Prisoners at the Nazi camps in World War II did in fact fight back against their keepers. This period of history has been lost or forgotten to a certain extent and many tend to think that it was inevitable.One of the biggest uprisings was in Sobibor in year 1943. The camp was provided to kill people, but a selected group of the prisoners managed to organize one. They killed some guards, grabbed some weapons and about 300 inmates escaped to the forest. Most of them were recaptured or killed but about 50 of them became survivors of the war. The uprising was so successful that the Nazis closed up the camp and subsequently never used it again.


There was yet another massive rebellion at Treblinka. Prisoners were getting access to tools and they even constructed fake bombs. They bombed one of the buildings, started a fire and everybody in the mix sought to break through the barricade fences. Others got lucky, and lived.


Even at Auschwitz where things were the most horrible, the prisoners working close to the gas chambers revolted. They sneaked explosives and destroyed some section of a crematorium knowing that they were about to be killed. The rebellion was promptly suppressed and the leaders executed but their resistance was phenomenal.


These rebellions showed that even in the bleakest, most oppressed of encampments, there was rebellion and even a sense of humanity still played out by the participants.

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