Did+people+ever+successfully+escape+any+of+the+camps?

There were some Jews who were successful in escaping the camps. But once they were out they had no place to go and nothing to help them survive. Although at the Sobibor death camp all the prisoners came together and planned a revolt. Lieutenant Alexander "Sasha" Pechersky was a huge contributor in planning the revolt. He was a prisoner of the war. Then the Nazi’s discovered that he was Jewish so he was sent to the Sobibor. Along with Sasha, Leon Feldhendler, and Shlomo Leitman helped plan the revolt. Sasha and Leon were the main planners while Shlomo was a messenger between the two.

Their first plan was to dig underneath the fence and minefields to let the prisoners escape. Sasha was nervous about this plan because the hours at night for them to escape was not sufficient. And he knew that the prisoners would start to fight waiting for their turn to crawls through. Although Sasha’s fears went away because the plan was not able to take place. They had started digging at the begging of October, but due to rain the tunnel was ruined on October 9th.

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure sufferin g and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" (Wiesel). This quote is saying that not having an opinion or not doing anything about what right or what you believe in does nothing for yourself, instead it helps the oppressors. Elie is saying that people should not just sit back because they are scared of what might happen, they should act on what they believe. And that is exactly why this next plan was not and escape, but a revolt.

Sasha gathered as many weapons as he could and the goal was to kill many of the SS and Ukrainian soldiers as possible. The prisoners would lure them into the store room one by one and trying to sell them either jackets, shoes, and other luxuries to the prisoners. While in there the soldier would be killed. One of the SS soldiers Scharführer Kurt Beckman would not come to the store room, so some of the prisoners in charge of killing went to Beckman’s office and killed him there. Although they didn’t have time to hide his body or clean up the blood so they left Beckman behind his desk. The next step was to take place during role call at 5 pm. Their goal was to walk out through the gate. Sasha was surprised of how well the plan was going. Sasha had said, “ "Our day has come. Most of the Germans are dead. Let's die with honor. Remember, if anyone survives, he must tell the world what has happened here." But then one of the Soldiers found Beckman’s body and the camp broke out in chaos. Prisoners were trying to escape running to the gate, and some were climbing over the fence or trying to cut through it. Mines were going off after people got across the fence. About half of the people escaped, 300. about 50 of them met in the forest and Sasha gathered a group of people to go get food. He took all of the men with rifles except one and retrieved every bodies money. "Some people protested but Sasha promised he'd come back. He never did." (Rosenberg).



Out of the 300 that escaped 100 of them were caught and put back in the camp. The remaining 200 continued to hide and run but most were shot. even though only 50 to 70 survived that is still more than how many would survived staying in the camp (Rosenberg).

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