Different cases of organized resistance at Auschwitz

Transcript of the podcast

The history of the Auschwitz camp contains instances in which prisoners attempted to resist. The most famous case is the Sonderkommando revolt that took place at Auschwitz II-Birkenau on 7 October 1944. This story is told in details in episode 21 of our podcast. However, there were other instances of prisoners organizing resistance in order to attack SS members, or to escape. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, talks about the details of different cases of revolts, mutinies and mass escapes from Auschwitz.

The post-war literature on Auschwitz, particularly in the 1960s, contained information regarding the occurrence of mutinies in the camp. What sparked the interest in this subject of mutinies at the time?

The mutinies at Auschwitz had been previously mentioned, either in the initial post-war prisoner accounts or during the trials of SS men in Poland in the late 1940s. Some presumed it was born out of a desire to emphasise the resistance put up by the prisoners and reaction to the accusations or doubts of the public that the prisoners of Auschwitz died without resisting. Several countries, including Israel and Poland, levied such convictions and accusations against prisoners, highlighting this very motif of resistance, even though the initial focus was on the suffering of the prisoners, which spoke of a prison community of suffering. Although this was the case during the early years, the role of resistance gradually began to fade away by the late 1940s and early 1950s, possibly due to two primary reasons. Firstly, Jozef Cyrankiewicz became Prime Minister of the Polish Government. He was a man of exceptional merit as a leader of the left-wing faction of the Auschwitz resistance movement. Secondly, the emphasis on prisoner resistance enabled the party ideologists of the time to rationalise the actual motives behind the deportation of prisoners to Auschwitz. Strictly speaking, the reason for this straightforward interpretation was to act in the resistance movement and oppose the occupying forces. Additionally, the tendency to describe the reality of Auschwitz persisted into the latter half of the 1940s. However, as life in Poland stabilised, the topic became practically overlooked. The attention was directed towards accomplishments in building genuine socialism in Poland. However, in the mid-1950s, during the subsequent shift in our nation's history, the communist authorities at the time realised that Auschwitz and its symbolism could serve several purposes, notably propaganda. Consequently, the Museum received some funds that enabled the commencement of scientific research, which had been scarcely undertaken previously. Although the guidelines in the Museum's statute regarding the direction of the research included highlighting the prisoners' struggle against the SS, none of the young Jagiellonian University graduates employed then by the Museum were assigned to work on this topic during the first few years, which perhaps was an entirely pragmatic decision by the then management of the Museum, led by Director Kazimierz Smolen. He probably meant that the primary focus should be on investigating the basic facts of the camp's history and establishing a chronology of events. Furthermore, until the first half of the 1960s, little emphasis was given to the topic of the resistance movement. The situation changed with the mounting pressure on various cultural institutions in Poland, including the museum. And this was the result of a struggle within the Communist Party. It primarily concerned the efforts of people associated with Mieczysław Moczar, the so-called partisan circle. They contended that the research should emphasise the theme of struggle and resistance. And not only that, as it has so far been of communist provenance, but also of the partisan and resistance movement of the Home Army. The action undertaken was an apparent attempt to seize power in Poland, with the aid of patriotic propaganda, intended to demonstrate the universality of the resistance movement in Poland. As a result, a second scientific department, the Resistance Department, was founded at the Auschwitz Museum in 1965. Surprisingly, this actually took the matter of the resistance out of the focus of the researchers in the Research Department, and these were the very issues that the second department was supposed to deal with. However, it soon became apparent that sources had to be gathered to undertake scientific research on the subject, i.e., accounts from people involved in the resistance movement. And it took the two historians employed by the department quite a long time to do so. Subsequently, upon releasing the findings of their research in the early 1970s, amid the altered political climate, no signs of external influence on the content of these works can be traced, and their technical soundness and reliance on the sources available at the time remain intact to this day. To highlight the extent of the new resistance movement and its tangible results, it was indeed necessary to stress the activities involved in establishing mutual contacts with resistance organisations outside the camp. And so on and so forth. All sorts of activities and self-help, but it was perhaps also expected at the time to highlight certain forms of active struggle against the SS that had occurred during clashes between prisoners and SS guards. Several such examples were found here. The most significant incident among them was the Sonderkommando uprising in October 1944, where the use of the term "uprising" instead of "revolt" underscores the exceptional nature of the event. In other words, we were dealing with a situation where the prisoners had a preconceived plan. They had a management structure in their resistance group, and their intentions went beyond a simple desire to save lives. That is, members of the Sonderkommando had gathered several primitive grenades. They intended to use them to blow up or burn the crematoria to stop extermination in the gas chambers. Finally, they intended, indeed made it a reality, to cut the wires to the camp to allow other prisoners to escape. It is also for this reason that, when speaking of clashes or mutinies in the camp, the story of the Sonderkommando uprising holds a significant position here, which is probably why many historians employ the term 'uprising' and not just 'mutiny' when describing these events. Regarding other revolts, the problem is that only the accounts of survivors describing such events were available for many years. Sometimes, these accounts were only based on some rumours heard in the camp, which were inaccurate because most participants were killed, thus presenting a predicament. How, then, could the camp prisoners have known about such events? So, yes, this knowledge was passed from mouth to mouth. However, it is usually somewhat distorted in such situations. Well, there was also the problem of the extent to which witnesses to these events, observers, could see exactly what had happened and know the backstory to prisoners’ resistance. So, we here today are trying to re-verify all these incidents, to establish the details based on other witness accounts and Nazi documents, which are mainly helpful to confirm that such an event took place firstly, and secondly to establish specific details, i.e., the number of prisoners involved in a particular event. And above all, the chronology of events.

