The extraordinary prisoner escape attempt from Auschwitz that ended with three Nazis dead
The Sonderkommando prisoners launched their revolt in a bid to ensure one prisoner would live to bear witness to the atrocities that took place.
Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh details his experience at Auschwitz
It has been 83 years since the first prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, Poland, on May 20, 1940, where some 1.1 million people were murdered.
While the majority of those who arrived at the most deadly concentration camp of the Holocaust were immediately led to their death, there were incidents where groups managed to organise a revolt.
The biggest uprising was organised by the Sonderkommando prisoners in October 1944, just months before liberation.
While hundreds died in the fighting, their enemies were hit too, as several SS officers were wounded and killed.
Here, Express.co.uk takes a look at what is widely deemed the most spectacular mutiny attempted by prisoners in the history of Auschwitz.
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The Sonderkommando were a group of predominantly Jewish prisoners who were forced to partake in the cruel atrocities carried out at Auschwitz. They were made to perform “special handling” procedures in gas chambers and crematoriums.
According to accounts, some Sonderkommando captives were forced to cremate their own family members.
Polish historian Dr Igor Bartosik, of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre, explained that it would be understandable for people forced into “collaborating” to fall into “apathy and depression” but many managed to muster the courage to begin a rebellion against the SS.
They began to rebel by collecting evidence of the atrocities committed, such as taking images of women being led to their deaths in the gas chamber.
Speaking on the On Auschwitz podcast in June last year, Dr Bartosik explained: “These photographs… are undoubtedly one of the most valuable pieces of evidence of extermination produced in all the death camps.”
But it was in October 1944 that the full revolt began. The Sonderkommando planned to escape under the cover of darkness and had collected the likes of gunpowder — smuggled out by female prisoners — knives, or heavy objects such as hammers.
Dr Bartosik explained that the Sonderkommando prisoners had not planned to attack members of the SS, instead, their goal was to ensure that at least one inmate escaped who could bear witness to what had happened.
But then on October 7, one prisoner nonchalantly walked up to a Nazi officer and struck them with a hammer.
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Chaos ensued as the SS found themselves attacked from all angles by their captives bearing hammers, knives and explosives made from the gunpowder.
One SS guard, known to be particularly sadistic, was thrown into the crematorium while still alive. In total three Nazis were killed and around ten were injured.
Several Sonderkommando prisoners attempted to escape, having cut through the barbed wire. But tragically, they were shot by the SS’s machine guns and ultimately, the Nazis crushed the revolt. In total, 250 prisoners died fighting.
Four Jewish women who were found to have supplied explosive materials and were consequently hanged in public.
Tragically, the prisoners had known the fate that most likely awaited them.
As prisoner Chaim Herman wrote to his family before the uprising: “I am sending you my last farewell forever, these are my last greetings, I embrace you most heartily for the last time and I beg you once more, do believe me that I am going away calmly, knowing you are alive and our enemy is broken."
A month after the revolt, the Nazis stopped gassing and began to try to demolish the site. Just months later in January 1945, the camp was liberated.
The Nazis attempted to wipe out Sonderkomando prisoners before World War Two was over, but several managed to survive and later tell their stories of what they witnessed. The uprising is remembered as one of the most spectacular to have taken place at Auschwitz.