by Tec, Nechama
As the Auschwitz/Birkenau camps continued to expand, additional transports kept arriving from other European countries. Inevitably, some of these new inmates were eager to join Jewish resistance groups. Among these youths were Moshe Kulka and Yehuda Laufer, both Slovakian Jews. The arrival of Israel Gutman, a Polish Jew from Warsaw, was a valuable addition to the prisoners. All three youths arrived in Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1943. An enlarged membership modified the activities and the organization of these Jewish resistance groups. What remained constant was the overall willingness by these Jewish youths to cooperate with both Jewish and non-Jewish resisters. Their illegal undertakings were guided by equally keen awareness that a resistance organization required a balance between secrecy and coordination.
Both the timing of these arrivals and the particular jobs which these prisoners were assigned led to some unusual alliances. Two rather unlikely Jewish comrades were Gutman from Warsaw and Laufer from Slovakia. Gutman, now a prominent Holocaust scholar, was a former underground Warsaw ghetto fighter who had lost an eye during the uprising. He was first sent to Majdanek and then to Auschwitz. He shrewdly avoided sharing the true circumstances surrounding the loss of his eye, explaining to the German authorities that it was the result of an accident on the job. The truth about Gutman’s missing eye would have ended his life. Anyone known to the SS as having been in any way a leader was generally swiftly gassed. Despite his disability, this former rebel retained an eagerness to stand up to the Germans. After his arrival in Auschwitz, he searched for underground connections.18 Gutman soon met Laufer, an Orthodox Jew and former Yeshiva student from Slovakia. In contrast, Gutman was a committed member of Hashomer Hatzair.19 These two individuals were very different yet they shared a determination to fight the Germans however they could. Both of them joined the Ciechanow Jewish resistance group.
In Auschwitz/Birkenau, rumors continued to circulate that the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe and the AK were planning a campwide uprising, which would include many of the existent underground groups in the camp. In part a pipedream, this broad, illegal undertaking was still at its initial stages. Under the leadership of Cyrankiewicz, this all-encompassing resistance movement set in motion a range of special preparations. Bruno Baum, a half-Jew and a communist, acted as a link between the Kampfgruppe and some of the Jewish resistance groups. Jewish resisters were eager to participate in a general uprising. Some of them had access to the gunpowder factory. They were ready to take on whatever risks were necessary for the revolt.
Jewish prisoners were “employed” in various parts of the Union factory. Of special interest to the underground was the part of the munitions factory that was involved in the final stages of the gunpowder manufacturing process.20 The Jewish women who worked in this part of the factory were closely monitored and forbidden to have any contact with their coworkers, especially with men.21 These restrictions did not prevent such employees from agreeing to supply their underground with gunpowder, however. Two Jewish female prisoners, Hadassah Tolman-Zlotnicki and Lusia Ferstenberg, arranged the transfers.22 Several Jewish women laborers would steal small quantities of gunpowder by putting some of the gunpowder into tiny bags, which they then placed into several carefully selected places. Next, working as a team, Gutman and Laufer were responsible for picking up these powder bags and for transferring them out of the factory. There was never any direct contact between the women and these two men.23
Periodically, SS would search the departing factory employees, which included Gutman and Laufer. To accomplish safe exits, the two used the services of an inmate who was a professional tinsmith. This man prepared a “menashke,” a metal soup bowl, with a double bottom. Wrapped in paper, a tiny quantity of the powder was placed between the two bottoms of the bowl. After the powder reached the outside, a part of it went to Roza Robota, who delivered it to the Birkenau Kommando. Robota worked in the Birkenau Bekleidungskammer, a place in which Jewish women received their camp garments before they were officially registered as camp inmates. Robota’s place of employment was located across from the Birkenau crematorium IV.
The rest of this powder went to the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe. Laufer describes how in 1943, he would sometimes deliver gunpowder by putting it on a bed of an inmate who was a German socialist. Laufer never met this prisoner nor did he even know his name. There was safety in not knowing the name of an underground operative. All resistance groups were subdivided into small cells of three to five individuals.24 Often members of these cells did not identify themselves by name.
