Among the darkest chapters of the Holocaust, Sobibor extermination camp stands as a chilling reminder of the Nazi regime’s methodical genocide. Located in a remote forest in eastern Poland, Sobibor was one of the so-called Operation Reinhard death camps—alongside Treblinka and Belzec—built for the sole purpose of murdering Jews.
Between 1942 and 1943, approximately 250,000 men, women, and children were murdered at Sobibor, making it one of the most deadly but lesser-known killing sites of World War II.
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Sobibor was not a concentration camp or labor camp—it was designed exclusively as a killing center. Unlike Auschwitz, which combined forced labor with extermination, Sobibor offered no pretense of survival. Transports arrived by train, sometimes daily, packed with Jewish families deported from Poland, the Netherlands, Slovakia, France, and elsewhere.
Upon arrival, victims were greeted by SS officers and Ukrainian guards, and subjected to cruel deception. They were told they had arrived at a transit camp and needed to shower before resettlement. In reality, they were being marched directly to their deaths.
Behind high fences and rows of barbed wire, gas chambers disguised as bathhouses waited. Victims were stripped of their belongings and clothes, forced into the chambers, and murdered using carbon monoxide produced by a modified engine. Death came within 20 minutes.
Organized Efficiency and Cruelty
The camp was laid out with gruesome precision. A narrow, camouflaged path known as “The Tube” led from the undressing area to the gas chambers. Guards used whips, dogs, and beatings to force terrified prisoners along the path.
Sobibor operated with chilling efficiency. The entire process—from train arrival to body disposal—could take less than a few hours. No official camp registry existed for victims, as most were killed within hours of arrival.
A small number of prisoners were selected to work as Sonderkommando—inmates forced to sort belongings, clean gas chambers, and dispose of corpses. Their survival typically lasted only a few months before they too were executed and replaced.