Sobibór

Sobibór
Extermination camp
Sobibór extermination camp memorial, pyramid of sand mixed with human ashes Location of Sobibór (right of centre) on the map of Nazi extermination camps marked with black and white skulls. Poland's borders before the Second World War Sobibór Location of Sobibór in Poland today
Coordinates	51°26′50″N 23°35′37″E / 51.44722°N 23.59361°E / 51.44722; 23.59361Coordinates: 51°26′50″N 23°35′37″E / 51.44722°N 23.59361°E / 51.44722; 23.59361
Other names	SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor
Known for	Genocide during the Holocaust
Location	Near Sobibór, General Government (occupied Poland)
Built by	Richard Thomalla (camp) Erwin Lambert (gas chambers)
Operated by	SS-Totenkopfverbände
Commandant	Franz Stangl (28 April 1942 – 30 August 1942) Franz Reichleitner (1 September 1942 – 17 October 1943)
Original use	Extermination camp
First built	March 1942 – May 1942
Operational	16 May 1942 – 17 October 1943
Number of gas chambers	3 (expanded to 6)
Inmates	Jews mainly from Poland, but also from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (including POWs)
Number of inmates	Est. 600–650 slave labour at any given time
Killed	Est. min. 200,000–250,000
Notable inmates	Joseph Serchuk, Dov Freiberg, Alexander Pechersky

Sobibór (or Sobibor /ˈsɔbibɔːr/, or /soʊˈbibɔːr/,Polish pronunciation: [sɔˈbʲibur]) was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the village of Sobibór, in occupied Poland, within the semi-colonial territory of General Government, during World War II. The camp was part of the secretive Operation Reinhard, which marked the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland. The camp was situated near the rural county's major town of Włodawa (called Wolzek by the Germans), 85 km south of the provincial capital, Brest-on-the-Bug (Brześć nad Bugiem in Polish). Its official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibór.Jews from Poland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (including Jewish-Soviet POWs), were transported to Sobibór by rail. Most were suffocated in gas chambers fed by the exhaust of a large petrol engine. Up to 200,000 people were murdered at Sobibór and possibly more. At the postwar trial against the former SS personnel of Sobibór, held in Hagen two decades into the Cold War, Professor Wolfgang Scheffler estimated the number of murdered Jews totalled a minimum of 250,000.