The End

The day after the revolt in Sobibor, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, ordered the camp to be closed and dismantled. Three hundred forced labourers from Treblinka had to conceal all traces of the camp; afterwards they were also murdered. Trees were then planted on the former camp grounds. Only a few dozen people survived the Sobibor death factory and were able to tell about it after the war. Just like in Belzec, the mortality rate in Sobibor was 99.99%. And just like Belzec, Sobibor was not really a camp. In other camps people were kept overnight. Sobibor was a factory where nearly everyone who arrived there was murdered. In the collective memory of Dutch Jews who had survived the war, this specific camp - a athis killing factory in eastern Poland - is areis  a ghastly name and a world apart.  Approximately one third of all Dutch Jews who were murdered during the war were gassed in Sobibor.

1. Dutch daily paper Algemeen Handelsblad, 9 April 1947.
   Click several times on the image to enlarge it. You can move the enlarged image by moving the hand. NIOD Collection, Amsterdam
2. Dutch daily paper De Volkskrant, 9 May 1950. Erich Bauer, one of the Sobibor camp commanders is sentenced to death. Later, his penalty was commuted to life sentence. Bauer died in prison in 1980. Click several times on the plus sign to enlarge the image. You can move the enlarged image by moving the hand.
   Click several times on the plus sign to enlarge the image. You can move the enlarged image by moving the hand. NIOD Collection, Amsterdam
3. Franz Stangl, Sobibor camp commander, at an advanced age. Stangl died in prison in 1971. NIOD Collection, Amsterdam