Sobibor perpetrator collection

Johann Niemann (1913-1943) was born August 4, 1913 in Völlen, Germany to farmer and milkman Klaas Johann Niemann (b. 1882) and farmer and housewife Bilda Johanna Niemann (b. 1879). He was the middle of nine siblings. He attended elementary school for eight years, studied with a local master painter, and passed his journeyman’s examination.

Niemann joined the Nazi Party in 1931 as member number 753,836 and the SS in 1934 as member number 270,600. He first served as SA-guard at the Esterwegen concentration camp before he joined the SS and became a guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1939 Niemann’s son August was born, Niemann started working for the T4 “euthanasia” project, and he married longtime girlfriend Henriette Frey (1921-1980) in December. Henriette’s parents August and Janna Frey also lived in Völlen. Niemann was assigned to the Grafeneck, Brandenburg, and Bernburg facilities, where his duties included moving the murdered victims from the gas chambers to the crematoria. He was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer in August 1941. Niemann next helped establish the Belzec killing center, where he essentially commanded Camp II, the extermination side of the camp. He then helped establish the Sobibor killing center in spring 1942, was ordered there as deputy commander in the summer, and was promoted to SS-Hauptscharführer. His daughter Johanne was born the same month that gassing operations began at Sobibor, and Niemann was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer in June 1943.

At least 167,000 Jews were killed in Sobibor’s gas chambers during the time it operated as a killing center from April 1942 to November 1943. Most newly arrived prisoners were immediately sent to the gas chambers, and only a few were spared immediate death in order to serve as slave laborers assisting with the operation of the camp. Sobibor and Belzec were both part of Operation Reinhard, the SS plan to annihilate the Jews of occupied Poland, during which more than 1.7 million Jews were murdered between 1942 and 1943.

Niemann was killed during the October 14, 1943 Sobibor prisoner uprising when an underground committee formed from the approximately 600 remaining prisoners killed eleven members of the SS and several auxiliaries. As the highest-ranking SS officer on duty that day, Niemann was the first to be targeted. Survivor witnesses report that he was lured to the tailors’ barracks by Moshe Hochman with the promise of a leather jacket, and that Alexander Shubayev, a Jewish Red Army soldier imprisoned at Sobibor, killed him with an axe to the head. Although the uprising did not go as planned, approximately 300 prisoners managed to escape and about 50 or 60 survived through the end of the war. Those who were unable to escape or whom were recaptured were all killed.

Following the uprising, the SS and Trawniki-trained guards shot the remaining prisoners, razed the extermination side of the camp, buried all evidence, and planted trees to disguise the area. A funeral was held for Niemann and the other officers killed, and his widow was sent his belongings including two photograph albums he had compiled containing images of his Holocaust-era service.