A plan was quickly devised. Rudimentary weapons would be made in the camp’s workshops and hidden away until needed. The camp’s SS officers would then be lured into two separate buildings on the ruse that new uniforms and boots had arrived for them to try on, or that they were required for measurements for new uniforms. Once lured to the buildings, the SS men would be killed. Once all the SS officers were disposed of and their weapons seized, the camp’s armory would be raided, the remaining buildings would be set on fire and the camp’s Ukrainian guards would be either killed or captured. Then all six hundred prisoners would walk out of the main gate and escape into the woods. After that, it would be every man and woman for themselves.

On the 14th of October, the plan was set in motion. At four in the afternoon, the killings began. The first SS officer to be lured to his death was Unterscharfurher Josef Wulf. Lured to a storeroom by being informed that a new coat was waiting for him, Wulf’s head was smashed in by prisoners wielding axes as he tried the coat on. His body was hidden away and the prisoners waited for their next victim. When he arrived, he was dispatched in the same way and the evidence was again concealed.

For the most part, the killings went well. The camp’s acting commandant, Untersturmfuhrer Josef Niemann, arrived at the camp’s tailor shop on his horse. He took an axe to the head while being fitted for a new uniform.

One of the killings did not go quite to plan. Scharfuhrer Kurt Beckmann was told a new leather coat had arrived for him in the same storeroom where Wulf had met his grisly end. Halfway to the storeroom, Niemann turned on his heel and went to his office instead. Three prisoners entered his office and stabbed him to death, leaving his body sitting behind his desk. Not hiding the Scharfuhrer’s body would prove a costly mistake.