From the BBC:
“Last known survivor of Sobibor
death camp uprising dies aged 96”
Semion Rosenfeld - the last known
survivor of the uprising at the Nazi extermination camp at Sobibor - has died
in Israel aged 96. Rosenfeld, who was born in Ukraine, passed away at a
retirement home near Tel Aviv. Rosenfeld was captured by the Germans while
serving in the Soviet Army in 1941 and sent to the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland
because he was Jewish. In October 1943, he managed to escape together with some
300 prisoners. A third of the escapees were caught almost immediately. Of the
200 who got out, only 47 survived World War Two. More than 250,000 Jews are
believed to have been killed at Sobibor in 1942-43. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to Rosenfeld. "He joined the Red Army, was
captured by the Nazis but managed to escape from the death camp and continued
to fight the Nazis," Mr Netanyahu wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
"May his memory be a blessing," he wrote. Sobibor was built by the
Nazis solely to exterminate Jews Isaac
Herzog, the head of Israel's Jewish Agency who had been providing support to Rosenfeld,
said he was "very sad". He described Rosenfeld as a "true
hero". Unlike some facilities which
also functioned as labour camps, Sobibor was among the Nazi camps built solely
to exterminate Jews. After the 1943 uprising, the Nazi guards shot dead all the
remaining prisoners and destroyed the camp, before planting it over in an
attempt to cover up their crimes. Archaeologists later discovered the
foundations of gas chambers and a train platform.
^ Every day more and more
Holocaust survivors (and their Allied liberators) are passing away. It’s
important to know who these men and women were since they lived and survived one
of the most horrendous crimes committed in history. ^
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