…the last survivor of the uprising at Sobibor Concentration Camp has just died?
Semion Rosenfeld, born in 1922 in the Ukraine, joined the Red Army in 1940 to fight the Nazis. As a Jewish soldier he was captured in 1941 and sent to the concentration camp in Minsk. Two years later, in 1943, he was deported to Sobibor, a Nazi extermination camp. It was operated by the Nazi SS in German occupied Poland.
It is estimated between 250,00-350,000 Jews were murdered there, most suffocated in gas chambers using the exhaust of a large gas engine.
October 14, 1943 about 600 prisoners tried a planned escape. Approximately 300 succeeded in killing guards and getting through the fence. All but 47 either died in the mine fields surrounding the camp, were killed or recaptured.
Immediately after the revolt the SS closed Sobibor, buldozed the camp and planted pine trees to conceal the location and covered evidence.
Semion was among the 47 who escaped. He took refuge in the forest with a small group until spring of 1944 when the Red Army liberated them. He then again joined the Red Army to continue fighting the Nazis.
Semion passed away in Israel on June 3, 2019, at the age of 96 years. He was the last known Survivor of the Sobibor uprising.