One day, as Gutman and Laufer were on their way out of the factory, they noticed an SS man approaching. Laufer quickly whispered to Gutman that he had forgotten to put his gunpowder at the bottom of his bowl. Speechless, Gutman began to shake. He was convinced that this would be the end for both of them. Gutman’s uncontrollable shaking continued and attracted the attention of the SS man. Like a hunter he turned to his prey, convinced he was about to uncover a crime. He ordered the trembling Gutman to step aside. Then he began to inspect his pockets, his hat, his bowl. . . . Stubbornly, he searched and searched. Preoccupied with this suspicious-acting youth, the SS man hardly glanced at anyone else, waving them all to pass on. Laufer, with his gunpowder in his pocket, moved along safely with the other inmates. Finally, the fuming SS man ordered Gutman to leave the factory.
Preparations for the general Auschwitz/Birkenau uprising continued. The cooperating groups in these secret undertakings were the leading Auschwitz Kampfgruppe, a Russian underground group, and some Jewish resistance groups. Some of the arms came from the outside. A Jewish resister named Noah Zabludowicz, when working outside the camp, would smuggle out jewelry, which he then exchanged for arms.25
Among the Jewish groups, the Kommando in Birkenau was particularly eager to fight. They felt that at the appropriate time, and with some of the explosives and guns they had collected, they could attack the SS, confiscate their arms, and cut the camp fence to enable a mass escape of prisoners. In consultation with the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe a June 1944 date was set for the start of the revolt. Then, at the last moment, this uprising had to be cancelled. Someone had informed the SS. The Germans imposed cruel punishments. They executed the leader of the Sonderkommando of crematoria IV, Yakov Kaminski. The informer must have been ignorant about the identities of the remaining resisters, however, because none of the other leaders were touched. This allowed the others to carry on. In fact, the resistance leaders of the Birkenau crematoria redoubled their efforts. Following this crackdown, it now seemed to them that waiting posed the greatest danger.26
The SS reacted with brutal, well-coordinated determination. The political department of Auschwitz was consumed with punishing and investigating suspects. The Austrian communist Langbein, who had cooperated with the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe, was arrested and moved to the political Block 11 for interrogation. Shrewd and experienced, Langbein was prepared for this eventuality. His boss, the SS Dr. Eduard Wirths, rescued him. Langbein’s release was followed by the arrest of the head of the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe, Jozef Cyrankiewicz. Again with Langbein’s help and Wirths’ willingness to intervene, this prisoner was also released.27 After a while, Langbein was transferred to another concentration camp. His arrest and transfer had saved his life—but it deprived the underground of an important leader.28 Several Poles suspected of direct underground involvement were executed. In addition, transfers of Polish prisoners to other camps followed. Most of these changes were the result of SS suspicions that local Poles had been cooperating with Polish prisoners. An unknown number of these transfers might also have been simply a reaction to shortages of laborers in specific industries.
Confronted with increased arrests and executions, the Kampfgruppe was reluctant to continue preparations for another uprising. They felt at this point that such a revolt could not succeed and could only be justified if the Germans were about to destroy the entire Auschwitz/Birkenau complex along with its inmate population. But for the time being there was no indication of that.
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By 1944 the victorious Red Army was moving steadily in the direction of Auschwitz. A Soviet victory promised the hope of survival for some. However, the situation for the Sonderkommandos was quite different. They had no reason to believe that they would not soon be murdered well before then. They simply knew too much. In early 1944, the SS men selected 160 Kommandos from among one thousand and put them on a train, assuring the group that they were being taken to another camp for work. Instead they gassed the entire Kommando group, whose bodies were returned to the Birkenau crematoria in the middle of the night. Hoping to keep this event secret, the SS men themselves burned the corpses. But news of the murder of these Kommandos spread all over the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex and convinced the rest of the Kommandos that sooner or later they would all be killed. They were determined to fight as soon as possible and began preparing for a final showdown with the SS. Roza Robota continued to act as a link between the Kommando resistance leaders and other Jewish resistance groups. Additional communications between the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe and the Kommando leaders took place via the official Birkenau food carriers. With their daily food delivery, they brought messages and prohibited goods.
