SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

326 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
gangslager) of the Birkenau camp between May and October of 1944
without registration. 998
Schelvis tells us what happened to the transport of 1,000 Jews from
Prague which left on 10 June 1942, i.e. after Sobibór had gone into operation:
999
“The train stopped briefly at Lublin, where some of the men aged
between 13 and 50 were selected for work at the camp, then continued
to the Che�m area, where the deportees were put to work on various
drainage projects, some at Ujazdów, near Hansk”
He then claims, however, that “the majority” of the deportees were
killed at Sobibór in October of 1942 “after an outbreak of typhoid,”
whereas “a small group ended up at nearby Krychów, until they too
were gassed at Sobibór.” Two Jews escaped during the removal from
Ujazdow to Sobibór, one of them 12 years old, who would tell the story
of this transport.
Hence, male deportees between 13 and 50 years of age were selected
at Majdanek and remained there; younger and older deportees (i.e. those
unfit for work) and all women, 1000 regardless of age, were sent on to
Ujazdow in Che�m county. As we have seen above, the local county
chief asked on 13 May 1942 “to send along the able-bodied Jews as
well with the next transport,” which obviously means that at this point
in time only the unfit had arrived.
Fritz Reuter’s memo of 17 March 1942 cited above states that, if it is
not possible to “separate Jews fit for work from those unfit already on
departure,” this was to be done at Lublin. We have also seen that some
local authorities protested because “food, which is added to the transport
trains,” and “the baggage of the evacuees” often remained in Lublin.
If this was normal practice, the unfit detainees who arrived at Majdanek
were removed and eventually went to Sobibór or Be��ec; the
able-bodied were selected for work and were housed at the camp without
registration or moved to other camps.
998 Andrzej Strzelecki, Endphase des KL Auschwitz, Verlag Staatliches Museum in
O�wi�cim-Brzezinka, 1995, p. 352.
999 J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 209. Ujazdów is located only some kilometers from Sobibór,
as noted by Schelvis in the German edition of his study (op. cit., note 70).
1000 At Majdanek, a women’s sector was opened on 1st October 1942 in Feld V. This is the
reason why the Korherr report has only such a small number for the female Jews in this
camp.