The last hero of the uprising in "Sobibor"

This Kiev resident is the last living hero of the only successful uprising in the history of World War II in the German death camp Sobibor. A legendary man, who unfairly few people know about in Ukraine, lives among us. Many films have been made, books and hundreds of articles have been written about the feat of the heroes who rebelled in Sobibor. In the Israeli Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem, one of the most prominent exhibitions is devoted to the Sobibor uprising, and every Israeli schoolchild, student, and soldier knows this. A unique historical event took place on Friday, December 2 in Kyiv - the President of Ukraine issued a decree awarding the Order of Merit, 3rd degree, to the last hero of Sobibor, an outstanding citizen of Ukraine Arkady Vaispapir.

Arkady Vaispapir was born on December 23, 1921 in the village of Bobrovy Kut, Kherson region. His father was shot without trial by the communists - and rehabilitated in 1960. Arkady was only 16 years old when he was left without a father. He worked in his village as a tractor driver. When the war began, he was drafted into the Red Army and took part in the defense of Kyiv. He was seriously wounded in the battles - Soviet troops were surrounded, they did not give the order to retreat, so the hospital with the wounded was captured by the Germans. Arkady survived, but he was sent to one of the worst death camps in Poland - Sobibor.

Prisoners from all over Europe who were Jewish by origin were sent to this camp. He was guarded by a detachment of Germans from the SS troops, as well as a unit of scoundrels recruited from former Soviet soldiers. “All the prisoners in the camp were guarded by guards from among the Russians and Ukrainians,” said the organizer of the uprising, Alexander Pechersky, at the trial in Kyiv. It was in the Sobibor camp that former Soviet soldier Ivan Demjanjuk served as a guard, who, after a series of high-profile trials in the United States and Germany, was found guilty of war crimes, killing thousands of people, and died after receiving a prison sentence in 2012.

Sobibor was an exemplary extermination camp - the head of the SS troops, Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's confidant, personally came here. Especially to demonstrate the capabilities of the camp, 300 specially selected young women and girls were killed in the gas chamber in front of Himmler. The camp was a conveyor belt - a train of 20 wagons arrived, people were unloaded, intimidated with shots, a group of men was selected for a work team, then everyone was ordered to undress and run to the gas chambers. The gas was released - from the moment of arrival on the train until the moment of the murder, some 3 hours passed. Work teams unloaded the dead and threw them into trenches; under the control of the Germans, gold teeth were knocked out from the corpses, the train was cleaned and sent for a new batch.

In total, over 250 thousand people were killed in Sobibor. The only survivors in the camp were those whom the SS left behind for maintenance, housework, and cleaning up corpses in the gas chambers. The life of these servants was worth nothing; from time to time these prisoners were also shot. Many prisoners found out where they were being taken - there were cases of disobedience. These people were killed right in the carriages. The Polish occupation police helped catch the fugitives. Escapes were rare - after each, the Germans killed many prisoners. Secrecy was strictly ensured - prisoners from some echelons were forced to write letters to their relatives in Europe before being exterminated, saying that they were living well and had come to a good labor camp.

On September 22, 1943, Arkady Weispapir arrived at the camp with a group of Red Army prisoners of war of Jewish origin. In this group, a real leader was very soon identified - Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky. From the first day, Pechersky began to put together a combat group to organize an uprising. He believed that the Germans understood only one language - the language of force, and that there was nothing to lose - all Sobibor prisoners were doomed to destruction. A fighting group gathered around Pechersky, which became the core of the uprising and infected hundreds of prisoners with faith in the success of the escape. By October 14 - in less than a month - of the 600 prisoners of war with whom Arkady arrived, only 83 people survived. Pechersky did not want to waste even one day - as soon as they were ready, he began to act.

The prisoners had no weapons, they were opposed by 120 armed executioners, the camp was surrounded by barbed wire, and guards were on duty at the towers. A minefield was established around the camp. 550 had no chance of escaping unarmed prisoners. In general, only Soviet prisoners of war had military training; the rest were peaceful people. Many opposed the uprising because they did not believe in a victory over the SS, and deep down they hoped to survive, trying to win the good attitude of the murderers.

