Top Photo: An image taken by Sonderkommando members in 1944 showing the burning of bodies outside the gas chamber. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. 

The Sonderkommando, a group largely composed of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau, was forced to assist in the gas chambers and crematoria in the camp. Throughout their grueling imprisonment in the camp, the men planned and waited patiently for the day they could have their revenge, attack their oppressors, and escape into the woods around the camp. That day came on October 7, 1944.

The Sonderkommando

Every day, the Sonderkommando was forced to operate the gas chambers and crematoria as more and more train cars full of European Jews arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the SS forced prisoners into the antechamber of the gas chambers, Sonderkommando members helped them undress. As armed guards watched, they led the prisoners into what looked like a shower room. The SS forced the Sonderkommando members to hurry prisoners into the chamber, saying that the tea they would enjoy afterwards was getting cold. When asked if he ever told the prisoners the truth, Sonderkommando survivor Leon Cohen was flabbergasted: 

Are you out of your mind?! To tell people such a thing? How could I tell people that they were about to be murdered? It was impossible to tell anyone this terrible truth. You have to realize that the system was too sophisticated for us to interfere in any way. The people were doomed to die and we couldn’t do a thing about it.[1]

Once the prisoners were in the chamber, an SS man closed the large metal door behind them, sealing the room off. Another SS officer then dropped in a can of Zyklon B, a toxic pesticide that suffocated the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people inside. Thirty minutes later, an SS man wearing a gas mask opened the doors, at which point the Sonderkommando members were forced to remove the bodies from the chamber, transport them to the crematorium, and load the bodies into the ovens. 

Acts of Resistance

One of the few things in their daily struggle that gave prisoners a sense of hope was resistance work. Working in the gas chambers and crematoria, the Sonderkommando had witnessed a hidden genocide on an industrial scale. They used their position to acquire paper, bottles, and cans to write down what was happening and bury it in the earth around the crematoria and gas chambers. Sonderkommando members wrote notes for their families, created records of their experiences, and documented the number of people killed in the gas chambers. Hundreds of these notes were discovered after liberation by the Red Army and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.[2] The excavations also uncovered dozens of cans of ashes: 

[In the course of their work] every one of us had cremated a few of our relatives and acquaintances separately. We gathered up the ashes of each person separately and buried it in cans. We recorded the name of the victim, his date of birth, and the date of his murder. We buried the cans and we even said Kaddish [prayer for the dead] over them. Now, who’ll say Kaddish for us?[3]

Unable to stop the murders of their friends and family, the men in the Sonderkommando attempted to give them respectful burials, rather than having their remains dumped in ponds and rivers in the area, as many others were.

One of the ponds where cremated remains were spread during Birkenau’s operation. Photo by Jennifer Putnam. 

Another way Sonderkommando members disseminated information was by working with resistance movements outside the camp. In August and September 1944, when the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers were running at maximum capacity, leaders of the Polish Underground demanded photographs of the mass killings. A civilian worker smuggled a camera to the Sonderkommando, which allowed them to take four images of the operations at the gas chamber. The filmstrip was then smuggled out of the camp in a tube of toothpaste.[4]

Planning the Uprising

Taking the photographs was not the only time the Sonderkommando members were in contact with the Polish Underground. There was a Polish resistance movement already in Auschwitz, which coordinated with other groups in the camp to organize an armed revolt. The Sonderkommando resistance also purchased weapons from the Polish Underground by trading valuable items they found in the clothing of prisoners who had been gassed, including money, gold, and jewelry.[5]

The plan discussed between the groups was a camp-wide revolt. They would cut the power supply to the camp, taking down communications between the SS and surrounding units and disabling the electric fences. They would then be able to cut the wires, allowing thousands of prisoners to escape. The Sonderkommando would then destroy the gas chambers and crematoria, putting an end to industrialized mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Sonderkommando began preparations in mid-1943, hoping that conditions would be favorable for the revolt in the summer of 1944.

