Leon Feldhendler
| Leon Feldhendler | |
|---|---|
 Leon Feldhendler in 1944 | |
| Born |
1910 Poland |
| Died |
April 6, 1945 (aged 34–35) Lublin, Poland |
Cause of death | Murdered |
| Known for | One of the leaders of the revolt and escape from Sobibor |
| Religion | Jewish |
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Leon Feldhendler (Lejb Feldhendler) (1910 – 6 April 1945), was a Polish-Jewish resistance fighter known for his role in organizing, with Alexander Pechersky, the 1943 prisoner uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp. Prior to his deportation to Sobibor, Feldhendler had been head of the Judenrat[1] ("Jewish Council") in his village of Żółkiewka, Lublin Voivodeship, in German-occupied Poland.
Role in Sobibor Uprising
In the spring of 1943, Feldhendler led a small group of Sobibor prisoners in formulating an escape plan. Their initial plan had been to poison camp guards and seize their weapons, but the SS discovered the poison and shot five Jews in retaliation. Other plans included setting the camp on fire and escaping in the resulting confusion, but the mining of the camp perimeter by the SS in the summer of 1943 rendered the plan impractical.
The arrival in a transport of Soviet POWs of Red Army officer Alexander Pechersky in late September gave new impetus to the escape plans. A seasoned soldier, Pechersky soon assumed the leadership of the group of would-be escapees and, with Feldhendler as his deputy, the group formed a plan that involved killing the camp's SS personnel, sending the Soviet POWs to raid the arsenal and then fighting their way out the camp's front gate.
The uprising, which took place on October 14, 1943, was detected in its early stages after a guard discovered the body of an SS officer killed by the prisoners. Nevertheless, about 320 Jews managed to make it outside of the camp in the ensuing melee. Eighty were killed in the escape and immediate aftermath. 170 were soon recaptured and killed, as were all the remaining inhabitants of the camp who had chosen to stay. Some escapees joined the partisans. Of these, ninety died in combat or were killed by local collaborators or anti-Semites. Sixty-two Jews from Sobibor survived the war, including nine who had escaped earlier.[1]
Murdered in Lublin
Feldhendler was among those who survived the war, hiding in Lublin until the end of German occupation in July 1944. However, on April 2, 1945, he was shot through the closed door of his flat as he got up to investigate a commotion in an outer room. Feldhendler and his wife managed to escape through another door and made their way to Lublin's Św. Wincentego á Paulo hospital, where he underwent surgery but died four days later. According to most of the older publications, Feldhendler was killed by right-wing Polish nationalists,[2][3][4][5][6][7] sometimes identified as the Narodowe Siły Zbrojne,[8][9] an anti-Communist and anti-Semitic[10][11][12] paramilitary organization which formed part of the Polish resistance. However, at least one recent paper, citing the incomplete treatment of the event by earlier historians and the scant documentary record, has called into question this version of events.[13] Feldhendler's killing was one of at least 118 murders of Jews in the Lublin district between the summer of 1944 and the fall of 1946.[14]
Feldhendler in culture
In the 1987 made-for-TV film Escape from Sobibor he was played by Alan Arkin.[15] The final period of his life in Lublin is described in the 2005 novel Wyjątkowo długa linia by Hanna Krall[16] which was nominated for the Nike Award.[17]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Crowe, David M. (2008). The Holocaust: Roots, History, And Aftermath. Perseus Books Group. p. 245–6. ISBN 978-0-8133-4325-9.
- ↑ Thomas Blatt. "Sobibor: The Forgotten Revolt". Retrieved 2009-01-29.
- ↑ Yitzak Arad (1984). "Jewish Prisoner Uprisings in the Treblinka and Sobibor Extermination Camps". The Nazi Concentration Camps: Proceedings of the Fourth Yad Vashem International Historical Conference (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem).
- ↑ Reitlinger, Gerald (1961). The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. A. S. Barnes. p. 6.
- ↑ Yad Washem Bulletin. Yad Washem-Remembrance Authority for the Disaster and the Heroism. 1953. p. 144.
- ↑ Kowalski, Isaac (1985). Anthology on Armed Jewish Resistance, 1939-1945. Jewish Combatants Publishers House. p. 245.
- ↑ Rashke, Richard (1995). Escape from Sobibor. University of Illinois Press. p. 357. ISBN 0-252-06479-8.
- ↑ Joseph Tenenbaum (1952). Underground: The Story of a People. Philosophical Library. p. 264.
- ↑ Marion Mushkat & Henryk Ṡwiątkowski (1948). Polish Charges Against German War Criminals. Polish Main National Office for the Investigation of German War Crimes in Poland. p. 220.
- ↑ Richard C. Lukas (1986). The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944. University Press of Kentucky. p. 81.
- ↑ Tadeusz Piotrowski (1998). Poland's Holocaust. McFarland. p. 94.
- ↑ Martin Gilbert (1999). Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past. Columbia University Press. p. 273.
- ↑ Kopciowski, Adam (January 2008). "Anti-Jewish Incidents in the Lublin Region in the Early Years after World War II". Journal of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research (in Polish).
- ↑ Reszka, Paweł P. (17 January 2008). "Gdy życie ludzkie straciło wartość". Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish). Retrieved 4 February 2009.
- ↑ IMDB database entry
- ↑ Wyjątkowo długa linia , Krall, Hanna, Gazeta Wyborcza article
- ↑ Weekend z nagrodą NIKE: Hanna Krall
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