Ezcape from Sobibor, Page 3

possible. It was supposed to have been implemented the day before, but a delay was forced when additional SS troops arrived. The plan was simple: using axes that had been stolen from the blacksmith and hidden, the underground would kill as many of their jailors as possible in a short burst, and then everyone would leave the camp under cover of darkness. The hope was that prisoners could melt into the woods and disappear before the SS could gather enough troops to hunt them down.

  Pechersky, along with Yehuda Lerner, was working on tailoring tasks while Niemann and

  Scharfuhrer Siegfried Graetschus, the SS officer who commanded the Ukrainians, waited for their garments. Niemann and Graetschus were exchanging small talk, grousing about the prisoners, the food, the working conditions, the usual conversational fodder between men who both hated and enjoyed their work. They paid no attention to the tailors.

  Lerner was working on a coat for one of the Ukrainians, draping it over his knees while he sewed. The coat conveniently hid the ax that was between his knees. Pechersky sat near by, fussing over small details on Niemann's uniform tunic. They were tasked with giving the signal for the revolt to begin by killing Graetschus and Niemann and then holding up Niemann's Iron Cross in one of the windows for the others to see.

  Shortly before 4 pm, the agreed upon time to begin, the two tailors looked at one another and nodded. Just then, they heard screams coming from the direction of Camp III.

  Twenty minutes after the last of the Jews in the gas chambers had died, Emil Kostenko–the Ukrainian who with the SS Camp III Commandant Erich Bauer operated the enormous motors, taken from a pair of Soviet T-34 tanks, that provided the carbon monoxide–called the all-clear. That meant it was time for the Jewish Sonderkommando to open the doors in the back of the building and start carrying out the bodies. They would be taken by railway cart to a pre-prepared mass grave, where they would be dumped and the Sonderkommando would bury them.

  "Come on, you swine, get your asses moving," Kostenko called out. "I want to get this over with and get some dinner." The slave laborers moved as fast as their malnourished bodies allowed, opening the doors and looking in unnecessarily to make sure everyone was dead. Two of them moved into the men's chamber, and grabbed the first body they saw by his arms and legs. They took hold of him, and had just gotten out the door when the prisoner holding the arms screamed and dropped the body.

  "Hey, what's going on there?" Kostenko shouted. "Get that body in the cart, now!"

  "He's not dead!" the prisoner shouted. "He just opened his eyes!"

  "What do you mean, 'he's not dead'?" Kostenko demanded. "Of course he's dead. They all are. They've been in there long enough to kill an elephant." He jumped down from his perch near the motor controls and strode over to the body. Without pausing in his stride, he wound up and kicked it in the head, then turned to the prisoners and snapped, "See? There's nothing there but a lifeless sack of shit! Move it!"

  He raised his hand to slap the man who had dropped the body, only to find his feet pulled out from under him. As he went down, he looked and saw the body–its eyes indeed open and looking at him with the most hate-filled expression he had ever seen–grabbing at his ankles. Kostenko landed heavily on the wood of the veranda, and realized with shock that the body was crawling up his legs. He tried to kick it off, but it had his calves in a vise grip right through his boots, and would not be shaken off.

  Kostenko didn't know what was going on, but he decided to put a stop to it at once. He drew his pistol, took aim at the head of the body–man–that continued to crawl up his legs, and at point blank range fired two shots, one of which took off his left ear, while the other went through his right eye and splattered his brains against the wall of the building.

  But then a strange thing happened. Instead of collapsing in a heap on top of Kostenko, the man–who at this point had to be dead–growled at the horrified Ukrainian, and leapt up Kostenko's body and sank his teeth into the collaborator's neck. As Bauer and the Sonderkommando looked on with their jaws hanging open, too terrified to react, the man tore a piece of flesh from the Ukrainian's neck and spat it on the veranda as blood spurted everyone from Kostenko's severed carotid artery. The life quickly drained out of the man, and as it did his killer looked around, his mouth a bright red smear covered with the Ukrainian's blood, and fixed his gaze on Bauer, who screamed and ran.

  The one remaining eye of the killer glanced at the Jewish laborers, but took no interest in them. They didn't wait around to see if he would change what was left of his mind. They ran off to look for somewhere to hide.

