisoners of Sobibor stayed in touch with their liberator, the leader and initiator of the uprising. In 2016, President of Russia Vladimir Putin issued an executive order awarding Alexander Pechersky the Order of Courage posthumously, which was handed to his granddaughter.

#Victory78 #Sobibor