Upfall

"They are going to have to sort things out for themselves one way or the other" replied Yatom. "They might as well start now." Yatom hopped into the front seat of the first car, where Mofaz had conveniently placed another of the captured MG—34s, for use on the way if necessary. Another equipped Mofaz's car. Feldhandler climbed into the rear seat, sandwiched uncomfortably between Rafi and Ido. Rafi laid his B-300 rocket launcher and his spare rounds across hoth their laps. Nir drove.

Mofaz jogged directly back to his car. Before mounting his truck, Shapira stopped by Fliegel's and Sandler's vehicles and speaking quickly in German reminded both men to have their trucks follow but keep a safe distance in case of an ambush or air attack, and to obey orders without hesitation or question. They agreed enthusiastically, clearly anxious to be away from Sobibor. Shapira finally mounted his truck and called to Yatom. The sayeret leader waived his hand and the little convoy lurched out of the gate on the road to Treblinka.

De Jong wistfully watched the trucks depart. Given his druthers he would have preferred to stick with Yatom and his men, but he knew that his present task was more difficult and so more important. After painstakingly reorganizing the newly freed Jews of Sobibor into a rough open three sided square around the Camp 2 assembly area, he ordered the remaining members of his original platoon to bring out the German and Ukranian prisoners.

After speaking with Yatom De Jong had sought out a man named Sobel, a former factory owner from Lodz, who was used to managing people and appeared to be the unofficial leader of the Jews from Sobibor's main camp. Sobel advised against putting the fate of the prisoners to a vote. He argued that they should be executed at once and assured De Jong that few if any of the Sobibor's victims would object. Sobel explained to De Jong the torments and horrors that he would have found in Sobibor, had his train arrived on time, until the Dutchman cut him off, satisfied that Sobel had the moral right to make the decision. Besides, as a practical matter, De Jong had decided that killing the Germans was necessary to their own survival.

There were twenty-one prisoners—four Germans and the rest Ukranans—about a third of whom were wounded in one way or another. For Jewish prisoners marched the condemned from the forward camp to the assembly square. It was from this square that tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children had shed their clothes just before being sent into the Himmelgang. During those horrible days, female victims had been forced into a shed, halfway down the passageway, where their hair was quickly and roughly cut away. At the exit to the Himmelgung the Jews had been forced by the hundreds into the chambers, pressed tightly against each other, children and babies crying, along with many adults, people involuntarily pissing and defecating, and then finally, subjected to a slow painful gassing by the exhaust fumes of the tank engines. De Jong intended that the Germans and Ukranians die faster and more humanely than their victims, not that he believed they deserved it.

The Nazi prisoners were paraded into the open portion of the square, and made to face the assembled crowd. The prisoners quickly figured out the purpose of the assembly when some of the Jews began hurling curses and epithets, while others, waiving their newly issued Mausers, urged an immediate and bloody end to the Germans and their helpers.

One man, a former Sonderkommando suddenly yelled "Strip them naked! Strip them naked like they did to us!"

This turned out to be a popular suggestion and others took up the call. De Jong, who had never witnessed the mass killings in Sobibor hesitated.

Sobel turned to him and said emphatically "Do it! You would understand if you had been here!"

De Jong tumed to his men. "Make them strip!"

De Jong's men did as they were told, ordering the Germans and Ukranians to strip their clothes, prodding those who refused with their rifles. Most stripped only to their undergarments. The crowd objected, and the prisoners dropped their last bits of clothes. Even Stangl, who

De Jong feared would refuse, complied, painfully tearing his uniform blouse off his bloody wounds. The twenty-one Germans and Ukranians stood naked in front of their former prisoners, people that, the day before, they would have killed for the merest slight, or even on a whim.

De Jong stepped forward. "Let me have fourty four volunteers among the men of Sobibor to come forth and deliver justice to these criminals!" De J ong hoped to keep the executions organized, by allocating two shooters to each man, which he hoped would deliver death quickly, without the shooting degenerating into a riot.

As De Jong had feared, a hundred men immediately surged forward to participate, and De Jong had to yell at the top of his lungs to stop them. He turned to Sobel in desperation. "Sobel, select forty four men. Quickly!" yelled the Dutchman.