11 SS Men Killed As Jews Try To Change Status Quo At Sobibor

Sobibór, Occupied Poland, October 14, 1943 – The Jews of this camp in the Government-General region of Poland tried to change the status quo at the site this week, sparking violence that left eleven SS officers and a number of guards dead.

The status quo has been in place since Sobibór began its operations in May of last year, a situation that had remained more or less stable. In recent weeks, however, it has become apparent that the Jews of Sobibór have become dissatisfied and sought to secure greater privileges they had not hitherto enjoyed at the camp.

The violence began with the Jews killing eleven SS men and an unknown number of guards, murders that evidently were expected to be conducted in secret and claim the lives of all the SS personnel in the camp. However, camp authorities discovered the murders and forced the Jews to scatter, whereupon hundreds were eliminated by gunfire, minefields, and a dragnet to recapture escapees, restoring the status quo.

Camp officials accused the Jews of disrupting an arrangement that had been running smoothly for nearly seventeen months. “It takes a special kind of miscreant to challenge a status quo that has been going so well for so long,” said Acting Commandant SS-Scharführer Herbert Floss. “I fear this may become a trend, as Jews throughout the Operation Reinhard facilities begin thinking it’s OK to try to change things.”

Indeed, the unrest at Sobibór comes on the heels of a similar episode at Treblinka in August. The two incidents have Government-General officials concerned that Jews in the region may continue to agitate for such luxuries as not being gassed, not being shot, not being gang-raped, and not being starved or worked to death.

Earlier, in June, gangs of Jews also attempted to alter the status quo in the Warsaw Ghetto by force, resulting in the diversion of precious men and materiel from the Eastern Front to quell the violence. As in Sobibór and Treblinka, the Jews there evidently sought privileges that none of the other Jews under German control enjoy.

“Such demands are simply unreasonable alterations of the status quo and are utterly unacceptable,” stressed Floss.

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