So, what distinguishing criteria indicate an event was a rebellion?

By this, I mean, first and foremost, taking real action, which either manifested in a direct attack on the SS, i.e., putting up a fight or in a mass meeting or incident. That is to say, there must have been a situation where a particular group of prisoners, having had a preconceived plan, attempted to carry out the plan or an escape plan, but generally speaking, these were escape plan attempts. Another important distinction is how the SS formulated their descriptions of these events, with very common phrases such as "mutiny", "revolt", and "mass escape". I am not referring to individual incidents but joint group actions, such as attacking a Kapo or SS man. Throughout Auschwitz's history, there have been a few recorded incidents of confrontations between prisoners and the SS garrison. It's worth noting that there may have been others that we don't know about, but there is some evidence to support these events, even if the sources are not entirely reliable. The problem, of course, is that these clashes usually ended in the death of all those involved, making it challenging to find credible witnesses. However, with regard to some incidents, we have a significant number of observer accounts, and we often encounter references in SS documents. Apparently, one of the earliest documented occurrences of this kind occurred on 26 June 1941, when the camp commandant commended Ewald Leonov of the fourth guard company of the SS for his perceptiveness, caution, and conduct, which led to the prevention of a large-scale escape of Jews. In fact, we only have one such note and a few testimonies from prisoners who confirm that during this period, there were escapes of prisoners from the penal company, the Jews, and this is due to the specific situation of this group of prisoners because at that time the Jews were all sent to the penal company immediately upon arrival in the camp and were murdered immediately by the kapos there, and the average life expectancy, according to somewhat later documents, was approximately 15 days. In such a situation, these Jews understood that their efforts to work efficiently and meet the expectations of the SS men were futile since they would still be executed. Here, we are probably dealing with the first such group escape of prisoners when the Jews of the penal company realised that earlier individual escapes had failed. The guards simply executed these escapees. Therefore, they concluded that it might be possible for a group of prisoners to escape simultaneously to save at least some of their lives. Hence, the mention of a mass escape for the first time in German documents. And, as it seems, the entry in the bunker book of that particular day should also be linked to this incident. One of the Jewish inmates was taken into custody in a bunker in the basement of block 11. It is all the more intriguing because being sent to the penal company was the harshest punishment for Jewish prisoners then. So, if a Jew ended up in the bunker, in the underground cells of Block 11, it signified some extraordinary event. So, one may construe that the Jewish prisoner was possibly involved in the escape or had information about it, resulting in his confinement and interrogation by the Political Department, but it was likely for procedural reasons as the interrogation didn't yield much. We know from another document that this Jew was released from the bunker on June 30th but died on the same day in the camp. If he was released, he must have been sent to the penal company, killed, beaten by a Kapo, or shot at the Death Wall.

