Being forced to work inside of a concentration camp by the Nazis would have been incredibly
difficult and hard for those who found themselves imprisoned there.
But to be forced to work inside a Nazi death camp in the killing process and the clean
up operations following mass executions and murders would have been the worst.
The Sonderkommando were a group of workers mostly jews who were forced on threat of death
to help with the disposal of the victims of the gas chambers at various camps around Nazi
occupied lands.
The sonderkommandos were inmates who themselves would be sent to the chambers as the Nazis
would liquidate and purge each group pro workers to ensure that the crimes they were committing
were hidden if the war turned against them.
But there was a remarkable revolt inside of Auschwitz which saw the Sonderkommando try
to die with dignity, trying to gain their freedom.
The Sonderkommando Revolt was dealt with brutally by the SS and it resulted in sadistic mass
executions.
So join us today as we look at, ‘The BRUTAL Executions of the Sonderkommando Revolts.’
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
The Sonderkommando did not participate in the killing process, they were tasked with
disposing of the corpses.
The SS were the ones who killed, and then forced the workers to clean up after them
removing the bodies.
There were stories of Sonderkommando members even finding their own family amongst the
sea o corpses.
There was no way out for them, if they resisted they would be shot or executed publicly by
hanging, or if they resigned or refused to do their duties they would be killed too.
The only way out for them was to take their own life.
At Auschwitz Birkenau, the extermination complex inside of the largest concentration camp,
as the killing process increased in numbers, more workers were recruited to join the Sonderkommando,
and in 1944 there were around 900 people forced to work in this manner.
They were given less deprived living conditions as the Germans needed them to be physically
able to dispose of bodies, and they were allowed certain luxuries such as medicines and cigarettes.
These were taken from those who were sent into the gas chambers.
Sonderkommando members tended to survive longer than those inside of the death camps, but
not many survived the conflict as they knew exactly what the NAzis were doing.
They knew the intricate details of the Nazi mass murder machine, and because of this were
held away from other prisoners, and were purged over a period of time.
Their work was truly terrible and terrifying, being forced to shave the hair of corpses,
remove teeth, cremate the bodies and then bury the ashes.
It was said that the SS policy for purging and killing the Sonderkommando occurred every
3 months.
This was as they were considered bearers of the truth, and every 3 months the Sonderkommando
themselves were gassed and new arrivals would then fill out the new generation of the work
detachment.
It’s believed inside of the camps there were roughly 14 generations of the Sonderkommando,
but there were very few who actually lived out the end of the war.
There were two large scale revolts of the Sonderkommando.
Inside of Treblinka Extermination Camp prisoners rose up, and around 100 prisoners managed
to escape, but the guards who were armed slaughtered hundreds inside.
There were around 700 Sonderkommando who took part in the revolt, and 100 did manage to
survive with 70 even living out the conflict as a whole.
But inside of Asuchwitz, a large Sonderkommando rebellion was planned but it has horrific
reprisals for those who were involved.
In the spring of 1943, 19 year old Ester Wajclbum and her sister who was 14 Hana arrived at
Asuchwitz.
They worked inside of the munitions factory, and they met Regina Safirsztain and Ala Gertner
here who planned resistance activities.
Along with Roza Robota, who worked in the clothes department, the women began to smuggle
amounts of gunpowder from the factory to men in the camp.
Sometimes they even hid gunpowder on the bodies of friends who had died.
The Sonderkommando inside of Auschwitz, the 12th Sonderkommando knew that they did not
have long left before they too would be executed.
Because of this, they began to consider the choice they had, die in an act of defiance
or resistance that had a small chance of working, or die a certain date inside of the gas chambers.
They chose to come up with a revolt and escape plan, and they had obtained the gunpowder
smuggled by the women.
The men of the group then made these into grenades and bombs using sardine tins, and
also local partisans had smuggled a number of guns and weapons such as pistols into the
camp to the Sonderkommando.
Most of the gunpowder was used in making demolition charges, and they also were armed with knives,
small axes and other objects hidden inside of the crematoria.
The plan was drawn up, to destroy the gas chambers using the bombs and also the crematoria,
to launch an uprising which they hoped would coincide with Soviet advancements, and to
kill the evil guards and to escape.
The Sonderkommando knew that they had to act now, and on the 7th October 1944 at around
3 in the afternoon the revolt began.
The Polish workers based in Crematoria 1 began the revolt and the Hungarians of Crematoria
3 and 4 joined in, and the Sonderkommando of Crematoria 2 broke through the fires of
the camp.
One guard inside of Cremotoria one was the first victim, and he was known for his horrific
treatment of prisoners.
Because of this, the workers disarmed him, and then threw him into the oven and burned
him alive.
From the second floor of the crematoria, small arms fire echoed around Auschwitz, and then
the Germans had enough.
They were must better armed than those who were rising up, and they then brought out
a number of heavy machine guns.
With this, they fired thousands of bullets quickly into the crematoria, indiscriminately
firing at the buildings and also any prisoner that they saw.
Any prisoner out in the open was shot dead.
The Sonderkommando attacked the SS and the Kapos with machine guns, axes, knives and
their home made grenades and they killed at least 3 guards and injured many more.
Some of the Sonderkommando did manage to flee and escape the camp during the uprising, but
most were later captured on the same day.
The resistors then also took their demolition charges into the oven rooms of crematoria
4 and detonated them, blowing up part of the room and also taking their own lives.
The revolt was supressed very quickly and brutally.
The escaped men were captured, and those who took part who had not been killed were all
gathered together outside the crematoria.
All of those who did not die during the uprising were forced to huddle together, before they
were then forced to take off their clothes.
The guards threatened them at gunpoint, and then the Sonderkommando members were forced
to then lie face down in the mud and dirt.
There were over 200 who were forced to do this, and then as they lay there, a number
of SS guards and staff went up the line, shooting the rebels and the Sonderkommando in the back
of their heads with their pistols, rifles and machine guns.
The executions were brutal and were in cold blood, and it’s assumed that the rest of
the prisoners could hear and see what was going on.
In this, over 200 people were executed in this manner.
But there were four other executions that took place in the aftermath of the Sonderkommando
revolt.
Roza Robota, Ala Gertner, Ester Wajclbum and Regina Safirsztajn had been arrested by the
Gestapo for their involvement in the revolt.
They were tortured horrifically, and the refused to name and implicate anyone who was involved
in smuggling the gunpowder out of the factory.
On the 6th January 1945, at morning roll call and evening roll call the 4 women were planned
to be executed.
Two were killed in the morning, and 2 in the evening.
They were all hanged on the gallows in a large court yard in front of many other prisoners,
symbolising the brutality of the Nazi Guards and how they wanted to strike fear into the
hearts of the prisoners.
One woman shouted, ‘Be Strong and be Brave’ to the prisoners before the stool was taken
out beneath her and she was executed on the gallows.
The effects of the Sonderkommando revolt was that Creamtoria 4 was damaged beyond repair
and the Nazis did later destroy the gas chambers to hide their crimes.
But the revolt ultimately failed, and resulted in the executions of over 200 men and women
who were destined to die anyway.
The revolters went to their deaths trying everything, and refusing to submit to the
guards.
12 days after the hangings of the four women, the camp guards forced 56,000 prisoners on
a death march into the remaining elements of Nazi occupied lands, and on the 27th January
1945, 7500 prisoners who had been left were liberated by the soviet army.
The Sonderkommando executions were of those men and women brave enough to defy their guards
when death was imminent for them.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Thanks again for watching.