Talk:Sobibor extermination camp

Miscellaneous

I removed the line about the mosquito problem in the memorial section. I was a new user at the time, and would have added an explanation here then, but didn't realize that was the purpose of the "discussion" page! Sorry.

Anyway, my thought was that a warning about mosquitos was disrespectful to those who died there.

It might be very good to add a section at the end called "Visiting Sobibor." Then information such as where to go, what to bring, etc. could be appropriate. I've never been there however, so I'm not the person to write it. However, I've looked at other Holocaust-related sites and there seems to be no precedent for "instructions for visitors" so I'm not sure if that is an approved type of section?

Grumpy otter 12:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

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I thought the part about mosquito infestation seemed a little out of place, but then I thought "Hey, that note could save somebody's day." Good job. 70.161.196.94 05:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

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180,000 minimum is calculated thus: 101,370 Jews in 1942, according to Hoefle + transport data from Arad, "Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka", pp. 147, 390, 391 + transport data from deathcamps.org/reinhard/sobibortransports.html

--85.140.12.4 15:44, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

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260,000 figure finds no support in the sources. The figure in Hoefle's telegram and transport lists in Arad's book sum up to about 180,000.

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It should be noted that the Soviet POWs mentioned in the stub were Jews deported from Minsk ghetto. Among them was First Lieutenant Alexander (Sasha) Pechersky, the leader of the famous Sobibór uprising.bull

You may have read it everywhere, nevertheless it is wrong: the gas chambers in Sobibór (as in Belzec and Treblinka; ditto the gas vans of the Einsatzgruppen, in Chelmno and Maly Trostinez) were not "fed with the exhaust of a diesel motor" but with the exhaust of a petrol driven Otto motor. If you don't believe that, see the interrogations and trial minutes of the 3 (!) T-4 men in charge of the gassings, Erich Bauer, Erich Fuchs and Franz Hödl. They even discussed problems with the ignition, which a Diesel motor, as is generally known, does not have. A reason for this widespread "Diesel story" may be that they used Diesel motors in the Reinhardt camps indeed, but only for their small generating plants. Hödl reported that they once tried a Diesel motor for the the gas chambers, but it did not work! -- P. Witte 00:39, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Why isn't Sobibor one of the links in the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust category (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Jewish_resistance_during_the_Holocaust)? I don't know how to link this page there, can someone tell me how to do it or do it themselves. Flyerhell 08:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Could someone give a link to Hodl saying that he was working on petrol engines not diesels. I have not been able to find much on Hodl. If Hodl had tried an engine and it failed that can be interpreted a couple of ways - interested to see if we can now do 180 degree turn and dump diesel - almost all sites still hang to diesel.159.105.80.141 14:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Rather Sobibor

The Germans were using German (Kulmhof) or Germanized (Sobibor, Belzec) names, rather than the Polish ones. So the village is Sobibór, but the camp rather Sobibor, like in German documents. There was no "ó" on German keybords. Xx236 07:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on this. --HanzoHattori 21:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

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122 feet of sleeping space?

"Each prisoner was given about 122 feet of sleeping space." Surely cubic feet?

What is the source for this? 122 feet is a small apartment in New York, not what someone would normally think of as the sleeping space of a concentration camp internee? 88.155.171.247 09:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

120 cu ft = 6ft x 5ft x 4ft. That sounds like generous by the standards of Nazi concentration camps. Grant65 | Talk 11:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Cubic feet? Who measures living space in cubic feet? Lager I allowed "approximately twelve square feet of sleeping space" per prisoner, according to Blatt's website. I'll edit the page.— OtherDave 18:30, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Leon Feldhendler

This article does not mention Leon Feldhendler who plotted the escape and organised the escape from the second camp —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cxbdi (talk • contribs)

I added his information myself. He was part of the escape plot long before Sasha even arrived at the camp, and his part in the uprising should not be forgotten. Ladycplum (talk) 03:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Archaeological survey

Did any archaeological survey happen in the camp area, like in Belzec? 201.29.235.52 13:19, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The History Channel actually showed a VERY interesting documentary called "Inside a Death Camp", all about Sobibor. A fairly big team of archaelogists came and mapped out the site using geomagnetic equipment, to more accurately show where the camp was. Toivi Blatt helped them out with his own sketches. They found scattered burial pits in the woods, silverware, bone fragments, tubes of toothpaste, tins of shoe polish...it was really amazing. Ladycplum (talk) 03:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

New info about labor camps

I added a bit of history about the labor camps so that the later reference to Krychow would be clear, but I see now that my citation link doesn't seem to be working--I'll try to fix it. LATER--still can't get it to work--I've removed the reference for now and have yelled for help on the "editing" page. I'll try to fix it as soon as possible. Grumpy otter 13:58, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It's working now, thanks to some helpful Wikipedia people! My plan now is to work on adding other references and expanding the article. Grumpy otter 11:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Polish killings of escapees