The second such event, which had a greater impact on other prisoners, was the escape of Polish inmates from Birkenau's penal company on 10 June 1942. And it was an incident widely discussed in the camp. Not only did the prisoners of this camp know about what had happened at Birkenau, but news of it reached the main camp. We have several witness accounts, but their credibility varies for obvious reasons, except those who survived the penal company and witnessed the tragedy unfold. Moreover, there were prisoners situated relatively close to the penal company's block, such as those in the camp infirmary or kitchen directly across from block one, which was the location of the penal company's headquarters at the time. We have many accounts from other prisoners who recalled or heard something; however, there is a considerable discrepancy in reliability regarding the details. Nevertheless, we have acquired new documents and sources in recent years, which have helped us to refine our knowledge of the subject. What actually happened in Birkenau's penal company in June 1942? Well, we know that at the end of May, a selection was conducted in the main camp, following which some prisoners from the Cracow transport were executed, and the rest, a considerable group of political prisoners, were transferred to the penal company in Birkenau, not knowing the SS had done so. Upon speculating about their intentions, they surmised the aim was to dispose of or kill Polish prisoners no longer required for Gestapo investigations. With this concern, they ended up in the penal company, more so as it turned out on-site that they had been additionally branded with the so-called red marks. All prisoners in the penal company had such patches on their striped uniforms in the form of black circles. On the other hand, the group of Poles who were transferred to Birkenau at that time received additional red points, indicating they were somehow particularly dangerous. So, it was the first alarm bell for these prisoners. The second, as they stated, was summoning certain groups of prisoners back to Auschwitz. The alleged purpose was for interrogation, though in reality, they found that the prisoners were being killed and executed at the Death Wall. They also concluded that the purpose of transferring this group of Polish prisoners to the penal company was to either expedite their death through arduous labour or, conversely, have them gradually transferred to the main camp and shot in small groups. Consequently, a faction of these prisoners devised a plan to execute a mass group escape from the worksite, specifically, from the excavation of the Königsgraben drainage ditch, located between the Birkenau camp and the Vistula River, and this plan was successfully executed on 10 June. It consisted, on the one hand, of attacking the SS guards, but in such a way that they were not killed, which should be emphasised because, in my opinion, it indicated that these prisoners, the initiators of the escape, were also thoughtful of the fate of those who would remain in the camp. The attack was, therefore, only intended to incapacitate the SS men, to take away their weapons, with no intention of killing them. Then, the group of initiated prisoners were supposed to make a run for the bushes by the Vistula River, swim across, and then continue on their own in search of rescue. They hoped, above all, that the other prisoners, who were not privy to the plans of this group, upon seeing what was happening, would spontaneously join the escapees, which was evidently a flaw in the plan. As one would expect from today's perspective, it turned out that most prisoners from the Penal Company were surprised by these events. They did not know how to react and what was really happening. Conversely, the escape initiators were also left with no alternative; they could not inform all their colleagues of the planned escape, as there was a considerable risk that one of them might betray the plan. The escape also occurred on the afternoon of 10 June, when, upon the signal of Kommandoführer Möll indicating the end of the workday, the prisoners sprang into action but encountered a problem at the outset. Well, it started to rain heavily that day, and Kommandoführer Möll decided to finish work early. According to the camp's regulations, prisoners were required to work until 6 pm. Nevertheless, considering that one of the escapees was killed at 4 pm, it is conceivable that the work had to be finished two hours earlier; this also caused confusion among the prisoners, and they did not quite know what the whistle meant and why it sounded much earlier than usual. Notwithstanding, ultimately, several prisoners threw themselves into flight, toppling a few SS men to the ground. Presumably, the SS men were very surprised by what had happened. Firstly, their freedom of movement was severely restricted as they were stuck in the field around Königsgraben, cladded in the so-called military raincoats. It is presumed that their proximity to the labouring prisoners impeded their reaction time in loading a cartridge into the chamber and firing. Furthermore, they only started to tug on their rifles and attempt to shoot as these prisoners passed them. Several prisoners managed to escape into the open. However, once bullets started whizzing around them, some stopped. Moreover, the several Kapos guarding the Kommando reacted faster than the SS men. As was customary, they had sticks at their disposal, which prevented a group of prisoners from escaping. These events are also corroborated in the witness accounts, with minor differences, and in the accounts of the SS men. Obviously, the most important witnesses were those prisoners who escaped. German documents indicate that 9 prisoners escaped from the camp. However, more recent material shows that only three or four prisoners escaped Auschwitz, as the other two were captured shortly afterwards. One of them or the body of one of them was fished out a few days later from the Vistula or the old Vistula riverbed near the camp. Two other prisoners were later captured. One of them in Tarnow. He was to be taken to Auschwitz, where he presumably died. Another was shot and killed while attempting to flee from his captors at an unspecified location. Practically speaking, only three or four prisoners successfully escaped from the camp. Let us now look at one of the most significant and tragic moments in the story of this