#NeverToBeForgotten

🕯 #OTD in 1943, one of the most daring acts of resistance in history took place at the #Sobibor Nazi death camp in Poland. It was the only mass escape attempt from a Nazi extermination camp that succeeded. The brave revolt was organized and led by #AlexanderPechersky, a captured Soviet officer, who worked closely with Polish underground leader #LeonFeldhendler to plan the impossible. Together, they united Soviet POWs and Polish prisoners, transforming desperate individuals into a coordinated underground resistance unit.

🪖 The prisoners launched their attack by quietly taking out SS guards and cutting the camp's phone lines. Of the 400 prisoners who joined the uprising, 320 broke through the fences and escaped into the surrounding woods. The days following the breakout were brutal; Nazi forces and Nazi-trained Trawniki guards tracked down and shot 150 of the escapees, while another 90 were killed by collaborators and right-wing anti-Semitic nationalists in the forest. In the end, 53 survivors made it through the war to tell their stories.

⚠️ Furious and embarrassed by the breakdown of their security, the SS command ordered Sobibor to be completely closed and levelled to hide any evidence of the camp. Tragically, all the remaining prisoners who couldn't escape were killed. However, the heroism of A.Pechersky and his fellow prisoners ensured that the horrors of Sobibor – and the story of their defiance – would never be erased, neither forgotten, nor forgiven.

#WeRemember
#WWII