"Some died on the mine fields surrounding the site, and some were recaptured and shot by the Germans in the next few days, but survivors' accounts also indicate that many of the escapees were killed by the Polish underground and civilians, including a massacre of ten former prisoners on or about 17 October 1943 in the forest to the south west of the camp." - while it is clear why Polish civillians would have reported survivors to the Nazis, what possible motive would their have been for actually killing them themselves? Especially in the case of the Polish underground who revealed the existence of death camps to the outside world and in their fight against the Germans provided support for various Jewish uprisings. Woscafrench (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• Szmalcownik (not this case, but related)
• National Armed Forces (controversy, not in the article) --84.234.60.154 (talk) 14:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Village Sobibór, but camp Sobibor

Nazis wouldn't care less for the proper spelling. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 14:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

undid latest edit

There was some information added that was very unclear--began in the middle of a sentence so it made no sense. It also deleted information that finished the thought in the paragraph. The user was a school--so I'm assuming some kids may have gotten hold of it--they also had several warnings about useless contributions.

Some of the information seemed like it might be useful, but was not cited and should be placed in the part of the article that deals with the prisoners.

I undid the edit. Grumpy otter (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be "Sobibor"

The German name. And Sobibór article should be about the village of Sobibór. Also a separate article about the uprising in Sobibor. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 06:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I moved this page and created a stub for Sobibór village. Ausir (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Ukrainians

What formations they were? In the movie they don't have SS uniforms. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 19:20, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

Now when it's "up to 200,000", the numbers in the article don't quite add. --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 20:50, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The Hilberg’s book The Destruction of the European Jews comes in 3 volumes. There is also a condensed version for students. I used the 3 volumes revised version published in 1985. Unfortunately I have copied for myself from the Hilberg’s book only a few pages including this one where is a table showing the number of deaths by case. I am not an American, so this book is no more reachable for me. For now I removed the numbers of deaths by country from the article. If you are from U.S., I hope you find this book and add the correct numbers of deaths by country with a cite. Thank you. — Albert Krantz ^¿? 09:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC).

How to categorize and copyright SS pictures when uploading?

I'd like to use these from http://www.sobibor.info/murderers.html --Captain Obvious and his crime-fighting dog (talk) 07:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Death of Leon Feldhendler

I've attempted to improve the sourcing on the matter of who killed Feldhendler. Here is a summary of the changes:

• Reformatted existing references, giving fuller bibliographical details
• Added sources that specifically state that:

• Feldhendler was killed by the NSZ
• The NSZ was a right-wing, anti-semitic organization

• Removed sources that don't specifically mention who killed Feldhendler -- except those that are from books whose contents I've been unable to verify. If in fact these sources don't relate to the issue of who the perpetrators were, feel free to remove the references.
• Removed an EL to an unpublished MS-Word doc off a discussion board. Please see Wikipedia:External links:Links normally to be avoided:

• 10. Links to... chat or discussion forums/groups.

If this is a legitimate published source that would meet Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research, please restore it along with its publication information. A translation would also be helpful.

--Rrburke^(talk) 16:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks, this needed sorting out.--Kotniski (talk) 16:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is the evidence of an extermination camp?

Sorry, I see little or no evidence presented here that Sobibor was in fact an extermination camp as is claimed. At best there is a reference to Raul Hilberg's work, but he clearly has multiple conflicts of interest. Surely something more must have been used in the trials, right? 142.46.214.106 (talk) 14:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC) I saw the movie. Everybody had a great amber glowing time there.They grew trees on the place and there is an museum to see.Talk to Magibon 14:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Petrol engine ?

Hello! I am reading Pr. Raul Hilberg's book, "The Destruction of the European Jews", and "Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka : the Operation Reinhard death camps" by Yitzhak Arad who served as the director Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Authority, for 21 years (1972-1993), and both authors write that it was a diesel engine that was used to produce carbon monoxide sent into the gas chambers. So why is it written "petrol engine" here without any explanation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.62.106.225 (talk) 17:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Because diesel engines do not produce that much CO. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 12:20, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I accept your answer, but it does not justify replacing 'diesel engine' with 'petrol engine' without quoting a reliable source. 86.62.106.225 (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely right! Most sources talk of diesel both for here and Treblinka, though there appears to be greater ambiguity in the case of Sobibor. It is true (and easily verifiable) that diesel engines running normally produce negligible CO.78.147.12.246 (talk) 16:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The error was corrected more than five years ago. I have the book by Schelvis here - he cites testimony that it was a petrol engine. /Pieter Kuiper (talk) 20:55, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Based on what sources was it "corrected"? You cite a single source. Many other sources say diesel. Isn't it simply a case of the diesel engine had to be abandoned when it was realised it wouldn't have worked? No solid evidence one way or the other? 89.240.53.95 (talk) 19:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)