 On May 17, 1942, two days after his 15th birthday, the town was surrounded suddenly by the SS accompanied by local assistants and Ukrainians.Most of the town's Jews, along with the Jews of other nearby towns, were brutally deported to the Sobibor extermination camp.Upon Freiberg's arrival in Sobibor, some Jewish prisoners managed to squeeze into the group of slave laborers temporarily reprieved from their intended deaths in the gas chambers, and Freiberg was employed with other members of this group initially as a sorter of clothing and belongings.