escape, namely the investigation by the SS men to uncover what truly happened and who initiated the escape. The witness accounts differ considerably because some previously marked with black dots were removed from the penal company to work on 11 June, leaving only prisoners marked with red dots on the site. Furthermore, hardly anyone was there to witness what actually happened. Perhaps a few prisoners may have been part of the block staff. And these were witnesses, prisoners who were nowhere nearby, such as the camp kitchen staff. These accounts also show that many prisoners, as many as a dozen, 20 or even dozens, were shot during the investigation conducted by the Auschwitz Lagerführer, Aumeier and several other SS men from the political department of the Gestapo camp. He arrived at the field from the penal company block on the morning of 11 June and tried to extract confessions from the prisoners. Despite his efforts, the prisoners refused to give the names of the mutiny organisers, prompting him or his comrades to execute them one after the other with a gunshot. After that, he threatened that if nobody opted to betray the escape organisers by the time he returned later that afternoon, all the prisoners would be executed in the same manner. We know from witness accounts that, in the afternoon, all the prisoners from the penal company marked with red points were gathered in the courtyard of the block. They were told to undress, which probably meant simply taking off their striped jackets. They tied their hands with wire or barbed wire and led them away in an unknown direction. According to most authors of accounts, these prisoners were murdered in the gas chamber. This was most likely the only gas chamber in existence at the time, in the so-called Bunker I at Birkenau. Some admittedly recollect that these prisoners were shot because the moment they left the camp and marched out in a column guarded by SS men was the last time the prisoners laid eyes on them. However, the decisive testimony here seems to be that of the head of the Political Department, Maksymilian Grabner, who confirmed that these prisoners were murdered in the gas chamber. This escape has several intriguing aspects, including who made the decision, given that it was an event with a unique story. Ordering the murder of a large group of Polish political prisoners in the gas chamber. As it appears, the sequence of events was as follows: At dawn on 11 June, when reports of the pursuit's outcome reached Höss, the camp commander, he became somewhat agitated because an escape, particularly a group escape within the camp, could impact a critical assessment of his performance. The death of several hundred prisoners in the camp, either by gunshot or in the gas chamber, is no reason for the SS Main Office for Economic Administration or the SS authorities in Berlin to reprimand the camp commandant. However, one such reason is permitting a group of prisoners to escape from the camp following some revolt. And this is precisely what happened, as Höss's irritation may have resulted from the first report, the content of which we do not know. All we know is that such a report reached Berlin on 11 June, and Höss, seemingly aware beforehand, suggested extremely harsh measures to demonstrate his resolve: specifically, the execution of the remaining prisoners from the penal company marked with red dots. It appears that he executed this act after Aümeier's morning investigation, during which no one was willing to divulge the instigators of the revolt. Presumably, Höss's decision or support of this proposal came on the same day, as he ordered the execution of these prisoners in the afternoon, not on his own accord, but with Berlin's authorisation. We also know that Höss submitted another report on the incidents in the penal company two days later, so the Berlin authorities must also have been very interested in what happened at Auschwitz. Later, he was also ordered to submit a very extensive report on what measures the camp had at its disposal in the event of a repeat of such a situation, i.e., an attempted mass escape. Höss provided an extensive explanation, as evidenced by a preserved document, that he has at his disposal a rescue platoon comprising a non-commissioned officer and 35 armed privates ready to be deployed to the location immediately. In addition, he also has an alert unit at his disposal. A company consisting of soldiers who, theoretically, are off-duty and perhaps within the barracks but in a state of semi-readiness, which implies that they certainly cannot, for instance, obtain military passes during this time, resulting in a slightly longer time required to assemble them all. At the time, such a unit comprised 170 to 200 SS men, who could be deployed into action every half hour. Finally, Höss hinted that there was also a squadron of planes available at the Katowice airport, which seemed a little strange, as these were reconnaissance planes that would be useful for search operations in open terrain. It is evident that the interest in this escape on the part of the authorities in Berlin was not something that Höss expected or something that excited him, given that he did not reward any of the SS men who took part in the pursuit with either praise or some sort of reward, such as additional leave, for example, indicating that he'd rather the incident was not remembered in the camp. Based on these documents, we can also estimate how many prisoners died during this investigation in Block I and how many were murdered in the gas chamber. Through an analysis of entries in the daily log, it can be deduced that the SS also tried to conceal the fact that so many prisoners died on one day and, therefore, entered 50 at a time for several consecutive days. The camp clerks occasionally attempted to simplify their task by compiling a comprehensive list of the prisoners who were murdered on 11 June and entering 50 names day after day. However, their surnames were bracketed to prevent confusion in the grouping of prisoners. Therefore, it can be established that roughly 250 prisoners died, including those executed in the courtyard of block one and the vast majority who lost their lives in the gas chamber. In other words, the prisoners' testimony of 300-330 deaths may have been an approximation since it was practically impossible to count accurately. Still, their estimation of the actual number of deaths was more or less accurate.