FIGURE 4.2 A group portrait of six girls in leftist Zionist youth organization Hashomer Hatzair in Ciechanow. Roza Robota can be seen standing on the far left. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Eliyahu Mallenbaum)
As mentioned, crematorium IV was located across from the dressing room where Roza Robota worked and was a handy depository for all kinds of illegal materials, including some of the explosives made from gunpowder smuggled out of the Union factory. A Soviet prisoner named Borodin had mixed the gunpowder with special chemicals to produce a few bombs and grenades. Eventually, crematoria IV added to its growing arsenal one machine gun.
These preparations lasted several months. When in the fall of 1944 the transports of Hungarian Jews—the last major population to be deported to the death camps—came to a halt, this signaled to the Kommando leadership that time was running out. Still the leaders waited for a sign. It soon arrived. This time the SS wanted the Kommando leaders to prepare a list of 300 of their fellow coworkers who would supposedly be sent to Silesian towns that had been severely bombed. The SS order explained that the workers on the list would be employed in clearing rubble created by the recent bombings.
The Jews had no illusions. They knew that those on the list were destined to be gassed. But they also knew that an outright refusal to comply with this order could result in the murder of all the Kommandos. Those charged with the preparation of the 300 names were predominantly Hungarian and Greek Jews. Most of them were relatively recent arrivals and had not yet formed ties with the local population.
Those whose names appeared on the list announced that they were unanimously opposed to this demand and were determined to fight the SS. The other Kommandos agreed with their decision and conveyed the message to the food carriers, who delivered it to the leaders of the Auschwitz Kampfgruppe, which by this point was the umbrella resistance organization for the entire concentration camp. The Kampfgruppe replied that while they appreciated the hardships faced by the Kommandos they themselves were in no position to revolt and strongly urged the Kommandos not to start an uprising. They warned that a revolt could easily result in the murder of all prisoners. This time the Kommandos rejected the Kampfgruppe’s warnings.29
Two days passed. In crematorium IV, those men whose names appeared on the list were nervously preparing for a rebellion. They collected rags soaked in oil and alcohol, which they placed under the crematorium roof, among the wooden bunks.30
According to the plan they were supposed to start the uprising on the evening of October 7, 1944. But a midday conference of the Kommando in crematorium IV was interrupted by the appearance of a known SS informer. The Kommandos promptly killed him and burned his body. They knew that in no time this collaborator would be missed. They could no longer afford to wait. At 1:25 P.M., an SS man entered the block. He was attacked with hammers, axes, and stones. Next, the Kommandos set crematorium IV on fire. When those working at crematorium II saw the fire at the roof of crematorium IV, they thought that this was a signal for the uprising of the entire camp. They overpowered the head kapo, a Reich German, and pushed him and another SS man whom they had disarmed into a crematorium oven. Then, en masse, they broke down the fence of the crematorium and escaped.31
The prisoners in crematoria III and V did not participate in the uprising. They simply did not know what was happening. In addition, the remaining SS men were soon able to contain the situation.32 In fact, the SS swiftly surrounded crematorium IV. Inside, the prisoners fought fiercely. Some of them escaped and reached a barn in the nearby village of Raysko. The SS guards pursued them and attacked the barn. The Kommandos returned fire. Eventually, the attackers set fire to the wooden barn. Some prisoners tried to escape through the flames and most of them were cut down. The Germans killed every Kommando they could, but a few managed to escape. They emerged the following day, when the SS had grown weary of the hunt. To investigate this uprising, the Germans temporarily spared the lives of about a dozen Kommandos.33
The details of this uprising are still being debated to this day. Some questions inevitably linger and may never be answered. Crematorium IV could not be used again and was shut down for the remainder of the war. All the others were restored to their pre-revolt state. While exact figures are not available, the estimated number of Jewish prisoners who lost their lives in this attempted uprising varies between 500 to 600.34 As for SS and guard losses, some posit that three SS officers were killed and twelve were wounded.35 Figures fluctuate. In one isolated source, the estimated number of German losses is 70, which seems to be an error.36 Israel Gutman concludes that the precise figures for both sides will most probably never resurface.37 Most agree that none of the organizers of this Kommando uprising survived.38
