Escape from Sobibor (book)

Sobibor was the most classified of the three death camps created by the Nazis in occupied Poland to exterminate Jews as part of Operation Reinhard . It operated from May 15, 1942 to October 15, 1943. During this period, about 250 thousand Jews were killed in it.

On October 14, 1943, about 300 prisoners, led by a Red Army officer Alexander Pechersky, rebelled and, after killing dozens of guards, carried out a mass escape. Most of those fleeing died, according to various sources, 53 or 47 people survived to the end of the war. By the time the book was published in 1982, 46 were alive ^[1] .

The book consists of a preface, 44 chapters and an afterword. The main content is divided into 4 sections:

• Prisoners (chapters 1-18)
• Escape (chapters 19–31)
• Forest (chapters 32–37)
• Personal Fates (Chapters 38–44)

In the first section, the author talks about how prisoners got into the camp, how some of them escaped death in the very first hours with most other Jews, and how they survived in the camp as part of various service units. The description of life in the camp is interspersed with related historical facts. In particular, Raschke describes the mission of Jan Karski , a member of the Polish resistance , who tried to convey information to the allies about the ghetto and the death camps ^[2] .

In the second section, Raschke describes several attempts to escape from the camp, which ended in capture and executions. Those remaining feared that the camp would soon be closed, and all remaining prisoners would be destroyed. Events accelerated the arrival of a train with Jewish prisoners of war of the Red Army - September 23, 1943. Eighty of them were selected for work. Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky led the preparations for the uprising and escape. On October 14, having lured a number of guards in turn into the camp premises, the prisoners killed them and took away their weapons. About 300 prisoners broke into the main gate and ran away into the forest under guard fire.

In the third section, the author describes the adventures of individual prisoners after the escape. The next morning, Pechersky with a group of 9 former military men left the remaining fugitives and went east in the hope of crossing the front line ^[3] . Some of the other prisoners were captured by the Germans or killed by anti - Semitic Poles, and some managed to hide before the Red Army arrived in Poland.

In the fourth section, Raschke writes about the fate of survivors of the war.

The book has been reprinted several times in the United States and Great Britain, in particular in 1995 ^[4] and 2012 ^[5] , as well as in other countries ^[6] . On it in 1987, the film of the same name was shot. The book was published in Russian in 2010.

In the preface to the Russian edition, an employee of the Holocaust Research and Education Center Leonid Terushkin notes that Raschke was the first to draw wide attention to the subject of the Sobibor camp and the uprising in it. The book “Escape from Sobibor” is recommended in the literature on Jewish resistance to the Holocaust by several universities ^{[7] [8]} .

Yuri Solodov in the journal Lechaim notes that the book of Raschke gives a sense of life truth - especially in comparison with the film ^[9] . The well-known American historian Yehuda Reinhartz ^[10] in the Library Journal praises Raska for his thorough approach to the topic. In his opinion, the book is “well developed and well written” ^[11] .

In an editorial review by Kirkus Reviews , on the other hand, style is criticized. According to the author of the review, Raske's “quasi-fiction” approach with extensive dialogues and focus on conversations with survivors reduces reliability. A dissemination of historical sections leads to a "sagging pace" of the narrative and defocusing of the reader’s attention ^[12] .

The historian Karl Shulkin ( Eng. Carl R. Schulkin ) notes Raschke’s thesis in an afterword to the 1995 edition that many authors who write about the Holocaust distort the real story, portraying Jews exclusively as a victim, “like a humble flock of sheep going to the slaughterhouse.” “Escape from Sobibor” challenges this approach, recalling those who fought and fought. Shulkin agrees with Raschke’s arguments and urges history teachers to reconsider their views on the role of the Jewish Resistance ^[13] .

• Raschke R. Escape from Sobibor = Escape from Sobibor / Per. from English A. Sverdlova. - M .: Polimed, 2010 .-- 288 p. - ISBN 588832-018-8 .

• Escape from Sobibor on Richard Raschke's website
• Escape From Sobibor. Reviews