Upfall

Mofaz was happy to leave the orders group, and set out to gather up the commandos. He found most of them singing Israeli folk songs around a makeshift fire with De Jong's men a few dozen of Sobibor's former prisoners. Once the sayeret assembled, Yatom briefed them, not offering the commandos an option out, but presenting their next mission—the storming of Treblinka—as if it were an ordinary assignment. The men accepted this, with little grumbling and few questions. They were trained to focus on their missions, not to philosophize—it made life simpler.

Of Treblinka and Belzec the Yatom knew little, other than a vague recognition of names. Treblinka and Belzec, Feldhandler explained, lay inconveniently both to the north and south of their current position. Treblinka lay about 70-80 kilometers northeast of Warsaw and twice as far from Sobibor. Feldhandler's books showed the general locations of the camps, but nothing else. Shapira found several detailed maps in Stangl's headquarters which were hard to read but useful. The sayeret would have to do without GPS and use the maps and compasses to reach their targets. Sobibor had a small motor pool which the Yatom ordered commandeered, along with all the gasoline that they could carry.

Shapira proposed to take half of De Jong's men with the sayeret as well as the Sonderkommando Sandler and a dozen of the prisoners from Camp 3—Shapira figured that these men would be the toughest and most committed of the lot. The former prisoners would all need arms, and the sayeret itself could use a fine German MG 34 or two as well as mines and grenades. Otherwise the remaining weapons would go with the former prisoners of Sobibor.

Yatom decided that De Jong should lead the Sobibor prisoners and half his own men back to Jezek, and the refugees from the train, with most of camp's weapons as well as all the food they could carry. With such a force, De Jong and Jezek could protect the refugees in the woods, or as Feldhandler proposed, move into a nearby Polish village. The sayeret and the rest of the Jewish commandos would move on to Treblinka.

As to how the sayeret would actually take the second German death camp was a tactical problem Yatom decided to leave for later. He was intent on getting the sayeret some sleep. One way or another, they would have to be out of Sobibor by dawn.

Chapter 16

By the late evening May 25 1942, the freed Sobibor Jews had largely collapsed into an uneasy and exhausted sleep around the open areas of Camp 2, either unwilling or unable to return to their fetid bunks in the former prisoner's barracks. The Jews allowed the chilly Polish night air to envelope them like a fresh blanket. A few determined young men kept a steady watch on the German and Ukrainian prisoners in the Forward Camp, Mueller and the Stangl among them. Many of the Germans and Ukranians slept soundly as well, unconsciousness offering an easy release from the anxiety of guessing at their fate in the morning. Stangl didn't join them in oblivion, but lay awake through the night moaning and clutching at his shattered shoulder.

Yatom ordered the sayeret to sleep in shifts, team by team. The commandos quickly and lightly dropped off where they sat in the dirt, their weapons easily to hand. Wearily Yatom returned to the camp table where Feldhandler and Perchansky sat together uneasily. Yatom assumed that they had been talking, but when he arrived they both bent silently over the remains of the evening meal. Feldhandler was jittery.

"We should leave now" he complained anxiously to Yatom.

"We can leave just before dawn" said Yatom. "You said we'd have time before the Germans could react."

"I agree" Shapira chimed in walking up to the group. "It's unlikely that the Germans would send a force all the way out here in the middle of the night—it's 1942."

"Yes, but that means that we'll have to move in broad daylight" Feldlrandler whined "with Germans about."

"We will go just after dawn and find a hiding place in the woods for the remainder of the day" said an irritated Yatom. "We can't very well move these people out in the middle of the night" he continued, gesturing at the sleeping hundreds in the yard. "They will have to go by daylight anyway."

For the next hour, under the stars of a clear European sky, their heads aching and their eyes heavy, Yatom and Shapira hashed out a provisional plan of action to be implemented at dawn. They also decided on a final explanation for the Jews as to their identity—Jewish soldiers from Palestine, under British command. It was what the Israelis had been saying to a few inquiring Jews over the last day, and was the only thing that would explain their common use and knowledge of Hebrew. Because it was untrue, did not reveal any useful intelligence.