by Tec, Nechama
What some had predicted happened. Alla Gaertner, Ester Wajcblum, and Regina Szafirstein were rearrested. Once more they were taken to the political Block 11, in Auschwitz. There in the notorious bunker, each of them was subjected to torture. Two days after the arrest of these three women, Roza Robota was also brought to Block 11. The rumor was that Alla had mentioned Roza Robota as her contact.45
This time the Germans had gathered more concrete evidence. Still, they wanted more. Of the four Jewish women, Robota was most knowledgeable about the underground operations. The Germans seemed to know this. Robota admitted to smuggling the gunpowder, but mentioned only Wrubel as her contact. She knew that Wrubel was already dead. She did not apologize for her actions.46 Similar behavior has been reported about other imprisoned and tortured Jewish resisters. The rumor was that Robota refused to divulge secrets. Frustrated, the Germans intensified their efforts to extract information from her. Concurrently, they continued to search for additional clues from a range of other suspects.
On the outside a growing number of the “free” Jewish resisters were bracing themselves for the worst. How long could Robota withstand the torture? For Israel Gutman, this was the greatest fear—not death, but his ability to withstand torture. Breaking down would lead to the murder of his comrades. He seriously considered committing suicide.
Time passed. Gutman and Laufer waited as they contemplated their next moves. Both knew that their suicide would protect the lives of others. These two young resisters were filled with anxiety and indecision.
It seems that the only one who was sure that she would not divulge any secrets was Roza Robota. Each one of her smuggled messages assured her comrades that they had nothing to fear. In fact, there were loopholes in the German thoroughness. The Germans had missed a significant connection between Robota and Helen Spitzer-Tichauer, known as Zippi (figure 4.3).
Zippi was a Slovakian prisoner who had arrived at Auschwitz in the first transport of Jewish women, in the spring of 1942. By 1943, Zippi had become the official graphic designer of the women’s camp in Birkenau. As a graphic designer, Zippi had access to secret information. This in turn made her a desirable contact for all kinds of resistance groups. In addition to affording her access to secret information, Zippi’s position included some privileges. She had the freedom to move around in most parts of the camp, provided that an SS guard accompanied her. She liked to emphasize that she lived and worked “in the prisoners’ office (Heftlings Schreibstube) and was known as Zippi Aus der Schreibstube.” In Birkenau she had a separate design office, known as Zeichenstube. Anna, a Polish prisoner who was in charge of the Block, knew that Zippi had contacts with individuals connected to the camp’s underground movements and assumed that Zippi belonged to the underground. But these two women never talked about it. It was much safer not to know, and not to discuss, such topics.
FIGURE 4.3 Helen Spitzer-Tichauer, known as Zippi, painting letters on the Luxor Palace in Bratislava, 1938. (Courtesy of Helen Spitzer, private collection)
Zippi sometimes worked through the night, which was when visitors often came to see her. One evening Roza Robota visited Zippi’s office and introduced herself as a fellow member of the Hashomer Hatzair. Robota reminded Zippi of their having once met at a Hashomer Hatzair meeting before the war. Zippi recalled that, after this brief introduction, she and Robota spoke a little.
Then Roza said that she would visit me again. When she left, I thought that the whole visit was a pretext for something else, but it didn’t matter to me. A few days later, she brought me an apron. . . . Our uniform dress was a blouse and a skirt . . . only some of us had aprons. She brought me a nice apron, made out of black cloth. It was a little thing, but I appreciated it. Two weeks later she came again, with another apron, casually telling me: “I want you to have this new apron.” I told her that I didn’t need it, that the one I had was enough. Disregarding my comment, she said, “Give me your old apron and I’ll give you the new one.” . . . After that she continued to exchange my apron for a new one . . . she did this every two weeks. These were beautifully made aprons . . . also occasionally, Robota would ask me to put someone in a better job, and I did it. She would ask me for other favors, and I tried to help. In fact, I encouraged her to ask me. . . . It was not hard for me. . . . In retrospect, it seems that Roza Robota made contact with people by supplying them with these nice aprons. I never spoke about this to anybody before. . . . After a while I would ask myself, “Why she was so anxious to have my old aprons?” Much later, I discovered that along the edges of the aprons were those little layers . . . maybe, she stored her merchandise in the aprons until she delivered them? No one would have bothered her while she carried aprons. Who knows, I might have carried the powder on me. . . . After two weeks, she came to take my apron. It just could be that way. I was probably like a live bomb! Is it possible that when she brought the apron, she had the powder in it? Could it just have been that way? But it doesn’t make sense; why would she bring it to me? Some women wrote about the aprons’ pockets. I remember only the special folds at the edges of these aprons.
