Semyon Rosenfeld, the Last Surviving Participant of the Sobibor Uprising, Has Passed Away

Semyon Rosenfeld, the last survivor of the uprising in the Nazi death camp Sobibor, has passed away in Israel at the age of 97.

Semyon Rosenfeld was born in 1922 in the small town of Ternovka in the Vinnitsa region, Ukraine. After graduating from school in 1940, he was drafted into the Red Army and served in an artillery regiment. At the beginning of the war, Semyon was captured. He was placed in a group of Jewish prisoners of war who were spared for an extended period, contrary to the general German policy of exterminating captured Soviet Jewish servicemen. Semyon spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp in Minsk. In October 1943, during the liquidation of the Minsk Ghetto, Jewish prisoners of war and some of the remaining ghetto inmates were deported to the Sobibor death camp.

The Sobibor extermination camp was established in southeastern Poland in 1942 and operated until the prisoners' revolt in 1943. Around 250,000 people were murdered there during this period. In 1943, an underground resistance group was formed in Sobibor, led by Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky. On October 14, 1943, approximately three hundred inmates escaped from the camp, though most of them subsequently perished. All prisoners remaining in Sobibor were executed, and the camp itself was soon demolished.

Following his escape, Semyon hid for 11 months in the vicinity of the town of Chełm. After the region was liberated by Soviet troops in July 1944, he rejoined the ranks of the Red Army. Semyon was in Berlin when the war ended.

Semyon's parents perished along with the other Jewish residents of Ternovka on May 27, 1942.

In 1990, his family immigrated to Israel.

"The Sobibor uprising is the only successful escape from a Nazi death camp in history, during which many participants fought heroically and lost their lives. We are dedicated to preserving the memory of this significant chapter of World War II history," stated Haim Ben Yakov, Director General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress extends its deepest condolences to the family of Semyon Rosenfeld.

Currently, the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineers, and Signals in St. Petersburg is hosting the exhibition "Sobibor: The Return of Alexander Pechersky's Heroic Deed," organized by the Alexander Pechersky Foundation with the support of the EAJC. The exhibition features Pechersky's personal belongings, photographs, letters, documents from his collection, as well as unique materials regarding the heroes, victims, and perpetratrors of Sobibor. Among the exhibits is the legendary "lucky" shirt, gifted to Pechersky a few hours before the uprising by a Dutch girl named Luka; an album containing materials on Sobibor collected by the leader of the uprising in the post-war years; Pechersky's book "The Uprising in the Sobibor Camp," published in April 1945 in Rostov-on-Don, among other historic items.

The exhibition will run until June 9.