While the June 1942 revolt of the penal company was the first known incident, were there other similar events that the camp authorities tried to conceal?

Certainly, as I mentioned earlier, such events presented a challenge for the Auschwitz garrison command each time, as evidenced by the following two examples of revolts that occurred in 1942. The first was an event described in the literature as the Buda Revolt. This is an exceptional event in the history of Auschwitz, given that the only information available on the matter for many years came from the accounts of three SS men. Other than their testimonies, there were no additional witness accounts, as it was presumed that no one had survived. The individuals involved included Commandant Höss, Pery Broad, a Gestapo camp officer, and Maximilian Grabner, who testified about it during his trial in Cracow. According to the SS men, incidents unfolded during that period within the women's penal company in Budy, which they characterised as either a revolt or mutiny and two of them were undecided if it was an act of desperation on the part of the female prisoners or provocation by either the SS officers or the functionaries then in the penal company. Despite repeated analysis by historians, there is little consensus on these accounts except for the indication of a possible mutiny in the women's penal company. Then, the focus shifted to a massacre without any indication of an action instigated by the female prisoners. In recent years, additional documents and materials have become accessible, allowing us to improve our knowledge of the events that transpired in Budy. Firstly, we can infer that the event occurred about a month earlier than previously assumed based on a single account by a female prisoner at the Birkenau camp, which seems inaccurate. We know this because there are references to exchanges of correspondence between Commandant Höss and the authorities in Berlin. Following an initial telegram, a detailed report was later requested from Höss to be presented to the SS Reichsführer on September 10 regarding the incident in the penal company in Budy. That's one consideration. Two, there's the testimony of a female prisoner in the Block 11 bunker with the German functionaries involved in these incidents. She also mentioned that the incident occurred around this time, somewhere in the first half of September. Secondly, we certainly know that the SS witnesses' suggestion that the Jewish women from France were not killed in a mass execution was a ploy to eliminate witnesses to the close relationships between the German functionaries and the SS guards in Budy. This is absurd and even unconvincing for many reasons. On the other hand, was it really the case, as mentioned in some of these accounts, that the Jewish female prisoners from France were planning some group escape and that this revolt had taken place. Well, it is also unlikely because all such group escapes from Auschwitz, or attempts to do so took place in daylight. Which was prudent, as it made it much easier to execute. It was easier to escape from the work sites of a particular commando outside the range of the camp fence than from the camp itself. If the event had occurred during nighttime, the prisoners would have had to consider the reaction of the functionaries. There were two primary issues to consider: firstly, how to breach the camp fence without incurring too many casualties, and secondly, how to avoid being shot by the SS officers in the guard towers. It is doubtful that, if such a massacre had taken place at night, it was due to the prisoners’ desire to carry out an escape. The most likely reason for this massacre was an incident that occurred the day before. This is described by a prisoner from Yugoslavia who, admittedly, did not witness the revolts in Buda but arrived there relatively recently afterwards and spoke to a functionary who described quite extensively and reasonably what actually happened. Reflecting on this, one would first have to ask why a sizable group of what is described as 70-90-93 female prisoners there, Jewish women from France, were simultaneously transferred to the Penal Company in Budy. None of the historians have so far pondered over this question. It is evident that these prisoners had previously demonstrated opposition while incarcerated at Birkenau, where they presumably rejected specific orders, and their conduct was considered unacceptable, resulting in their transfer to Budy as a punishment. That's one thing. Two, based on the prisoner's account, it is evident that the Jewish women from France, who were forced to engage in gruelling labour in Budy involving cutting reeds and transporting materials in wheelbarrows over large expanses of land, were brutally treated by the German functionary prisoners and eventually began to resist. Eventually, one of them started shouting at these female functionary prisoners, refusing to do any more work or protesting against the beatings and found support among her female colleagues. And here, the German kapo stood helpless. In this situation, they did not know how to react. Typically, they would probably have expected an order from their Aufseher, a supervisor who was absent from Buda at the time. It posed some significant problems for German functionaries: what to do in such a situation, and what would happen if the situation recurred the next day? How can they enforce effective work on the other female prisoners of the penal company if the latter refuse to follow their orders. So, it must be assumed that these kapos colluded in the evening to teach these prisoners a lesson. They armed themselves with sticks; some had tools; one had an axe with her, and they rushed into the rooms occupied by the female prisoners and started hitting them in the middle of the night. They began to abuse them. Not knowing what was happening, some prisoners began to resist as they saw an axe in the hands of one capo and assumed they would be murdered. Also, some of them started to resist, which further enraged the functionaries. Other French women tried to escape the building by jumping out of windows. However, they found themselves isolated in the courtyard by a barbed wire fence. According to other accounts, the SS guards at the site hurled stones at them. Whether they opened fire remains a mystery, though it wasn't long before these functionaries caught up with female prisoners and nearly all were murdered. This was most likely the chronology of events. Here again, Höss supposedly tried to conceal what happened in Budy from his superiors. Theoretically, no one failed here, so there was no escape this time. Nevertheless, the fact that such a revolt, as Höss attempted to describe in his report, took place could testify to the somewhat unfavourable conditions that prevailed in the camp and to the discipline among the female prisoners, for which the camp commandant was ultimately responsible. And in this case, again, none of the SS men received any reward after the incident, after this massacre. The German functionaries also violated the regulations by not informing their superiors in such circumstances, initiating some official procedure, as provided for in the regulations, i.e., filing penalty reports and so on. They, instead, took matters into their own hands and murdered dozens of other female prisoners. Therefore, they probably deemed it necessary to silence these German functionaries to conceal the incident. This was done by murdering them at the end of the investigation with phenol injections directly into their hearts.

