SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 65
to were shut up in goods trucks, which were taken out beyond the
town and left on a siding for two weeks, until all inside had perished
of starvation. The majority of the Jews of Lublin were carried off
over a period of several days to the locality of Sobibór, near
W�odawa, where they were all murdered with gas, machine-guns
and even by being bayoneted. It is an authenticated fact that Lithuanian
detachments of shaulists, [110] who have recently been brought
into Poland, were used for these mass executions. The fetor of the
decomposing bodies in Sobibór is said to be so great that the people
of the district, and even cattle, avoid the place. One Pole working in
Sobibór wrote a letter pleading to be granted a transfer elsewhere,
as he could not remain in such conditions.”
A report dated 7 September contained this brief reference: 111
“In spring the news came through that a new camp of tortures
had been set up in Sobibór (W�odawski district). The winding up of
the ghetto was expected already by the middle of April, and then,
later, by the end of May. In June the rumor spread that it had been
put off for some time. But the visit of Himmler to the General Government
in the middle of July this year hastened the execution of the
plan, and his former orders were even made stricter.”
The newspaper Rzeczpospolita Polska wrote in its edition of 19 November
1942: 112
“The Sobibór camp near W�odawa is temporarily not in operation
but is being enlarged.”
The first vague mention of the extermination method used at Sobibór
– unidentified “gases” – appeared in an official report of the Ministry of
the Interior of the Polish Government in Exile, dated 23 December
1942: 112
“At that time – April/May – the first vague news about the camps
of Sobibór, in the W�odawski district and Be��ec, in eastern Lesser
Poland, reached Warsaw, indicating that there was mass poisoning
with gases [113] and assassinations with electric current of transports
of hundreds of Jews who were moved there from the territory of
western Lesser Poland. […] They are taken to three killing places,
110 Term for Lithuanian volunteers in the service of German armed forces during WWII.
111 “Report on conditions in Poland. Report received by the Polish government in exile in
London on 27 November 1942. Annex No. 7. Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto,” dated
7.IX.1942, p. 4. Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, Box 29.
112 B. Chrzanowski, op. cit. (note 105), p. 103.
113 gazami