On October 14, 1943, Jewish prisoners at the extermination camp Sobibor, led by Aleksandr Petscherski, staged a revolt: armed with axes and knives, they attacked their guards and risked escape. A small group of prisoners around Petscherski had devised a daring plan in the weeks prior to free all inmates and save them from certain death. Initially, more than 300 prisoners managed to escape, but only 200 reached the nearby forest. Many were shot by the guards or killed by landmines. Only about 50 men and women survived to see the end of the war; all others were captured or died from the harsh conditions in hiding. After the uprising, the SS killed the remaining prisoners and leveled the area. All traces of the mass murder, in which over 180,000 people had fallen victim in Sobibor in just a year and a half, were to be erased.