The Sobibór camp operated within the structures of 'Aktion Reinhardt' (Operation Reinhardt) from May 1942 to October 1943. Approximately 170,000 Jews were murdered here. This number includes 70,000 Jewish inhabitants of the Lublin region, 34,000 Jews from the Netherlands and 24,000 from Slovakia. Among the victims were also Jews from the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Belarus.
On October 14 1943, an uprising broke out in the camp, as a result of which some of the prisoners managed to escape. Shortly afterwards the camp was liquidated; the buildings containing gas chambers were blown up and all other structures were essentially dismantled. The revolt also became a pretext for Heinrich Himmler to issue an order to exterminate all Jewish prisoners in Majdanek and the labour camps in Trawniki and Poniatowa. The crime that claimed about 42,000 Jews' lives, code-named 'Aktion Erntefest' (Operation Harvest Festival) was carried out between November 3-4 1943.
The State Museum at Majdanek will commemorate these events on November 4 2018 with a symphonic concert titled 'Remembrance of Holocaust Victims', in collaboration with the Henryk Wieniawski Philharmonic in Lublin.
Read more:
http://www.sobibor-memorial.eu