How many of these functionary prisoners were there? Do we know how many functionary prisoners carried out the execution?

We only know that six of them were found guilty and later murdered with phenol injections. However, accounts of this female prisoner indicate that there were also several other female functionary prisoners on site. But it’s difficult to determine the extent of their involvement in the murder of the French Jewish women. Perhaps some SS men were involved, but no exact mention of this is in any document.

Can we also categorise the escape of Soviet prisoners of war as mutiny?

Yes, by all means, because it meets our adopted definition. That means a collaborative plan has been developed. A leadership faction emerged among the POWs, aiming to breach the fence, potentially engage the SS personnel, and ultimately find an opportunity for survival in a subsequent escape. This account was recounted by multiple Soviet POWs incarcerated in Birkenau at the time. That is, I would say in the late autumn of 1942, and this applies particularly to those who escaped successfully. On the contrary, there is virtually no trace in German documents of such an escape by Soviet prisoners of war. Only by reading some of the documents thoroughly can we realise how much of an impression this escape made on the Germans and the SS men and how problematic it was for them, particularly for the garrison command. Well, the crux of the problem in discerning the events that took place at Birkenau during that time lies in the fact that there were witness accounts available for several years, primarily from Soviet prisoners of war and escapees. However, as is the case with accounts from POWs or prisoners from the Soviet Union, they were significantly exaggerated after the war. I would put it this way: it was done to meet the listeners' expectations and perhaps also to satisfy the expectations of censorship or other Soviet authorities. In any case, they are descriptions in a rather heroic tone, which is no bad thing. However, the assumption for many years that the escape occurred on 6 November 1942 clearly indicates the ideological bias present in these accounts. After all, what could be more sublime than organising an escape from Auschwitz on the anniversary of the October Revolution, right? These witnesses also mention that the escapees shouted "hurrah", right? Here, I would hesitate to confidently assert that it is impossible, as it may have been the case. What do we know for sure? We know that of the 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war brought to Auschwitz in 1941, only a small group of around a hundred survived the massacres. These survivors, incarcerated in Birkenau, were remembered by other prisoners as sympathetic and trustworthy and were recognised by the garrison command officers as veterans worthy of respect. They were the fortunate few who survived among the vast multitude of Soviet prisoners of war deported to Auschwitz. These Soviet POWs were occasionally utilised for search operations within the camp, which was quite prevalent and sometimes unrelated to an escape. However, if a prisoner goes missing while a commando unit is working in a fenced-off area, it may not always be related to an escape attempt. The prisoner could have collapsed out of exhaustion or died in a place where their corpse was difficult to locate. In such a situation, an SS alert unit was sent to search for corpses and a group of kapos or Soviet prisoners of war. And these POWs, knowing this, decided to exploit the procedure used by the SS men. They concealed the corpse of a prisoner who died of natural causes. When a search was authorised, they gathered in groups at the Birkenau site, where construction work was ongoing on the new section of the BII camp, which was a colossal and extensive part of the Birkenau camp. Suddenly, they headed towards the area with an opening in the fence. There was a hole in the fence because that part of the camp had not been inhabited yet. Interestingly, at the time, Sector BII, the largest part of Birkenau, was still unoccupied and under construction. Although the construction office had informed the camp command that the fence surrounding section BII had been completed, an illicit gap still existed in the fence, possibly to facilitate the transport of construction materials. Additionally, the Sonderkommando prisoners assigned to the gas chamber of bunker number one utilised a similar slanted pathway