Sobibor

When prisoners arrived at the camp they would be taken straight to the death camps to make the killings as quick and efficient as possible. Indeed, it is estimated that in the first two months in which the camp was fully operational - May and June 1942 - around 100,000 Jews were gassed to death. It took only around three hours from arriving at the camp before the prisoners were dead. To allow for even more killings the decision was taken that summer to add a further three gas chambers at the site, although this was all put on hold while railway works were carried out. The camp was in operation again after all this work had been completed by October 1942.

Despite being the smallest of the Nazi death camps based in Poland, a huge number of people were murdered at Sobibor. It is reported that in total there were 260,000 people killed during its 18 months in use.

However, it was not just the scale and efficiency of the killings at this death camp that have meant it has been the subject of so much attention. It is also significant because Sobibor was the only such camp to experience a mass breakout by its prisoners. This took place on 14 October 1943, when the inmates murdered two SS guards - the prisoners then took the officers’ weapons and made a break for it. Around 300 of the prisoners had to climb over barbed wire fences and then run across fields covered in landmines so they could escape into the neighbouring forest. Only 50 of those 300 who tried to escape actually got away.

Sobibor was closed in the immediate aftermath of the event. The Nazis made the decision to  demolish the site and plant trees over it instead to cover up the atrocities that had taken place there.