Leon Feldhendler

Leon Feldhendler
Leon Feldhendler in 1944
Born	1910 Poland
Died	6 April 1945(1945-04-06) (aged 34–35) Lublin, Poland
Cause of death	Murdered
Nationality	Poland
Known for	One of the leaders of the revolt and escape from Sobibor

Leon Feldhendler (Lejb Feldhendler) (1910 – 6 April 1945) was a Polish Jewish resistance fighter known for his role in organizing the 1943 prisoner uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp together with Alexander Pechersky. Prior to his deportation to Sobibor, Feldhendler had been head of the Judenrat ("Jewish Council") in his village of Żółkiewka, Lublin Voivodeship, in German-occupied Poland.

In the spring of 1943, Feldhendler led a small group of Sobibor prisoners in formulating an escape plan. Their initial idea had been to poison camp guards and seize their weapons, but the SS discovered the poison and shot five Jews in retaliation. Other plans included setting the camp on fire and escaping in the resulting confusion, but the mining of the camp perimeter by the SS in the summer of 1943 rendered the plan impractical.

In late September 1943 a Holocaust transport of Jews from the Minsk Ghetto arrived. Among them was a Soviet POWs officer of the Red Army, Alexander Pechersky, who survived the selection to gas chambers. His presence gave new impetus to the escape plans. Pechersky soon assumed the leadership of the group of would-be escapees and, with Feldhendler as his deputy, devised a plan that involved killing the camp's SS personnel, sending the remaining Soviet POWs to raid the arsenal and then fighting their way out the camp's front gate.

The uprising, which took place on 14 October 1943, was detected in its early stages after a guard discovered the body of an SS officer killed by the prisoners. Nevertheless, about 320 Jews managed to make it outside of the camp in the ensuing melee. Eighty were killed in the escape and immediate aftermath. 170 were soon recaptured and killed, as were all the remaining inhabitants of the camp who had chosen to stay. Some escapees joined the partisans. Of these, ninety died in combat. Sixty-two Jews from Sobibor survived the war, including nine who had escaped earlier.