August 2, 1943, rebellion broke out in Treblinka Death Camp. The uprising was small and local, and lasted only a few hours, but it made a world of difference.

It was stiflingly hot in Treblinka and Alfred Galewsky, the engineer who led the revolt, dispersed the prisoners after the noon roll call. A group of four SS men and sixteen Ukrainians left the camp for a swim in the nearby River Bug.

Simultaneously, Rudek Lubrenitski, the mechanic who ran the SS garage, sabotaged the engine of the armored car parked outside. He took axes and wire cutters from the stores and distributed them among the conspirators.

At 2 pm the prisoners broke into the armory, having distracted the officer on duty there. They loaded sacks with rifles, pistols, grenades and bullets, then passed them through the window into the garage, where Lubrenitski handed them out.

At the same time, the kapo in charge of disinfecting the camp filled the disinfectant barrel with gas and began dousing the barracks, ready to set them on fire. But then things began going wrong.

At 4pm, shooting broke out, the barracks went up in flames along with the gas reserves, causing an enormous blast. At this point, everything spun out of control.
The Ukrainians began mowing down the prisoners, who fought back with their light weapons and grenades and ran for the camp’s southern fences and freedom.

Meanwhile, in the upper camp, the order for revolt had also been given. Jews assaulted the Ukrainian guards with shovels and pitchforks. A few conspirators broke into the guard room, grabbed weapons and ammunition, and fired back at the Ukrainians. In the confusion, prisoners made for the southern perimeter fence to escape into the forest.

The commanders of Treblinka were mortified. If word of the uprising got out, their careers were over. So they did all they could to hush it up. German archives mention no revolt.

Camp commandant Franz Stangl reported only that by 6 pm, order had been restored, and all members of the resistance shot or caught.

In fact, what happened was quite the reverse. Half of the eight hundred and fifty inmates present that day broke through the fence to freedom. Two hundred were captured afterward by the Germans, murdered by Polish peasants, or handed over to the Nazis. But about seventy prisoners lived to see the Third Reich defeated.

The Treblinka revolt was never recognized in the same way as the ghetto uprisings or the Auschwitz revolt, but it was actually one of the more successful Jewish attempts to defy the Nazis.

Read the full story here: https://segulamag.com/en/articles/spark-of-rebellion/

📷Image: Model of Treblinka, the death camp where the inmates of the Warsaw Ghetto were murdered, from the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum in Kibbutz Lohamei Hageta’ot. The model was built in the 1950s by Jankiel Wiernik, who survived the camp.