80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UPRISING IN SOBIBÓR
On 12 October 2023, families of the Sobibór Survivors, representatives of many countries, international institutions, and martyrdom museums took part in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the German Nazi death camp in Sobibór. On that day, we symbolically opened a new spatial arrangement of the Memorial Site. The event was held under Honorary Patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda.
Sobibor Memorial
The main part of the commemorative ceremony was opened by Mr Marvin Raab – son of the prisoner uprising participant Esther Raab. In his speech he described the shadow that the history of Sobibór would cast both on the survivors and on the humanity at present: But don’t be fooled by words. Those who escaped from Sobibór didn’t escape. As my mother put it: “There is no escape from Sobibór”. Not for me. Not for Poland. Not for Germany. Not for the world. “Even God cannot escape from Sobibór.”
In the letter addressed to the ceremony participants, the President of the Republic of Poland Mr Andrzej Duda emphasized: 80 years ago this place witnessed an indescribable suffering and heroic courage, that we have the duty to remember and recall. That is what we owe to the murdered victims and to the survivors, but also to the forthcoming generations that will shape the fates of Poland, Europe, and the world. It is our duty to tell them the truth, which will allow them to build upon a solid foundation of justice and peace. […] The genocide committed here shall always shake the conscience of the humankind.
Approximately 180,000 Jews were murdered in the Sobibór extermination camp. The Polish Jews constituted over half of that death toll. The remaining victims were the citizens of various German-occupied countries, primarily of the Netherlands. The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands mentioned that in his speech: One-third of all Dutch Holocaust victims died at Sobibor – more than 34,000 Jewish women, men and children. Sobibor is an ink-black chapter in the Dutch history of the Second World War. […] And so, I’m pleased that this redesigned place of remembrance has now been completed. I’d like to thank our partners from Poland, Slovakia and Israel for all their hard work. Together, we will make sure we can keep telling this story. Yes, because of the past. But also because of the here and now.
In his speech, the Minister of the Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia, Mr Miroslav Wlachovský remarked: This is a place to remember the sacrifices of the victims, learn the truth and take lessons from the past. […] What you see around is the largest graveyard of Slovak citizens outside their homeland.
- Unlike those heroic Jewish victims, WE CAN and DO know more about what happened at Sobibór. To an extent that is uncommon in Holocaust documentation and research, Particularly in regard to the death camps of “Operation Reinhard”. HERE, we can - and MUST - accurately envisage and tell in detail the terrible factual truth. […] That goal, that mission is what inspired and energized, the remarkable process that has transpired over the past 15 or so years at Sobibór and about Sobibór – wrote in his letter Mr Dani Dayan, the Chairman of the Vad Vashem Institute in Israel.
Then, the ambassador of Israel to Poland, Mr Yacov Livne, addressed the participants with the words: The Holocaust did not Begin in Sobibór or in Auschwitz. It began with centuries of anti-Semitism. He also referred to the recent events in Israel: During the Second World War, civilization fought against barbarity. This is what we are required to do today.
Next, the Undersecretary at the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Ms Wanda Zwinogrodzka, read the letter from the Minister Piotr Gliński: I am honoured to announce that today we finish the long-term project of the appropriate and dignified commemoration of the Sobibór victims, we commission the new architectural-spatial version of the memorial site, which by following the educational route – invokes the victims’ final march to the place of their death, to the gas chambers, to the clearing with their graves – wrote the minister.
The Museum’s activities were also appraised in the speech of Mr Viktor Elbling, the ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Poland: I would also like to thank Director Dr. Kranz and his team of the Majdanek Museum for their dedicated and excellent work - and for our good cooperation. […] Because only through remembrance and commemoration – and by passing on knowledge to younger generations – we can say with full conviction: Nie wieder, never again, nigdy więcej.
Director of the State Museum at Majdanek Mr Tomasz Kranz, thanked the participants for