Were these folds unusual features of these aprons? I asked her. Zippi did not think so. “That’s all I know, really. . . . This was the genius of that woman, that I did not suspect her . . . There are all kinds of versions about this uprising by the Jewish Sonderkommando . . . we know that many facts had died with those who were involved, and who might have told but did not.”47
After the Kommando uprising, Zippi stayed away from Roza Robota and was thankful that the Germans seemed to be ignorant about her connection to her.
To ease tensions, Jacob, the kapo of the political Block 11, was willing to arrange a meeting between Robota and one representative of the underground. To neutralize the guard, Jacob needed sausages and plenty of vodka. The group selected as their representative Noah Zabludowicz, whom Robota knew from Ciechanow. When the vodka made the guard drunk and sleepy, Noah was admitted into the prisoners’ cell. He could not recognize his old comrade. Her torturers had left no part of her body unscathed. Only when Robota began to speak did she begin to resemble her old self. She told Noah that she wanted to live, but was determined not to mention any names. No one should doubt her. She would not yield to the enemy. She knew that the Germans would soon execute her. She could not protect herself. All she could do was to protect others. On leaving the bunker, Noah knew that though this woman had ceased to resemble a human being, she was the most humane and magnanimous person he had met.
The public hangings of Alla Gaerten, Roza Robota, Regina Szafirstein, and Ester Wajcblum took place on January 6, 1945. To ensure the presence of the entire Auschwitz/Birkenau slave labor force, this event was divided into two shifts. The women moved to their assigned places, silently looking straight ahead. The accused and the surrounding crowds were treated to the hysterical screaming of SS man Hofler, culminating in his warning: “All traitors will be destroyed in this manner!”48 The executions themselves happened under a cover of sullen silence. Only once was this utter silence broken—by Roza Robota’s cry of “Nekama!”—“Revenge!”49
The deaths of these four resisters put to rest anxieties and fears of the inmates who were involved in the Kommando revolt. Had any of their names been revealed to the German authorities, each of them would certainly have shared the fate of the four women. The silence of these four Jewish women and the silence of their comrades, who were murdered in the bunker of Block 11 in Auschwitz, saved at least the lives of eighteen known Jewish participants.
Because these four victims and those who died under brutal interrogations in the infamous bunker took many secrets with them, uncovering the details is a complex process. A look at the reactions of two Auschwitz/Birkenau prisoners to the Kommando revolt yields at least some tentative insights. Wieslaw Kielar, like so many of the Polish political prisoners, was involved in the Auschwitz/Birkenau underground. Kielar’s resistance contacts reached beyond Polish groups, as did his friendships and relationships. He
fell in love with a Jewish prisoner, and despite his efforts to save her, she was gassed. Kielar was shattered by this loss but managed to receive some comfort from his many underground friends. Kielar and his comrades were constantly dreaming and planning all kinds of moves, including plans for escapes. He knew that a campwide uprising at Auschwitz/Birkenau was being planned.
On October 7, 1944, Kielar was with his work group outside the camp when he heard rifle shots, followed by sounds of explosives. Soon his attention was caught by smoke over a crematorium chimney. Initially, he thought that these sounds had been caused by an air attack. Next he saw a large group of SS men rushing in the direction of the burning crematorium. Bullets were flying around. For safety Kielar hid in a nearby truck. From his place, he must have seen that the crematorium IV roof was on fire. At one point, he thought that what he heard had to do with the uprising. He wondered whether partisan groups might have come to aid the camp’s uprising. Kielar was pleased with this scenario—the prisoners working in unison with outside partisans.