through this section. This was also unofficially tolerated, and so the Soviet prisoners of war decided to exploit this loophole. They launched themselves there with a loud outcry in their dozens. It's difficult to determine the exact number, but it's plausible that 50-70 of them participated in the escape. They toppled a guard tower, and dozens successfully escaped. We do not have specific figures because this escape resulted in the SS not reporting anything. The camp commandant presumably expected that the matter might somehow resolve itself, as the Russians were probably unfamiliar with the terrain and had problems establishing contact with the local Poles. Therefore, sooner or later, these fugitives would somehow be caught and the entire matter concealed from the authorities in Berlin. An interesting report from the camp resistance states that - first of all, it allows for the adaptation of this event on 28 October '42. It quite appears to be reasonable and based on yet another source. Firstly, it was stressed in the report that this incident had stirred up panic among the garrison command, and they were doing their best to cover it up at all costs. We also know that the daily report on the state of the camp was considered a sacred duty by the camp bureaucracy. As with other camps, the Auschwitz camp had to make daily radio reports to Berlin on the number of prisoners currently in Auschwitz. In any case, for a fortnight or so, the figure given for the group of Soviet prisoners of war was inflated as if no one had escaped. Only after 2 weeks did the camp authorities concede that something had transpired with the new Soviet prisoners in Auschwitz, bringing their number down to 150. That's the information we have regarding the matter, which helps to elucidate why we have minimal insight into other similar incidents, especially given that most witnesses were killed during these mutinies. Given that there is almost no trace in German documents on the subject. As an illustration, we have incidents from February 1943, such as the murder of a group of prisoners from the Waldkommando in Budy, one of Auschwitz's sub-camps. The event's details are only known through the limited testimony of a handful of witnesses who were not present at the site and did not have a clear view. Some of these witnesses were only brought in afterwards to assist with transporting corpses from the Budy forests to the camp. No witnesses actually saw the events that took place in this kommando. They also gave very different dates when this escape, mutiny, or perhaps revolt supposedly took place. It was only after piecing together information from different German documents that we could finally establish a somewhat precise timeline for this incident. What came to light was that the guard battalion commander decided to commend eight SS men during this period. It's interesting to note that these men were part of the first guard company and staff company. This entailed gathering all the SS personnel, extracting them from their camp offices in the hall, and transporting them via trucks to Budy to fortify the pursuit squad stationed there. It indicates that such commendation was given to these changes 4 days after the incident. We also know that on that same day, 8 February, 18 prisoners' bodies were brought from Budy to the camp morgue. This is also rare, suggesting something unusual must have happened that day. We also know that an immediate mid-day assembly was announced on the same day at Birkenau, and all the kommandos returned to the camp. It was an unusual occurrence that suggested the SS guards' apprehension of a possible collective mutiny or revolt by the Birkenau prisoners. Furthermore, the events that took place in the Waldkommando in Budy remain unclear; what is certain is that the initial escape of two Roma prisoners was accomplished with success, albeit temporarily, as they were recaptured and sent back to the camp the following day. Conversely, it appears that the other prisoners from Waldkommand, who were also subsequently shot to death, tried to capitalise on the opportunity to escape. However, all but the kapo were captured and killed during the pursuit operation. Consequently, the events in Buda at the time would be obscure if not for these scarcely documented minor entries in German documents.

In the camp's history, have any isolated incidents of spontaneous action or acts of despair resulted in harm to the SS garrison members?

