SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

126 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
the early 1960s left a brief account of his stay at Sobibór, in which we
read: 356
“I remember clearly that two Jews, a married couple from Holland,
were found in Camp 1 hidden under the floor. By way of explanation
I have to say that the barracks in Sobibór were constructed
on top of meter high piles to avoid the danger of flooding.”
Suchomel later confirmed the swampy nature of the camp site in an
interview conducted by Gitta Sereny sometime in the early 1970s: 357
“In Sobibór […] one couldn’t do any killing after the snow
thawed because it was all under water. It was very damp at the best
of times, but then it became a lake.”
The Sobibór camp was located in eastern Poland, a few kilometers
southwest of the village of the same name, which is in turn situated on
the Bug River and the former Soviet-German demarcation line. The
camp was constructed on a piece of land immediately west of the
Che�m-W�odawa railway line, facing the Sobibór train station. It was
surrounded by a forest consisting predominantly of red pines, 358 as well
as by several marshland areas and a number of smaller lakes. As seen
on a 1933 map of the area (a section of which is reproduced as Document
1, p. 401), there are patches of marshland marked out in the immediate
vicinity of the future camp perimeter. The map further shows
no less than six small lakes located within a 3 kilometer radius of the
camp. The Bug River is found 2.5 kilometers to the east.
Regarding the location of the camp, Schelvis notes that “the single
railway line […] ran through marshland,” 359 further noting that no deportation
trains arrived to the camp between June and September 1942
because: 360
“The railway line had subsided in various places between Che�m
and Sobibór due to swampy soil conditions, slowing the trains down
or even preventing them from using the track altogether.”
356 “Protocol of official examinations carried out in Altötting, Bavaria, on 24 January and 7
November 1962.” Quoted online at:
www holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/sobibor/sobiborliquidation html
357 Gitta Sereny, Into that Darkness, Vintage Books, New York 1983, p. 115.
358 Ibid.; R.L. Rashke, op. cit. (note 44), pp. 361f.; M. Novitch, op. cit. (note 39), p. 82, 147.
359 J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 28.
360 Ibid., pp. 103f. In the German edition (op. cit. (note 70), p. 58, note 142) it is stated that
this period lasted from the end of July to October and that the problems affected the
stretch between Che�m and W�odawa.