When the shooting subsided, Kielar thought that the partisans had left. Disappointed that this had turned out to be a short-lived disturbance, he left the truck in which he had been hiding. He and his fellow workers were ordered to arrange themselves into an orderly group. Their kapo proceeded to count them and was satisfied that their number was correct. The group was ordered to turn back. On the way Kielar and his comrades heard that the shootings and fires had been caused by the Kommando revolt. Kielar checked this information with his special contact, probably a Jewish prisoner. From him he heard that this, indeed, had been the Kommando uprising. He was also told that an informer betrayed these Jewish resisters and therefore they had started their uprising early. This confusion in timing and communications diminished the uprising’s effectiveness. Only crematoria IV and II had a chance to fight. Kielar was upset by the tragic outcome of this revolt and the tremendous loss of life.
Kielar had often discussed the possibilities of escaping from Auschwitz. Now, one of his close friends approached him with an urgent request to act. Kielar refused. He had serious doubts that the partisans on the outside would offer them help. Hope had somehow abandoned him, leaving him with no strength to fight. What Kielar had feared and tried to avoid before the Kommando revolt was about to happen. The following day Kielar was put on a transfer group that left Auschwitz for Germany. He seemed not to care. Just as he had anticipated, this transfer was nightmarish—overcrowding, beatings, thirst, and hunger. On the verge of collapse, pushed by his cruel handlers, Kielar’s will to live seemed to be evaporating. But, somewhere in Germany, he found it again, because of an encounter with American soldiers.50
Another assessment of the Kommando revolt comes from Israel Gutman. He also notes that after the outbreak of the revolt, the help that the SS men received was swift and extensive. According to Gutman’s estimates, two thousand well-armed German soldiers arrived at Auschwitz/Birkenau. Nevertheless, this did not prevent Gutman from observing that during the initial stages of the uprising he saw the Germans “run around like rats during a storm.”
But no one came to help the Sonnderkommandos, whose fate was sealed in advance.51
And yet, despite the terrible Jewish losses . . . the day of the uprising of the Sonderkommando became a symbol of revenge and was an inspiration to the prisoners. In the place that had served for years as a field of slaughter for millions of victims, there fell the first Nazis in Auschwitz. And it was Jews who had done the fighting. In this gigantic camp where tens of thousands of prisoners were confined, a handful of Jews broke free of the pervasive spirit of submission and passive resignation to their cruel fate. The uprising of the Sonderkommando proved to the prisoners of diverse European nationalities that Jews knew how to fight for their lives.52
Inevitably, Jewish and non-Jewish undergrounds had different motivations and operated under vastly diverse circumstances. But despite these differences, they engaged in a number of similar resistance activities: the collection and dissemination of information; the forgery of a variety of documents; and the collection of arms. Up to a point they also cooperated in various planning stages of armed revolts. Auschwitz/Birkenau offers a setting in which their shared efforts were demonstrated. This is a particularly instructive case because it allows for a “controlled” comparison, one in which the setting is constant and specifically defined while a range of other variables can apply.
