Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

16 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
sonnel, their function being, among other things, to quell any resistance
offered by the Jews who were brought to the camp and to prevent
their escaping. Jewish prisoners were employed as well, on various
physical tasks.
The camp was in the form of a rectangle 1,312 by 1,969 feet (400
× 600 m) in area, surrounded by a barbed wire fence 9.8 feet (3 m)
high, with tree branches intertwined in it to conceal the interior.
There were three camp areas, each individually fenced in: the administration
area, the reception area, and the extermination area.
The administration area consisted of the Vorlager (‘pre-camp’; the
part of the camp closest to the railway station) and Camp I. The
Vorlager included the railway platform, with space for twenty railway
cars to be stationed, as well as the living quarters for the German
and Ukrainian staff. Camp I, which was fenced off from the
rest, contained housing for the Jewish prisoners and the workshops
in which some of them were employed.
The reception area, also known as Camp II, was the place where
Jews from the incoming transports were brought, to go through various
procedures prior to their being killed in the gas chambers – removal
of clothes, cutting of women’s hair, and confiscation of possessions
and valuables.
The extermination area, or Camp III, located in the northwestern
part of the camp, was the most isolated. It contained the gas chambers,
the burial trenches, and housing for the Jewish prisoners employed
there. A path, 9.8 to 13 feet (3-4 m) wide and 492 feet (150
m) long, led from the reception area to the extermination area; on
either side was a barbed-wire fence, and here too branches were intertwined
to conceal the path from view. It was along this path that
the victims were herded, naked, toward the gas chambers from the
shed where they had undressed.
The gas chambers were inside a brick building. Each chamber
was square, measured 172 square feet (16 sq m), and had a capacity
of 160 to 80 persons. The chambers were entered from a platform at
the front of the brick building; each gas chamber also had another
opening, through which the bodies were removed. The gas, carbon
monoxide, was produced by a 200-horsepower engine in a nearby
shed, from which it was piped into the gas chambers. The burial
trenches were nearby, each 164 to 197 feet (50-60 m) long, 33 to 49
feet (10-15 m) wide, and 16.4 to 23 feet (5-7 m) deep. From the