The most serious concentration camp uprising occurred on Oct. 7, 1944 at Auschwitz-Bergen. The mutiny was by the Sonderkommandos. These Jewish men were forced to help with the gas chambers. Some of them worked the “changing room” where the victims had to disrobe and turn over possessions. Others had the horrific job of removing the corpses and bringing them to the crematoria. The Sonderkommandos were segregated from the rest of the camp. They had decent beds and food. For three months. After that amount of time, they were sent to the gas chambers and a new unit was “recruited”. The first job of the new Sonderkommandos was to take care of their predecessors’ bodies. By the time it was liberated, the camp was on its 14th Sonderkommando group. Only 20 members from all the death camps survived the war.
At Auschwitz, the Sonderkommandos decided to destroy the gas chamber as an act of rebellion. Ester Wajcblum, Ella Gardner, and Regina Safirztain were able to smuggle small amounts of gunpowder from the munitions plant that they slave labored at. Roza Robota was then able to pass the explosive on to the Sonderkommandos. In October of 1944, the men learned that their three months were coming to an end. It was go time. The leaders of the insurrection were Zalmen Gradowski and Josef Deresinski. On Oct. 7, the doomed struck. The gunpowder was used to blow up and set afire the crematoria. Three SS guards were killed using an assortment of weapons, but obviously the rebels were outgunned. 250 Jews were killed in the battle and 200 more were executed. A few used the chaos of the fight to cut through the wire, but all were recaptured and killed in the next few days. The four women were hanged.
This incident was the subject of the movie “The Grey Zone”.
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/auschwitz-revolt
https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/resistance/prisoner-mutinies/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos work putting bodies in a burn pit
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