Sobibór

Hello subscribers!

After a few longer, though less regular, newsletters this time it’ll be one that's a little shorter, but I’ll get back to the weekly routine of sending one out every Sunday.

As promised in the previous newsletter, I’ve meanwhile uploaded a brand-new blog post about Sobibór. It features 16 new photos I took there a couple of weeks ago, plus a few older ones from 2008 for comparison. Much has indeed changed at the site, as you’ll be able to see. The most significant change and my main reason for revisiting Sobibór is the new museum. This is indeed very good, much better than I had expected. I was surprised by the many artefacts that the archaeological digs over the past few years revealed: shovels, bottles, pieces of barbed wire as well as plenty of victims’ personal belongings, including glasses, jewellery and wedding rings, and much more.

The most gruesome exhibit of all, though, was the metal hook you can see in the photo above (which also featured in the blog post). Hooks like that were used by the poor “Sonderkommando” Jews who had the sickening task of clearing the gas chamber after each batch of such industrialized mass murder. The chambers were as densely packed with people as was possible and in their final agony they became totally intertwined. So the Sonderkommandos had to use hooks like this one to separate the corpses and drag them out.

What I also found positive about the new museum is the fact that it does not play down the role of Sasha Pechersky, the Russian POW who was so instrumental in leading the revolt at Sobibór. In the current political climate in Poland, with the ruling party interfering with museum designs and demanding a more “patriotic” portrayal of Poland (see e.g. the WWII museum in Gdańsk), I would not have been too surprised if the Russian’s role had been pushed into the background a bit at Sobibór. But that is by no means the case; it is well covered. In fact the last word of the exhibition is a Pechersky quote, namely what he told the Jews right as the escape began: “Those of you who survive [...] Let the world know what happened here.”

I’ve meanwhile also nearly finished reading the book “Escape from Sobibor” by Richard Rashke, which also formed the basis for the British TV film of the same name that was made in the 1980s. If you haven’t read the book (or seen the film) I can only warmly recommend it. It’s tough reading, given the death-camp subject matter, but it is also heart-warming in many respects and extremely enlightening. It’s based on about a dozen eyewitness reports from those who managed to escape in the revolt of 14 October 1943 and survive WWII, so it’s the closest to a complete picture, from the inmates’ perspective, that you can get.

My main website’s chapter about Sobibór will now not only have to be updated and given a new photo gallery, but I’ll probably write it up all anew on the basis of the book, my recent visit to the site and the exhibition catalogue I bought at the museum. That’ll be my next big task. In the meantime the new blog post can give you a preview. Do take a look.

So much for this time.

As always, stay safe!

Best,

Peter