Within the universe of the Nazi occupation, the death camp was the ultimate means of human degradation and subjugation. In Poland, the Treblinka death camp was completed by July 1942. Early in 1943 a core of Jewish prisoners began to organize a rebellion that aimed at the destruction of the camp and at giving prisoners a chance to escape. Although precise figures elude us, of the estimated 600 to 700 Jewish inmates who took part, between 100 and 150 are known to have escaped. About seventy of them survived the war.53
In the summer of 1995, in Basel, my Swiss friends Martina and Vincent Frank introduced me to a number of Holocaust survivors. I was particularly eager to meet Richard Glazar, a Jewish Czech economist who lived in Switzerland. I wanted to meet him because he had participated in the uprising in Treblinka and was one of the handful who had managed to save themselves. The Franks invited the Glazars with the understanding that before dinner, in a separate part of their house, I would interview him. When we met, Richard impressed me as thoughtful and distant. He hastened to tell me that he had been interviewed by a writer for a book about Franz Stangl, the German commandant of Treblinka, and that for him this had been a thoroughly disappointing experience. Glazar felt that Gitta Sereny, the author, had distorted his account. In fact, he was still angry as he talked to me about it. He made it clear that he had not been looking forward to our interview. I listened silently as Glazar went on, suggesting that my questioning him was superfluous because his memoir, The Trap with a Green Fence, was about to be published in the United States. However, he continued, since he had already agreed to meet me, he would grant me a brief interview. He hoped that I would not distort his story. This was not a very promising start. But experience had taught me not to predict the outcome of such meetings.
The interview was conducted in German. I began by asking about the start of the war. He outlined his past and then quickly turned to his experiences in Treblinka, experiences which had the greatest impact upon his life. This is when I began to probe. But each time I asked a question, he countered by telling me that I would find the answer in his book. I repeated the questions by rephrasing each time. For his part, Glazer again reiterated that the book said everything I needed to know. After about three or four similar exchanges, I began prefacing my questions by saying that even though he might have dealt with the issue in his book, I would still appreciate hearing answers to what I was about to ask him. I assured him that I found it useful to listen to the same events several times. He did not argue and tried, reluctantly, to accommodate me. His answers were curt.
Gradually, however, his comments that the answers could be found in his book began to wane. Somewhere in the middle, Glazar volunteered that he regretted that before delivering the book to his American publisher he had not thought about some of the issues we were tackling. In the end, the interview was filled with thoughtful comments.
At the time unfamiliar with his book, I felt uneasy that I might have made him repeat things that he was reluctant to say. However, as he relaxed and even complimented me on some specific questions, I became conscious about the value of this interview. His comments contained important historical information, and reflections on the need for cooperation in extremis, and especially in situations that at best promise only very temporary survival. He emphasized again and again that one could not exist in Treblinka without bonding in some way. Woven into his remarks were observations about slavery, autonomy, and opposition to conditions of ruthless domination.
My subsequent reading of Glazar’s memoir, valuable though it is, only reconfirmed to me how right I was
to probe patiently, yet stubbornly. The interview had lasted for about two hours, but it gave me much more than I had expected. Glazer’s memoir is a historically valuable and important document. Still, it does not offer some of the broader insights and implications that emerged during our conversation. He told me:
My friend Karl Unger and I were always together. We were like twins. In this camp you could not survive an hour without someone supporting you and vice versa. We knew that we were destined to die. . . . No individual could make it alone. Treblinka was a death camp, where people were brought to die. Here, one had to be very cautious, very alert. One had to be always sensitive to signs of danger. We tried to know which direction death might come from. We had to have a sense of how to use someone’s weaknesses and how to manipulate. My friend Karl and I survived because we supported each other constantly. We divided absolutely everything, even a small piece of bread.54
I asked Glazar why this mutual help was so basic.
One felt it. One knew it. This is how it was. It gave us a certain feeling of solidarity. I think this was particularly important because it was a death camp. Selfishness had no place in this camp, perhaps in different kinds of camps, but not here. Mostly, these little groups [bonding groups] were based on the country of origin. Most of us came from the same country, but not always. Because we were so close to death, we felt very down, we felt very humiliated. We knew we were in a death factory. We were so degraded because we were participating in the creation of death. We were used by the Germans as a part of their death machine. . . . Given these horrible, degrading conditions, we had to get together with somebody else. What kept us going was the idea that we could do something. We always tried to do something to counteract this tremendous helplessness and dependence as well as our participation in this terrible crime. While I was there, we tried to smuggle out two people, to tell the world what was happening. We wanted them to get in touch with the Polish underground.55