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Last Living Survivor of Uprising at German Death Camp Dies, Aged 96

Screenshot/Twitter
June 3, 2019

Semyon Rosenfeld, the last living survivor of an uprising at the infamous Nazi extermination camp Sobibor, has died aged 96 at a hospital in Israel.

Rosenfeld was born in Ukraine in 1922, and joined the Red Army to fight Nazi Germany during World War II. Rosenfeld was captured by Nazi soldiers in 1941, and spent time in a labor camp in Minsk before being sent to the Sobibor death camp in Poland in 1943.

It was there that Rosenfeld, alongside hundreds of other prisoners, staged an uprising on Oct. 14th, 1943. Prisoners killed 11 SS officers before the revolt was discovered. Most prisoners were killed during fighting in the camp and as they tried to escape into the forest. Many others were captured and eventually killed by the German authorities. Rosenfeld was among a small group who successfully escaped and hid in the forest, later rejoining the Red Army.

Rosenfeld fought with the Red Army until the end of the war, and took part in the capture of Berlin in 1945.

The Nazis decommissioned the Sobibor death camp shortly after the uprising, and covered the area with trees and asphalt in an effort to hide its existence. It's estimated that at least 250,000 Jews were murdered at Sobibor in less than a year and a half of operation.

Rosenfeld lived in Ukraine after the war, until he left to live in Israel in 1990.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a tribute to Rosenfeld on Facebook, recognizing his heroic participation in the Sobibor uprising and his status as the last surviving escapee of the camp.