This transcript from an interview that Esther Raab had with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum allows Raab to explain her thoughts when it came to planning an uprising in Sobibor. She was born in 1922, in Poland to a Jewish family. Raab's job in Sobibor was to sort clothing of those who had been killed at the camp. She was later able to escape the camp and survive.
Transcript:
We were so deep in the woods that nobody could even know that something goes on there. So, we started thinking about uprising and about revenge, and I think that kept us going, although it was a silly thought, but, you know, that gave us the courage to survive, to do, because we planned, we planned. The plans weren't worth it, maybe in the beginning, five cents, but we planned and we saw ourselves outside, and we saw all the Nazis killed and this kept us going. And every day in 1943, probably in February or when, Leon Feldhendler was picked out from a transport and brought in. We were cousins by marriage, and after we told him what's going on, everybody who came in or they took him out, if they killed ten from us, they picked out another ten from the next transport. And we told him and he said, "We have to escape," and we asked how, he said, "There must be a way, and we gonna escape." And we tried, started planning, and going to a meeting, which only a few went because you had to be very careful, and coming back, you felt like you're doing something, you're planning something, you're trying something. If you'll succeed it would be wonderful. If not, you'll get a bullet in the back--it's better than going to the gas chambers. I promised myself I'll never go to the gas chambers, I'll start running, I'll start do--they have to waste a bullet on me. And we started organizing and talking and, it, it kept us alive again, you know, that maybe we'll be able to take revenge for all those who can't.
~Esther Raab