Yes, and this is perhaps the biggest problem here, as such incidents have often occurred in the face of an immediate threat to life. The context implies that the discussion revolves around a prisoner who was assaulted by an SS officer and attempted to retaliate in desperation. Alternatively, it could have, and most definitely involved, groups of Jewish prisoners. The individuals in question could be those selected during the camp hospital selection or those who met their fate in the gas chambers after the selection at the Birkenau railway platform. Such testimonies also exist in this case, except that they are very vague. It is comprehensible that, as the authors are prisoners who may have observed the events from afar, they may have missed specific details. The resistance movement reports mention that certain Jewish prisoner groups exhibited fierce resistance. They refused to be escorted to the gas chamber. A fascinating sketch was discovered post-war on the former camp grounds, accurately depicting various events from camp life, most likely the work of a Jewish prisoner who served as a nurse at the Birkenau hospital. And he illustrated such a depiction. It is a group of prisoners, not so much prisoners as deportees, to the camp, as they are yet to don civilian clothes, wielding arms, and clearly engaging in a fight against the SS men. They try to snatch some rifles from the SS men. The SS men shoot at them. From the background of this picture, it is evident that the incident occurred more or less on the outskirts of the BII section of Birkenau. The area has quite a large meadow. So, the only feasible explanation for what happened is the attempted resistance by the prisoners brought into the gas chamber, regardless of whether it was Crematorium 4, 5 or any of the makeshift gas chambers referred to as houses or bunkers. But again, we don't know when this might have happened. Seeing, for example, on the horizon the smoking chimney of the chemical plant powerhouse of the Buna Werke factory in Oświęcim, one can more or less date this event as sometime in the summer or late spring of 1943. Very little is known about it except for the most renowned act of despair and resistance by individual prisoners, which occurred in the changing room of one of the Birkenau crematoria. In this instance, a girl or young woman managed to take hold of a pistol belonging to SS man Schillinger. She shot him in the basement of the crematorium building and severely wounded his companion. This incident was recounted in numerous variations throughout the camp due to its culmination in the demise of an SS officer. And one such person was an SS man infamous for his brutality in the camp. The narrative spread through word of mouth: a woman showcased bravery and resisted, ultimately murdering an SS officer. Nevertheless, the delicate nuances were indiscernible due to the sheer volume of accounts and testimonies. As a result, certain details remained unverified and contradicted other witnesses' accounts. However, we have in our possession a document that came to our attention relatively recently, which confirms the account of a witness - likely the one closest to the incidents - namely Filip Müller, a member of the Sonderkommando stationed in Birkenau. Müller reported that after the girl, a dancer, shot and severely wounded his colleague, the SS men in the undressing room next to the gas chamber fled, leaving their colleagues to their fate. The door to the undressing room was then closed, and the lights turned off. The door remained shut for a prolonged duration until reinforcements arrived, and it was forced open. Despite the peril, a small group of SS officers cautiously entered the dark room, where they eventually located the bodies of two of their colleagues and dragged them out across the floor. From there, they managed to remove them from the undressing room, which their colleagues saw as an act of bravery. A document exists wherein the camp commandant requested medals be awarded to the SS men who acted heroically during the Jewish transport revolt, saving their colleagues from difficult circumstances. The names of the two SS men were listed in the application. This incident concerned the SS men who hauled the corpse of Schillinger, who was already dead, from the adjacent changing room of the crematorium, along with that of his colleague, who was critically injured but survived. So, employing a confrontational approach, cross-referencing witness accounts, and extensively consulting SS documents has enabled us to more accurately assess the events narrated in the camp's history and clarify their factual accuracy and chronological order.

In conclusion, it seems worth bearing in mind that the revolts or incidental cases of resistance, were only a fragment of the entire story and that most of the prisoners were fighting their own internal battles to survive. I think it is worth remembering that there is no opposition here. Simply put, some undertook such efforts. The others did not pursue it because they were merely struggling to survive.

Yes, because, looking at the history of Auschwitz from a broader perspective, one can see that for many prisoners, the daily struggle for survival was pretty much their resistance. In other words, considering the many uncertainties, they may have had a reasonable cause to think that by behaving as such, they could stay alive. The war could have ended abruptly, as was the case over 20 years before when Germany capitulated suddenly after the First World War. Several occurrences were plausible, such as a nationwide uprising of Poles, as planned by the Home Army, or the Germans could have forfeited their willingness to fight, or an assassination attempt on Hitler, which nearly succeeded. So, these people sought to act rationally, trying to survive another day, another week, another month. On the other hand, the prisoners who knew their lives were in jeopardy, and that inaction would seal their fate resorted to acts of resistance and direct confrontation against the SS men. This was a desperate but necessary course of action from their perspective. Despite knowing they could lose their lives or be shot, the participants still risked undertaking group escape attempts because they knew it was the only chance for at least some of them to save their lives.