To the authorities in Berlin, the uprising came as a shock. They swiftly dispatched a commission to investigate the “crime.” In about two weeks, this investigative body concluded that some of the gunpowder found in crematorium IV had come from a section of the camp’s munitions factory.39 Specifically, it was concluded that three female laborers had been directly involved with the production of this gunpowder: Alla Gaertner, Ester Wajcblum, and Regina Szafirstein. All three had been born in Poland, though Alla had lived in Belgium and arrived at Auschwitz/Birkenau on a Belgian transport. These three women were arrested and placed in the political Block 11 in Auschwitz. In the bunker of Block 11, each of the women was subjected to harsh interrogations accompanied by severe beatings. The women revealed nothing. After several days, the three returned to their barrack and their former working place in the gunpowder room. Their bruises were an obvious reminder of what had happened to each of them. And yet, on the surface, the women’s release suggested a return to the pre-uprising circumstances.
For the authorities, however, this was only the beginning of an expanding, more thorough investigation. The dozen or so Kommando prisoners who had been kept alive as a potential source of information were moved to the political Block 11 in Auschwitz, and all of them were subjected to torture and lengthy interrogations. A man named Jacob, the Jewish kapo of the political Block 11, kept the Jewish underground informed about the fate of these Kommandos. One of them, whose name was Wrubel, was the first to die during the interrogation. He had revealed nothing. The rest of the Kommandos gradually followed his fate. None survived. None gave the Germans any valuable information.40
Although the three women had been released and returned to their pre-uprising jobs, the authorities intensified their scrutiny over the three munitions employees and others. A number of spies and informers were planted among the gunpowder workers. Both the collaborators and resisters knew how important secrecy was. When Ada Halperin had delivered powder to other prisoners, she had not even known the names of her contacts. At one point, too, she was accused of sabotaging the production of gunpowder. Fortunately
for Ada, her kapo, a man named Willi, stood up for her and convinced their German boss that Ada had committed an honest mistake. This incident ended with a severe beating but no further consequences.41
Naturally, after the October 7th Kommando uprising, everyone—the rebels, the authorities, and the collaborators—were all more suspicious of each other. Everyone waited for a mistake, a slipup. It was a subtle but extremely uneven confrontation. On the one side were the all-powerful oppressors and their collaborators and on the other side were the inmates, for whom the slightest misstep could easily lead to loss of lives, not only theirs but anyone connected to them.
During the investigation, a frequent visitor to the barrack where the three gunpowder women lived was Eugen Koch. Half Jewish, Koch came to the camp from Czechoslovakia. His official position was that of an assistant kapo. He had a smile glued onto his face, and that, along with his subservient behavior toward the Germans, made some prisoners suspicious. Early on, Israel Gutman was among those who identified Koch as a double agent.42
Eventually, it was clear to others that this frequent visitor to this barrack had attached himself to the three recently returned prisoners, Alla Gaertner, Ester Wajcblum, and Regina Szafirstein. Of the three, Koch seemed to favor Alla. Alla’s friend, Herta Fuchs (nee Ligeti), felt uncomfortable about Koch’s courtship. She tried to warn her friend about her ever-smiling suitor. Herta’s hints had no effect on Alla; she was already under the spell of Koch. When Herta shared her concern with an underground comrade, he warned Herta not to interfere. He insisted that Herta could be in danger. Others also expected trouble. They were suspicious of Koch’s gifts—the chocolates, the cigarettes, and all the attention that came with it. But neither could they openly voice their objections.43 In the meantime, Alla herself began to feel that she might have divulged too much to Koch. Without offering clear-cut explanations, she confided in her friend Herta that she was afraid. Herta told Alla, “Whatever is going to happen to you, it is not right if you pull others down with you.”44