They did the impossible

They did the impossible

Go see Sobibor , a documentary about how European Jews sucessfully escaped from the Sobibor extermination camp after killing the guards.


They did it by exploiting the rigorous punctuality of their Germans captors! Their group of prisoners was allowed to live, at least for a while, because they had useful trades – carpentry, jewelry making, tailoring. Carefully, they set it up so the German guards had appointments in their various huts at specific times. In the tailoring hut, the first appointment was at 4:00, the next at 4:05.  Being German, the guards arrived precisely on time – and were killed by the inmates who then escaped.


The story told by Yehuda Lerner, who escaped after splitting a guard’s skull with an axe. Put in the camps at age 16, he escaped from eight other camps before this final successful escape. He just flat refused to be a captive. What else can you say.


There were other attempted breakouts from concentration camps, however Sobibor was the only sucessful one.