Author: Jack Gostl

Young Jewish women, like Ester Wajcblum, Ella Gärtner, and Regina Safirsztain, had obtained small amounts of gunpowder from the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke, a munitions factory within the Auschwitz complex. This gunpowder was smuggled to the camp’s resistance movement. Róza Robota, a young Jewish woman who worked in the clothing detail at Birkenau was one of the smugglers.

 Under constant guard, the women in the factory stole small amounts of gunpowder, wrapped it in bits of cloth or paper, and then hid it on their bodies. They then passed it along the smuggling chain. Once she received the gunpowder, Róza Robota passed it to the Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando were a special squad of prisoners who were forced to work in the camp’s crematoria. Using this gunpowder, the leaders of the Sonderkommando planned to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria and then launch the uprising.

On October 7, 1944, prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center, the members of the Sonderkommando at Crematorium IV rose in revolt. The Germans crushed the revolt. Nearly 250 prisoners died during the fighting and guards shot another 200 after the mutiny was suppressed. Several days later, the SS identified four Jewish female prisoners who had been involved in supplying explosives to blow up the crematorium. All four women were executed.

But once again, the German war machine had to pause to deal with a Jewish uprising.

On October 14, 1943, prisoners in Sobibor killed 11 members of the camp’s SS staff, including the camp’s deputy commandant Johann Niemann.

A group of Polish Jews led by Leon Feldhandler formed a secret committee to plan a mass escape. However, its members lacked any military experience and made little progress.

When a group of Jewish Red Army POWs arrived in a transport from Minsk, the committee turned to them for advice. Lieutenant Alexander Pechersky developed a plan. The Soviet POWS would secretly kill some of the SS officials, taking their weapons and uniforms. Then, when the approximately 600 prisoners assembled for evening roll call, the POWs masquerading as camp personnel would kill the guards at the gate and on the towers. The revolt was set for a day when Sobibor’s commandant would be away.

Close to 300 prisoners escaped, breaking through barbed wire and risking their lives in the minefield surrounding the camp. Only about 50 would survive the war.

On 2 August 1943, the prisoners at the Treblinka Extermination Camp, fearing that the camp would be dismantled, and the remaining prisoners killed, a resistance group within Treblinka organized a revolt. They seized arms, set camp buildings on fire, and rushed the main gate. Despite facing machine guns, several hundred prisoners were able to break out of the camp. More than half were then traced and killed by Nazi authorities. Half remained at large.