ABSTRACT
Aleksandr Pechersky had learned from the failed escapes he had witnessed in Minsk and elsewhere, and he knew the danger of treason if too many people were informed about a possible break-out. Pechersky mentions an attempt by a group of fifty people who had accumulated weapons to organize a mass escape from Shirokaya Street. Pechersky learned later that the Germans had raised a great alarm on the same evening as the revolt. Karl Frenzel had selected Pechersky for his personal special moment of sadistic killing, as he said later. All of the escapees had a very hard time surviving after Sobibor camp in hostile territory, and it was difficult to find their way back to normal life. Kalmen Wewryk, a Polish survivor, was also with Pechersky when the revolt began. He wrote that Pechersky had a compass, while Pechersky himself wrote in 1945 that he had been guided by the stars.
