workingclasshistory:

On this day, 20 July 1943, two Jewish members of the Waldkommando work unit at the Sobibor concentration camp attacked their Ukrainian guard and encouraged other members of the unit to escape. The Waldkommando was composed of 20 Polish and 20 Dutch Jews, and it supplied wood for the crematorium by cutting down trees and digging out the stumps. Szlomo Podchlebnik and Josef Kopf initiated the breakout with a knife Podchlebnik had in his boot. Several Polish prisoners – Podchlebnik, Kopf, Zyndel Honigman, Chaim Korenfeld, Abram Wang, and Aron – were able to successfully escape. Kopf and Licht were murdered by Polish antisemites in separate incidents after their escape. The others survived the duration of the war. After the breakout, only Dutch Jews who were unable to speak Polish and did not know the countryside were allocated to the Waldkommando at the camp. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2038889396296200/?type=3