  Behind him now, there was more movement as others who had been gassed rose from the floor of the death chamber and made their way outside. They staggered as if drunk, but moved with purpose. Two of them found the keys to the other sets of doors that had been dropped by the Jewish slaves as they fled, and moved to open them. When they did, women and children came unsteadily out to mix with the men. There was not even a flicker of recognition between them.

  Among the men was Rabbi Snaidman, who limped out and looked around with a blank expression on his face. Then he noticed a squad of half a dozen SS soldiers armed with sub-machine guns coming into Camp III. He could not speak, but instead uttered a low, eerie moan, and lifted his right arm to point in the direction of the soldiers. At once, as if following orders from a superior officer, the entire crowd of Jews who had been gassed to death began moving toward the Nazis.

  Pechersky and Lerner looked at one another, puzzled by the sound. Screams were rarely heard in Sobibor except in response to a beating, but Camp III was not a place for corporal but rather capital punishment. Still, it didn't seem like a reason to put off implementing their plan. He nodded again at Lerner, and started to get up when Niemann turned to Graetschus and said, "Did you hear something?"

  The commander of the Ukrainians cocked his head and listened. "I thought I heard a scream coming from Camp III," he said, knowing as well as the two prisoners how odd that was. "Maybe we should check it out." Niemann nodded, and both headed out the door before their world-be assailants could make a move.

  Pechersky fell back heavily on his seat. "Let's give it a couple of minutes. They'll find out it's nothing and come back for their clothes. The delay shouldn't make any difference."

  Lerner looked at him doubtfully. "I don't know. The word was, 4 pm. If it's more than a few minutes, people are going to start getting nervous, and maybe do something foolish. I say we give it no more than five minutes, and if they aren't back by then, call it off until tomorrow."

  "All right. Five minutes," Pechersky said in a grunt.

  The SS squad saw the crowd of Jews coming their way, and stopped in complete bafflement. Why were these scum unescorted? Where do they think they think they're going, if not to the showers? Where are the Ukrainians?

  They called on the mob to halt, but got no response except to see an old man point at them and moan. Here and there in the crowd, others started to moan as well, and before long the ghastly sound could be heard clearly by the soldiers. Their commander, Scharfuhrer Josef Wolf, shrugged and said, "All right, if they don't want to die by gas, they can die by gun. Fire at will, men. Mow them down."

  With that a half dozen sub-machine guns began spitting bullets at the defenseless people in front of them. They were now close enough so that virtually every slug found its target. Hearts were pierced, livers punctured, kidneys pulverized, and blood flowed in quantity. But none of those hit went down, or even slowed in their approach. Their moaning got louder, and the looks on their faces more enraged, but they did not drop.

  After forty-five seconds of fire, Wolf raised his arm for his men to cease shooting. He looked at the Jews in astonishment. "Why are they still standing?" he muttered to himself, and glanced at his men. They looked as frightened as any SS soldiers he'd ever seen. They, too, were in shock at the sight of men, women, and children taking bullet after bullet and marching on as if nothing had happened.

  The old man in the front of the horde s
eemed to be the leader, so Wolf told his men to wait, turned on his heel, and walked quickly toward the old man, who continued to point and moan. When he had gotten within six feet of the black-clad figure, the commander stopped, aimed, and fired eight shots directly into the man's chest. Blood burst forth in a shower of red, and the old man briefly staggered under the impact of the bullets. When the Nazi ceased fire, however, the rabbi resumed his limping walk toward the uniformed man in front of him, and reached him as the soldier was reloading. Without pausing for a second, the white-bearded figure grabbed Wolf's uniform tunic, pulled him close, and took a bite out of his neck.

  Rabbi Snaidman was quickly drenched with the German's blood, but he took no notice of it. Instead, he dropped the stricken man, whose life rapidly slipped away, and pointed at the remaining members of the squad. They turned and ran without giving their commander another look.

  Now there was shouting in the camp. Pechersky and Lerner went to the door of the tailor's shop, and saw SS troops and Ukrainians yelling at one another about some kind of riot over at Camp III. They listened for a minute, and couldn't believe what they were hearing: Jews killing Nazis, but not just any Jews. The Ukrainians who had come from III