In telling the story of the Shoah, the armed resistance of the victims is often forgotten. Often because none of the witnesses survived the desperate attempt at resistance. The uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto prisoners is well known, but less well known are the uprisings of the prisoners in the death camps of Treblinka and Sobibor. There was also an armed uprising in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, but it was suppressed in blood.
Another unique witness of the uprising in Treblinka was another prisoner from Czechoslovakia, Richard Glazar, who wrote a book about his fate, Treblinka, a word like a nursery rhyme. The number of people murdered at Treblinka is estimated at 700,000 to 900,000. Kurt Ticho, a native of Boskovice, survived the uprising at Sobibor. He is the only Czechoslovak survivor of Sobibor.
The burning area of the Treblinka II death camp during the prisoner uprising, August 2, 1943.
During the uprising, residential barracks were set on fire, including a gasoline tank that exploded and set other structures on fire.
This photograph was secretly taken by Franciszek Ząbecki, a Polish witness to the daily arrival of the deportation trains to the camp.
Why do you think it is important to commemorate the armed resistance of the victims of the Shoah?