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Resistance movement in KL Auschwitz. New online lesson.
“Resistance movement in KL Auschwitz” is the new online lesson developed by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. It was prepared by Dr. Adam Cyra, a historian from the Museum Research Center.
“Organised clandestine activity took place at Auschwitz from the very beginning of its operation. Initially it was conducted by Polish political prisoners. Only when people deported from other European countries occupied by the Third Reich began to be imprisoned in the camp in mid-1941, and when it became a place of mass murder of Jews in the spring of 1942, did the inmate resistance movement also encompass inmates of other nationalities.”, the author writes in the introduction.
“The lesson prepared in Polish and in English will for sure help in learning about this very important part of the history of German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Behind the camp wires the SS men had created the world which was supposed to completely dehumanize those who were being transformed into numbers. The activity of prisoners involved in different forms of resistance activity in Auschwitz shows very precisely that this plan was not totally successful. This is not only the lesson about facts, but also about human courage and values”, said Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka from ICEAH, Head of the E-learning.
The entire lesson has been divided into chapters describing different underground groups in Auschwitz active in various periods of time and various parts of the camp, starting from the Military Organization (OW) formed by one of the main creators of the camp underground movement, captain Witold Pilecki.
Groups organized by the prisoners connected with the Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army (ZWZ/AK) (among others Kazimierz Rawicz), Polish Socialist Party (PPS) (among others Stanisław Dubois), or the National Party (SN) (among others Roman Rybarski and Jan Mosdorf) were gradually joining OW. In addition, the lesson presents underground groups organized by prisoners connected with leftist organizations or the activities of national underground and resistance groups in the camp for Sinti and Roma in Birkenau. In 1943 some of them formed, together with several Polish socialists and representatives of the left wing, international organization named Kampfgruppe Auschwitz (Auschwitz Combat Group).
Another important subject is constituted by the activity of Jewish resistance movement organizations. “Although the first Jews were taken to the camp as early as the summer of 1940, at that time they could not develop a resistance movement due to the especially brutal treatment and extreme mortality.”, writes Dr. Adam Cyra.
“It was only early in 1943 that clandestine groups, initially only a few, began to develop in different parts of the camp among those people deported from the ghettos who, for long spells of time, had shared the same fate. They also developed among inmates with a similar political outlook who made each other’s acquaintance in the camp.”, the author writes.
The lesson also includes the description of Jewish underground activity in Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners forced by the Germans to work at gas chambers and crematoria. Among its leaders there were Załmen Gradowski, Jankiel Handelsman and Jakub Kamiński. In the late summer of 1944, its members performed near the crematorium V in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau photographs constituting one of the most poignant evidence of the Holocaust.
The greatest revolt in the history of the camp took place on October 7th 1944 and it was an extremely tragic event. It was organized in KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau by the Jews from Sonderkommando. They set fire to one of the crematoria and caused its serious damage as well as attacked the SS men on duty near the building. Some of them managed to escape, but during the pursuit they were all surrounded by the SS men and murdered. During the fight and the attempt to escape and as a result of further repressions ca. 450 Jews perished, including the leaders of the mutiny, among others Załmen Gradowski and Jakub Kamiński. Three SS men were killed and more than ten injured.
Members of the resistance movement in Sonderkommando received help among others from the group of women working in the Union-Werke munition factory. Jewish women from Poland who were employed there acted as intermediaries stealing explosive materials and transferring them to Sonderkommando.
The activity of camp resistance movement national groups was in particular concentrated on rescuing the prisoners from death, providing them with support in the form of medications, food, clothes as well as organizing escapes and transferring information about the crimes committed in KL Auschwitz.
“The result of this activity are a few thousand preserved secret letters (grypsy), notifications, reports and other documents portraying the vast scale of the crime perpetrated at Auschwitz. This is especially important as the SS destroyed most of the camp documentation”, writes the author of the lesson.
Camp resistance was functioning in particularly dangerous conditions. Numerous members of the movement perished, but their sacrifice made it possible to save the lives of many other prisoners and the message about the KL Auschwitz tragedy reached the free world.
“Plenty of items of proof and data on the crimes of the German Nazis at Auschwitz were sent outside the camp while the war was still raging outside. These were copies, duplicates, and transcriptions of the SS files and excerpts from them which were made by the resistance in the camp, and at times even original camp documents were sent to the outside. For example, in autumn 1943 two original lists of the names of Jewish women inmates registered at Auschwitz II-Birkenau were taken out of the camp.”, emphasizes Cyra.
The most extensive report on what happened at Auschwitz was written by Pilecki. Thanks to his efforts, the truth about the German Nazi crimes became even better known to the world. He raised the alarm about the crimes perpetrated on the Poles and Roma, and about the mass extermination of the Jews begun in the spring of 1942.
Two Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba (name used in the camp Walter Rosenberg) and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944. In Žilina they secretly contacted representatives of the Slovak Jewish Council. A broad-ranging report based on their accounts was prepared in Slovak and German. This included a description of what transpired at Auschwitz from April 1942 to April 1944. Later this was secretly delivered to the governments of the Allies, the World Jewish Congress, the International Red Cross, and the Vatican.
Among the topics covered in the lesson there are also preparations conducted by camp underground organizations with the view of preparing armed uprising in the camp which was not, however, organized as in the second half of the year 1944 KL Auschwitz prisoners started being massively transferred to other camps. In addition, the Home Army Headquarters found the plan of liberating the prisoners unenforceable.
Other online lessons:
• Auschwitz – concentration and extermination camp
(also in: Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Spanish and German)
• Deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz
• From the uprising Warsaw to Auschwitz
• Evacuation and liberation of KL Auschwitz
• Preparation for a visit to the Auschwitz Memorial
