Sobibor was a Nazi death camp that operated in Poland beginning in 1942. It was a relatively small camp, because the Jewish people who were brought in by train were immediately killed. The only permanent inmates were a few hundred workers who had skills necessary to run the camp, like carpentry or cooking. Then in the fall of 1943, the Nazis planned to close Sobibor and turn it into a munitions facility. The workers knew that they, too, would be executed instead of transferred. The standard procedure at death camps was to leave no witnesses.
Yet 58 people survived their time at Sobibor. They had nothing left to lose, so they staged an uprising on October 14, 1943. The plan was put into place after Alexander Pechersky arrived at Sobibor. He was a captured Red Army soldier who had hidden his Jewish heritage from his captors for a year. He was the first actual Allied soldier the inmates of Sobibor had met, and they looked to him for leadership. Some of the camp's German guards or other employees were recruited for the effort, but among the prisoners, few knew what the exact plan was. When prisoners started killing SS officers on the 14th, it caused chaos all through the camp. Around 365 prisoners made an escape attempt, but most were shot. Another 100 or so were caught outside. All the remaining camp inmates were executed. But 58 people made their way to safety, and served as witnesses to the horrors of Sobibor. Read their story at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Azymut (Rafał M. Socha) -image cropped)