It took a year to prepare and amass supplies. The Sonderkommando prisoners who went to get the daily ration of soup for their group were able to make contact with the Polish Underground and other prisoners. They also bribed guards to allow them into the women’s camp. The guards assumed this was to visit girlfriends, but the Sonderkommando members instead used this time to coordinate with women who had access to gunpowder and explosive materials through their work assignments. Sonderkommando members also gathered improvised weapons from the warehouses in the camp. Sonderkommando survivor Eliezer Eisenschmidt made knives with items confiscated from Jewish transports:

The Jews had brought knives to the camp to make kiddush [Sabbath blessing]. Their original purpose was to slice the challah. They had the words Le-shabbat kodesh, for the Holy Sabbath, engraved on them. They were long and had white handles. My job was to make them into bayonets by honing them on all four sides.[6]

Despite their dedicated preparation and planning, the revolt was continuously delayed. The Polish Underground kept pushing back the plans, preferring to wait until the Red Army arrived, thus improving their chances of survival. But the Sonderkommando members knew that each day that they did not revolt, thousands more people would die in the gas chambers.

In September 1944, three months after they had first hoped to revolt, the Sonderkommando themselves came under threat. The SS announced that they would be transferring 200 Sonderkommando prisoners to another camp. Instead, they took the prisoners to an execution site near the main camp, where they shot them. Fearing further executions, the Sonderkommando began planning a revolt for October 7, 1944. 

The Uprising

The night before the uprising, the plans were already beginning to unravel. Otto Moll, the sadistic SS officer who presided over the gas chambers and crematoria, grew suspicious of the prisoners’ behavior. He dragged Yaacov Kamiński, one of the leaders of the Sonderkommando resistance movement, outside and began to interrogate him. When Kamiński would not divulge any information, Moll shot him. His death was a harsh blow to the Sonderkommando men.

The following day, the prisoners planned to attack at 2:00 p.m., but the SS issued a preemptive strike. At 1:00 p.m., they initiated a roll call at Crematorium IV, calling out the prisoner numbers of 100 men who would be “transported.” Knowing that their lives were at risk, the Sonderkommando members charged the SS, brandishing their weapons. It was chaos:

Some of us were armed with weapons such as iron poles and knives. We knew we had nothing to lose, and that the time for action had come. Several of us jumped on the SS men and beat them up. We began to flee as all hell broke out. […] The Germans began to fire at us and they hit several of us. […] Whoever was struck by a bullet was left lying there. The rest of us scattered in every direction.[7]

During the ensuing battle, several Sonderkommando members rushed into Crematorium IV and set the place ablaze. The gunpowder and grenades they had stored in the walls ignited, and the building crumbled to the ground. Other prisoners ran to the fence and cut the wire so that they could escape. They then fled to the nearby forest, leaving in their wake 12 injured and three dead SS men. 

Across the camp at Crematorium II, the prisoners saw flames billowing into the sky. Assuming the revolt was underway, they grabbed their weapons. Some prisoners threw their oppressive German overseer into the ovens, while others attacked and killed two SS men.[8] Next, they clipped the adjoining wire fence to the women’s camp and then made their own escape route. The men fled, eventually reaching Rajsko, about three miles away. There, they hid in a granary, quietly biding their time. 

The SS men quickly located the escaped prisoners. When they came upon the granary, they set it alight, burning everyone inside to death.[9] Those who were discovered in the woods near Crematorium IV fought a bloody battle to the end. Around 250 prisoners were killed in the uprising, including the leaders of the Sonderkommando resistance.[10]

After the Uprising

The only group that survived the uprising unscathed were the men in Crematorium III, who were surrounded by guards the moment the revolt began. Their prisoner functionary immediately blocked the door, preventing anyone from acting. Though they emerged physically unharmed, they were burdened with the grim task of cremating their fallen comrades’ bodies.[11] 

After the uprising, the SS ordered a thorough investigation. They soon discovered the names of over a dozen members of the Sonderkommando resistance and locked them in cells in the main camp. The men were interrogated and tortured, leading to their deaths. In the course of the investigation, the SS also uncovered the names of the women who smuggled explosives to the Sonderkommando. For weeks, they tortured Regina Safirsztajn, Estera Wajcblum, Ala Gertner, and Róża Robota, but the women did not reveal anything.[12] On January 6, 1945, the women were hanged in front of the Birkenau prisoners. As they placed the noose around Robota’s neck, she cried out, “Sisters, revenge!”[13]