Leon Felhendler (Lejb Felhendler) (1 June 1910 – 6 April 1945) was a Polish resistance fighter known for his role in organizing the 1943 prisoner uprising at Sobibor extermination camp together with Alexander Pechersky. Prewar life Felhendler was one of six children born to Rabbi Symcha Felhendler and Gitla Felhendler (née Fersztendik) in the village of Turobin. The family moved to Żółkiewka in 1911, where Symcha Felhendler became the town's official rabbi in January 1924. The Felhendlers were a prominent family, relatively well off by local standards, and their children married into a number of other locally prominent families. In 1935, at the age of 25, Leon married Toba Wajnberg, the daughter of a grain trader who was also a recent transplant from Turobin to Żółkiewka. They had two children together; one was a son named Chaim Szymon, while nothing is known about the other. Little is known about Leon Felhendler's adult life due to the sparseness of documentation and the complete absence of records from Żółkiewka after 1936. Some indications suggest that he worked as a miller, perhaps going into business with his father-in-law. Tax records indicate that his personal income may have been relatively low, and he does not appear to have had an active role in local social or political organizations. During the German occupation, Felhendler served as head of the Żółkiewka Judenrat, a position which required him to walk a fine line between meeting the needs of his community and obeying the demands of the German occupiers. Simultaneously, he managed the local chapter of the Jewish Self-Help Society. Conditions were extremely harsh in the town, which had not fully recovered from a devastating fire a few years prior and suffered from an epidemic of typhus in late 1941. The few surviving records of his tenure in this position include letters to the offices in Kraków and Krasnystaw appealing for help setting up a soup kitchen. Once Operation Reinhard began, Felhendler used his position to protect his family from deportation. However, on 16 October 1942, the entire remaining Jewish population of Żółkiewka was deported to the nearby Izbica Ghetto, including Felhendler himself. Shortly after their arrival in Izbica, Felhendler's parents and one of his sisters were selected for deportation but were shot on the railway platform. Felhendler and several of his surviving relatives eluded deportation for several weeks using a hiding place they had prepared in advance.