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Still no one can imagine the
horror of Lager III. But what about the people,
the workforce prisoners, that worked in Lager I
and Lager II, the places where they were put to
work, sorting, storing or repairing and washing
the goods of the gassed ones for the Germans and
their Ukranian colloborators, the guards of the
camp? While Sobibor's hell grew bigger and
bigger, a growing number of workforce Jews was
needed. According to some survivors a continues
workforce of about 600 men and women lived and
worked in the camp. Not quite sure is if this
number is the total workforce of the camp
included those of Lager III or not.
The
workforce men and women (mostly men) that had to
work in Lager I and II, and on the station when
new transports came in, were selected from the
arriving transports. If no one was needed, simply
everyone went to the gaschambers directly without
hesitation, straight towards their own death.
Sometimes slaves were needed for some of the Aussenkommandos of
Lublin, camps like Dorohucza and others. These
men and women that were sent to those camps, not
healthy camps with a very high deathrate, usually
didn't came into the real camp of Sobibor but
were moved immediatly to the Aussenstellen after
care was taken of the rest of the transport. The
few 'lucky' ones that 'escaped' immediate death
in the gaschambers but had to work in other parts
of the camp were mainly shoemakers, blacksmiths,
seamstresses, people who where needed by the
Germans, or people who had to cut trees and chop
wood in the Waldkommando
for the burning of the dead bodies at the graves
of Lager III.
Where these people that worked in Sobibor really
'lucky"? It is a fact that they were allowed
to live a little longer although they were
present in an exterminationcamp. With death so
close they had to live, work and even love day
after day under hard circumstances and the Nazis
oppression, beatings and terror, with the
knowledge that each single moment could be the
last of their lives, their lives returned to
being almost nothing or even worse. They had to
stay alert at the all time, watching carefully
around if no one of the German staff or the
Ukrainian guards was in a bad mood, fulfilling
all the wishes, commands and orders they were
given or.....if not.......death came. Some German
staff members were absolute monsters, like Wagner
and Frenzel, ready to strike with their whips,
sticks or their pistols. Life meant nothing in
Sobibor and everyone could easily be replaced by
newcomers of a transport. The Jews coming from
the Netherlands that were selected to work in
Lager I or II became the main victim of violence
against the workforce prisoners. They were
complete strangers in this world, could not speak
Polish or Yiddish and were not accustomed to hard
life under these special circumstances, always
did 'it' wrong and became the victim of that.
But the earth kept on turning for
the prisoners, their lives still went further,
hoping the best but expecting the worst, their
lives in continues threat but still with the wish
to survive. It is know that they tried to live a
life as normal as possible, love stories
included. This may sound incredible, falling in
love on a place where death was all around and so
close, but it happened. In the prisoners lives
egoism played an important role in their will to
survive and sometimes staying alive just
happened. And.....as long as trains were coming
to Sobibor, they had a little chance.....but only
when they could escape. That would be difficult
because the camp was surrounded by minefields,
double fences with barbed wire, each part of the
camp surrounded by fences with barbed wire,
watchtowers equiped with machineguns and guards,
about a 125 Ukrainian guards and 20 SS men and
dogs. Meanwhile, the outside world was dangerous
too with the Nationalistic Polish partizans and
collaborators. According to the survivors, the
Polish were as dangerous as the Nazis and could
not be trusted. When outside the camp, they could
only rely on themselves.
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