10/07/1944: On Saturday morning the camp resistance movement informs the leader of the Auschwitz Combat Group, who is in the Sonderkommando, that news has been obtained about the camp managements plans to liquidate as quickly as possible the surviving members of the Sonderkommando. The news probably confirms the information that the operation announced a few days ago by the SS to reduce the size of the Sonderkommando squads of Crematoria IV and V by 300 named prisoners allegedly slated for a transport is to be carried out, The named prisoners decide to mount a resistance. At the midday break, during a conference in Crematorium IV, the staff of the Sonderkommando Combat Group is surprised by a German prisoner, who threatens to report them to the SS. The informer is killed on the spot. At 1:25 PM, the threatened group attacks the approaching SS guard unit with hammers, axes and stones. They set Crematorium IV on fire and throw several self-made grenades. After that some of the prisoners from Squad 59B reach the small wooded area nearby. At the same time the prisoners of Squad 57B, who work in Crematorium II, become active. When they see the flames and hear the shooting, they believe that this is a sign for the general uprising of the prisoners in the camp. They overpower the Head Kapo, a Reich German named Kaminski, and push him and an SS man whom they have disarmed into a burning cremation oven. They beat a second man to death, tear up the fence surrounding the crematorium are and flee. The prisoners from Squads 59B and 60B in Crematoria III and IV undertake nothing became some of them arent informed about the plans and also because the SS men there bring the situation quickly under control. The immediate intervention by the SS guards, the surrounding the of the crematorium compound and the heavy machine gun and artillery fire fin the direction of the small woods near Crematorium IV, where the prisoners mount a resistance, quickly squelches the uprising. IN Rajsko, pursuing SS men set the barn on fire and murder the prisoners. 250 prisoners die in this battle, among them the organizers of the uprising: Zelman Gradowski from Suwalki; Josef Earszawski from Warsaw, actually Josef Dorebus, who was sent from Drancy; Jozef Deresinksi from Luny near Grodno; Ajzyk Kalniak from Lomza; Lajb Langfus from Warsaw, who was sent from Makow Mazowiecki and Lajb Panusz (Herszko) from Lomza. A firefighting squad is sent from Auschwitz I to put out the fire in Crematorium IV and the remaining members of the Sonderkommando are driven together. Another 200 prisoners from that squads that took part in the uprising are shot to death. A representative of the Commandant delivers a threatening speech in which he announces that if there is a repitition of such incidents all prisoners in the camp will be shot to death. Work then resumes in Crematoria II, III and V. During the uprising three SS men are killed by the prisoners: SS Corporal Rudolf Erler, SS Corporal Willi Freese and SS Corporal Josef Purkel The SS started their investigations and torture of women who had been employed in the munitions depots and in the Krupp munitions plant. The young women who were interrogated displayed great courage and revealed nothing. Four of them were jailed and cruelly tortured, since they were suspected of having supplied the explosives to the men of the Sonderkommando. They were Ella Gartner, Roza Robota, Regina Safir and Estera Wajsblum. They are hanged on 01/06/1945 May the heroism of these male and female heroes and martyrs never be forgotten! Images: ruins of Crematorium IV today, informational sign and image of Crematorium IV during the Holocaust
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:33:14 +0000
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