Pechersky invented a very bold plan of rebellion and realized it with amazing clarity. Amazingly, no one betrayed. Pechersky entrusted one of the key roles in the uprising to our compatriot Arkady Vaispapier.

Weispapier, together with 17-year-old Warsaw Jew Yehuda Lerner, received an important task - to lure the chief of guard of SS Scharführer Siegfried Greitfuss into the tailoring workshop. It was Greatfus who directly controlled the camp service, and his destruction could paralyze the guards for a while. Pechersky planned a strike on the camp leadership and the seizure of real weapons. The time was chosen wisely - it was evening, after dinner, many guards left the camp for rest and entertainment. Complete surprise was achieved.

Greatfuss entered the tailor's workshop. 22-year-old Weispapier approached him and hit him in the head with an ax blade. The executioner screamed, Weispapier and Lerner instantly smashing his head into pieces. The corpse was quickly dragged into a corner and covered with rags. A guard from former Soviet prisoners of war came in because of the noise - he was also destroyed. In total, they managed to silently destroy 11 Germans and at least 4 Ukrainian guards. Their weapons were captured.

The prisoners began to form columns - news of the uprising spread throughout the barracks. But at that moment the uprising was discovered - and the guards opened fire. However, people were not afraid - Pechersky’s combat group, together with Weispapir, opened fire in response, and a mass of prisoners began to break through the fence and gate.

At the breakthrough, about 80 people died. 150 those who did not want to run or could not, were shot at the camp the next day. 320 people managed to escape.

Himmler was furious. Now information about the death camp could become known to the whole world; publicity cannot be allowed! The Germans carried out the largest raid in Poland, in which part of the local population also took part. About 270 escaped prisoners were caught and died as a result of the manhunt. The Sobibor camp was razed to the ground, all structures were razed and planted with trees. But after the war, investigators dug up ditches filled with remains...

A total of 53 Sobibor heroes managed to survive the war. Arkady Weispapir, despite a large-scale search, managed to escape all the raids and ambushes, and made his way into the territory of the USSR, first joined the partisan detachment, and then the Red Army, and ended the war as a reconnaissance company sergeant major.

Arkady learned that he remained an orphan in this world. His older brother died at the front, and his entire family - his mother, 5-year-old sister and all his relatives - were shot by the Germans in Bobrovy Kut.

In 1962-65, trials were held in Kyiv and Krasnodar against former guards of the Sobibor camp - 13 criminals received the death penalty.

In 1965, another group of security guards was put on trial in Germany. One guard committed suicide during the trial, one received life imprisonment, five received short prison sentences.

After the war, Vaispapir married, he has two sons, Michael and Vadim. He graduated from the Zaporozhye Industrial Institute, worked in Lugansk, Artemovsk, Donetsk. In 1994, he moved to Kiev with his family.

Weispapir was very modestly awarded - this was Soviet policy towards those who were captured and of Jewish origin. He was awarded the medals “For Courage”, “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. He is an honorary member of the All-Ukrainian Organization of Jews - Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Nazi Concentration Camps. And in 3 weeks, Arkady Moiseevich will turn 95 years old. On the 73rd anniversary of the uprising, he received the first Ukrainian Order of Merit, 3rd degree.

Weispapier continues to live in Kiev, although, of course, he could have left for Israel for a long time, where they know much more about him. But here is his family, his homeland.

Good health to you, Arkady Moiseevich, your feat, the feat of your comrades, the tragedy of Sobibor will never be forgotten. Honor and dignity are stronger than death, and the fight for this is the most important meaning of life. It is a great joy that such people live among us. Unfortunately, with the exception of the order, the 73rd anniversary of the uprising in Sobibor was not celebrated in any way in Ukraine, although the last living participant in the uprising lives in Kyiv.

The text of the article was published in Facebook Yuri Butusov - editor-in-chief of the news agency Censor.NET. Reprinted with permission of the author.

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