07/10/2026
2023 isnt the only year that the 7th October is remembered for a horrific event.
On the 7th October 1944, prisoners working in the crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau launched an uprising against the SS at the camp. The prisoners, known as the Sonderkommando (special unit) were forced-labor units made up of death camp prisoners, compelled by the N***s under threat of death to work in the gas chambers and crematoria during the Holocaust. A gruesome job on its own, but they also knew that the SS regularly killed Sonderkommando prisoners to prevent them from exposing what they knew and had seen to others in the camp.
As a result, a group had secretly been preparing to resist, with the help of some Jewish women including Róża Robotap(pictured), Ala Gertner, Regina Safirsztain and Estera Wajsblum . These ladies worked in an armaments factory inside the Auschwitz camp, stole small amounts of gunpowder and explosives and passed them to the Sonderkommando.
In the early afternoon of the 7th October, SS guards began selecting prisoners from the Sonderkommando for ex*****on. Realising what was about to happen, they decided to act. They attacked the guards with tools and improvised weapons, while others at Crematorium IV used explosives to start a fire. The building was badly damaged and eventually, destroyed.
The revolt spread, and other prisoners joined in. Crematorium V was badly damaged, and perimeter fences cut with allowed approximately 80 prisoners to escape. Unfortunately the SS quickly organised a pursuit, and escapees were surrounded and killed, while hundreds of other prisoners involved in the uprising were also killed. Of those who escaped, 27 managed to avoid being recaptured.
The revolt was ultimately crushed within a few hours, but it remains an important example of resistance at Auschwitz. Around 450 prisoners were killed as a result, while several SS men were also killed or wounded. The four women who had supplied the explosives were eventually discovered and hanged at Auschwitz in January 1945, only weeks before the camp was liberated.
This may not have stop the Holocaust, but it demonstrated that even prisoners forced to participate in the extermination process were willing to risk everything to resist, and even fight back.
Photo credits:
The Holocaust explained
Jewish women’s Archive
