***Spoilers*** Of all the German concentration camps it was Sobibor that was the first to be slated to be liberated by the onrushing allied armies in WWII. In that it was the closest to the Soviet Union's borders situated in the extreme eastern section of Poland near the forests of the border city of Lublin. In that way it made sense that it, Sobibor, was slated to have the the greatest escape attempt by it's some 600 inmates in WWII. With the Soviet Red Army about to burst into German occupied Poland in the fall of 1943 it was there at Sobibor on October 14 of that year where the sentenced to death Jewish inmates of the camp decided to put their foot down and stage an armed and violent break out of the camp. That in the end cost most of them their lives but also had as many as 200 live to see another day. Which they wouldn't have if they decided to not to break out of the camp and just meekly wait for the Germans to exterminate them.
It was Jewish Red Army POW Let. Alex Pechersky, Rutger Hauer, who got the ball rolling by organizing the epic escape in knowing with the Red Army within striking distance of the concentration camp it wouldn't be long for the German to liquidate it together with it's reaming Jewish inmate! That in order to cover up the crimes, that they would be charged with after the war, that they committed there.
Pechersky together with camp inmate Leon Feldhendler, Alan Arkin, began to planed a massive escape from the camp before the German and their Unkrainian guards begin going into action and exterminating every last inmate in Sobibor.
Meticulously planned the escape runs into a number of problems that has it put into motion far earlier then expected with the German's getting wind of it in discovering a number of dead German SS men, killed by the inmates,before the escape plan was to be put into full operation. Having nothing to lose Perchersky & Feldhendler jump start the escape that despite its success ended up with the majority of the escapees gunned down and killed by German and Ukrainian bullets and land mines that ringed the camps perimeter! But the alternative in doing nothing and being lead like lambs to the slaughter would have been far worse!
Factual account of the largest concentration camp escape in WWII history that had the once indestructible and feeling racially superior Nazis get a taste of their own medicine by the downtrodden inferior and imprisoned Jews whom they had nothing but contempt for. In it fact was a Pyrrhic victory for those that escaped with their dead far outnumbering those of their captors but it paid dividends in the end. In them being able after the war to bear witness to the Nazis crimes committed at Sobibor and have those who ran the camp end up paying for them.
It was Jewish Red Army POW Let. Alex Pechersky, Rutger Hauer, who got the ball rolling by organizing the epic escape in knowing with the Red Army within striking distance of the concentration camp it wouldn't be long for the German to liquidate it together with it's reaming Jewish inmate! That in order to cover up the crimes, that they would be charged with after the war, that they committed there.
Pechersky together with camp inmate Leon Feldhendler, Alan Arkin, began to planed a massive escape from the camp before the German and their Unkrainian guards begin going into action and exterminating every last inmate in Sobibor.
Meticulously planned the escape runs into a number of problems that has it put into motion far earlier then expected with the German's getting wind of it in discovering a number of dead German SS men, killed by the inmates,before the escape plan was to be put into full operation. Having nothing to lose Perchersky & Feldhendler jump start the escape that despite its success ended up with the majority of the escapees gunned down and killed by German and Ukrainian bullets and land mines that ringed the camps perimeter! But the alternative in doing nothing and being lead like lambs to the slaughter would have been far worse!
Factual account of the largest concentration camp escape in WWII history that had the once indestructible and feeling racially superior Nazis get a taste of their own medicine by the downtrodden inferior and imprisoned Jews whom they had nothing but contempt for. In it fact was a Pyrrhic victory for those that escaped with their dead far outnumbering those of their captors but it paid dividends in the end. In them being able after the war to bear witness to the Nazis crimes committed at Sobibor and have those who ran the camp end up paying for them.