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FIGHTERS ON THE FRONT
AND IN THE FORESTS
THE UPRISING AT SOBIBOR
By Yisroel Posner
A few days before the outbreak of World War II in
1939, Poland began its mobilization. Many Jewish
boys from Libivne were drafted, including
me. My company was first sent to Kovel and then
to Katowice. My division had six other sons of
Libivne: Simche Gitelis, Velvl Royzman, Hershl
Krupodelnik (Pinchas Krupodelnik's son), Fayvel
Sankes, Tane Kroyt, and Leybish Kanchik (that
was his nickname).
After the Poles had suffered defeat, Tane
Kroyt, Leybish Kanchik, and Hershl Krupodelnik
managed to return to Libivne, where they were
later murdered together with all the other martyrs
of the shtetl. I did not succeed in reaching
Libivne. I was in Germany until April, 1940. Between
1940 and 1942 I stayed in Chelm with a
Libivne family, a daughter of the Epshteyn's and
Moyshe Soloveytshik, another Libivner Jew, all
the time thinking of going back to our town,
which was then occupied by the Soviets.
My family, with whom I somehow managed
to correspond, tried to dissuade me from returning
because the Soviet authorities were sending
returnees to prison. I therefore remained in
Chelm.
When the Nazis had taken over the whole
region, some of Libivne's Jews came, or were
brought, to Chelm. Among them were Chayim
Royzman, Avrom Reyzman, Keyle, and the
shoemaker's son Avrom who lived on Pomorska
Street (where the bathhouse was). Chayim
Royzman died in Chelm, and the others were
killed later.
In 1942 the so-called action (liquidation) began
in Chelm. It was directed against the Jews
by two Gestapo men, Rashendorf and Tayman.
Both excelled in a special bestiality; they would
316
take Jewish children to the top floor of a house
and hang them by the hair.
In March 1943, an SS man, Section Leader
Veys, arrived at our camp. He ordered all Jewish
camp inhabitants to form lines and had them
driven to the station. We realized we were being
taken to Sobibor, and by then we were aware that
it was a death camp. On the way there, we tried
to force open the doors of the railroad car and run
away, but guards with rifles stood on the steps of
the cars, ready to shoot anyone trying to escape.
Several people still somehow managed to escape.
One hundred and twenty men and 60 women
arrived in Sobibor. The women and children were
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Map showing location of Sobibor death camp. Luboml
is just across the Bug River, to the southeast.