The Sonderkommando revolt in Auschwitz occurred on 7 October 1944, when a large group of Sonderkommando members in the crematoria area of Birkenau camp (also known as Auschwitz II) rebelled against the Nazi guards of the camp. The revolt was suppressed after Crematorium IV was blown up, killing three German guards and 452 members of the Sonderkommando. [1] [2]
The Birkenau camp (Auschwitz II) was the largest extermination facility built by the Nazis during World War II, where over a million people (mostly Jews) were murdered. The construction of the camp was completed in March 1942 and covered an area of about 5 km2, enclosed by a four-meter high fence. [3] Immediately after the construction was completed, the mass murder process began. Each day, 2,000 people were exterminated in two gas chambers, and the bodies were buried in mass graves. In September 1942, as part of Operation 1005, Jews were forced to exhume over 100,000 bodies from the mass graves and burn them. [3]
Between March and June 1943, four gas chambers and crematoria were built on the west side of the camp (Crematoria II to V), allowing for the murder and burning of about 4,000 people per day.
Parallel to the mass murder activities, thousands of prisoners lived in Birkenau, forced to work in industrial factories in the Auschwitz-Birkenau area.
The gas chamber killings, body burning, and handling of the victims' belongings required a significant workforce. For this purpose, the Germans recruited about 1,000 Jews, called the Sonderkommando ("special work unit"), some of whom came from Greece. These Jews lived in separate buildings from the rest of the camp prisoners to prevent the spread of the truth about the murder industry. These workers received better living and food conditions; however, they were constantly threatened with death by the Germans, who routinely killed group members every few months and brought in new prisoners. [1]
From the camp's early days, several resistance groups formed, primarily composed of prisoners who worked in medical and administrative roles and managed to survive longer. Initially, these resistance groups included only Polish prisoners and other nationalities, but Jews later joined them. In 1943, an overarching organization of the resistance in Auschwitz, called "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz," was formed. One of the groups under this organization was the Sonderkommando, working in the gas chambers and crematoria. [4] [5]
"Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" began planning a general revolt in the camp. Initially, the revolt was scheduled for June 1944, but it was postponed to August and later canceled. [4] [5]
In preparation for the general revolt, the Sonderkommando planned to blow up the crematoria to halt the murder operations. To obtain the necessary explosives, the prisoners contacted a group of women working in an explosives factory called "Weichsel Metall Union Werke." Roza Robota led this group, and the women began smuggling small amounts of explosives each day, hidden in double-bottomed food containers, to the liaison prisoners Jehuda Laufer, Israel Gutman, and Noah Zabludowicz. These three transferred the explosives to the resistance. [4] [5]
The revolt planned by the Sonderkommando members was intended to be part of the general revolt planned by "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz." However, following a reduction in the number of Jews being transported from Hungary, 300 members of the Sonderkommando were executed, and the remaining members realized that they too were likely to face a similar fate soon. They decided to initiate the revolt independently after failing to coordinate with the leadership of "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz." Given the Germans' intention to reduce the group size by another 300 members, it was decided to start the revolt on 7 October 1944, at 16:00. The plan was to overpower the German soldiers during evening roll call, blow up the four crematoria, cut the electrified (only at night) fence, and escape. [4] [3]
On the day of the revolt, at 12:00, German soldiers unexpectedly arrived at Crematoria IV and V and began to isolate a group of prisoners for deportation. Without coordination with their counterparts in Crematoria II and III, the prisoners in Crematoria IV and V began to resist the Germans using cold weapons and the few firearms they had. The Germans retreated and opened fire on the prisoners while simultaneously calling for reinforcements from the camp. The prisoners who had barricaded themselves inside the building set fire to Crematorium IV, and the fire reached the wooden roof, causing the building to collapse and also damaging Crematorium V. Reinforced German forces began shooting indiscriminately at the prisoners hiding in the crematoria, killing many of them. [6] [3]
The prisoners in Crematoria II and III, who had planned to join the revolt at 16:00, were taken by surprise by the events at Crematoria IV and V. The prisoners in Crematorium III decided not to join the revolt, understanding that the Germans were waiting outside the building to shoot them. However, the prisoners in Crematorium II exited the building, and using cold weapons and homemade grenades assembled with the obtained explosives, managed to make their way to the camp's wire fence, cut it, and escape. It is estimated that about 80 prisoners managed to flee. [4]
Approximately 280 Sonderkommando members were killed in Crematoria IV and V, 171 in Crematorium III, and 1 in Crematorium II, bringing the total number of Sonderkommando members killed in the crematoria to 452. During the events, three German camp guards were also killed. There is no documentation of the names of most prisoners who were killed. [4]
The fate of the prisoners from Crematorium II who escaped is unclear. They had to contend with broader security perimeters prepared by the Germans, and it is known that some were caught in a trap in a village near the camp, which the Germans set on fire and shot at escaping prisoners. According to researchers' information, 27 of the escapees managed to flee and survived the war. [6]
After the revolt, the crematoria were not returned to operation, and they were blown up before the Germans left the camp. [4]
A sign detailing the revolt's events was placed by the ruins of Crematorium IV.
Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question.
Sonderkommandos were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommandos, who were always inmates, were unrelated to the SS-Sonderkommandos, which were ad hoc units formed from members of various SS offices between 1938 and 1945.
Roza Robota or Róża Robota in Polish, referred to in other sources as Rojza, Rózia or Rosa, was the leader of a group of four women Holocaust resistors hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in the Sonderkommando prisoner revolt of 7 October 1944.
The Grey Zone is a 2001 American historical drama film written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli.
We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz, is a book by Gideon Greif. First published in Hebrew in 1999, the work was translated into English in 2005. Greif's book based on a series of interviews with surviving members of Sonderkommando - Jewish prisoners who survived by working in the German death camps. The writer, Gideon Greif, is a researcher at Yad Vashem, Israel, the principal institution in the world studying the history of the Holocaust. He had also served as a visiting professor at The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, the University of Miami.
Franz Hößler, also Franz Hössler was a Nazi German SS-Obersturmführer and Schutzhaftlagerführer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during World War II. Captured by the Allies at the end of the war, Hößler was charged with war crimes in the First Bergen-Belsen Trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was executed by hanging at Hameln Prison in 1945.
Otto Hermann Wilhelm Moll was an SS non-commissioned officer who committed numerous atrocities at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War. Moll held the rank of SS-Hauptscharführer "Head Section Leader", the equivalent to a US Military Master Sergeant and or British Military Warrant Officer. He was known as "Cyclops", due to having a glass eye, and as the "Butcher of Birkenau".
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Henryk (Tauber) Fuchsbrunner was a Polish Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during the Holocaust, who gave detailed testimony at the end of World War II. Tauber was his mother's maiden name. His parents were married by a rabbi and never filed for a civil licence due to quotas on the number of Jewish marriages in Galicia then under Austrian rule. Henryks father's name was Abraham Fuchsbrunner and Fuchsbrunner was the name by which he was known. Henryk Fuchsbrunner shortened his name to Henry Fuchs after he arrived in the United States in 1952.
Leib Langfus, or also Leyb Langfus, was one of the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau. A rabbi and Dayan in Maków Mazowiecki, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, where he was forced to work as a Sonderkommando. After the war, a diary he kept was unearthed in the grounds of Birkenau - that was later to be published with a number of other diaries, under the title, The scrolls of Auschwitz. The accounts written by Langfus are considered one of the most important historical documents dealing with subject of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz, and the Holocaust in general.
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Alberto Israel Errera was a Greek-Jewish officer and a member of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was a member of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau from May to August 1944.
Leon Cohen, was a Greek Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was a member of the Sonderkommando in Birkenau from May to November 1944. He was one of the only three members of the Sonderkommando who wrote his memoirs after the war, along with Filip Müller and Marcel Nadjari. He took part in the preparation of the Sonderkommando uprising.
Zalman Gradowski or Chaim Zalman Gradowski originally from Suwałki, was a Polish Jewish prisoner of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. On November 2, 1942, he was deported, as were all Jews then living in Lunna, as well as neighboring towns, to the Kielbasin (Kolbasino) transit camp. On December 5, he and all his Jewish townsfolk were forcibly marched from the Kielbasin transit camp to Lososno, Poland, where they boarded a train bound for, as he later discovered, Auschwitz. The train arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on the morning of December 8. After "selection" at Auschwitz-Birkenau, his family members as well as all women and children, and most of the men who were on the transport, were immediately sent to the gas chamber and murdered. Shortly afterward, Gradowski and several others from the transport who survived the “selection” were sent to work in crematoria as part of the Sonderkommando slave labour unit.
Marcel Nadjari was a Jewish-Greek survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nadjari was a member of the Sonderkommando in Birkenau from May 1944 to November 1944. He is one of three members of the Sonderkommando that wrote his memoirs after the war, along with Filip Müller and Leon Cohen. He took part in the preparation of the Sonderkommando uprising. He authored one of the 19 manuscripts of Sonderkommando members found near the ruins of the Birkenau crematoria.
Henryk Świebocki is a Polish historian. A senior custodian of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Świebocki specializes in the resistance movement within the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during World War II. He is the editor of London has been informed: Reports by Auschwitz escapees (1997); author of The Resistance Movement, volume IV of Auschwitz 1940–1945 (2000); and editor of People of Good Will (2009).
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Ester (Estusia/Esterka) Wajcblum (1924–1945) was a Jewish resistance fighter in the Auschwitz underground and one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for her role in the Sonderkommando revolt of 7 October 1944.
Daniel Bennahmias was a Greek-born Jewish Italian national captured by the Nazis in Greece during World War II and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He was used by the camp guards in a sonderkommando, a euphemism for a group forced to dispose of the corpses of fellow prisoners under the threat of execution. He was one of eleven Greeks in sonderkommandos who survived the Holocaust.